CHAPTER XVII EPICTETUS CONFESSES FAILURE

From such thoughts about my own desires and inabilities it was a relief to turn to some definite matter of fact. I had been spending several hours in attempting to find out what Paul’s gospel was. But what was Christ’s gospel, so far as it could be gathered from the epistles? This I had made no attempt to discover. “Epictetus,” I reflected, “though he does not profess to teach a gospel of Socrates or Diogenes, yet frequently quotes from them. Might I not expect to find at least a few words of Christ—whether uttered before or after the resurrection—quoted here and there in some at least of these numerous letters?” Hitherto I had met with none. But now, on rapidly unrolling the volume and searching onwards from the end of the epistle to the Romans, I came to a quotation that had escaped me. It was in the first of the Corinthian letters, following immediately after some details (not of great interest) about women’s head-covering. I had just time to note that the passage contained the words “the Lord Jesus said,” and “on the night on which he was delivered over,” when my servant announced that Glaucus wished to see me, and I put the book aside.

Ostensibly Glaucus had come to compare some of his lecture notes with mine. But I soon found that his real object was to forget his troubles in the society of a friend. To forget them, not to reveal them. He avoided anything that might lead to personal questions, and I respected his reticence. When, however, he rose to go, he made some remark on the difficulty of retaining the imperturbability on which Epictetus was always[152] insisting, “under the sword of Damocles.” Knowing vaguely that his alarm was not for himself but for others, I suggested that he might return at once to Corinth. “I would do so,” he said, “but my father expressly bids me remain at Nicopolis.” He said this uneasily, and with a wistful look, as though he suspected that something was amiss and longed for advice. “If action of any kind is possible,” said I, “take it. If not?.” Then I stopped. “Well,” said he, “‘if not’?.” He waited for me to complete my sentence. I would gladly have left it uncompleted. For the truth was that I had begun the sentence in one mood and was being called on to complete it in another. When I said, “If not,” I had a flash of faith coming with a sudden memory of Isaiah’s message about God as the Shepherd of the stars and his exhortation to “wait patiently on the Lord.” But it had vanished and left me in the dark. “‘If not’?,” repeated Glaucus for the second time. I ought to have replied, “Then at least keep yourself ready for action.” What I did say, or stammer out, was, something about “waiting and trusting.”

Glaucus looked hard at me. “‘Wait and trust!’ That is to say, ‘Wait and believe.’ That is not like you, Silanus. You don’t mean it, I see. It is not like you to say what you don’t mean. I would sooner have heard you repeat your old friend Scaurus’s advice, which was more like ‘Wake and disbelieve.’ ‘Wait,’ say you, ‘and trust.’ Trust whom? Wait for what? Wait for the river of time to run dry? I have kept you up too late. Sleep well, and may sleep bring you better counsel for me!” So saying, he departed, but turned at the door to fling a final jibe at me, “Silanus, you are a Roman and I am only a Greek. But you must not think we Greeks are quite ignorant of your Horace. And what says he about waiting? Rusticus expectat: ‘Hodge sits by the river.’ Farewell, and sleep well.”

This was bitter medicine; but I had deserved it, and it did me good. My cheeks burned with shame as I recalled his words “It is not like you to say what you don’t mean.” Had I come to this? Was this the result of my study of these Jewish writings? And yet, did I not “mean” it? Was not the fact rather this, that in my own mind I did to some extent mean[153] and believe it? But it was a dormant belief. And I had no power to communicate it to others. Then I perceived the reason. I had said “Wait and trust.” But Isaiah said “Wait thou upon the Lord.” In preaching my gospel to Glaucus I had left out “the Lord”—the life and soul of the precept! If “the Lord” had been in me, as He was in Isaiah and in Paul, I could not have left Him out. But I left Him out because He was not in me. The truth was that I had no true gospel to preach.

In great dejection I was on the point of retiring to rest when it occurred to me that I had left unfinished, and indeed hardly begun, the study of Christ’s words in the Corinthian epistle. Too weary to resume it now, I extinguished the light and flung myself down to forget in sleep all thought of study. But I could not forget. All through the dreams of a restless and troubled night ran threads of tangled imaginations about what those words would prove to be, intertwined with other imaginations about the words of Christ to Paul at his conversion. Along with these came shadows or shapes, with voices or voice-like sounds:—Epictetus gazing on the burning Christians in Rome, Paul listening to the voice of Christ near Damascus, Elijah on Horeb amid the roar of the tempest. Last of all, I myself, Silanus, stood at the door of a chamber in Jerusalem where Christ (I knew) was present with His disciples, and from this chamber there began to steal forth a still small voice, breathing and spreading everywhere an unspeakable peace—when a whirlwind scattered everything and hurried me away to the Neronian gardens in Rome.

