Teachings of Marcus Aurelius. Work plan. Sayings and thoughts of Marcus Aurelius

Introduction

Philosophy occupied a huge place in the cultural life of the Roman Empire. It was supposed to, as it were, replace that “ancient valor”, which was considered the property of the primordial moral structure, but which, admittedly, could only be preserved if the simplicity and elementaryness of life were irretrievably lost. Philosophy was intended to guide the moral life of an individual and an entire society; on the other hand, it performed, as it were, the functions of religion, itself being separated from the latter by an increasingly less and less obvious feature. Since religion continued to protect and sanctify this state order, it was concentrated in the cult of emperors - here, next to personal beneficence, which had so many examples in the Greek world, the apotheosis of the state was contained. Beyond this political confession there remained an area of increasing religious syncretism: the Greco-Roman pantheon was constantly overshadowed by Eastern images, and the cult of the population of the empire, starting with Rome, could not have been more reflective of its ethnographic and cultural diversity.

Main part

The greatest admirer and admirer of Epictetus was Marcus Aurelius, the last significant Roman Stoic, whose philosophy can be considered as the last completion of ancient Stoicism and at the same time its complete internal collapse.

Marcus Aurelius was born in Rome into a wealthy patrician family. Marcus Annius Verus, who later became Marcus Aurelius Antoninus after Antoninus adopted him, was born in 121. His father died at a very young age, and the main concern for the upbringing of Marcus fell on his grandfather Annius Verus, who was twice consul and, apparently, enjoyed the favor of the Emperor Hadrian, who was distantly related to him. The author of “Reflections” was always imbued with a feeling of gratitude to the people to whom he considered himself indebted.

Mark was educated at home and as a child fell under the influence of his Stoic teacher. Mark fell in love with Stoic philosophy and remained an adherent of it until the end of his days. His extraordinary abilities were soon noticed, and the ruling emperor Antoninus Pius, believing that he did not have long to live, adopted Mark, who was his nephew, gave him the family name Antoninus and began to prepare his adopted son to take the reins of government into his own hands. However, Antonin lived longer than expected, so Mark became the head of the state only in 161.

For Marcus Aurelius, the transition to imperial power did not represent anything special; it was not a turning point in his internal or even external life. He did not even want to be the sole ruler and took as his companion his adopted brother Lucius Verus, who also received the title of Augustus. The latter, however, with his inactive and dissolute character, did not provide the emperor with any help and often turned out to be a significant hindrance in business; however, Marcus Aurelius treated him with his usual inexhaustible patience and condescension.

During the nineteen years of Mark's reign, the empire had to endure many trials. Natural disasters, an epidemic that came from the East and claimed many lives, constant military clashes, mainly with barbarian tribes that threatened the borders of Roman territory, especially along the banks of the Danube. Mark spent almost half of his reign on the front line with the soldiers, and parts of the “Reflections” were written in a camp tent, probably at night, when the rest of the army was sleeping.

Marcus Aurelius was a Stoic. Therefore, to understand his philosophy it is necessary to have some understanding of Stoic teachings. Stoicism was one of the leading philosophical schools of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Although its forerunners were early philosophers - especially Heraclitus and Socrates - it emerged as a separate philosophical movement around 300 BC, when Zeno (c. 336 - 264 BC) arrived in Athens from Cyprus. and began to teach in the Stoa, or covered market place.

Zeno and his successors developed a holistic philosophical system that included epistemology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, and political philosophy of religion. The core of this system was metaphysical materialism, which, while not as intellectually sophisticated as the atomism of Democritus, nevertheless allowed the Stoics to describe the universe as a purely natural entity functioning according to law, and thereby find an ontological niche for God. Although this combination was not very viable from a logical point of view, it provided the Stoics with a structure around which all of Stoic philosophy was built.

Stoicism came to Rome soon after, in the middle of the second century BC. Roman weapons conquered Greece. During the period of the early empire he played a leading role in the intellectual life of Rome. The two most important Roman Stoics were the emperor Marcus Aurelius (121 - 180 AD) and the slave Epictetus (c. 50 - c. 125 AD).

The Stoics, despite a number of their ideas consonant with Christianity, remained pagans, for example, Marcus Aurelius, although “out of duty,” nevertheless organized the persecution of Christians. But this relationship should not be ignored. And perhaps the deepest kinship between Stoicism and Christianity should be sought not in the coincidence of individual thoughts and statements, but in that self-deepening of the individual at which the history of Stoicism ended and the history of Christianity began.

The revolution accomplished by the Stoics in philosophy can be called, to use a modern term, “existential”: the more indifferent the Stoic sage becomes to the world around him (including the social one), the more he penetrated into the innermost depths of his own Self, discovering in his a whole military personality previously completely unknown and inaccessible to him. In “The Reflections of Marcus Aurelius”, apparently, the maximum depth of self-awareness and devotion accessible to ancient man has been achieved. Without this discovery of the “inner world” of man (“the inner man”, in the terminology of the New Testament), accomplished by the Stoics, the victory of Christianity would hardly have been possible. Therefore, Roman Stoicism can be called, in a certain sense, considered as a “preparatory school” of Christianity, and the Stoics themselves as “seekers of God.”

“Reflections”

Works like “Reflections” should be treated with extreme caution. But Marcus Aurelius’s philosophy does not diverge from his current work, and the emperor’s experience in no way disproves his most thoughtful and heartfelt thoughts. The important thing is not that Marcus Aurelius surrounded himself with philosophers and rhetoricians, that he made his old mentors statesmen, that among the consuls and proconsuls of his reign we find Herod Atticus, Fronto, Julius Rustik, Claudius Severus, Proculus. More importantly, in his own consciousness there is no antagonism between philosophy and life practice. The thesis that a philosophical confession may not obligate anyone to anything would seem monstrous to him. In this sense, Marcus Aurelius can rather be reminiscent of the figures of medieval theocracy, for whom temporalia should by no means diverge from spiritualia. It is known what insoluble conflicts arose on this basis between the convinced demands of the church and the instinct of self-preservation of the secular state.

“Reflections” cannot be called an ordinary philosophical treatise. Rather, it is a combination of an intellectual autobiography and a series of reifications addressed by the author to himself and indicating how one should act not only in everyday affairs, but also in life in general. And, indeed, the title that Mark gave to his essay is not “Reflections,” but a Greek phrase that can be translated as “thoughts addressed to oneself.” Since the “Reflections” were addressed to the author himself and, apparently, were not intended for publication, they lack the completeness of a correct philosophical treatise. Thoughts are often fragmentary, prone to self-repetition, and the entire volume of work is extremely personal. As a result, it is sometimes difficult to understand what the author wants to say or to follow the line of argument that leads him to a particular conclusion. Nevertheless, the “Reflections” contain a philosophical teaching that is the Aurelian version of Stoicism.

Mark's "meditations" are divided into books and chapters - but their order is purely external. Only the first book has some unity, where Marcus Aurelius remembers his relatives, mentors and close people and explains what he owes to them, ending with a list of everything he owes to the gods. We have a kind of diary - not of external events, but of thoughts and moods, more important in the eyes of the author than external events. It can be said that the “Reflections” represent the complete opposite of another book, which was also written amid military anxieties - Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War. Here, any penetration into the depths of spiritual experiences is carefully eliminated; all interest is also exclusively absorbed in the objective world, like Marcus Aurelius in the subjective world. Marcus Aurelius turned only to himself - he wanted to consolidate experiences that could serve as moral support and motivation. He never thought with these lines to influence others or correct them. Hence the deep sincerity, which is intuitively perceived by every reader of the “Reflections” and which is so lacking in many autobiographies and confessions, hence the ease of form: Marcus Aurelius did not look for it, just as one does not look for it when making notes in the margins of a book. There are no rhetorical concerns, but the expression always accurately and clearly conveys not only the thought, but also the spiritual background surrounding it.

The absence of an external plan corresponds in the content to the absence of anything resembling a philosophical system. Quite often in the text we come across a word that constantly reminds us how important these guiding principles are for every person. How far, however, is this Greek word from the modern meaning attached to it; Dogmatism is completely alien to Marcus Aurelius; this is a trait that immediately catches the eye. There is nothing more wrong in this sense to see in him a dogmatic follower of Stoicism.

First of all, the strength of moral truths is not connected for him with one or another idea of the world. He does not have a specific cosmology - at least the one that Stoicism developed. He is inclined towards this latter in its general outlines, but its reliability is nowhere on a par with the reliability of the moral principles to which a person turns. The point is not only that the interest of Marcus Aurelius is focused on these latter, as we generally see in later Stoicism, and not only in his doubts about the possibility of comprehending physical truth; for him, even if it is not the Stoics who are right, but the Epicureans, and if the world is not governed by a single law, but the very case, if everything comes down to the play of atoms, a person’s motivation for good is not eliminated and his attachment to the world is not strengthened. This idea is repeated extremely often.

Therefore, when in “Reflections” we read that the human body is characterized by elements of fire, air, water and earth, the author uses only a common hypothesis, without elevating it to the level of categorical truth.

This absence of dogmatism frees us from the sectarian spirit, from the exaggerated glorification of one philosophical school at the expense of others. When Marcus Aurelius finds thoughts related to his in Epicurus, he is not afraid to take them, and is not afraid to recognize in the representative of hedonistic philosophy a wise teacher of life.

Religious dogmatism is inherent in the Reflections no more than philosophical dogmatism. No one can claim the exclusive right to reveal the divine secret to people. One thing seemed certain to Marcus Aurelius: the presence of a deity in the world; atheism is counterintuitive. But what do these gods represent, are they just aspects of the creative mind that the Stoics taught about and which Marcus Aurelius often refers to? Undoubtedly we will find in him a tendency towards monotheism. If the world is one, then the God who fills it is one, the law of communities is one, and the truth is one. The doctrine of intermediaries between deity and man, that demonology that was so adopted on the basis of religious and philosophical syncretism, remains alien to him. Communication between a person and a deity is carried out primarily through self-knowledge, and then through prayer. Apparently, for Marcus Aurelius the first could replace the second: prayers are only a verbal expression of inner feelings, and as such they should be simple and free, like the Athenian prayer he cited for rain.

Man is a particle of the world; his behavior is part of the general plan of fate or providence. The very feeling of anger should subside when we remember that the vicious could not act contrary to his nature. But this does not mean that all freedom is taken away from a person and all responsibility is removed from him. Marcus Aurelius approached the great philosophical problem of necessity and freedom, which could be resolved within the limits of Stoic determinism; he, naturally, was not able to. His understanding of ethics remained too intellectualistic. Sin is based on delusion and ignorance. And in the eyes of Marcus Aurelius, not by choice, but always in spite of itself, the human soul is deprived of truth - as well as justice and, well-being, meekness. As always in intellectualistic ethics, the problem of evil is stripped of its tragic hopelessness, and there is no need for atonement that would exceed human powers. On the other hand, the fatalism of Marcus Aurelius is completely free from that mercilessness in assessing the erring and sinning, which is so often developed on the basis of religious belief in predestination - at least in Calvinism.

