Worship and the problem of evil. Marcus Aurelius 2.11

Marcus here sets out his own practical theology. Faced with evident injustice in the world, ancient Mediterraneans had different options for coping, psychologically. Marcus mentions three common among his acquaintance: (i) atheism (the gods do not exist: this position was more oft discussed than taken, though it appears to have been given some serious thought by Theodorus of Cyrene); (ii) divine irrelevance (the gods exist, but when it comes to human affairs they lack power or interest: this was the Epicurean position, and the more common resort of many who might today be called atheists); and (iii) divine transcendence (the gods exist, and the world is ultimately a reflection of their power and interest: this is the Socratic and Stoic position, and Marcus takes it).

In terms of motivation, the three positions actually agreed, largely, that we should avoid taking too much interest in things we cannot control. The atheists and Epicureans encouraged us to lose hope in external justice, natural or divine: the world, for them, was not necessarily a good thing. The Stoics, on the other hand, followed Socrates in insisting that the world made by the gods is good, and in it nothing bad ever happens to a good person. This leads rationally to the doctrine Marcus offers at the end of this passage, according to which all the normal events of life that we would call good or evil are not really so. Instead, they are merely shadows of true good and evil, which latter we can only glimpse momentarily, when the timeless Reason of divine nature pierces the veil of darkness clouding the little reason of our minds. This means that we can keep our hope in the goodness of the world, despite whatever evil we may see there.

Note that there is no compelling reason given why everyone must choose just one of these options: speaking to himself, Marcus presents the decision as one to make personally. Belief was never as important in the ancient Mediterranean, certainly not in Rome, as participation in public ceremonies. And those ceremonies were largely about actions, not beliefs. <Greek>.

Ὡς ἤδη δυνατοῦ ὄντος ἐξιέναι τοῦ βίου, οὕτως ἕκαστα ποιεῖν καὶ λέγειν καὶ διανοεῖσθαι. τὸ δὲ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἀπελθεῖν, εἰ μὲν θεοὶ εἰσίν, οὐδὲν δεινόν· κακῷ γάρ σε οὐκ ἂν περιβάλοιεν· εἰ δὲ ἤτοι οὐκ εἰσὶν ἢ οὐ μέλει αὐτοῖς τῶν ἀνθρωπείων, τί μοι ζῆν ἐν κόσμῳ κενῷ θεῶν ἢ προνοίας κενῷ; ἀλλὰ καὶ εἰσὶ καὶ μέλει αὐτοῖς τῶν ἀνθρωπείων καὶ τοῖς μὲν κατ̓ ἀλήθειαν κακοῖς ἵνα μὴ περιπίπτῃ ὁ ἄνθρωπος, ἐπ̓ αὐτῷ τὸ πᾶν ἔθεντο· τῶν δὲ λοιπῶν εἴ τι κακὸν ἦν, καὶ τοῦτο ἂν προείδοντο, ἵνα ἐπὶ παντὶ ᾖ τὸ μὴ περιπίπτειν αὐτῷ. ὃ δὲ χείρω μὴ ποιεῖ ἄνθρωπον, πῶς ἂν τοῦτο βίον ἀνθρώπου χείρω ποιήσειεν; οὔτε δὲ κατ̓ ἄγνοιαν οὔτε εἰδυῖα μέν, μὴ δυναμένη δὲ προφυλάξασθαι ἢ διορθώσασθαι ταῦτα ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις παρεῖδεν ἄν, οὔτ̓ ἂν τηλικοῦτον ἥμαρτεν ἤτοι παῤ ἀδυναμίαν ἢ παῤ ἀτεχνίαν, ἵνα τὰ ἀγαθὰ καὶ τὰ κακὰ ἐπίσης τοῖς τε ἀγαθοῖς ἀνθρώποις καὶ τοῖς κακοῖς πεφυρμένως συμβαίνῃ. θάνατος δέ γε καὶ ζωή, δόξα καὶ ἀδοξία, πόνος καὶ ἡδονή, πλοῦτος καὶ πενία, πάντα ταῦτα ἐπίσης συμβαίνει ἀνθρώπων τοῖς τε ἀγαθοῖς καὶ τοῖς κακοῖς, οὔτε καλὰ ὄντα οὔτε αἰσχρά. οὔτ̓ ἄῤ ἀγαθὰ οὔτε κακά ἐστι.

Act, speak, and plan each deed as though you were already about to depart this life. It is nothing terrible to leave mankind behind, if the gods exist, for they would not waste time sending you to an evil doom. If they don't exist, however, or if the human race is no concern to them, why cling to life in a world without gods or providence? But they do exist, and mankind does matter to them. They have taken the utmost care of our situation, so that we cannot stumble over any obstacles truly evil. If anything accidentally evil remains, they have already foreseen it, so that in every case there is some way to avoid it. For how is anything that cannot make people worse going to make our life worse? The nature of wholes would not be to overlook such matters. The whole is not ignorant, nor is it incapable of guarding and fixing what it knows. No lack of power or skill would cause it to make the grave mistake of distributing good and evil things haphazardly to good and evil men. Death and life, fame and infamy, toil and delight, wealth and poverty—all these things occur equally to good and evil people, and so these things deserve neither praise nor shame. They are not good, nor are they evil.