When we reached the lecture-room, a little late, we found it unusually crowded. My place was taken, and I could not see Arrian in his customary seat. Epictetus was in one of his discursive moods. He began with the assertion—by this time familiar to me, but somewhat distasteful now, fresh as I was from the atmosphere of the Jewish writings—that Gods and men alike seek nothing but “their own profit.” As in most of his epigrams, he meant just the opposite of what he seemed to assert. He hated high-flown language as much as he loved high thought and action. Even when he mentioned “the beautiful”—on which most Greeks go off into rhapsodies—he almost always subordinated it to the “logos” or told us that we must look for it in ourselves. So here again. Man, he declared, must give up all things—property, reputation, children, wife, country, if they are incompatible with his true “profit.” Then, of course, he shewed that man’s “profit” is virtue, so that we need not give up these blessings unless their possession is incompatible with virtue.

What he said next was new to me. A father, losing a child in death, must not say “I have lost my child,” but “I have given it back.” When I say “new,” I mean new in his teaching. But I had recently met something like it in my books of Hebrew poems, “The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Later on, I heard Epictetus repeat this almost in the same form. This seemed to me not only beautiful and devout but also consistent with reasonable faith.

[86]

But I could not follow him when, in reply to the objection, “He that took away this thing from me is a villain,” he said, “What does it matter to you by whom the Giver asked back the gift?” It seemed to me that a recoil from villainy, as well as delight in virtue, ought to find a place even in the calmest of mankind. No philosopher, he said, can have an “enemy,” because no one can do him any harm or touch anything that really belongs to him. This was true—in a sense. Its reasonableness contrasted with the passionate poetry of the Jews, which I had found full, too full, of talk about enemies. And yet, the more I meditated on the contrast, the more this “What does it matter to you?” seemed to become a cold-blooded, unnatural, and immoral question. Surely it ought to “matter” to us a great deal whether we suffered loss from some neighbour’s forgetfulness or from some enemy’s premeditated and malignant treachery. He went on in the same chilling style. “Desire,” said he, “about that which is happening, that it shall happen. Then you will have a stream of constant peace.” I seemed to see Priam “desiring that which was happening” when he saw Troy burned and the women ravished! His son, Polites, was being butchered by Pyrrhus before his eyes, and the old king was standing by, placidly enjoying “a stream of constant peace”!

Then Epictetus said, “An uneducated man blames others for his own evils. A beginner blames himself. An educated man blames neither others nor himself.” After this, he introduced what he called the law laid down by God. “Right convictions make the will and purpose good. Crooked and perverse convictions make the will bad. This law,” he said, “God has laid down, and He says to each of us, ‘If you will have anything that is good, take it from yourself’.” Then came another mention of the law—“the divine law” he now called it. It was connected with “right convictions,” as to which he asked “What are these?” His reply was, “They are such as a man ought to meditate on all the day long. We must have such a conviction as will prevent us from attaching our feelings to anything that is other than our own—whether companion, or place, or bodily exercise, or even the body itself.[87] We must remember the law and have it always before our eyes.”

This phrase, “meditate all the day long,” reminded me of some words of David, which I had been reading the day before, “Oh how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day.” Other Hebrew expressions also came into my mind concerning the sweetness and fragrance of the Lord’s commandment, how the poet “opened his mouth and drew in his breath” to taste its delight. These I could understand, when they applied to a law of love, a law of the emotions, a “feeling.” But I wondered what Epictetus could produce for us of a nature to kindle such enthusiasm. He continued, “And what is the divine law? It is this. First, Keep the things that are your own. Secondly, Do not claim things not your own; use them, if given; do not desire them, if not given. Thirdly, When anything is being taken from you, give it up at once in a detached spirit, and with gratitude for the time during which one has used it.”

“Keep the things that are your own!”—This he placed first, and on this he laid most emphasis, dwelling on each syllable. I fancied that he knew he was disappointing us and almost took pleasure in it as though he were administering to us a wholesome but bitter medicine. “You find this sour,” he seemed to say: “Sour or not, it is the truth, the only solid and safe truth. It is not the dream of a poet, or the scheme of a student. It is the plan of a man of business, practicable for all—for slaves as well as free men, for individuals in a desert as well as for communities in a city. ‘Love your neighbour’—that is expecting too much. ‘Do not covet what is your neighbour’s’—that is expecting too little. ‘Keep that which belongs to you!’ There you have a rule that makes you independent of all neighbours.” I was miserably disappointed; yet I could not help respecting and admiring our Master............