Marcus Aurelius was never a friend of Christians. The only place in his “Reflections” where Christians are mentioned shows that he remained cold in the face of their willingness to accept torture and death for their confession; in this readiness he even saw something vain and theatrical.

Perhaps because of their more practical approach to life, the Roman Stoics focused less on the intricate problems of logic and metaphysics than their Greek predecessors. Instead, they most often accepted the underlying structure of Stoicism as it came to them and devoted themselves to the ethical and social aspects of Stoic philosophy. This fully applies to Mark, as well as to Epictetus, who lived a century before him. In addition, Mark was very interested in religion, and the Meditations are peppered with passages emphasizing the theological aspects of Stoic ontology.

To understand Mark's Stoicism in all its integrity, it is necessary to start from his metaphysics. Here he is generally orthodox: the universe is a material organism consisting of four basic elements. Everything that happens is causally determined, so there is no place for chance in the world. Another way of expressing the same idea, which Mark emphasizes, is to say that the universe is governed by law and the order of things is the manifestation of reason. From this, according to Mark, it follows that the existing ruler of the universe is an intelligent legislator, or God. However, unlike the Jewish-Christian tradition, Mark does not understand God as a transcendent being who enters into a personal relationship with humanity. God, according to Mark, is rather an immanent mind that determines the course of world history. Since the universe is entirely rational, Mark concludes, it is also good. Thus, to believe that something that happens in the natural order of things is evil is to commit a fundamental error. Therefore, the core of Mark's teaching is a kind of cosmic optimism.

Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius deals exclusively with ethical problems and is very far from any logic, physics and dialectics. After all, the task is not to explore the depths of the earth and underground, but to communicate with the inner demon and honestly serve it.

The philosophy of Marcus Aurelius arose from a feeling of complete helplessness, weakness, insignificance and abandonment of man, reaching the point of complete despair and hopelessness. Marcus Aurelius gives truly classical expressions to this feeling: “The time of human life is a moment; its essence is eternal flow; feeling - vague; the structure of the whole body is perishable; soul is unstable; fate is mysterious; fame is unreliable. In a word, everything related to the body is like a stream, everything related to the soul is like a dream and smoke. Life is a struggle and a journey through a foreign land; posthumous glory is oblivion.” You can find many such places in Mark Avrey. The consciousness of his own weakness, helplessness and insignificance manifests itself in the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

According to this heightened sense of melancholy and despair of Marcus Aurelius, the appeal to the deity, faith in divine revelation, and in general the importance of the religious element in philosophy increases to an incredible degree.

Marcus Aurelius also encouraged the official cult, carefully fulfilled all his priestly duties and diligently participated in pagan worship. But with Marcus Aurelius the matter is in no way limited to this purely formal and civil religion. A very intense, very intimate, very nervous relationship with the deity. From all this chaos and confusion, the incredible insignificance and helplessness of the human personality, there is, according to Marcus Aurelius, only one way out: turning to the deity, internal, intimate communication with him, detachment from everything external, immersion in one’s own soul. Marcus Aurelius demands not just stoic apathy and moral purification; it is not simply, as with the ancient Stoics, that the sage should not be worried about anything external, but that everything external should not exist at all for the soul and come into contact with it. Marcus Aurelius does not yet have a super-intelligent immersion in the divine essence, but this very approach speaks of an extraordinary increase in the role of the religious among the later Stoics.

In the anthropology of Marcus Aurelius there are many points that bring him closer to Platonism and naturally include him among the representatives of Stoic Platonism. Man consists of three parts: gross matter, or body; more subtle matter, or life force, and a third, incorporeal entity - mind or spirit, which is one’s own I person.

But in Marcus Aurelius we also find many orthodox Stoic statements about autarky, the independence of the sage, etc. This, by the way, reveals the antique nature of his philosophy, since for all his gentleness and tolerance for human weakness, Marcus Aurelius is very far from Christianity . Achieving internal harmony, internal order and peace is considered the main and only goal of philosophy.

It must be said that, despite all the decadence in Marcus Aurelius’s assessments of the human subject, this human subject in some places appears with aesthetic tolerance. After all, Marcus Aurelius still thinks about the possibility of a harmonious and completely ordered internal state of man. Mark has such a low opinion of the human soul that the only way out for them is only the grace of God. It is a fact. And yet Marcus Aurelius still has enough inner strength to preach some kind of harmony of the soul, albeit purely moral, and this harmony, undoubtedly, is something for him self-sufficient.

Marcus Aurelius still sometimes flashes the universal ancient love for beauty, for pure and disinterested beauty, which has meaning in itself and which needs absolutely nothing.

Nature for Mark is higher than art insofar as it is both creative and created at the same time, while art in the usual sense of the word organizes only Dead matter, and this organization is only a created area, but not creative at all. And where in a person the creative and the created coincide, there no longer ordinary arts are created, but the person himself is created, since the inner and morally perfect person is precisely a true work of art. But such a genuine work of art is nothing more than a continuation and development of the same nature. The inner man himself and with his own strength creates his own inner beauty, just as nature also creates its own beauty itself and from its own resources. Such an aesthetics, however, is not very reconciled with the decadent assessment of the human subject that we find in late Stoicism. But for us this trait is extremely important and even precious. After all, it turns out that even during periods of the darkest moralism, ancient man still could not forget the bright and cheerful ideals of the carefree and self-sufficiently thinking general ancient aesthetics.

But here one of the most remarkable aspects of the personality of Marcus Aurelius is revealed: he could not be further away from any utopias; he consciously rejects them. Philosophy remains the law of life, but the philosopher must understand all the imperfections of human material, all the extreme slowness of people’s assimilation of the highest moral and intellectual truths, all the enormous power of resistance contained in historical life. It is impossible to forcibly renew the world, to introduce perfect order, because no ruler has power over the thoughts and feelings of people. The tragedy here lies in the fatal discrepancy between the height of the mood of the one who wants to be a benefactor of humanity and the prosaic nature of the results.

The attention to the child, which goes hand in hand with the expansion of women's rights, is the best indication of the new spirit which permeates the legislation of the empire.

It is no less felt in another area - in the recognition and protection of the rights of a slave: talking about morality here, of course, can only be done in a moral, not legal sense - in the latter, a slave could not be a subject of law. But this did not prevent the legislation of the Roman Empire from ensuring his personality from encroachment on life and honor, from cruel treatment, to ensure the integrity of his family, the inviolability of his personal property, to significantly limit, if not eliminate, his sale for fighting with animals in the amphitheater and, finally, to facilitate and encourage his release in every possible way. Marcus Aurelius granted in certain cases slaves to inherit after their masters. The previously very excellent position of the freedmen also improved significantly.

Many, but not all, of Mark's ethical conclusions follow directly from his metaphysics and theology. Perhaps the most important of them is the call, repeated every now and then on the pages of “Reflections”: to maintain the harmony of the individual will with nature. Here we come across the famous Stoic doctrine of “worldliness.” This teaching works on two levels. The first refers to the events of everyday life. When someone treats you badly, Mark advises, you should accept the mistreatment, since it cannot harm us unless we allow it. This view is very close, but not identical to the Christian exhortation to turn “the other cheek.” Jesus said of his executioners: “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” and Mark could partly share his statement. Like Jesus, he believed that people who engage in evil acts do so out of ignorance; like Jesus, he declared that their action was not to be attributed to some corruption of their nature. Rather, they act one way and not another, believing that they are acting in the right way, which means they will only make an error in judgment. But unlike Jesus, Mark did not highlight the importance of forgiveness. He was much more interested in the internal reaction of the victim of an atrocity, and he never tired of emphasizing that no harm could be caused to us against our will. Whatever happens to your property and even to your body, your inner and true self remains unharmed as long as it refuses to admit that it has been harmed.

The second aspect of the doctrine of “worldliness” considers the life and place of the individual in the world. From the “Reflections” it is clear that Mark was not enthusiastic about his high position as Roman emperor. He would almost certainly have preferred to spend his life as a tutor or a scientist. But fate made him an emperor, just as she made Epictetus a slave. Therefore, it is his duty to accept his position in life and perform the task assigned to him to the best of his ability.

The concept of fate presented a problem for Stoic philosophy. If, as Mark recognized, the universe is governed by reason and, because of this, everything that happens is definitely going to happen this way and not otherwise, then is there any room left for human freedom? Mark resolves this issue by making a subtle distinction. If we understand freedom as a choice between equally open alternatives, then such freedom, of course, does not exist. But freedom also has another meaning: to accept everything that happens as part of a good world order and to respond to events with reason, and not with emotions. An individual who lives in this way, Mark insists, is a truly free person. Such a person is not only free, but also righteous. Since the rationality of the universe is the basis of his goodness, everything that happens in the universe should only strengthen this goodness. Consequently, a rational person, accepting events, not only responds to external good, but also makes a personal contribution to the value of the world as a whole.

The Stoic concept of reason as the ruler of the world is ambiguous, and this ambiguity makes itself felt every now and then in the Meditations. On the one hand, reason is just an explanation of the fact that life in the entirely material universe is subject to an indestructible law. On the other hand, reason is interpreted as the universal mind, suggesting the existence of a spirit. This concept introduces the concept of God. There is no doubt that in some sense Mark was a theist, for he constantly speaks of God in terms that imply the existence of a good cosmic mind. Thus we come to the main theological problem: how to reconcile Mark's materialism with his theism?

Another theological question that Mark devotes a lot of space to is the question of death and immortality. A reasonable person will not be afraid of death. Being a natural phenomenon, death cannot be evil; on the contrary, it participates in the good that is inherent in every natural phenomenon. After death we simply cease to exist. The centuries that we will spend in non-existence after death are no different from the centuries we spent in non-existence before birth. But that is not all. Mark shares the Stoic theory of immortality. According to this view, the history of the cosmos does not develop linearly, but cyclically. (This doctrine is often called the doctrine of “eternal recurrence.”) Aeons later, the universe will come to the end of the present age and will be plunged into a state of primordial fire. A new universe emerges from the fire, which will accurately repeat the history of our universe. And so on ad infinitum. Therefore, we will live the same lives that we live now.

Our life, which has an intense personal aspect, is first and foremost a social life. Each of us lives in a specific society and is governed by its laws. But, being rational beings, we are also subject to a higher law - the law of nature. This law applies to each of us, no matter what the society in which we live. According to natural law, all people are equal, whether you are an emperor, a slave, or anyone else. Consequently, we have the right to assert that, as rational beings, all people are members of one state, governed by the same laws. Mark’s famous thesis reads: “I am Antoninus, and my fatherland is Rome; I am a man, and my fatherland is the world” (“Reflections”, book VI, section 44).

