“If I were to die I probably would read Marcus Aurelius “Meditations”.
posted by yoyo_nyc at 7:37 PM on April 21, 2009
For two years my family copy of ‘The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius’ was wrapped in plastic and stored in my End of the World backpack. Then I realized I had gotten old, and could no longer put on a backpack, least walk a hundred yards with it. So, I put the emperor’s meditations ‘in my little yellow Toyota where I kept my – caught in a blizzard and dying – survival pack in the trunk, just in case!
Then my daughter came into my life, and then my grandson. I took the emperor’s rant against Christians on the train with me when I went to visit them in Santa Rosa. I read over again the emperor’s good reasons to hate Christians and their negative end time cosmology. Then I looked out the train window at the jagged mountains of snow. I wanted to see exactly where the world got turned upside down by Paul, and thus, would never be the same again. When I read the idea this book should be read on ones death bed, I was thrilled. Someone has done their homework, and knows a truth or two.
You see, if it were not for Christians, folks would not be buying gas masks at the surplus store, and K-rations. How many paniced people care a rat’s ass about the pending death of folks they love? Why aren’t these dead-enders reading from the Tibetan Book of the Dead while on LSD? Why aren’t these beiievers preparing to meet their maker on hither side – or at least some cosmic materical or thought? Wy aren’t they preparing others?
In my studies I have wondered more then once if Marcus was not Luke, and thus, the emperor was Jesus – in theory – because Jesus sounds like a Stoic. We in the west are captured in stoicism, then, came a teachig from the east.
The emperor left his little book behind in hope that it would be of use to all humanity, even savages that were not yet citizens of the Roman Empire.
The main truth I got from the Imperial Thinker was this, that in two days after surviving the end of the world I would be terribly bored, and not having cable T.V. and CNN News, I would want something to read that would hold my interest, because, the end of the world is not that interesting once it happens.
This is why I do not expect Jesus to show up, because – then what?
Jon Presco
The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, translated by George Long
Book V
Book VI→
The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — Book V Marcus Aurelius Antoninus George Long
1. In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present,—I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bed-clothes and keep myself warm?—But this is more pleasant.—Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action or exertion? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees working together to put in order their several parts of the universe? And art thou unwilling to do the work of a human being, and dost thou not make haste to do that which, is according to thy nature? But it is necessary to take rest also.—It is necessary. However, Nature has fixed bounds to this too: she has fixed bounds to eating and drinking, and yet thou goest beyond these bounds, beyond what is sufficient; yet in thy acts it is not so, but thou stoppest short of what thou canst do. So thou lovest not thyself, for if thou didst, thou wouldst love thy nature and her will. But those who love their several arts exhaust themselves in working at them unwashed and without food; but thou valuest thy own nature less than the turner values the turning art, or the dancer the dancing art, or the lover of money values his money, or the vain-glorious man his little glory. And such men, when they have a violent affection to a thing, choose neither to eat nor to sleep rather than to perfect the things which they care for. But are the acts which concern society more vile in thy eyes and less worthy of thy labor?
2. How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquillity.
3. Judge every word and deed which are according to nature to be fit for thee; and be not diverted by the blame which follows from any people, nor by their words, but if a thing is good to be done or said, do not consider it unworthy of thee. For those persons have their peculiar leading principle and follow their peculiar movement; which things do not thou regard, but go straight on, following thy own nature and the common nature; and the way of both is one.
4. I go through the things which happen according to nature until I shall fall and rest, breathing out my breath into that element out of which I daily draw it in, and falling upon that earth out of which my father collected the seed, and my mother the blood, and my nurse the milk; out of which during so many years I have been supplied with food and drink; which bears me when I tread on it and abuse it for so many purposes.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Thoughts_of_the_Emperor_Marcus_Aurelius_Antoninus
Both man and God and the universe produce fruit; at the proper seasons each produces it. But and if usage has especially fixed these terms to the vine and like things, this is nothing. Reason produces fruit both for all and for itself, and there are produced from it other things of the same kind as reason itself.
11. If thou art able, correct by teaching those who do wrong; but if thou canst not, remember that indulgence is given to thee for this purpose. And the gods, too, are indulgent to such persons; and for some purposes they even help them to get health, wealth, reputation; so kind they are. And it is in thy power also; or say, who hinders thee?
12. Labor not as one who is wretched, nor yet as one who would be pitied or admired; but direct thy will to one thing only—to put thyself in motion and to check thyself, as the social reason requires.
13. To-day I have got out of all trouble, or rather I have cast out all trouble, for it was not outside, but within and in my opinions.
