Epictetus, Discourses 1.9.8

How did Socrates approach these matters? Surely as one should who is convinced of his kinship with the gods. 

 

“If you tell me,” he says, “‘We acquit you on condition that you discourse no longer as you have done hitherto, and that you do not annoy young or old among us’, I shall answer, ‘It is absurd for you to suppose that, while I am bound to maintain and guard any post to which your general appointed me, and should rather die ten thousand times than abandon it, yet if God has appointed us to a certain place and way of life we ought to abandon that.’”

 

Here you see a man who is a kinsman of the gods in very truth. But as for us—we think of ourselves as if we were all belly and flesh and animal desire; such are our fears, such our passions; those that can help us to these ends we flatter, and at the same time fear.

 

Socrates annoyed me when I first read about him, since I assumed he was just being vain and stubborn. Like so many adolescents, I was busy being vain and stubborn myself, and this town wasn’t big enough for the both of us. 

 

It didn’t occur to me that someone could love something bigger than himself with such intensity, and so I didn’t recognize his wisdom and humility. 

 

I saw many modern intellectuals praising Socrates, even as few of them ever lived like him. Perhaps they were impressed by his sharp mind, or considered him to be a fellow radical, or simply reveled in seeing him leave his questioners frustrated and speechless, but most of them still kept on doing the very things Socrates had explicitly warned us about. They basked in their cleverness, pursued promotions, and allowed their appetites to lead the way. 

 

This taught me very quickly to avoid falling, at any cost, for the sort of sophistry I claimed to despise. I must be on my guard. This work is still in progress. 

 

At the root of his calls for justice, his indomitable courage, and his dedication to wisdom, Socrates was a godly man. This may not be a fashionable thing to say, though I believe it to be true. All his values were bound together by a deep sense of order, that what is lesser must be in submission to what is greater, and this was the Divine calling that inspired his life. The morality goes together with the piety. 

 

He wasn’t terribly fond of hypocrisy, and he had no place for being lukewarm, because he knew that if something was an absolute good, it required an absolute commitment. His religion was not color by numbers, or an expression of tribalism, or a means for feeling comfortably superior—the mission was one of universal service. 

 

A sense of duty asks us to look at what we should wish to give, before what we might wish to receive. When that duty is to the fullness of all Being, we will find it so much easier to share in a kinship with all beings; the one acceptance leads right into the other. 

Written in 11/2000

IMAGE: Pietro Perugino, Socrates (c. 1500)