There, someone, masked, took me by the hand and forced me to look at the Christian martyrs whom he was causing to be tortured. I thought it was Nero. But the mask fell off and it was Paul. The martyrs looked down on us and blessed us. Paul trembled but held me fast. I felt that I had become one with him, a persecutor and a murderer. They all looked up to heaven as though they saw something there. At that, Paul vanished, with a loud cry, leaving me alone. Fear fell upon me lest, if I looked up, I should see that which the martyrs saw. So I kept my eyes fixed on the ground. But[154] the blessings of those whom I had persecuted seemed to enter into me taking me captive and forcing me to do as they did. Then I too looked up. And I saw—that which they saw, Jesus the crucified. I tried to cry out “I see nothing, I see nothing,” but my voice would not speak. I struggled to regain control over my tongue, and in the struggle I awoke.

I had dreamed long past my usual hour for rising; and the lecture was already beginning when I took my seat next Glaucus. It was a relief to me to find him there; for his late outbreak of bitterness had made me fear that he might prove a deserter. Epictetus was describing man as being the work of a divine Artist, a wonderful sculpture, he said, superior to the Athene of Phidias. Appealing to us individually, “God,” he said, “has not only created you, but has also trusted you to yourself alone, and committed the guardianship of you to yourself, saying ‘I had no one more trustworthy than yourself to take charge of yourself. Preserve this person for me, such as he is by nature, modest, faithful, magnanimous’”—and he added many other eulogistic epithets. Here Glaucus passed me his notes with a bitter smile, pointing to the words “preserve me this person such as he is by nature.” He had marked them with a query. Nor could I help querying them in my mind. I felt that at all events they were liable to be interpreted in a ridiculous way. My thought was, “Paul bids us trust in God or in the Son of God. Epictetus never does this. But here he says that God trusts us to ourselves. Does He then trust babies to preserve themselves? And if not, when does He begin to trust us—whether as boys or as youths or as men—to preserve ourselves as we are by nature?” And here I may say that, as regards belief, or trust, or faith, Epictetus differed altogether from Paul. The former inveighed against babblers, who “trust” their secrets to strangers, and against the Academic philosopher for saying “Believe me it is impossible to find anything to be believed in.” But he never insisted (as Paul does) on the marvellous power possessed by a well-based belief or faith to influence men’s lives for good. For the most part Epictetus used the word “belief,” like the words “pity” and “prayer,” in a bad sense.

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But to return to the lecture. In order to illustrate his favourite topic of the necessity of seeking happiness in oneself, Epictetus, as it were, called up Medea on the stage, expostulating with her for her want of self-control: “Do not desire your husband, then none of your desires will fail to be realised.” She complained that she was to be banished from Corinth. “Well,” said he, “Do not desire to remain in Corinth.” He concluded by advising her to desire that which God desires. “And then,” said he, “who will hinder or constrain you any more than Zeus is constrained?” To me, even as a dramatic illustration, such advice seemed grotesque. Nor was it a good preparation for what followed, in which he bade us give up desires and passions relating, not only to honour and office, but also to country, friends, children: “Give them all up freely to Zeus and to the other Gods. Make a complete surrender to the Gods. Let the Gods be your pilots. Let your desires be with them. Then how can your voyage be unprosperous? But if you envy, if you pity, if you are jealous, if you are timid, how do you dare to call yourself a philosopher?”

I could perceive that Glaucus was ill pleased at this, and especially at the connexion of “pity” with “envy”—though it was not the first time, nor the last, that I heard Epictetus speak of “pity” in this contemptuous way. Perhaps others were in the same mood as Glaucus, and perhaps our Teacher felt it. If he did, he at all events made no effort to smooth away what he had said. Far from it, he seemed to harden himself in order to reproach us for our slackness and for being philosophers only in name. “Observe and test yourselves,” he exclaimed, “and find out what your philosophy really is. You are Epicureans—barring perhaps a few weak-kneed Peripatetics. Stoic reasonings, of course, you have in plenty. But shew me a Stoic man! Shew me only one! By the Gods, I long, I long to see one Stoic man. But perhaps you have one—only not as yet quite completed? Shew him, then, uncompleted! Shew him to me a little way towards completion! I am an old man now. Do me this one last kindness! Do not grudge me this boon—a sight that up to this day my eyes have never enjoyed!”

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We were all very quiet at this outburst, so unusual in our Teacher. Two or three youths near my seat seemed stimulated rather than depressed. But to me it seemed a sad confession of failure, amounting, in effect, to this, “I have taught from the days of Vespasian to the second year of Hadrian. My business has been to produce Stoics. Up to this day, a real Stoic is”—these were his words—“a sight that up to this day my eyes have never enjoyed.” What a contrast, thought I, between my Teacher (for “mine” I still called him) and that other, the Jew, Paul, (whom I refused to call “mine”) who numbered his pupils by cities, and whose campaigns from Jerusalem to Rome, through Asia and Greece, had been a succession of victories, leading trains of prisoners captive under the banner of the Crucified!

