The Death of Marcus Aurelius

The Death of Marcus Aurelius

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 14.2


How, then, can we, who have a home to start with and some of us even have servants to work for us, venture to say that marriage is a handicap for philosophy?

Now the philosopher is indeed the teacher and leader of men in all the things that are appropriate for men according to Nature, and marriage, if anything, is manifestly in accord with Nature.

For, to what other purpose did the Creator of mankind first divide our human race into two sexes, male and female, then implant in each a strong desire for association and union with the other, instilling in both a powerful longing each for the other, the male for the female and the female for the male?

Crates and Hipparchia could find love in marriage, because they understood what was necessary, and they were quite willing to dispense with anything that was merely a supplement, however preferable it might have seemed.

I constantly remind myself that a Stoic Turn is not some cosmetic change in life, and that my priorities will have to be modified to the core. If Crates and Hipparchia can pull it off, then I can do so as well, and so can the rest of us, who usually have at least some property to our names.

They could do it with nothing outside of themselves, precisely because they knew what was going on inside of themselves.

I may be tempted to renounce the world entirely so that I can live a philosophical life, but that would be a terrible mistake. I may not be of the world, but I am most certainly in the world. Where is the merit of any thinking without the presence of any doing?

What could be more natural, more in harmony with my very humanity, than learning to care for another without conditions? What greater teacher could there be than one who lives out all of those noble ideals, and actually manages to put them into practice?

If I only look closely and honestly, I will see that Nature does nothing in vain, and that everything is intended for a deeper order. Male and female are, by their very definition at the level of both body and soul, made for one another. The love they can share between themselves is then also the very origin of new life, the passing on of that gift of love.

Aren’t male and female, in a certain sense, opposites? Yes, but like all contraries their interaction can lead to something greater, and each is thereby a complement to the other. I only become fully myself when I embrace something quite different than myself, recognizing that who I am is balanced by and with another.

I suppose I have always been a sentimental fool, and even years of steeling myself, and of honing my reason, have not removed that basic disposition. I realize, however, that it does not need to be removed at all, only tempered. It is part of who I am to feel, yet how I feel can only be given meaning and purpose by the guidance of my judgments.

Do I wish to be “in love”? There is no shame in that. There is only shame in making it a circumstance instead of a choice, something that happens to me instead of something that I choose to do. Above all else, none of my passions will make any sense without an informed conscience.

I am no Crates, and though she is by far the better half, my wife is no Hipparchia. We stumble through life, while it is only examples like Crates and Hipparchia that give us direction. Intense feeling alone will destroy; guided by intense conviction it redeems.

Written in 1/2000

IMAGE: Crispijn van den Queborn, Hipparchia and Crates (1643)

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