Life and Death in the Religion of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius

Abstract It is unnecessary to spend further labour in assembling obvious parallels between Epictetus and Marcus in their language and thought. Much material bearing on this will be found in the earlier chapters of this study. My present object is to focus on a central topic in both authors, their religious outlook—that is, their conception of man in the divinely governed universe. It could reasonably be said that this is the most important of all subjects for both these authors. Logically, their further doctrines of the needs, powers, and duties of the individual man all depend on the conception of man as the offspring and servant of God, pursuing the ideal of self-improvement by submission of his will to God, by so disciplining his mind as to approximate, so far as possible, to a divine state of serenity and purity.