Chapter 4: To the man caught in adultery.
When Epictetus was saying that man is born for mutual trust, and he who overthrows this overthrows the quality peculiar to man, there came in one of those who are reputed scholars, a man who had once been caught committing adultery in the city.
If, said Epictetus, we put away this trust, for which we are born, and plot against our neighbor’s wife, what are we doing? Are we not pulling down and destroying? Whom? The man of trust, of honor, of piety. Is this all? Are we not overthrowing neighborly feeling, friendship, the city itself? What position are we taking up?
How am I to treat you, my fellow man? As a neighbor? As a friend? Of what kind? As a citizen? What trust am I to put in you?
No doubt, if you were a piece of pottery, so cracked that you could not be used for anything, you would be cast out on the dunghill, and no one would stoop to take you thence: what shall we do with you then, if being a man you can fill no place becoming to a man?
Granted that you cannot hold the position of a friend, can you hold that of a slave? And who will trust you? Will you not then consent to be cast upon a dunghill yourself as a useless vessel, as a thing for the dunghill?
When Epictetus was saying that man is born for mutual trust, and he who overthrows this overthrows the quality peculiar to man, there came in one of those who are reputed scholars, a man who had once been caught committing adultery in the city.
If, said Epictetus, we put away this trust, for which we are born, and plot against our neighbor’s wife, what are we doing? Are we not pulling down and destroying? Whom? The man of trust, of honor, of piety. Is this all? Are we not overthrowing neighborly feeling, friendship, the city itself? What position are we taking up?
How am I to treat you, my fellow man? As a neighbor? As a friend? Of what kind? As a citizen? What trust am I to put in you?
No doubt, if you were a piece of pottery, so cracked that you could not be used for anything, you would be cast out on the dunghill, and no one would stoop to take you thence: what shall we do with you then, if being a man you can fill no place becoming to a man?
Granted that you cannot hold the position of a friend, can you hold that of a slave? And who will trust you? Will you not then consent to be cast upon a dunghill yourself as a useless vessel, as a thing for the dunghill?
—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.4
This chapter can serve as a very practical warning about what will happen when I wish to be one person in public, and another in private, when grooming my professional image matters far more to me than nurturing my personal character. Socrates had long ago told us to avoid such a moral hypocrisy, and the lesson remains as true today as it was way back then.
It further reminds me that Stoicism, while deeply sympathetic about the errors we commit out of our own ignorance, has no place for moral relativism. Hiding behind credentials does not provide any sort of free pass for abusing our neighbors to fit our selfish desires.
Epictetus does not hold back in calling out the vices of this esteemed scholar, and in our current climate of permissiveness his words may sound terribly rude and harsh. I’m afraid I find, however, that I only feel deeply “offended” when I know full well that I have failed to be as I should. The outrage is of my own making, not brough about by anyone else.
When it comes to sexual morality, there can be little reasoning when the fashion assumes the premise that any urge is good merely because we happen to feel it. I cannot argue for love over lust, or for commitment over gratification, if the human person is taken to be a creature ruled by appetite instead of by understanding. This too shall pass, though I fear there will be much pain and confusion along the way.
If a man cheats on his wife, what does that say about his deeper values, or his willingness to be the master of his own passions? He is certainly no philosopher, but he is also a sorry excuse for a man to begin with, one who treats his fellows as objects for gratification rather than subjects to be respected. In breaking the trust of one human relationship, he shows his disregard for the dignity of all human relationships.
I have grappled with many temptations, and I have chosen poorly far too often, yet what keeps me from turning into a complete savage is still that awareness that I am made to be a part of the whole, and that the world does not exist for me, but I exist for the world. What good am I if my soul is broken? If I am unwilling to fix myself, I might as well throw myself on the trash heap and be done with it.
Epictetus will no longer appear like such a prude if we can appreciate why rejecting the bonds of marriage is hardly a trivial matter, for in choosing to lie and cheat we deny the very rationality and sociability that makes us human. We act unjustly toward those we ought to love, and thereby we do the greatest damage to ourselves. There are no “victimless” crimes.
This chapter can serve as a very practical warning about what will happen when I wish to be one person in public, and another in private, when grooming my professional image matters far more to me than nurturing my personal character. Socrates had long ago told us to avoid such a moral hypocrisy, and the lesson remains as true today as it was way back then.
It further reminds me that Stoicism, while deeply sympathetic about the errors we commit out of our own ignorance, has no place for moral relativism. Hiding behind credentials does not provide any sort of free pass for abusing our neighbors to fit our selfish desires.
Epictetus does not hold back in calling out the vices of this esteemed scholar, and in our current climate of permissiveness his words may sound terribly rude and harsh. I’m afraid I find, however, that I only feel deeply “offended” when I know full well that I have failed to be as I should. The outrage is of my own making, not brough about by anyone else.
When it comes to sexual morality, there can be little reasoning when the fashion assumes the premise that any urge is good merely because we happen to feel it. I cannot argue for love over lust, or for commitment over gratification, if the human person is taken to be a creature ruled by appetite instead of by understanding. This too shall pass, though I fear there will be much pain and confusion along the way.
If a man cheats on his wife, what does that say about his deeper values, or his willingness to be the master of his own passions? He is certainly no philosopher, but he is also a sorry excuse for a man to begin with, one who treats his fellows as objects for gratification rather than subjects to be respected. In breaking the trust of one human relationship, he shows his disregard for the dignity of all human relationships.
I have grappled with many temptations, and I have chosen poorly far too often, yet what keeps me from turning into a complete savage is still that awareness that I am made to be a part of the whole, and that the world does not exist for me, but I exist for the world. What good am I if my soul is broken? If I am unwilling to fix myself, I might as well throw myself on the trash heap and be done with it.
Epictetus will no longer appear like such a prude if we can appreciate why rejecting the bonds of marriage is hardly a trivial matter, for in choosing to lie and cheat we deny the very rationality and sociability that makes us human. We act unjustly toward those we ought to love, and thereby we do the greatest damage to ourselves. There are no “victimless” crimes.
—Reflection written in 6/2001
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