Book 4, Letter 3, Part 2 of 3 To Epictetus: How from the fact that we are akin to God a man may proceed to the consequences.

A day passes of labour in the garden. My work is devoted to the creation and maintenance of beauty. It is a strange and wonderful job to have. Solitary for the most part, but today I took my ten year old son with me. We cut the lawns together we pulled weeds, we trimmed roses. We ate lunch in the tiny brick workers' cottage by the creek. Beyond the screen of hedges and trees, the farm is busy with workers, gathering in the hay, weeding among the pumpkin crop and planting new grape vines. The land is alive with rejuvenation.

Epictetus, now in the evening, while my children watch cartoons and eat ice-cream, I sit by lamp-light, writing, your book open upon my lap.

I read chapter 9: How from the fact that we are akin to God a man may proceed to the consequences.

If the things are true which are said by the philosophers about the
kinship between God and man, what else remains for men to do then
what Socrates did? Never in reply to the question, to what country
you belong, say that you are an Athenian or a Corinthian, but that
you are a citizen of the world. For why do you say that you are an
Athenian, and why do you not say that you belong to the small nook
only into which your poor body was cast at birth? Is it not plain
that you call yourself an Athenian or Corinthian from the place which
has a greater authority and comprises not only that small nook itself
and all your family, but even the whole country from which the stock
of your progenitors is derived down to you? He then who has observed
with intelligence the administration of the world, and has learned
that the greatest and supreme and the most comprehensive community
is that which is composed of men and God, and that from God have descended
the seeds not only to my father and grandfather, but to all beings
which are generated on the earth and are produced, and particularly
to rational beings- for these only are by their nature formed to have
communion with God, being by means of reason conjoined with Him- why
should not such a man call himself a citizen of the world, why not
a son of God, and why should he be afraid of anything which happens
among men? Is kinship with Caesar or with any other of the powerful
in Rome sufficient to enable us to live in safety, and above contempt
and without any fear at all? and to have God for your maker and father
and guardian, shall not this release us from sorrows and fears?

Epictetus, I was raised Catholic, so now as an adult, I have very little patience for the 'One nation under God' idea. I have seen enough to understand that the world doesn't work that way, for even worshippers of the same God make war upon one another. Belief in God does not, or rather, has not, created a unity among men greater than that created by any other idea – be that political, religious, scientific, or philosophic.

Just as friendship with Caesar does not indemnify one against the trials of life, so too, does kinship with God not release us from sorrow or fear. For we who believe suffer the same as those who do not, we hunger, we fear, we experience loss and pain and all the slings and arrows of fortune.

For nothing can protect us from these things, and we should not expect to be protected.

But Morgan, I did not say that God can protect us from the world, you are leading us off into the weeds. I said that God can release us from sorrows and fears. Listen:

When you have been well filled to-day, you sit down
and lament about the morrow, how you shall get something to eat. Wretch,
if you have it, you will have it; if you have it not, you will depart
from life. The door is open. Why do you grieve? where does there remain
any room for tears? and where is there occasion for flattery? why
shall one man envy another? why should a man admire the rich or the
powerful, even if they be both very strong and of violent temper?
for what will they do to us? We shall not care for that which they
can do; and what we do care for, that they cannot do. How did Socrates
behave with respect to these matters? Why, in what other way than
a man ought to do who was convinced that he was a kinsman of the gods?
"If you say to me now," said Socrates to his judges, "'We will acquit
you on the condition that you no longer discourse in the way in which
you have hitherto discoursed, nor trouble either our young or our
old men,' I shall answer, 'you make yourselves ridiculous by thinking
that, if one of our commanders has appointed me to a certain post,
it is my duty to keep and maintain it, and to resolve to die a thousand
times rather than desert it; but if God has put us in any place and
way of life, we ought to desert it.'" Socrates speaks like a man who
is really a kinsman of the gods. But we think about ourselves as if
we were only stomachs, and intestines, and shameful parts; we fear,
we desire; we flatter those who are able to help us in these matters,
and we fear them also.

Oh, so it is the part of myself that IS GOD, that is free from the suffering caused by fear. Fear takes its root in the body, and to dwell upon the sufferings of the body is to dwell as a slave to those needs. But, to dwell upon the holiest part of ourselves, to stay focussed upon the duties we each feel we are honour bound to keep, that may deliver us. For we may feel pain, but savour it, for the price of our great work must of necessity, never come at an easy price. All great work is hard work.

Perhaps Morgan, you should read more of my book before we talk again. It is difficult to discuss my ideas in isolation from one another. The maxims of a philosophy are no substitute for real, deep study. You must read every day, and you must understand what you have read, and you must keep reading, and absorb into your life the teachings of the great philosophers. Then, when you have lived with these ideas for a long time, you should come back and we can talk.