Chapter 7: How to consult diviners.
Many of us often neglect acts which are fitting because we consult the diviners out of season.
What can the diviner see more than death or danger or disease or generally things of that sort? If then I have to risk my life for a friend, if even it is fitting for me to die for him, how can it be in season for me to consult a diviner? Have I not within me the diviner who has told me the true nature of good and evil, who has expounded the signs of both?
What need have I then of the flesh of victims or the flight of birds? Can I bear with him when he says, “This is expedient for you”? Does he know what is expedient, does he know what is good, has he learnt signs to distinguish between good things and bad, like the signs in the flesh of victims? If he knows the signs of good and evil, he knows also the signs of things noble and shameful, just and unjust.
It is yours, man, to tell me what is portended—life or death, poverty or wealth; but whether this is expedient or inexpedient I am not going to inquire of you.
Many of us often neglect acts which are fitting because we consult the diviners out of season.
What can the diviner see more than death or danger or disease or generally things of that sort? If then I have to risk my life for a friend, if even it is fitting for me to die for him, how can it be in season for me to consult a diviner? Have I not within me the diviner who has told me the true nature of good and evil, who has expounded the signs of both?
What need have I then of the flesh of victims or the flight of birds? Can I bear with him when he says, “This is expedient for you”? Does he know what is expedient, does he know what is good, has he learnt signs to distinguish between good things and bad, like the signs in the flesh of victims? If he knows the signs of good and evil, he knows also the signs of things noble and shameful, just and unjust.
It is yours, man, to tell me what is portended—life or death, poverty or wealth; but whether this is expedient or inexpedient I am not going to inquire of you.
—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.7
What am I to make of divination? Is it fitting to put my faith in prophecies? Perhaps I should worry a bit less about predicting the circumstances and a bit more about preparing my character.
Conventional wisdom will tell us how soothsaying is nothing but an obsolete superstition, though I continue to find supposed followers of “science” engaged in the most bizarre forms of wishful thinking. Whether we poke at the entrails or fiddle with the data until we arrive at the answers we prefer, all of us are tempted to let our passions run far ahead of our reason.
Whatever the current fashion, I try to keep an open mind regarding the workings of the Universe. I do know that every effect must have its cause, and I do know that the presence of order reveals the mark of design, but beyond that I am hesitant to proclaim any details of what Providence intends.
I have little doubt that events unfold as they are meant to unfold, and that the process leaves us with countless visible signs of its inner purpose. I do, however, have doubts about our capacity to interpret such signs with certainty, and so I am suspicious of anyone who foretells if I will become rich, find true love, or die at a ripe old age, especially when he is expecting a payment in return for his services.
Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that a gifted man does indeed have the skill to read the cards or to interpret the stars, and so he has an inside scoop on our future state. Now as convenient as that might be, how much should it really be changing the manner in which I choose to live? The foreknowledge of an imminent death does not alter a commitment to living with fortitude, just as winning the lottery does not remove the need for temperance.
On the whole, Stoicism tended to look kindly at divination, which I imagine stemmed from a trust in the guiding wisdom of the Logos; in that the world is always expressing a Divine Law, we are well-advised to heed its guidance, in all of its forms. Yet it is one thing to be sensitive to portents, and quite another to be crippled by premonitions: be conscious of what may come, while remaining constant in following the virtues, regardless of the impending outcomes.
I will listen cautiously to what the oracle has to say. At its very best, it will provide a meaningful context of fate, and at its very least, it will inspire me to proceed with prudence. Nevertheless, the prophecy itself cannot enlighten me in any way concerning the nature of the true and the good, merely on the particular conditions I might possibly face. God has already granted me the power of a conscience, which is more than sufficient to distinguish the benefit from the harm.
You have described what could happen to me, even as my own judgments must prescribe what I am going to do with what could happen to me. The seer discloses just the passive part of my destiny, and it is my responsibility to determine the active part; the setting is slightly different, while the task at hand remains precisely the same.
In the end, only the slave to fortune is swayed by omens. He who loves his nature will cling to his discernment of right from wrong, in riches or in poverty, in health or in sickness, in fame or in obscurity.
What am I to make of divination? Is it fitting to put my faith in prophecies? Perhaps I should worry a bit less about predicting the circumstances and a bit more about preparing my character.
Conventional wisdom will tell us how soothsaying is nothing but an obsolete superstition, though I continue to find supposed followers of “science” engaged in the most bizarre forms of wishful thinking. Whether we poke at the entrails or fiddle with the data until we arrive at the answers we prefer, all of us are tempted to let our passions run far ahead of our reason.
Whatever the current fashion, I try to keep an open mind regarding the workings of the Universe. I do know that every effect must have its cause, and I do know that the presence of order reveals the mark of design, but beyond that I am hesitant to proclaim any details of what Providence intends.
I have little doubt that events unfold as they are meant to unfold, and that the process leaves us with countless visible signs of its inner purpose. I do, however, have doubts about our capacity to interpret such signs with certainty, and so I am suspicious of anyone who foretells if I will become rich, find true love, or die at a ripe old age, especially when he is expecting a payment in return for his services.
Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that a gifted man does indeed have the skill to read the cards or to interpret the stars, and so he has an inside scoop on our future state. Now as convenient as that might be, how much should it really be changing the manner in which I choose to live? The foreknowledge of an imminent death does not alter a commitment to living with fortitude, just as winning the lottery does not remove the need for temperance.
On the whole, Stoicism tended to look kindly at divination, which I imagine stemmed from a trust in the guiding wisdom of the Logos; in that the world is always expressing a Divine Law, we are well-advised to heed its guidance, in all of its forms. Yet it is one thing to be sensitive to portents, and quite another to be crippled by premonitions: be conscious of what may come, while remaining constant in following the virtues, regardless of the impending outcomes.
I will listen cautiously to what the oracle has to say. At its very best, it will provide a meaningful context of fate, and at its very least, it will inspire me to proceed with prudence. Nevertheless, the prophecy itself cannot enlighten me in any way concerning the nature of the true and the good, merely on the particular conditions I might possibly face. God has already granted me the power of a conscience, which is more than sufficient to distinguish the benefit from the harm.
You have described what could happen to me, even as my own judgments must prescribe what I am going to do with what could happen to me. The seer discloses just the passive part of my destiny, and it is my responsibility to determine the active part; the setting is slightly different, while the task at hand remains precisely the same.
In the end, only the slave to fortune is swayed by omens. He who loves his nature will cling to his discernment of right from wrong, in riches or in poverty, in health or in sickness, in fame or in obscurity.
—Reflection written in 7/2001
IMAGE: Louis-Jean-Francois Lagrenée, Alexander Consulting the Oracle of Apollo (1789)
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