14. All things are the same, familiar in experience, and ephemeral in time, and worthless in the matter. Everything now is just as it was in the time of those whom we have buried.
15. Things stand outside of us, themselves by themselves, neither knowing aught of themselves, nor expressing any judgment. What is it, then, which does judge about them? The ruling faculty.
16. Not in passivity but in activity lie the evil and the good of the rational social animal, just as his virtue and his vice lie not in passivity but in activity.[3]
17. For the stone which has been thrown up it is no evil to come down, nor indeed any good to have been carried up (viii. 20).
18. Penetrate inwards into men’s leading principles, and thou wilt see what judges thou art afraid of, and what kind of judges they are of themselves.
19. All things are changing: and thou thyself art in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction, and the whole universe too.
20. It is thy duty to leave another man’s wrongful act there where it is (vii. 29; ix. 38).
21. Termination of activity, cessation from movement and opinion, and in a sense their death, is no evil. Turn thy thoughts now to the consideration of thy life, thy life as a child, as a youth, thy manhood, thy old age, for in these also every change was a death. Is this anything to fear? Turn thy thoughts now to thy life under thy grandfather, then to thy life under thy mother, then to thy life under thy father; and as thou findest many other differences and changes and terminations, ask thyself, Is this anything to fear? In like manner, then, neither are the termination and cessation and change of thy whole life a thing to be afraid of.
22. Hasten [to examine] thy own ruling faculty and that of the universe and that of thy neighbor: thy own, that thou mayst make it just: and that of the universe, that thou mayst remember of what thou art a part; and that of thy neighbor, that thou mayst know whether he has acted ignorantly or with knowledge, and thou mayst also consider that his ruling faculty is akin to thine.
23. As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every act of thine be a component part of social life. Whatever act of thine then has no reference either immediately or remotely to a social end, this tears asunder thy life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement.
24. Quarrels of little children and their sports, and poor spirits carrying about dead bodies [such is everything]; and so what is exhibited in the representation of the mansions of the dead[4] strikes our eyes more clearly.
25. Examine into the quality of the form of an object, and detach it altogether from its material part, and then contemplate it; then determine the time, the longest which a thing of this peculiar form is naturally made to endure.
26. Thou hast endured infinite troubles through not being contented with thy ruling faculty when it does the things which it is constituted by nature to do. But enough + [of this].
27. When another blames thee or hates thee, or when men say about thee anything injurious, approach their poor souls, penetrate within, and see what kind of men they are. Thou wilt discover that there is no reason to take any trouble that these men may have this or that opinion about thee. However, thou must be well disposed towards them, for by nature they are friends. And the gods too aid them in all ways, by dreams, by signs, towards the attainment of those things on which they set a value. +
28. The periodic movements of the universe are the same, up and down from age to age. And either the universal intelligence puts itself in motion for every separate effect, and if this is so, be thou content with that which is the result of its activity; or it puts itself in motion once, and everything else comes by way of sequence[5] in a manner; or indivisible elements are the origin of all things.—In a word, if there is a god, all is well; and if chance rules, do not thou also be governed by it (vi. 44; vii. 75).
Soon will the earth cover us all: then the earth, too, will change, and the things also which result from change will continue to change forever, and these again forever. For if a man reflects on the changes and transformations which follow one another like wave after wave and their rapidity, he will despise everything which is perishable (xii. 21).
The Fourth Persecution, Under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, A.D. 162
Marcus Aurelius, followed about the year of our Lord 161, a man of nature more stern and severe; and, although in study of philosophy and in civil government no less commendable, yet, toward the Christians sharp and fierce; by whom was moved the fourth persecution.
The cruelties used in this persecution were such that many of the spectators shuddered with horror at the sight, and were astonished at the intrepidity of the sufferers. Some of the martyrs were obliged to pass, with their already wounded feet, over thorns, nails, sharp shells, etc. upon their points, others were scourged until their sinews and veins lay bare, and after suffering the most excruciating tortures that could be devised, they were destroyed by the most terrible deaths.
Germanicus, a young man, but a true Christian, being delivered to the wild beasts on account of his faith, behaved with such astonishing courage that several pagans became converts to a faith which inspired such fortitude.
Polycarp, the venerable bishop of Smyrna, hearing that persons were seeking for him, escaped, but was discovered by a child. After feasting the guards who apprehended him, he desired an hour in prayer, which being allowed, he prayed with such fervency, that his guards repented that they had been instrumental in taking him. He was, however, carried before the proconsul, condemned, and burnt in the market place.
The proconsul then urged him, saying, “Swear, and I will release thee;–reproach Christ.”
Rosamond Press 
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