It has often been said that the pagan world produced two “saints.” The first of them is Socrates. The second is Marcus Aurelius. Mark deserves our memory and respect not so much for the sublime ethical content of his “Reflections”, but for the fact that he managed to build his life, often in extremely unfavorable circumstances, in full agreement with the instructions of his little book of “thoughts to himself.”

Conclusion

Philosophy will give a person the opportunity to comprehend his place in the world and fulfill his duties. She does this without at all requiring her follower to blindly confine himself to the teachings of a single school: nothing is so alien to Marcus Aurelius as the spirit of philosophical sectarianism and pedantry. The work of philosophy is simple and modest; she will not lead her followers to the path of vanity. Can she, so powerful and regal in the eyes of Marcus Aurelius, remake a person? If the depravity of the latter follows from consciousness, is it not possible to give him knowledge and convince him? Theoretically, Marcus Aurelius recognizes this: a person should not look on his sinning fellow as incorrigible, and if he fails to keep another from evil, he should blame himself. This is a requirement that a person will not allow hasty judgments and unworthy anger, but is such an ability to change his mind justified by life experience? The experience of the author of “Reflections” left no room for illusions here. “People will do the same, even if you were torn to pieces in front of them.” Morality is based on man's submission to nature as a whole. It creates that quality of spirit that Marcus Aurelius calls simplicity: a person must be simple. What is meant here is not only the absence of excess, especially luxury in external life - this kind of simplicity seemed to Marcus Aurelius a matter of healthy taste, but precisely the inner mood, alien to any affectation and duality. Neither philosophy nor the gods make exaggerated demands on people. Isn’t there a sense of weariness with the multitude of conventions that culture brings with it? This soul, unpretentious and submissive to providence, can only respond to evil with good. Marcus Aurelius never ceases to preach a meek, benevolent attitude towards people in general, including enemies. “Love the human race. Follow God.” Even those who hate you are by nature your friends. Anger, which disfigures the features of a human face, also distorts our spiritual appearance.

For Marcus Aurelius, life is increasingly becoming a preparation for death, to which so much space is devoted in the last books of the Meditations. And he met her with deep calm. In a camp site on the banks of the Danube, near present-day Vienna, he fell ill with a serious illness, the death of which he accepted immediately, and no longer took either food or drink. He bequeathed to his son Commodus to end the war and not leave the army; He reminded those around him of the need to fulfill his duty. Entrusting Commodus to their care, he added a characteristic clause: “if he turns out to be worthy of it.” Was there an unconscious desire here to reduce the responsibility that lay with the emperor who recognized Commodus as heir? For Marcus Aurelius, monarchical inheritance could only be a means, not an end. Perhaps he did not see other worthy successors around him. He introduced Commodus to the soldiers, maintaining a calm expression under great suffering; In general, his endurance in illness amazed those around him. He died on March 17, 180, completely alone: he did not even allow his son to stay at his bedside in order to avoid infection.

Marcus Aurelius was always so alien to any search for popularity; After his death, it was revealed on what deep and genuine feelings his popularity rested. He so often in his “Reflections” revealed the futility of posthumous fame - now it was given to him. According to Herodian, “there was not a person in the empire who would accept the news of the death of the emperor without tears. With one voice, everyone called him - some the best of fathers, some the most valiant of commanders, some the most worthy of monarchs, some the magnanimous, exemplary and full of wisdom Emperor - and everyone spoke the truth.” According to Capitolinus, “such was the respect for this great ruler that on the day of his funeral, despite the general grief, no one considered it possible to mourn his fate; so everyone was convinced that he had returned to the abode of the gods, who had only given him to the earth for a while. When the solemn ceremony of his funeral had not yet ended, the Senate and the Roman people proclaimed him “a benevolent god,” which had not happened before and which was not repeated later. A temple was erected in his honor, and a college of priests was established, who received the name Antoniniev. Not only were he given divine honors, but those who did not have his image in their home were considered wicked.”

With the death of Marcus Aurelius, Stoicism also died. More precisely, the immortality of Stoicism began. To one degree or another, in one form or another, stoicism (no longer so much as a philosophical doctrine, but as a certain mood, a certain mindset and character) has been revived several times in history. The English Puritans, the bearers of the “spirit of capitalism” and the founders of New England, were Stoics; in Russia, Archpriest Avvakum was an undoubted Stoic (his exhausted wife once asked him: “How long will this torment last, Archpriest?” “To the very grave, Markovna,” - answered the archpriest. She, sighing, answered: “Okay, Petrovich, we’ll still wander off”) and many, many thousands of others...

Of course, the Stoics, as the most active and firm part of the population in their beliefs, have always been a minority in any country. But this was a socially significant minority that often managed to turn an unfavorable situation for the better, although at the same time - we repeat once again - they themselves almost never managed to reap the fruits of their victory.

That is why today we, who live in Russia and do not want to leave our country for the sake of a satisfying and comfortable life in foreign lands, need the philosophy of the Stoics.

It seems that this thesis does not need proof. So, “be like a rock: the waves are constantly breaking against it, but it stands motionless, and the troubled waters around it calm down.”

The revolution accomplished by the Stoics in philosophy can be called, to use a modern term, “existential”: the more indifferent the Stoic sage became to the world around him (including the social one), the more he penetrated into the innermost depths of his own Self, discovering of his personality, an entire universe previously completely unknown and inaccessible to him. In “The Reflections of Marcus Aurelius”, apparently, the maximum depth of self-awareness and devotion accessible to ancient man has been achieved. Without this discovery of the “inner world” of man (“the inner man”, in the terminology of the New Testament), accomplished by the Stoics, the victory of Christianity would hardly have been possible. Therefore, Roman Stoicism can be called, in a certain sense, considered as a “preparatory school” of Christianity, and the Stoics themselves as “seekers of God.”

Another way of expressing the same idea, which Mark emphasizes, is to say that the universe is governed by law and the order of things is the manifestation of reason. From this, according to Mark, it follows that the existing ruler of the universe is an intelligent legislator, or God. However, unlike the Jewish-Christian tradition, Mark does not understand God as a transcendent being who enters into a personal relationship with humanity. God, according to Mark, is rather an immanent mind that determines the course of world history. Since the universe is entirely rational, Mark concludes, it is also good. Thus, to believe that something that happens in the natural order of things is evil is to commit a fundamental error. Therefore, the core of Mark's teaching is a kind of cosmic optimism.

The main ideas of Marcus Aurelius:

1. The universe is governed by intelligence, which is God.

2. In a reasonably designed universe, everything that happens is not only necessary, but also good.

3. Human happiness lies in living in harmony with nature and reason.

4. Although an individual's actions are causally determined, he achieves freedom by acting rationally.

5. The bad actions of others do not harm us; rather, we are harmed by our opinions about these actions.

6. All rational beings are subject to the law of nature and thereby are citizens of a universal state.

7. A rational individual should not be afraid of death, since it is a natural event of life.

“Reflections” cannot be called an ordinary philosophical treatise. Rather, it is a combination of intellectual autobiography and a series of reifications addressed by the author to himself and indicating how one should act not only in everyday affairs, but also in life in general. And, indeed, the title that Mark gave to his work is not “Reflections,” but a Greek phrase that can be translated as “thoughts addressed to oneself.” Since the “Reflections” were addressed to the author himself and, apparently, were not intended for publication, they lack the completeness of a correct philosophical treatise. Thoughts are often fragmentary, prone to self-repetition, and the entire volume of work is extremely personal. As a result, it is sometimes difficult to understand what the author wants to say or to follow the line of argument that leads him to a particular conclusion. Nevertheless, the “Reflections” contain a philosophical teaching that is the Aurelian version of Stoicism.

First of all, the strength of moral truths is not connected for him with one or another idea of the world. He does not have a specific cosmology - at least the one that Stoicism developed. He is inclined towards this latter in its general outlines, but its reliability is nowhere on a par with the reliability of the moral principles to which a person turns. The point is not only that the interest of Marcus Aurelius is focused on these latter, as we generally see in later Stoicism, and not only in his doubts regarding the possibility of comprehending physical truth; for him, even if it is not the Stoics who are right, but the Epicureans, and even if the world is governed by a single law, and even if everything comes down to the play of atoms, a person’s motivation for good is not eliminated and his attachment to the world is not strengthened. This idea is repeated extremely often.

This absence of dogmatism frees us from the sectarian spirit, from the exaggerated glorification of one philosophical school at the expense of others. When Marcus Aurelius finds thoughts related to his in Epicurus, he is not afraid to take them, and is not afraid to recognize the representative of hedonistic philosophy as a wise teacher of life.

The place of man in the world is depicted in “Reflections” in two seemingly opposite aspects. On the one hand, there are constant reminders of the ephemerality of human life. The earth is just a point in infinite space, Europe and Asia are just corners of the world, man is an insignificant moment in time. The vast majority disappear from the memory of others; only a few turned into myths, but even these myths are doomed to oblivion. There is no more vain concern than concern for posthumous glory. Only the present moment is real - but what does it mean in the face of infinity in the past and infinity in the future? And yet the human spirit is the highest thing we find in the world; according to his model we represent the soul of the whole. A man is not his actions; all his value lies in his soul. And again, Marcus Aurelius here remains alien to any anthropological dogmatism; it cannot be accepted as the latter indication that man has three elements: bodily, vital and rational, or that the soul has a spherical shape. The dominant motive of Marcus Aurelius here is purely ethical. Man is a particle of the world; his behavior is part of the general plan of fate or providence. The very feeling of anger should subside when we remember that the vicious could not act contrary to his nature. But this does not mean that all freedom is taken away from a person and all responsibility is removed from him. Marcus Aurelius approached the great philosophical problem of necessity and freedom, which could be resolved within the limits of Stoic determinism; he, naturally, was not able to. His understanding of ethics remained too intellectualistic. Sin is based on delusion and ignorance. And in the eyes of Marcus Aurelius, not by choice, but always in spite of itself, the human soul is deprived of truth - as well as justice and, well-being, meekness. As always in intellectualistic ethics, the problem of evil is stripped of its tragic hopelessness, and there is no need for atonement that would exceed human powers. On the other hand, the fatalism of Marcus Aurelius is completely free from that mercilessness in assessing the erring and sinning, which is so often developed on the basis of religious belief in predestination - at least in Calvinism.

Many, but not all, of Mark's ethical conclusions follow directly from his metaphysics and theology. Perhaps the most important of them is the call that is repeated every now and then on the pages of the “Reflections”: to maintain the harmony of the individual will with nature. Here we come across the famous Stoic doctrine of “worldliness.” This teaching works on two levels. The first refers to the events of everyday life. When someone treats you badly, Mark advises, you should accept the mistreatment, since it cannot harm us unless we allow it. This view is very close, but not identical to the Christian exhortation to turn “the other cheek.” Jesus said of his executioners: “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” and Mark could partly share his statement. Like Jesus, he believed that people who engage in evil acts do so out of ignorance; like Jesus, he declared that their action was not to be attributed to some corruption of their nature. Rather, they act one way and not another, believing that they are acting in the right way, which means they will only make an error in judgment. But unlike Jesus, Mark did not highlight the importance of forgiveness. He was much more interested in the internal reaction of the victim of an atrocity, and he never tired of emphasizing that no harm could be caused to us against our will. Whatever happens to your property and even to your body, your inner and true self remains unharmed as long as it refuses to admit that it has been harmed.

