Free Discourses and Selected Writings by Epictetus, Robert Dobbin

bear with such slaves?’
    ‘My friend, it’s a matter of bearing with your own brother, who has Zeus as his ancestor and is a son born of the same seed as yourself, with the same high lineage.
    [4] ‘If you have been placed in a position above others, are you automatically going to behave like a despot? Remember who you are and whom you govern – that they are kinsmen, brothers by nature, fellow descendants of Zeus.’
    [5] ‘But I have a bill of sale for them, while they have none for me.’
    ‘Don’t you see that, instead of the laws of the gods, you only have regard for the earth, the pit and the contemptible laws of the dead?’
I 14 That God supervises everyone
    [1] Someone asked Epictetus how a person could be convinced that everything he did was supervised by God.
    ‘Don’t you believe,’ he answered, ‘that all things are united as one?’
    ‘I do,’ the other said.
    [2] ‘Well, don’t you think that there is interaction between things on earth and the things in heaven?’
    ‘Yes.’
    [3] ‘How else, after all, could things take place with such regularity, as if God were issuing orders? When he tells plants to bloom, they bloom, when he tells them to bear fruit, they bear fruit, when he tells them to ripen, they ripen. Similarly, when he tells them to drop their fruit, shed their leaves, draw in and lie dormant for the winter, all that they do too. [4] How else explain that the waxing and the waning of the moon, and the coming and going of the sun, coincide with such obvious changes and fluctuations here on earth?
    [5] ‘Well, if plants ∗ and our bodies are so intimately linked to the world and its rhythms, won’t the same be true of our minds – only more so? [6] And if our minds are so intimately connected with God as to be divine sparks of his being, is he not going to perceive their every movement, since the parts in motion participate in his nature?
    [7] Now you, for your part, are capable of reflecting in detail on God and his government, while also tending to human affairs. You can process in your intellect and senses a wealth of thoughts and impressions simultaneously. There are impressions that you assent to, others that you reject; sometimes you suspend judgement altogether. [8] Your mind can store so many of these impressions and from a wide range of sources too. Under their influence, the mind proceeds to form ideas that correspond with particular impressions. That’s how we formmemories, and how the many varieties of art and science are created.
    [9] ‘And now God – are we going to deny him the ability to oversee everything that happens, even when we know that he is present everywhere and enjoys a kind of communion with the world?
    [10] ‘The sun is capable of illuminating a large part of the universe, just leaving unlit the small shadow that the earth casts. 23 Well, here is God, who created the sun (which is minuscule in relation to the whole universe), and who still causes the sun to turn – wouldn’t you say he is in a good position to see everything that goes on?’
    [11] ‘And yet,’ someone objects, ‘I cannot understand all these things at one and the same time.’
    ‘Is anyone saying that your capacities are the equal of God’s? [12] Nevertheless, he has provided each of us with an individual guardian deity, which stays by our side and is in charge of looking after us – a guardian who never sleeps and is impossible to distract. [13] Is there any guardian to whose care he could have committed us that is better or more vigilant? Whenever you close your doors and turn out your lights, remember, never say to yourself that you are alone; [14] you’re not. God is inside, and so is your private deity; and neither of them requires light to watch you by.
    [15] ‘This is the deity who deserves your pledge of allegiance, as soldiers swear before Caesar. If they want to be paid, they must swear to put the emperor’s safety first. You, however, who have been chosen to