What followed amazed me, forcing me to the conclusion that Epictetus was profoundly ignorant of human nature, at all events of our nature, and perhaps of his own. For instead of saying, “We have been on the wrong road,” or “You have not the power to walk, and I have not the power to make you walk,” he found fault with himself and us, without attempting to shew what the fault was. At first it seemed our lack of noble ambition. “Not one of you,” he exclaimed, “desires, from being man, to pass into becoming God. Not one of you is planning how he may pass through the dungeon of this paltry body to fellowship with Zeus!” But then he shifted his ground, saying, in effect, “I am your teacher. You are my pupils. My aim is so to perfect your characters that each of you may live unrestrained, uncoerced, unhindered, unshackled, free, prosperous, blessed, looking to God alone in every matter great or small. You, on your side, come here to learn and to practise these things. Why, then, do you fail to do the work in hand, if you on your side have the right aim, object, and purpose, and I on my side—in addition to right aim, object, and purpose—have the right preparation? What is deficient?”

Here was our Master assuming as absolutely certain that he had “the right preparation”! But that was just the point on which I had long felt doubtful, and was now beginning to feel absolutely certain in a negative sense. However, he continued[157] with the same perfect confidence in himself and in the practicability of his theory, “I am the carpenter, you the material. If the work is practicable, and yet is not completed, the fault must rest with you or with me.” Then he concluded with the following personal appeal; these were his exact words, “Is not this matter”—he meant the art of living as a son of Zeus, free, and in perfect peace—“capable of being taught? It is. Is it not in our own hands? Nay, it is the only thing that is in our own hands. Wealth is not in our own hands, health is not, reputation is not. Nothing is—except the right use of our imaginations. This is the only thing that is by nature ours, unpreventable, unhinderable. Why do you not perform it then? Tell me the reason. Your non-performance is either my fault, or your fault, or the natural and inherent fault of our business. Now our business, in itself, is practicable, and is indeed the only business that is always practicable. It remains, then, that the fault rests either with me, or with you, or, which is nearer the truth, with both of us. What is to be done, then? Are you willing that we should begin together, at last though late, to bring this purpose into effect? Let bygones be bygones. Only let us begin. Believe me, and you will see.”

With that, he dismissed us. I was curious to know what Glaucus thought of it, so I waited for him to speak. To my surprise, he said, “It is not often that the Master speaks in this way or suggests that he himself may be in fault. Who knows? He may have something new in store. I felt so angry with him at the beginning of the lecture that I was within an ace of going straight out. But now, as he says, ‘Let bygones be bygones.’ I shall go on with him a little longer. What say you? For the most part he is too cold for me, always talking about the Logos within us, and the God within us, as though I, Glaucus the son of Adeimantus, who need the help of all the Gods that are, were myself all the God that I needed! He chills me with his Logos. But when he appealed to us in that personal way ‘Believe me,’ he gave me quite a new sensation. Did it not stir you? I don’t think I ever heard him say that before.”

“It did stir me,” said I, “and I am sure I never heard him[158] say it before. Plato represents Socrates as always persuading his hearers to ‘follow the Logos,’ not to follow Socrates; and Epictetus, for the most part, uses similar language. For the rest, I am not sure that our Master will do me all the good I had hoped. But I shall do as you do. We shall still sit, I hope, together.” So we parted.

I had not said more than the truth. Epictetus had stirred me, but not in the way in which he had stirred Glaucus. “Let bygones be bygones”—the “bygones” of nearly forty years! Why were they to be “bygones”? Had they no lesson to teach? Did they not suggest that for forty years Epictetus had been on the road to failure and that he had consequently failed? Could I believe that during all that time Epictetus himself had been deficient in “purpose”? Not for a day! Not for a moment!

As I sat down to revise the notes of my lecture, it occurred to me that Glaucus—who was of a much less settled temperament than Arrian—must have heard better news from home, and that this helped him to take a brighter view of things in general and of philosophy in particular. “If my old friend were here,” said I, “would he not regard Glaucus’s change of mood as one more instance of Epictetus’s power to ‘make his hearers feel precisely what he desired them to feel’? But what if I went on to say that this ‘power’ was mere rhetoric, not indeed ‘wisdom of word’ in the sense of hair-splitting logic, but ‘wisdom of speech,’ the knowledge of the language and imagery best fitted to stir the emotions? What would Arrian say to that?”

I mentally constructed a dialogue between us. “There is something more, Silanus.” “But what more?” “That I do not know. Only I know there is something more behind.” Then Scaurus’s explanation recurred to me of that “something more behind.” For Scaurus had asserted that Epictetus had been touched by what he called the Christian superstition, which, although he had shaken it off, had left in his mind a blank, a vacant niche, which he vainly tried to fill with the image of a Hercules or a Diogenes. That brought back to my thoughts Scaurus’s first mention of “Christus”; and then it[159] came upon me as a shock that I had spent half-an-hour in my rooms, musing over Epictetus and Glaucus and Arrian, and there, on the table before me, was Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians containing his only quotation of the words of the Lord, and I had taken no notice of it. So I put my notes aside and unrolled the epistle.