The second aspect of the doctrine of “worldliness” considers the life and place of the individual in the world. From the “Reflections” it is clear that Mark was not enthusiastic about his high position as the Roman emperor. He would almost certainly have preferred to spend his life as a tutor or a scientist. But fate made him an emperor, just as she made Epictetus a slave. Therefore, it is his duty to accept his position in life and perform the task assigned to him to the best of his ability.

The concept of fate presented a problem for Stoic philosophy. If, as Mark recognized, the Universe is governed by reason and, because of this, everything that happens is definitely going to happen this way and not otherwise, then is there any room left for human freedom? Mark resolves this issue by making a subtle distinction. If we understand freedom as a choice between equally open alternatives, then such freedom, of course, does not exist. But freedom also has another meaning: to accept everything that happens as part of a good world order and to respond to events with reason, and not with emotions. An individual who lives in this way, Mark insists, is a truly free person. Such a person is not only free, but also truthful. Since the rationality of the universe is the basis of his goodness, everything that happens in the universe should only strengthen this goodness. Consequently, a rational person, accepting events, not only responds to external good, but also makes a personal contribution to the value of the world as a whole.

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ABSTRACT

on the topic “STOIC VIEWS OF EMPEROR MARK AURELIUS”

Introduction
1. The emergence of the Stoic school
2. Stoic-philosophical worldview of Marcus Aurelius

2.1 Marcus Aurelius

Conclusion
List of sources used

Introduction

Philosophy, especially in Ancient Rome, has always been revered, therefore its branching into different schools, the emergence of new directions, in each of which new ideas appeared, created the power of philosophizing that almost no one, especially the Romans, could do without.

In ancient Rome, the development of Hellenistic schools arose, the directions of which were so influential on history that they gave the world a number of famous personalities. In one of the directions of the Hellenistic schools, Stoicism, such a cult personality was Antoninus Marcus Aurelius, who in turn was the last representative in this direction. As for the very emergence of Stoicism, its founder was Zeno, who arrived from Cyprus in the 4th century BC, and developed this direction long before the moment when the complete collapse of this direction occurred and which would go away forever after the death of Marcus Aurelius.

Philosophy itself occupied a very important place in the Roman Empire and had a special influence on the life and culture of the Romans. The influence of the philosophy of Ancient times on man and the entire society in Rome meant fulfilling the function of religion and instruction. Since religion continued to protect and sanctify this state order, it was concentrated in the cult of the personalities of the emperors. But just as any Emperor of the Greek world of one time or another, based on philosophy, received that knowledge, honoring which in his further actions, he acted wisely, and then for all the actions that he committed, he was awarded honor, respect, recognition, then such actions were truly worthy of a ruler. This was the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

1. The emergence of the Stoic school

1.1 The emergence of Hellenistic schools

The immediate post-Aristotelian period of ancient philosophy is characterized by a sharp drop in the level of ontological research, i.e. research on the doctrine of existence. The same cannot be said, for example, about ethics and logic, i.e. about morals, and about reason, concepts and thoughts, in the areas of which Hellenistic philosophy achieved significant results, but “first philosophy” is experiencing a crisis that cannot be explained by a simple pause in the process of the smooth development of ideas. Although it cannot be said that Hellenism came up with a new philosophical program, it largely continued the development of Socratic schools and tried to revive a number of pre-Socratic teachings. So, with good reason, the dialectic of the Athenian school can be considered a violation of evolution, “emergent”; the Hellenistic schools were the “result” of a long-developing process, which was started by the Sophists.

The Hellenistic schools were indeed more closely connected with the historical and cultural processes of Greece than the Athenian school.

For example, the Stoics and Epicureans were much more influential. The Epicureans, in turn, were students of Epicurus (347-270 BC), a materialist philosopher of the Hellenistic era.

The study of materialism (the material), as one of the main philosophical trends, which the Epicureans continued, meant recognizing the objectivity, primacy, uncreateability and indestructibility of matter, which exists regardless of consciousness and acts as the fundamental basis of reality.

As for Stoicism, it arose at the end of the 4th century, when Zeno of Citium (335-263 BC) arrived from the Phoenician slope of Cyprus to Athens, where he opened the school of Stoicism. It got its name from the Greek word “Stoa”, which meant “portico”, or a covered market square - a covered gallery with columns. His teachings of Stoicism became dominant in Hellenistic philosophy. Stoicism emphasized that happiness depends only on good quality (preferably as Socrates thought) and that all external conditions of life can and should be endured apatheia, i.e. “dispassion” (our word is “apathy”) and a self-sufficient state, “autarky”, or as it is also called self-satisfaction.

Stoicism also continued the Cynic doctrine of the kosmopolis or "state of the world" as an ethical ideal. Cynicism, in turn, is defined as a moral quality that characterizes a contemptuous attitude towards the culture and values of society. Cynicism belongs to the Cynic school.

This “World State” as an ethical ideal was realized later in the Roman Empire. Two curious representatives of the Roman Stoics in those days were Epictetus (55 BC - 135 AD), a slave (later freed), and Marcus Aurelius, Emperor who ruled from 161 to 180.

With the exception of ethics, the Stoics devoted considerable creative attention to logic, but their metaphysical doctrines were largely derived from the teachings of Heraclitus.

The world ended under Marcus Aurelius, whose closest thing was the main value of the "philosopher king", but also the same important general who led the main constant hostilities with the German invasion and the barbarian tribes along and across the Danube. And in all military operations, he always remained on the front line, spending more than half his life in wars, and not just half the time of his reign. And during these wars or not, he somehow, unnoticed by others, described the events taking place in his notes “Reflections”, calming down in Stoicism.

During his reign, the Empire was beset by natural disasters and epidemics that arrived from the East and claimed many lives. All this could not but affect the Empire, as well as Marcus Aurelius. But this did not mean that the Empire and the Emperor were weakened. Only the real failures of Marcus Aurelius should have left the Empire to his worthless son, Commodus (Chest), which in fact was excluded, since Commodus was mainly interested in the fun of gladiator fights, and was far from the politics and problems of Rome. Marcus Aurelius, of course, did not like Komod’s hobby, and all this was gathered into some kind of unified opinion, which resulted in Aurelius’ reluctance to give Rome a ruler who was completely far from the problems of Rome and the entire Roman Empire. There is also the fact that his son was weak in spirit. And such a person, who had power in his hands, was dangerous. And speaking of Chest of Drawers, it is important to say that in turn he was not worthy of the title of Emperor, but in spite of everything he would later become one, although he should not have, thereby violating the idea of Rome - its freedom. Freedom according to Marcus Aurelius was considered the very peace of Rome, which consisted in the desire for equality of the weak and strong, poor and rich.

1.2 Hellenistic ontology. Stoicism

The main idea of stoicism was submission to fate and the fatality of all things. Zeno said this about the Stoics: “Live consistently, that is, according to a single and harmonious rule of life, for those who live inconsistently are unhappy.”

Stoicism revived the teaching of Heraclitus about fire-logos; the world is a living organism, permeated with creative primordial fire, pneuma, which creates the cosmic sympathy of all things; everything that exists is corporeal and differs in the degree of coarseness or subtlety of matter; things and events are repeated after each periodic ignition and purification of the cosmos. Pneuma is something present in all living things in addition to the dense tissues and fluids of which they are composed.

In ethics, Stoicism is close to the Cynics, without sharing their contempt for culture; the sage must follow the dispassion of nature (apathy) and love his fate. All people are citizens of space as a world state; Stoic cosmopolitanism equalized (in theory) in the face of world law all people, free and slaves, Greeks and barbarians, men and women.

Stoicism, as is well known and well attested, equates being (oysia) and corporeality (soma). Only at first glance can one discern here loyalty to pre-Socratic syncretism, i.e. a combination of different philosophical principles into one system. But in the post-Platonic era it was impossible to easily and without reservations unite what had still disintegrated due to historical metamorphoses of thinking. Perhaps this is why the doctrine of essence and body in Stoicism contains many unclear points.

The Stoics call essence “the primary substance of all things,” and body is an essence that has boundaries. Everything is a body to one degree or another, only the emptiness that is outside the world, time and the meaning of words are incorporeal. On the other hand, for example, Diogenes reports that the Stoics distinguished between beginnings (archai) and foundations (stoicheia). Principles are incorporeal, formless, do not arise and do not perish. Existence has two principles: active and passive. The first is God, or reason; the second is a qualityless essence. The separate quality of the entire essence is God. It is obvious that the Stoics could not get by with just the concept of body, and a qualityless essence can also be understood as incorporeal.

The Stoic doctrine of categories has a purely ontological meaning. The most general category turns out to be “something” (to ti) - according to Chrysippus (280 - 208/05 BC; Chrysippus was called the second founder of the Stoa), or “being” (toon) - according to Zeno, and “being” in this context there is a genus, that is, the greatest generalization that is not included in any other genus. From this main category flow the rest, from the point of view of the Stoics, revealing and specifying, i.e. unifying the first. Being, as we see, turns out to be a predicate and genus among the Stoics, which was prohibited in Aristotle’s system. This is completely consistent with the teaching of the Stoics about matter, which is the highest generalization as a potential qualityless continuum, i.e. poor quality continuation. Both matter and existence are the maximum genus for everything in space.

Such a return to philosophical archaism would have to restore the integrity of the intuition of living being; The Stoics, presumably, sought precisely this. But in reality there was a collapse, dissociation (non-existence) of the main elements of ontological thinking. The Stoics, naturally, had to abandon distinction, i.e. the distinction between the energetic and dynamic levels of being put forward by Aristotle, otherwise it would be impossible to consistently implement the principle of somatism, i.e. point of view principle; but as a result of this, substance had to take the place that essence occupied in Aristotle’s ontology. The essence itself would have to fulfill the role of a concrete completeness of meaning. However, in this case, the substance would lose that type of universality that was dictated by somatism, stylized (under some image) as ancient “physics”. As a result, the Stoics were forced to introduce a number of principles into ontology: logos (word, doctrine); lekton (pure meaning, or what is said as significant); providence, i.e. “will and thought” of God, as well as the logos or world soul. All these principles led to a more complex concept and difficult communication problems.

It is important to treat all ancient concepts as a universal interpenetration (krasis diholon) of “body” and “substance” - but only the Stoics were not original here. The problem was that the very principle of the identity of being and body could not be combined with Athenian dialectics without falling into contradictions, and its achievements could also not be completely ignored, and the Stoics were indeed quite closely connected with them, starting with the classification of sciences and ending with the ethics of freedom .

