ENGLISH COMMENTARY
sens étonnante et c'est cette profondeur qui en fait l'obscurité.' Its meaning becomes clearer in the light of the closing words of xi. 20.
Ch. 2. The arts, like dancing and acting, are incomplete in their separate phases (ch. 1. 1), whereas moral activity is entire at any moment. He adds that the attraction and illusion of the arts may be destroyed by analysis of the whole into its elements (iii. 11; vi. 13). The object of Marcus is to correct that susceptibility to artistic emotion which impedes a life dedicated to action:
Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?[1]
With a 'happy inconsistency' Marcus adds that although the same analysis will demonstrate the pettiness of all parts of life, it is not to be applied to virtuous activities. Should he not have said that analysis cannot touch virtue since that rests upon the unity of self-consciousness which was emphasized in ch. 1?
Marcus' attitude here is in striking contrast to what he has said in iii. 2 and iv. 20 of the intrinsic character of the beautiful.
Ch. 3. The little worth of life leads to the consideration of what a soul prepared for death must be like. He is thinking of voluntary death as well as of death in the course of Nature, and so contrasts the right philosophic attitude with the enthusiasm for martyrdom exhibited by some of the Stoics, as well as by the Christians, whom he takes as examples of those who chose death on grounds of private judgement.
This, the only explicit mention of the Christians in the Meditations, has provoked much discussion. Some are for cancelling the words as a marginal note which has intruded into the text. Others have tried to remove from the history of Marcus' reign the few but significant traditions of Christian suffering for the Faith. Some have supposed that the Emperor made this note with direct reference to the martyrdoms at Lyon and Vienne (circa a.d. 177).[2]
The most noteworthy point is the implication that the attitude of some Christians at least was so familiar as to be almost proverbial. This is more striking than the easily understood failure of the Emperor to sympathize with the infant Church. The remark is
