ENGLISH COMMENTARY
parenthetical; Marcus is not condemning the Christians, he is only illustrating a point by an example which has a poignant interest to us.
The words 'sheer opposition' have sometimes been translated 'mere perversity', applying the younger Pliny's famous phrase used in describing to Trajan the opposition of his Christian subjects in Bithynia.[1] Marcus means unreasoned resistance, and that implies stubbornness, whether in a good cause or a bad.
The most eloquent and impartial comment upon this text is the noble passage in Mill, On Liberty;[2] the sentiment of a reader is exquisitely phrased by Matthew Arnold:[3] 'What an affinity for Christianity had this persecutor of the Christians! The effusion of Christianity, its relieving tears, its happy self-sacrifice, were the very element, one feels, for which his soul longed; they were near him, they brushed him, he touched them, he passed them by.'
Chs. 4–5. The first of these brief chapters serves to illustrate the saying in ch. 1, that the soul garners its own fruit. Action for the sake of others is its own reward; there is a joy to the Self in fulfilling its own law.
Chapter 5 reiterates the truth that the soul makes itself what it will. This it does by the guidance of general principles of two kinds, the one referring to the natural law of the Universe, the other to the true character of man's constitution.
The word art is used, in the manner of Plato and Aristotle, to embrace activity guided by virtuous ends, the arts being in general the adaptation of given material to ideal purposes. The word may have been specially chosen here, as it was in v. 1, because Marcus has been reflecting upon the likeness and contrast between moral activity and the arts of relaxation and amusement.
Ch. 6. At first sight ch. 6 seems out of place, but its introduction here may perhaps be explained on the ground that the writer wishes to illustrate the parallel between the artist's presentation of life and actual life. Drama is the most striking instance of an art which handles reality in a manner which is a pretence.