Having turned out to be a substance, being becomes the same empty and powerless possibility that Aristotle saw in the continuum of “physicists”, and if his criticism is applicable to the teachings of the Pre-Socratics only in some respect, then to the Stoic “physics” - to a much greater extent. It is characteristic that the system of categories among the Stoics underwent very natural changes: despite some external similarity with the Aristotelian one, it is directly opposite to it in essence, since in relation to the first category ("something" or "being") all the others are its concretization (unification ); the first one turns out to be the least meaningful and meaningful.

The Stoic doctrine of quasi-being, that is, ideality, is not without logical sophistication; they tried to do the same thing that the neo-Kantians (followers of Kant) did in their time - to find a reality that would not “exist”, but “meant”, and thus get away from the antinomies (contradictions in the law) of the dual nature of being, that is, from such a situation when “to be” cannot be simultaneously attributed to both the ideal and the existential-material. But such a statement of the problem and such a solution only create great artificial difficulties. This is clear from the Stoic teaching about the "lekton".

In the doctrine of logos and the world, as a living and intelligent being, the Stoics remove the sharp division of the world into body and meaning, but the “lekton”, in fact, remains an element of the amalgam, i.e. dissolution, without entering into a real merger with the world, and this is perhaps the most characteristic feature of the Stoic teaching about being. The etheric logos of the Stoics and the logos of Heraclitus are polar principles in this regard. The presence of an element that does not relate to either being or non-being, that is, a certain quasi-being that does not even have a direct relationship to truth and falsehood until it becomes part of the action of realizing the statement - this is a discovery of Hellenistic ontology, and its importance can only be assessed by history of early Hellenistic schools. Among the Stoics, in a sense, the novelty of this discovery was less noticeable than in other directions, since the Stoics were conscious restorers of philosophical antiquity; besides, “lekton” is necessarily a connection, and in the end - a kind of cosmic proposal; but on the other hand, the more noticeable is the incoherence of this sentence with the life of the world. From this it follows why the sought-after integrity of existence turned into disunity of principles.

Hellenistic ontology, it must be admitted that, despite the break with the great achievements of the Athenian school, which sometimes takes the form of fundamental rejection, the early Hellenistic schools did enormous and valuable theoretical work, rethinking the traditional settings of the ancient concept of being. The old forms of the doctrine of the unity of thinking and being were revised in all three schools (Cynical, Epicurean, Stoic). Fourth - Skepticism, i.e. researching, criticizing, in her school there was no revision of the old form of the doctrine of the unity of thinking. The school of skeptics existed even before the times of the Cynic, and dates back to the beginning of 323 BC. The universe has disintegrated into life and meaning; meaning, in turn, is influenced by logic and ethics. This stratification of integrity left no room for the concept of being: neither the flow of factual reality, nor ideal structures of the “lekton” type, nor the ethical consciousness of the individual could and cannot correspond to the old doctrine of a single being, restored in Athens. But at the same time, an important result was achieved: the idea of a reality irreducible to all of the listed layers appeared, of what in the language of later ontology was called “existence,” i.e. existence or way of being of the human person.

It should be noted that the Athenian school also made this discovery, but it did not appear in the conditions of its traditionalism as clearly as in Hellenistic teachings. The latter placed special emphasis on the understanding of philosophy as life-creativity, and the source of such creativity could only be the freedom of personal existence, realized in addition to logical foundations, and even in spite of them.

2. Stoic-philosophical worldview of Marcus Aurelius

Hellenistic stoicism worldview Aurelius

2.1 Marcus Aurelius

Roman Stoicism (Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius). They clearly saw the imperfection of the world, that man is not subject to the laws of existence, and therefore it is pointless for him to fight fate. But a reasonable person can remove this conflict by strength of spirit, tempering his will, steadfastly enduring adversity, resisting it, without hoping for victory, but without losing his dignity. Self-improvement contributes to a person’s happiness. Such a person was Antoninus Marcus Aurelius.

Antoninus Marcus Aurelius (121-180), from the Antonin dynasty, was the last Stoic philosopher, whose philosophy could be considered as the last completion of ancient Stoicism and at the same time its complete collapse. From 161 to 180 Roman Emperor and conqueror who expanded the borders of the Roman Empire.

Marcus Aurelius restored the Roman protectorate (limiting the independence of the now dependent country in the field of defense and foreign policy while allowing complete freedom in matters of internal policy) over Armenia and captured Mesopotamia in the war of 162 - 166 with the Parthians; in 166 - 180 he waged wars with the Germanic and Sarmatian tribes.

Marcus Annius Verus, who later became, after Antoninus adopted him, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, was born in 121, in Rome, into a wealthy patrician family. His father died at a very young age, and the main concern for the upbringing of Marcus fell on his grandfather Annius Verus, who was twice consul, and, apparently, enjoyed the favor of the Emperor Hadrian, who was distantly related to him.

Marcus Aurelius was always imbued with a feeling of gratitude to the people to whom he considered himself indebted.

Mark was educated at home and as a child fell under the influence of his main teacher, a Stoic. This teacher was the Stoic Lucius Junius Rusticus. But on the other hand, he also had the opportunity to receive a philosophical education from Diognetus, under whose influence Marcus Aurelius had the opportunity to sleep on bare boards, covering himself with animal skin; From the same Diognetus, Mark learned painting. He also improved his education under the guidance of the sophist (from Greek - sage) Herodes Atticus, the Platonists (followers of the Platonist) Alexander and Sextus of Chaeronea, the peripatetic (follower of Aristotle) Claudius Severus, the Stoic Apollonius of Chalcedon. In Smyrna he listened to the sophist Aelius Aristides, but the main thing for him was still Lucius Junius Rusticus.

In his future reign, Marcus Aurelius will surround himself with philosophers and rhetoricians, making statesmen of his old mentors, such as Herodes Atticus, Fronto, Junius Rustica, Claudius Severus, Proculus, making them consuls and proconsuls.

Fascinated by Stoicism, Mark would become the greatest admirer and admirer of the philosophy of Epictetus. Apparently, therefore, over time, only two outstanding personalities in Roman Stoicism will be named - these are Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the latter who learned the importance of the philosophical thoughts written by the Stoic Epictetus, realizing from his notes that it was necessary to correct and heal his character. Marcus Aurelius was even glad that, due to his acquaintance with Epictetus’s notes, he did not turn into sophistry, into the analysis of syllogisms, and did not study extraterrestrial phenomena. Moreover, he was glad that he did not believe the tales of sorcerers and wizards, setting philosophy as his goal.

Marcus Aurelius, because of his love for Stoic philosophy, remained an adherent of it until the end of his days. His extraordinary abilities were soon noticed, and the ruling emperor Antoninus Pius, believing that he did not have long to live, adopted Mark, who was his nephew, gave him the family name Antoninus and began to prepare his adopted son to take the reins of government into his own hands. However, Antonin lived longer than expected, and therefore Mark became the head of the state only in 161.

For Marcus Aurelius, the transition to imperial power did not represent anything special; it was not a turning point in his internal or even external life. He did not even want to be the sole ruler and took as his partner his adopted brother Lucius Verus, who also received the title of Augustus. The latter, however, with his inactive and dissolute character, did not provide the emperor with any help and often turned out to be a significant hindrance in business; however, Marcus Aurelius treated him with his usual inexhaustible patience and condescension.

Marcus Aurelius was distinguished by his unselfishness, despised denunciations, successfully fought wars, and ruled the provinces with kindness. He established several philosophical schools in Rome, bringing famous philosophers of that time closer to the palace. In Athens, he founded four departments of philosophy, corresponding to each direction - academic, peripatetic (meaning learning while walking with the followers of Aristotle, who created logic), Stoic and Epicurean.

Marcus Aurelius established salaries for teachers at the expense of the state. In addition, he assigned state support to philosophers in all provinces.

The brewing crisis of the Roman Empire determined the specificity of the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. In his interpretation, Stoicism finally loses its materialistic features and takes on a religious-mystical character. God for Marcus Aurelius is the primal principle of all things; this is the world mind in which all individual consciousness dissolves after the death of the body. His ethics are characterized by fatalism, preaching humility and asceticism. He calls for moral improvement and purification through the very deepening and knowledge of the fatal necessity that rules the world.

Marcus Aurelius expressed his philosophical thoughts in the form of aphorisms in a single work - “To Himself.” In the essays “To Myself” (in Russian translation - “Alone with Myself”, 1914; “Reflections”, 1985) a picture of a world governed by the providence of nature (identified with God) is painted, and human happiness is understood as life in harmony with nature.

The philosophy of Marcus Aurelius had a great influence on Christianity, although the emperor himself brutally persecuted Christians.

And, despite the fact that the Stoics gave away a whole series of their ideas that were consonant with Christianity, they themselves remained pagans, and at the same time, they persecuted Christians, not suspecting that all this could not help but affect such kinship. And perhaps the deepest kinship between Stoicism and Christianity should be sought not in the coincidence of individual thoughts and statements, but in that self-deepening of the individual at which the history of Stoicism ended and the history of Christianity began.

The revolution accomplished by the Stoics in philosophy can be called the fact that the indifferent attitude of the Stoic sage to the world around him (including the social one) penetrates more deeply into the innermost depths of his own “I”, thus revealing in his personality a whole universe previously completely unknown and inaccessible to him. In “The Reflections of Marcus Aurelius”, apparently, the maximum depth of self-awareness and devotion accessible to ancient man has been achieved. Without this discovery of the “inner world” of man, accomplished by the Stoics, the victory of Christianity would hardly have been possible. Therefore, Roman Stoicism can be called, in a certain sense, as a consideration of the “preparatory school” of Christianity, and the Stoics themselves as “seekers of God.”

2.2 The main ideas of Marcus Aurelius

The main ideas of Marcus Aurelius are:

1. The universe is governed by intelligence, which is God

2. In a reasonably designed universe, everything that happens is not only necessary, but also good.

3. Human happiness lies in living in harmony with nature and reason.

4. Although an individual's actions are causally determined, he achieves freedom by acting rationally.

5. The bad actions of others do not harm us; rather, we are harmed by our opinions about these actions.

6. All rational beings are subject to the law of nature and thereby are citizens of a universal state.

7. A rational individual should not be afraid of death, since it is a natural event of life.

2.3 Worldview of Marcus Aurelius

The philosophy of Marcus Aurelius arose from a feeling of constant struggle with the outside world, with thoughts within oneself, taking all the vicissitudes of fate for granted. Marcus Aurelius gives classical expressions to these feelings: “The time of human life is a moment; its essence is eternal flow; feeling - vague; the structure of the whole body is perishable; soul is unstable; fate is mysterious; fame is unreliable. In a word, everything related to the body is like a stream, everything related to the soul is like a dream and smoke. Life is a struggle and a journey through a foreign land; posthumous glory is oblivion.”

