You most frantic of all madmen, will you never look around you? Will you never consider what you say, or what you do? Do you not know that exile is the penalty of guilt: but that the journey I set out upon was undertaken by me in consequence of the most illustrious exploits performed by me?
All the criminals, all the profligates, of whom you avow yourself the leader, and on whom our laws pronounce the sentence of banishment, are exiles, even though they have not changed their locality.
At the time when all our laws doom you to banishment, will you not be an exile? Is not the man an enemy who carries about him offensive weapons? A cutthroat belonging to you was taken near the senate house. Who has murdered a man? You have murdered many. Who is an incendiary? You; for with your own hand you set fire to the temple of the nymphs. Who violated the temples? You pitched your camp in the forum.
But what do I talk of well-known laws, all which doom you to exile; for your most intimate friend carried through a bill with reference to you, by which you were condemned to be banished, if it was found that you had presented yourself at the mysteries of the goddess Bona; and you are even accustomed to boast that you did so.
As therefore you have by so many laws been doomed to banishment, how is it that you do not shrink from the designation of exile? You say you are still at Rome, and that you were present at the mysteries too: but a man will not be free of the place where he may be, if he cannot be there with the sanction of the laws.
All the criminals, all the profligates, of whom you avow yourself the leader, and on whom our laws pronounce the sentence of banishment, are exiles, even though they have not changed their locality.
At the time when all our laws doom you to banishment, will you not be an exile? Is not the man an enemy who carries about him offensive weapons? A cutthroat belonging to you was taken near the senate house. Who has murdered a man? You have murdered many. Who is an incendiary? You; for with your own hand you set fire to the temple of the nymphs. Who violated the temples? You pitched your camp in the forum.
But what do I talk of well-known laws, all which doom you to exile; for your most intimate friend carried through a bill with reference to you, by which you were condemned to be banished, if it was found that you had presented yourself at the mysteries of the goddess Bona; and you are even accustomed to boast that you did so.
As therefore you have by so many laws been doomed to banishment, how is it that you do not shrink from the designation of exile? You say you are still at Rome, and that you were present at the mysteries too: but a man will not be free of the place where he may be, if he cannot be there with the sanction of the laws.
—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 4
I regularly find myself tempted to deeply distrust all authority and to bitterly resent being an outcast, until I remind myself why those who coerce are themselves lawless, whether they come from the right or from the left, and that those who exclude others are themselves exiles, regardless of their deference to this or that tribe. Whatever is lawful proceeds from Nature, and whoever denies Nature has already exiled himself from the human fellowship.
Without the rule of reason, in which all of us must freely share, those vainglorious schemes will merely descend into madness. Be on your guard against those who inflame the passions, and yet they are unable to offer a sound argument in defense of their manifestos.
When was the last time you heard a politician present a syllogism, or a preacher define his terms? They confidently speak of what is “good”, or cry out for “justice”, or stand with the “community”, while never establishing their first principles. Do not be surprised, therefore, when they ask you to lie, to slander, and to commit violence in the name of their causes.
I have felt wronged by the man who claims to be in charge, all the while forgetting how he can do me no real harm, and the greatest evil is the one he inflicts upon himself. His power over me will be as great or as small as I allow it to be.
I have felt banished from a place I consider my home, all the while forgetting how my true shelter is in my state of mind, not in any one place. A house is only as good or as bad as the character of the man who lives within its walls.
The law of what is true, good, and beautiful is bigger than any one person, even as it includes the dignity of every single person, without exception. Though it is my privilege to discover what is lawful, it is arrogance to believe that I can create it, for I am not a measure, but a thing measured, not the Creator, but a creature. It is no accident that the wicked man likes to hide behind an unintelligible relativism, which clouds and distorts an objective sense of meaning and purpose.
I can’t blame Cicero for getting a little hot under the collar about Clodius, and yet without the benefit of an informed conscience, he would become just as brutal as his opponent. Cicero shows a remarkable restraint in not simply murdering the rascal, a self-control perhaps born of a pity for such ignorance. The Stoic, and any man of goodwill, knows why succumbing to the vices is like suffering from a moral disease.
I regularly find myself tempted to deeply distrust all authority and to bitterly resent being an outcast, until I remind myself why those who coerce are themselves lawless, whether they come from the right or from the left, and that those who exclude others are themselves exiles, regardless of their deference to this or that tribe. Whatever is lawful proceeds from Nature, and whoever denies Nature has already exiled himself from the human fellowship.
Without the rule of reason, in which all of us must freely share, those vainglorious schemes will merely descend into madness. Be on your guard against those who inflame the passions, and yet they are unable to offer a sound argument in defense of their manifestos.
When was the last time you heard a politician present a syllogism, or a preacher define his terms? They confidently speak of what is “good”, or cry out for “justice”, or stand with the “community”, while never establishing their first principles. Do not be surprised, therefore, when they ask you to lie, to slander, and to commit violence in the name of their causes.
I have felt wronged by the man who claims to be in charge, all the while forgetting how he can do me no real harm, and the greatest evil is the one he inflicts upon himself. His power over me will be as great or as small as I allow it to be.
I have felt banished from a place I consider my home, all the while forgetting how my true shelter is in my state of mind, not in any one place. A house is only as good or as bad as the character of the man who lives within its walls.
The law of what is true, good, and beautiful is bigger than any one person, even as it includes the dignity of every single person, without exception. Though it is my privilege to discover what is lawful, it is arrogance to believe that I can create it, for I am not a measure, but a thing measured, not the Creator, but a creature. It is no accident that the wicked man likes to hide behind an unintelligible relativism, which clouds and distorts an objective sense of meaning and purpose.
I can’t blame Cicero for getting a little hot under the collar about Clodius, and yet without the benefit of an informed conscience, he would become just as brutal as his opponent. Cicero shows a remarkable restraint in not simply murdering the rascal, a self-control perhaps born of a pity for such ignorance. The Stoic, and any man of goodwill, knows why succumbing to the vices is like suffering from a moral disease.
—Reflection written in 5/1999
IMAGE: Frederick Dielman, Law (1896)
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