Meditations, Book XII · 28

Marcus Aurelius

Book XII · 28

To those who ask, Where hast thou seen the gods, or how dost thou comprehend that they exist and so worshippest them, I answer, in the first place, they may be seen even with the eyes;⁸ in the second place, neither have I seen even my own soul, and yet I honor it. Thus then with respect to the gods, from what I constantly experience of their power, from this I comprehend that they exist, and I venerate them.

Translator’s notes

"Seen even with the eyes." It is supposed that this may be explained by the Stoic doctrine, that the universe is a god or living being ( iv. 40), and that the celestial bodies are gods ( viii. 19). But the emperor may mean that we know that the gods exist, as he afterwards states it, because we see what they do; as we know that man has intellectual powers, because we see what he does, and in no other way do we know it. This passage then will agree with the passage in the Epistle to the Romans ( i. v. 20), and with the Epistle to the Colossians ( i. v. 15), in which Jesus Christ is named "the image of the invisible god;" and with the passage in the Gospel of St. John ( xiv. v. 9). Gataker, whose notes are a wonderful collection of learning, and all of it sound and good, quotes a passage of Calvin which is founded on St. Paul's language (Rom. i. v. 20): "God by creating the universe [or world, mundum], being himself invisible, has presented himself to our eyes conspicuously in a certain visible form." He also quotes Seneca (De Benef. iv. c. 8): "Quocunque te flexeris, ibi illum videbis occurrentem tibi: nihil ab illo vacat, opus suum ipse implet." Compare also Cicero, De Senectute (c. 22), Xenophon's Cyropaedia ( viii. 7), and Mem. iv. 3; also Epictetus, i. 6, de Providentia. I think that my interpretation of Antoninus is right. ↩

If any ask, Where hast thou seen the Gods or how hast thou satisfied thyself of their existence that thou art so devout a worshipper? I answer: In the first place, they are even visible to the eyes. In the next, I have not seen my own soul either, yet I honour it. So then from the continual proofs of their power I am assured that Gods also exist and I reverence them.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations XII.28. Translated by George Long (1862). The Stoic Library.