For Marcus Aurelius, for all his kindness and, on the contrary, the mood to fight, from the seemingly surging joy, sadness, or grief, these feelings were not reflected in any way on the expression of his face. This suggests that he can and should be called persistent, courageous, and that, among his army, during all the wars, he lost many who were close to him.

Because of this, Marcus Aurelius’s heightened sense of melancholy increases to an incredible degree the appeal to the deity and faith in divine revelation. An example of this is the Emperor’s prayer, or as the legend calls it, “the miracle of rain.” This legend says that when the Emperor prayed for his Roman army, for salvation, which was suffering from thirst, it suddenly rained, and thus the Roman army was saved.

Marcus Aurelius sometimes flashes the general ancient love for beauty, for pure and disinterested beauty, which has meaning in itself and which needs absolutely nothing. As for nature in Marcus Aurelius, it is superior to art only insofar as it exists, both the creative and the created at the same time, while art in the usual sense of the word organizes only Dead matter, the organization of which is only the realm of the created, but not the creative. And where in a person the creative and the created coincide, there are no longer ordinary arts created, but the person himself is created, since the inner and morally perfect person is precisely a true work of art. But such a genuine work of art is nothing more than a continuation and development of the same nature. The inner man himself and with his own strength creates his own inner beauty, just as nature also creates its own beauty itself and from its own resources. Such an aesthetic, however, is not very reconciled with the decadent assessment of the human subject that can be found in late Stoicism. But for us this trait is extremely important and even precious. After all, it turns out that even during periods of the darkest moralism, ancient man still could not forget the bright and cheerful ideals of the carefree and self-sufficiently thinking general ancient aesthetics.

Here one of the most remarkable aspects of the personality of Marcus Aurelius is revealed: he could not be further away from any utopias and he consciously rejects them. Philosophy remains the law of life, but the philosopher must understand all the imperfections of human material, all the extreme slowness of people’s assimilation of the highest moral and intellectual truths, all the enormous power of resistance contained in historical life. It is impossible to forcibly renew the world, to introduce perfect order, because no ruler has power over the thoughts and feelings of people. The tragedy here lies in the fatal discrepancy between the height of the mood of the one who wants to be a benefactor of humanity and the prosaic nature of the results.

Attention to the child, which goes hand in hand with the expansion of women's rights, is the best indicator of the new spirit in which the legislation of the empire permeates.

It is no less felt in another area - in the recognition and protection of the rights of a slave: talking about morality here, of course, can only be done in a moral, not legal sense - in the latter, a slave could not be a subject of law, but this did not prevent the legislation of the Roman Empire from ensuring his person from attacks on life and honor, from cruel treatment, to ensure the integrity of his family, the inviolability of his personal property, to significantly limit, if not eliminate, his sale for fighting animals in the amphitheater and, finally, to facilitate and encourage his release in every possible way. The very excellent position of the freedmen also improved significantly.

Many, but not all, of Mark's ethical conclusions directly follow from his metaphysics (super-experiential principles, laws of being), and theology (the doctrine of God). The most important of them is the call, repeated every now and then on the pages of “Reflections”: to maintain the harmony of the individual will with nature. Here we come across the famous Stoic doctrine of “worldliness.” This teaching works on two levels. The first refers to the events of everyday life. When someone treats you badly, Mark advises, you should accept the mistreatment, since it cannot harm us unless we allow it. This view is very close, but not identical to the Christian exhortation to turn “the other cheek.” Jesus said of his executioners: “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” and Mark could partly share his statement. Like Jesus, he believed that people who engage in evil acts do so out of ignorance; like Jesus, he declared that their action was not to be attributed to some corruption of their nature. Rather, they act one way and not another, believing that they are acting in the right way, which means they will only make an error in judgment. But unlike Jesus, Mark did not highlight the importance of forgiveness. He was much more interested in the internal reaction of the victim of an atrocity, and he never tired of emphasizing that no harm could be caused to us against our will. Whatever happens to your property and even to your body, your inner and true self remains unharmed as long as it refuses to admit that it has been harmed.

The Stoic concept of reason as the ruler of the world is ambiguous, and this ambiguity makes itself felt every now and then in the Meditations. On the one hand, reason is just an explanation of the fact that life in the entirely material universe is subject to an indestructible law. On the other hand, reason is interpreted as the universal mind, suggesting the existence of a spirit. This concept introduces the concept of God, i.e. Theism, or the existence of God and his relation to the world and man. There is no doubt that in some sense Mark was a theist, for he constantly speaks of God in terms that imply the existence of a good cosmic mind. From this it turns out that there is a main theological problem: how to reconcile the materialism of Marcus Aurelius with his theism?

Another theological question that Mark devotes a lot of space to is the question of death and immortality. A reasonable person will not be afraid of death. Being a natural phenomenon, death cannot be evil; on the contrary, it participates in the good that is inherent in every natural phenomenon. After death we simply cease to exist. The centuries that we will spend in non-existence after death are no different from the centuries we spent in non-existence before birth. But that is not all. Mark shares the Stoic theory of immortality. According to this view, the history of the cosmos develops not linearly, but cyclically. This doctrine is often called the doctrine of “eternal recurrence.” Eons later, the universe will come to the end of the present era and will be plunged into the state of primordial fire. A new universe emerges from the fire, which will accurately repeat the history of our universe. And so on ad infinitum. Therefore, we will live the same lives that we live now.

Our life, which has an intense personal aspect, is first and foremost a social life. Each of us lives in a specific society and is governed by its laws. But, being rational beings, we are also subject to a higher law - the law of nature. This law applies to each of us, no matter what the society in which we live. According to natural law, all people are equal, whether you are an emperor, a slave, or anyone else. Therefore, it is true that, as rational beings, all people are members of one state, governed by the same laws. Mark’s famous thesis reads: “I am Antoninus, and my fatherland is Rome; I am a man, and my fatherland is the world.”

It is often said that the pagan world produced two “saints.” The first of them is Socrates. The second is Marcus Aurelius. Mark deserves eternal memory and respect not so much for the sublime ethical content of his “Reflections”, but for the fact that he managed to build his life, often in extremely unfavorable circumstances, in full agreement with the instructions of his records of “thoughts to himself.”

“We need to think about the world as a single being,” he writes, and further, “about one by nature and with one soul.” The unity of the world means that everything is intertwined with one another, subordinated and ordered in a single world order. The world is also a constant transformation. Marcus Aurelius takes it as a fundamental principle that the world is preserved by the transformations of the primary elements or their compounds. Everything that becomes becomes in transformations, he writes. The nature of the whole loves nothing better than to transform what is, producing something new. Nothing can happen without transformation. Can you wash yourself without turning into firewood? - asks Marcus Aurelius. Can you get enough food if the food doesn't turn into something?

Similar appeals from Marcus Aurelius are considered very often in his anthropology and ethics. Mark further writes: “There is nothing outside of universal nature, therefore all transformations occur within its boundaries. She transforms into herself everything that seems to be perishing, obsolete, and makes something new out of it, so that she does not need a supply from the outside and does not need a place to throw away what is used and not needed.” In this Marcus Aurelius sees the difference between the craft of nature and the craft of the carpenter and furrier. Transformations and changes are accomplished by several reasons, sequential by a number of reasons. He threw the seed into the womb, he gives an example, and walked away, and there another reason begins to act, and the child appears. In fact, we are talking about the self-development of nature.

Particularly noticeable in the worldview of Marcus Aurelius is the Heraclitian characterization of existence: nature, like a river, is in continuous flow; in the nature of the whole, as if in a stream, all bodies move; eternity is a river of becomings; flow and change constantly rejuvenate the world, etc. The flow in which existence resides is circular. Up, down, in a circle the primary elements rush, writes Marcus Aurelius. The world is governed by certain circuits. From the cycle of existence it follows, firstly, that nothing dies, everything is reborn. A grape ovary, a bunch, raisins - all transformations, and not into non-existence, but into not-now-existence, as Marcus Aurelius says. Secondly, it follows that everything that happens has happened, will happen and is happening now. He expresses this with the concept of one-bornness and uniformity of everything and says: a forty-year-old, if he has any intelligence in him, in some way thanks to uniformity, has already seen everything that has been and will be.

The changes taking place in the world are controlled either by God, aka reason (providence), or by chance. Reason passes through nature and through eternity and controls everything according to certain circuits. Reasonable management of the world is teleological, i.e. completion of the word of predetermination of all events. Aurelius says that everything happens according to some initial aspiration of providence, according to which nature initially rushed towards just such a world order, taking into its bosom the meanings of what will happen, and determining the productive forces of appearances and transformations. Management is carried out for the benefit of the whole (universe). This is a general law of management. Nature does not bring anything that does not correspond to what she controls, that is, the benefit of the whole.

About man Marcus Aurelius says the following: I am flesh, breath and leading or body, soul, mind; the body - sensations, the soul - aspirations, the mind - principles. Man received all this from nature and therefore can be considered its creation. I consist of the causal and the material, says Marcus Aurelius. No one has anything of their own, but both your body and your very soul came from there. Everyone's mind is God and originates from there. In general, again we see an opinion about the unity of man and nature, about man being a part of the world whole (microcosm). What is earthy in me is given to me from the earth, as Marcus Aurelius says. Just as breathing connects a person with the surrounding air, so understanding connects everything rational with the surrounding environment, because rational power is diffused everywhere and is available to those who are able to sip it.

Man is a part of the world whole and, as such, is subject to the laws, guidelines and interests of the whole. For every part of nature, what the nature of the whole brings is good, says Marcus Aurelius. For example, the breath and the fiery principle in a person tend upward by nature, the earthly and moist - downward, but, submitting to the structure of the whole, they occupy the place that nature assigned them and are kept in connection. This is how the elements obey the whole. Here it is important to notice a certain prototype of holism (the whole) in Marcus Aurelius. He often uses the concept - the essence of the whole.

The transformations of man as a part of the whole do not go beyond the framework of nature. Everything that happens to a person - illness and death, slander and deceit - is habitual and familiar, writes Marcus Aurelius, like a rose in spring or fruits in summer. Of course, of all the natural transformations of man, death stands out: as a part of the whole you arose and in that which gave birth to you you will disappear. Everything associated with matter does not hesitate to disappear into universal nature, and everything causal is immediately accepted by the universal mind. This means that the transformation of a person in death consists in the fact that each part of him passes into the corresponding part of the world; since a person consists of two parts (body and soul-mind), he has two paths, two types of transformation after death: dispersion of the body (“I will become earth”, I will disintegrate into atoms, if any) and the unity of the ignited soul with the inseminating mind , moving into it after some stay (saving) in the air.

