So wise and good a man, perhaps, ought to have known the
Christians better; but, not knowing them, he cannot be stigmatized as a
cruel man. How different the fortunes of the Church had Aurelius been
the first Christian emperor instead of Constantine! Or, had his wife
Faustina known the Christians as well as Marcia the mistress of
Commodus, perhaps the persecution might not have happened,--and perhaps
it might. Earnest and sincere men have often proved intolerant when
their peculiar doctrines have been assailed,--like Athanasius and St.
Bernard. A Stoical philosopher was trained, like a doctor of the Jewish
Sandhedrim, in a certain intellectual pride.

The fame of Marcus Aurelius rests, as it has been said, on his
philosophical reflections, as his "Meditations" attest. This remarkable
book has come down to us, while most of the annals of the age have
perished; so that even Niebuhr confesses that he knows less of the reign
of Marcus Aurelius than of the early kings of Rome. Perhaps that is one
reason why Gibbon begins his history with later emperors. But the
"Meditations" of the good emperor survive, like the writings of
Epictetus, St. Augustine, and Thomas a Kempis: one of the few immortal
books,--immortal, in this case, not for artistic excellence, like the
writings of Thucydides and Tacitus, but for the loftiness of thoughts
alone; so precious that the saints of the Middle Ages secretly preserved
them as in accord with their own experiences. It is from these
"Meditations" that we derive our best knowledge of Marcus Aurelius. They
reveal the man,--and a man of sorrows, as the truly great are apt to be,
when brought in contact with a world of wickedness, as were Alfred
and Dante.

In these "Meditations" there is a striking resemblance to the discourses
of Epictetus, which alike reveal the lofty and yet sorrowful soul, and
are among the most valuable fragments which have come down from Pagan
antiquity; and this is remarkable, since Epictetus was a Phrygian slave,
of the lowest parentage. He belonged to the secretary and companion of
Nero, whose name was Epaphroditus, and who treated this poor Phrygian
with great cruelty. And yet, what is very singular, the master caused
the slave to be indoctrinated in the Stoical philosophy, on account of a
rare intelligence which commanded respect. He was finally manumitted,
but lived all his life in the deepest poverty, to which he attached no
more importance than Socrates did at Ath