Marcus Aurelius and the Supernatural

Abstract Philosophy in the first and second centuries AD looks within, to the soul and spiritual well-being of the inner man. It also looks outwards, far beyond the individual and his particular needs and longings, to embrace the relationship between man and God, between human life and universal mind. It is, then, at once a highly personal pursuit and a quest for universal truths: it seeks to apprehend the divine forces and to understand their relation to the world; but this enterprise is not a purely intellectual enquiry, for it is directed toward practical ends, namely to determine how a man should live, and how he may best serve. God, act as Nature requires of him, and thus fulfil his highest potential. The answers given by the different philosophic schools were of course many and varied, but there was much common ground, not least in their practical assumptions: that philosophy constitutes a sustained enquiry into the nature of the good life, and that its function is to enable the practitioner to become good.