Like everything in nature, human life is subject either to fate with its necessity, or to merciful providence, or to a disorderly jumble of chance. But all of the above are possibilities; in reality, according to Marcus Aurelius, fate-necessity dominates in people’s lives. It is made up of all reasons. What cause-fate brings to a person is destined for him, since since ancient times causes have intertwined both the emergence of a person and all the events of his life. There is stoic fatalism.

But with all the inclusion of man in the material world, with all his subordination to the necessary course of life, Marcus Aurelius finds in him an island, independent of the physical, stable in all the vicissitudes of life - this is his mind. Marcus Aurelius calls the understanding free from passions a stronghold. A person has no stronger refuge where he becomes unapproachable. Here, perhaps, the most important position of the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius is revealed - the position of autarky of reason, i.e. about the self-satisfaction of the mind: the leading becomes irresistible if, having withdrawn into itself, it is content with itself and does not do what it does not want. This is how a person receives support in this fleeting and changeable existence and independence from life circumstances. Thus, thanks to the autarchic nature of the mind, he can preserve himself as an autonomous personality. And if the waves carry you away, says Marcus Aurelius, let them carry your body or your breath, but they will not carry away your mind. He often expresses the following thought: nothing bodily or external touches the mind and should not be transferred to it. All the suffering of the flesh is its concern. They do not make the thought-ruler worse. Nor does anyone else's vice or speech affect her. Personality is autonomous. For my will, writes Marcus Aurelius, the will of my neighbor is as indifferent as his body and breath. He expresses a person’s independence from other people and their influences with the concept of “erasure of ideas.” It means that it is in the power of a person so that there is no baseness, lust and confusion in his soul. The one who belongs to reason is not touched by tyrants, slander, or anything at all.

So, external influences on the soul are impossible. Things in themselves do not affect the soul, says Marcus Aurelius; they do not enter the soul. Therefore, he endows the mind with independent activity, depending only on it. The leader awakens, transforms, makes of himself whatever he wants. Thus, everything that we are inclined to consider as an external influence only seems so, in fact, being the action of a rational soul, which itself creates its own world. An example of this is the words of Marcus Aurelius: “The soul sets itself in motion, and whatever judgments it finds worthy of itself, such are the existing things for it. If something external saddens you, then it is not it that annoys you, but your judgment about it.” This kind of judgment can be called “confession (of the soul)” or “agreement” (from oneself or beyond the initial idea). So, according to Marcus Aurelius, as soon as the mind does not recognize what causes sadness, it will not exist. For example, you should not imagine harm to yourself if you were told about abuse directed at you, or the danger of death at the sight of a sick child.

In connection with the above, let us clarify what a person is in the understanding of Marcus Aurelius. Of the body, breath and mind that make up a person, only the third belongs to him, so that the person himself is the mind. "Be smart!" - the motto of Marcus Aurelius (and all the Stoics). In the hidden inside, he writes, what sets it in motion, there is life, there, frankly, is a person. One should not think at the same time as the vessel that surrounds it and the tools attached to it. Apart from the cause that governs their motion or rest, they are not much more valuable than a weaver's needle or a scribe's reed. The mind of a person is his god, genius (in the original Greek - demon). He is the protector and guide of man, and the soul does what its genius desires. A person is obliged to submit to genius and live in harmony with him, to serve him. It will be a blissful life.

Thus, we can formulate another important principle of the moral instruction of Marcus Aurelius: to live under the guidance of reason and in accordance with it. It can further be reformulated into the position: live in harmony with nature, since for a rational being, what is done by nature, writes Marcus Aurelius, is also done by reason. It turns out that a person must live both according to his own nature and the general one. According to Marcus Aurelius, nature is the source of good life, since everything that is in accordance with nature is not evil. Everything in nature is attractive, there is nothing ugly in it. Cracks in bread are good, bursting ripe figs are good, he notes, if they are considered not separately, but in conjunction with what is by nature. Finally, the named principle is expressed in the fact that a person is ordered to live and act, remembering the mutual connection of divine and human affairs, looking back at the gods. Nothing humanly good can be done, Marcus Aurelius points out, without relating it to the divine. After all, the gods do not plunge people into evil; on the contrary, they take care of human affairs and help people live according to nature.

Next, let us consider in more detail what it means to live according to nature and reason, that is, to live morally. This basically means living “socially,” as Marcus Aurelius puts it. The primary thing in the human structure is social, he said. The basis of social life is nature and reason. Society is inherent in nature itself. Even in insensitive nature there is a gravitation of one towards another; everything is hastening towards the only begotten. What is from the earth gravitates towards the earth, etc. All the more hastening towards the only begotten is that which shares a common spiritual nature. Already among the foolish, writes Marcus Aurelius, the swarm, the herd, family nests, and almost love were invented. The connecting force increases in people even more thanks to reason. The kinship of a person with the entire human race is not based on blood or seed, he believes, but on a community of mind. The common reason of people unfolds into a common law, into citizenship, into participation in statehood. In other words, the community of people is expressed in such forms of connection and unity as the state, friendship, homes, meetings, and even during wars, treaties and truces, points out Marcus Aurelius.

In addition to the connection between man and nature, man is also connected with society. Thus, a person is included in two communities: in the natural (cosmos) as a person and in the civil (polis) as a citizen. The often quoted words of Marcus Aurelius speak about this: “My nature is rational and civic. The city and fatherland for me, Antonin, are Rome, and for me, a man, the world.”

From this it is clear that humanity, with the exception of the stars, is most strongly connected in nature. According to his figurative expression, it is easier to find earth that is not attached to the earth than a person separated from man. Marcus Aurelius understands social ties between people as truly organic. Intelligent beings are joints of the body arranged for united cooperation. If a person considers himself simply part of a whole (and not a joint in a collection of intelligent beings), then it means that he does not yet love people with all his heart, Marcus Aurelius believes. It is interesting to note that, in his understanding, the unity of people in a community is so close that a person who is split off from at least one person has already fallen away from the entire community.

But what is the actual moral meaning of social life? It is that the individual must work for the sake of society; turns its aspirations to the common good. In addition, he is in a humane attitude towards people, in caring for them, in love for one’s neighbor, in benevolence towards fellow tribesmen, etc.

According to Marcus Aurelius, it is natural for a person to do good, to do it instinctively, unconsciously, and not demand any rewards for it.

One of the notable aspects of Marcus Aurelius’ humanism in relation to people is the forgiveness of sinners. He perceives shameless people, swindlers, infidels and all kinds of sinners as the inevitability of life and calls on us to be more kind to them. In order for people to understand and sympathize with sinners, he recommends being guided by a whole set of rules, which includes nine provisions. Here, for example, are some of them: we were born for each other, which means relearn or transfer; if they do it wrong, it is out of ignorance; and you yourself sin a lot, and you yourself are the same, etc.

A life in harmony with nature and reason also presupposes that a person submits to the course of events established by them and takes what happens for granted. Marcus Aurelius advises a person: “Voluntarily entrust yourself to the spinner Clotho and do not interfere with her sewing you into whatever fabric she pleases.” Therefore, with it he condemns rebellion against what nature brings to man, and calls the rebel “a boil on the world” (his usual metaphor). A person must accept his fate with dignity, and the one who is sad, afraid and angry at the laws of nature is like a runaway slave. The basis for reconciling and even tenderly accepting everything that happens to a person is for Marcus Aurelius the fact that all this was planned by the general nature and linked with older causes (and man is not separated from the universal nature), and that with a person there is no nothing inhuman (i.e. unusual, supernatural) happens. And there is no point in being indignant about this.

Man is entirely at the mercy of fate: “After all, a single harmony penetrates everything. And just as the world, a perfect body, is made up of all bodies, so fate, a perfect cause, is made up of all causes.” Therefore, “nothing can happen to a person that is not determined by the person’s fate, just as nothing can happen to an animal, plant, or stone that does not correspond to their nature. If no creature can experience anything other than what it grew up for and what it is destined for by nature, why should you complain? Be sure that almighty nature has not endowed you with anything beyond your strength.”

Among the events with which a person finds it especially difficult to reconcile, death comes first, of course. And Marcus Aurelius gives many arguments to convince a person to accept it as a good, as what nature desires. “Do you complain that you have so much weight? he asks. “So it is with time, how old you will live.”

The present is the only support; relying on the past or the future is pointless: “Look back - there is an immense abyss of time, look forward - there is another infinity... In comparison, what does the difference between one who lived three days and one who lived three matter? human lives?

“Imagine,” wrote Marcus Aurelius, “that you have already died, that you have lived only up to the present moment, and spend the remaining time of your life, as you have received beyond your expectations, in accordance with nature.” And further: “So, spend this moment in time in harmony with nature, and then part with life as easily as a ripe plum falls: praising the nature that gave birth to it, and with gratitude to the tree that produced it.” It is possible to approach such a life attitude only through philosophy: “Philosophizing means protecting the inner genius from reproach and flaw, ensuring that it stands above pleasures and suffering, so that there is no recklessness, deception, or hypocrisy in its actions... and most importantly, so that he resignedly awaits death as a simple decomposition of those elements from which every living being is composed.” Marcus Aurelius gave the following advice to a person who would encounter a rapist: “What will an unbridled rapist do to you if you remain invariably benevolent towards him and, when the opportunity presents itself, you will meekly admonish him, even at the very moment when he wants to do harm to you?” , you calmly tell him: “My son, don’t do this; we are born for something else. You will not harm me, but yourself.”

Work plan:

Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.

Core Virtues (According to Stoic Philosophers)

The relevance of the judgments of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

Conclusion.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus – “philosopher on the throne”

MARK AURELIUS ANTONINUS(Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) (121–180) seemed to me a very interesting person, because he is at the same time a Stoic philosopher, a Roman emperor (from 161), and a warrior. This is probably the only Roman monarch who left behind a book of reflections for his descendants.

“Marcus Annius Catilius Severus, who went down in history under the name Marcus Aurelius, was born in Rome on April 26, 121 and was the son of Annius Verus and Domitia Lucilla. Marcus Aurelius treated his mother with deep respect and believed that he owed her “piety, generosity and abstinence not only from bad deeds, but also from bad thoughts, as well as a simple way of life, far from any luxury” (1)

After the death of his father, he was adopted by Emperor Antoninus Pius and gave him the name Marcus Elius Aurelius Verus Caesar. Marcus Aurelius received an excellent education at home. Diognet taught him philosophy and painting. According to Mark himself, Diognetus freed him from superstitions. He forced him to practice writing and thinking, and write dialogues. Under the influence of the philosophical treatises he read, Mark began to sleep on bare boards and cover himself with animal skin.

Almost nothing is known about the life of Marcus Aurelius up to 161. “After the death of Emperor Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius was proclaimed emperor in 161. He immediately asked the Senate to grant equal powers to Antoninus Pius's other adopted son, Lucius (Lucius Verus (161–169)). This was the first case of a joint principate in the Roman Empire.”(1) During the period of joint rule, the final word belonged to Mark Antony. Lucius Verus was distinguished by his penchant for wild life.

The entire reign of Marcus Aurelius was accompanied by a number of military conflicts: an uprising in Britain; attack by the Germanic Hutt tribe; the capture of Armenia by the Parthians. In addition to wars, the empire was undermined by other disasters. Thus, returning from the victory over Mesopotamia, the troops brought a deadly epidemic into the empire, which claimed the lives of many people. Then came other disasters: famine, floods, earthquakes. Difficult times for the fading empire and its emperor!

Paradox: Marcus Aurelius was prone to reflection all his life, but spent most of his reign on military campaigns

“In 169 Lucius Verus died, and Marcus Aurelius remained sole ruler. From 170 to 174 he was with the active army on the Danube, fighting with the Marcomanni and Quadi. In 175, the governor of Syria, commander Gaius Avidius Cassius, who had the broadest powers in the East, took advantage of rumors about the death of Marcus Aurelius and declared himself emperor. The rebellion was quickly suppressed, Cassius was killed, but the emperor was forced to leave the Danube region, satisfied with the conquests achieved. The Romans invited barbarian tribes to settle in the empty lands north of the Danube, demanding from them only the protection of Roman borders. These were the first steps towards settling the remote borders of the empire with foreigners.

Marcus Aurelius returned to Rome in 176. He carefully monitored the actions of the local administration and paid much attention to legislative reform and tax collection. Supported traditional Roman religion as an important part of the state system.

In 177 Marcus Aurelius made the son of Commodus his co-ruler and again set out on the Danube border. There, in 180, Marcus Aurelius died suddenly (possibly from the plague). This was the last of the “five good emperors” in Rome.”(2)

The reign of Marcus Aurelius was called the last “golden age” of Rome. The Romans did not see off any of their emperors on their last journey with such sorrow and respect. The people were sure that after his death Marcus Aurelius returned to the abode of the Gods.

Historian Ilya Barabash wrote about the emperor’s reign: “His commands outraged many of his compatriots. Why! He sends gladiators to war so that they do not die senselessly while the crowd screams. He orders mats to be laid under the equipment for the gymnasts’ performances. He's depriving the Romans of spectacle! He is too merciful towards slaves and poor children. And it demands too much from the powers that be! He is not treacherous even towards enemies and even for the sake of military victories. He’s crazy!.. And he’s just a philosopher, a Stoic philosopher, who believes that man is essentially free and no problems can force him to act against his conscience.”(3)

Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

Marcus Aurelius was one of the last representatives of the Late Stoa. His only work, his philosophical diary, is “To Myself.” In this work, he appears before us as both a wise teacher and an attentive student. His thoughts focused on practical ethics, epistemology and, to a lesser extent, cosmology. “Happiness lies in virtue - philosophical agreement with universal reason. We need to turn “to ourselves,” to conform our rational principle (which is the only one in “our power”) with the nature of the whole and thus gain “dispassion.” Everything is predetermined from time immemorial; the sage takes fate for granted and loves his lot. However, the philosopher is interested in justifying the autonomy of moral choice. Virtue must be subject to a causality other than natural phenomena: a person must make himself worthy of divine help. What brings Marcus Aurelius closer to Seneca, Epictetus, as well as to the Christian teachings are calls for humanity, for caring for the soul, for awareness of one’s sinfulness.”(6)

I believe that Judgment can be considered key for Stoic philosophers Marcus Aurelius Antoninus: “Love the humble work that you have learned, and rest in it. And go through the rest, wholeheartedly entrusting everything that is yours to the gods, and making no one from among the people either your master or your slave.” He considered the main goal in life to be search and self-improvement, and this search is based on human self-sufficiency. All people, according to this philosophy, are equal. Marcus Aurelius considers everything that happens in the world as a manifestation of nature, which is God - an active, intelligent principle, passing through the whole world and uniting it into a single whole. A person must actively cooperate with the world, that is, with God, because in the world everything happens according to its natural laws. This is the principle of acceptance or generosity. Marcus Aurelius considered. that activity for the benefit of people - in any, even the simplest and most ordinary matter - lifts, elevates a person, gives him happiness. After all, happiness, according to the Stoics, is life in harmony with nature, adaptation to environmental conditions, reasonable self-preservation, peace of mind and freedom from passions. And it was Marcus Aurelius who wrote the words: “If you cannot change your circumstances, change your attitude towards them.”

These thoughts are continued by the following judgment: “If circumstances seem to force you into confusion, quickly retreat into yourself, without retreating from the harmony more than you are forced to, because you are more likely to master consonance by constantly returning to it.”

According to the philosopher, if insoluble problems arise in the external environment, a person must look for a way out of the situation within himself. It is useless to pour out your feelings outside, to seek help from others, this will not help, but will only aggravate the problem. The inner, spiritual world of a person is the source for any development. You need to talk through the problem within yourself, look at it from different angles, get used to it, and a way out will be found. So in music - a complex consonance, disturbing the soul and difficult to reproduce, must penetrate the thinking and feelings, fill a person from the inside. And then a person will easily master it. “Be strong within yourself. A rational leader is by nature self-sufficient if he acts fairly and thereby remains silent,” says Marcus Aurelius in his diary. 3. The cardinal virtues (according to the Stoic philosophers)

“The Stoics recognize four cardinal virtues : rationality, moderation, justice and valor. The main virtue in Stoic ethics is the ability to live in accordance with reason. The basis of Stoic ethics is the assertion that one should not look for the causes of human problems in the external world, since this is only an external manifestation of what is happening in the human soul. Man is part of the great Universe, he is connected with everything that exists in it and lives according to its laws. Therefore, man’s problems and failures arise due to the fact that he is divorced from Nature, from the Divine world. He needs to meet Nature, God, and himself again. And to meet God means to learn to see the manifestation of Divine Providence in everything. It should be remembered that many things in the world do not depend on a person, but he can change his attitude towards them.”(8)

Conclusion

List of sources used

INTRODUCTION

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius was always imbued with a feeling of gratitude to the people to whom he considered himself indebted.

Fascinated by Stoicism, Mark would become the greatest admirer and admirer of the philosophy of Epictetus. Apparently, therefore, over time, only two outstanding personalities in Roman Stoicism will be named - these are Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the latter who learned the importance of philosophical thoughts written by the Stoic Epictetus, realizing from his notes that it was necessary to correct and heal his character. Marcus Aurelius was even glad that, due to his acquaintance with Epictetus’s notes, he did not turn into sophistry, into the analysis of syllogisms, and did not study extraterrestrial phenomena. Moreover, he was glad that he did not believe the tales of sorcerers and wizards, setting philosophy as his goal.

The philosophy of Marcus Aurelius had a great influence on Christianity, although the emperor himself brutally persecuted Christians.

The revolution accomplished by the Stoics in philosophy can be called the fact that the indifferent attitude of the Stoic sage to the world around him (including the social one) penetrates more deeply into the innermost depths of his own “I”, thus revealing in his personality a whole universe previously completely unknown and inaccessible to him. In the “Meditations” of Marcus Aurelius, the maximum depth of self-awareness and devotion accessible to ancient man was apparently achieved. Without this discovery of the “inner world” of man, accomplished by the Stoics, the victory of Christianity would hardly have been possible. Therefore, Roman Stoicism can be called, in a certain sense, as a consideration of the “preparatory school” of Christianity, and the Stoics themselves as “seekers of God.”

MAIN IDEAS OF MARCUS AURELIUS

The universe is governed by the mind that is God

In a rationally ordered universe, everything that happens is not only necessary, but also good.

Human happiness lies in living in harmony with nature and reason.

Although an individual's actions are causally determined, he achieves freedom by acting rationally.

The bad actions of others do not harm us; rather, we are harmed by our opinions about these actions.

All sentient beings are subject to the law of nature and are thus citizens of a universal state.

A rational individual should not be afraid of death, since it is a natural event of life.

WORLDVIEW OF MARCUS AURELIUS

The philosophy of Marcus Aurelius arose from a feeling of constant struggle with the outside world, with thoughts within oneself, taking all the vicissitudes of fate for granted.

Because of this, Marcus Aurelius’s heightened sense of melancholy increases to an incredible degree the appeal to the deity and faith in divine revelation. One of the most remarkable aspects of the personality of Marcus Aurelius: he could not be further from any utopias and he consciously rejects them. Philosophy remains the law of life, but the philosopher must understand all the imperfections of human material, all the extreme slowness of people’s assimilation of the highest moral and intellectual truths, all the enormous power of resistance contained in historical life. The concept of fate presented a problem for Stoic philosophy. If, as Mark recognized, the universe is governed by reason and, because of this, everything that happens is definitely going to happen this way and not otherwise, then is there any room left for human freedom? Mark resolves this issue by making a subtle distinction. If we understand freedom as a choice between equally open alternatives, then such freedom, of course, does not exist. But freedom also has another meaning: to accept everything that happens as part of a good world order and to respond to events with reason, and not with emotions. An individual who lives in this way, Mark insists, is a truly free person. Such a person is not only free, but also righteous. Since the rationality of the universe is the basis of his goodness, everything that happens in the universe should only strengthen this goodness. Consequently, a rational person, accepting events, not only responds to external good, but also makes a personal contribution to the value of the world as a whole.

Mark was a theist, for he constantly speaks of God in terms that imply the existence of a good cosmic mind.

Mark shares the Stoic theory of immortality. According to this view, the history of the cosmos develops not linearly, but cyclically. This doctrine is often called the doctrine of “eternal recurrence.”

Being rational beings, we are also subject to a higher law - the law of nature. This law applies to each of us, no matter what the society in which we live. According to natural law, all people are equal, whether you are an emperor, a slave, or anyone else. Therefore, it is true that, as rational beings, all people are members of one state, governed by the same laws. Mark’s famous thesis reads: “I am Antoninus, and my fatherland is Rome; I am a man, and my fatherland is the world.”

Marcus Aurelius says the following about man: I am flesh, breath and the body, soul, mind that leads them; body - sensations, soul - aspirations, mind - principles. Man received all this from nature and therefore can be considered its creation. I consist of the causal and the material, says Marcus Aurelius. No one has anything of their own, but both your body and your very soul came from there. Everyone's mind is God and originates from there.

According to Marcus Aurelius, it is natural for a person to do good, to do it instinctively, unconsciously, and not demand any rewards for it.

Marcus Aurelius, at the same time, recognized some unshakable values: “Righteous thoughts, generally useful activity, speech incapable of lies, and a spiritual mood that joyfully accepts everything that happens as necessary, as foreseen, as arising from a common principle and source.” Thus, the philosopher tragically combined courage and disappointment.

The Stoic ideal of the sage Marcus Aurelius expressed this way: “Be like a rock against which the waves are constantly striking: it stands, and the swollen waters around it do not subside.”

Teachings of Marcus Aurelius. Work plan. Sayings and thoughts of Marcus Aurelius

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