Note 69 — Chapter XIV · THE LATER AGE OF THE GREEK WORLD PART I PHILOSOPHY

It is very rarely that the utterances of the Emperor on the subject of what happens after death resemble those of a convinced Stoic of the old school. The souls are all parts of the one νοερὰ ψυχή of the world which though extended over so many individual souls yet remains a unity (ix, 8; xii, 30). After death the individual soul will survive for a period in the air until it is merged into the universal soul εἰς τὸν τῶν ὅλων σπερματικὸν λόγον (iv, 21). This implies the survival of the personal self for an undefined period, but it is not a fixed conviction of M. Ant. As a rule he allows the choice between σβέσις ἢ μετάστασις, i.e. immediate extinction and merging of the individual soul (Panait.) or its removal into a temporary abode of the souls in the air (αἱ εἰς τὸν ἀέρα μεθιστάμεναι ψυχαί, iv, 21; cf. v, 53). Or else the choice is between σβέσις, μετάστασις (both in agreement with the Stoic doctrine of the ἕνωσις of the soul) or σκεδασμός of the soul-elements, in case the atomists are right (vii, 32; viii, 25; vi, 24)—a dilemma which really comes down to σκεδασμός or σβέσις (= ληφθῆναι εἰς τοὺς κόσμου σπερματικοὺς λόγους); and μετάστασις falls out. This is probably the meaning also of x, 7: ἤτοι σκεδασμὸς στοιχείων ἢ τροπή (in which τὸ πνευματικόν disappears εἰς τὸ ἀερῶδες) and τροπή only of the last πνευματικόν that man preserves in himself: for here (at the end of the chapter) the identity of the individual soul with itself is given up in the Herakleitean manner (see above, p. 370). Sometimes the choice is presented between ἀναισθησία or ἕτερος βίος after death (iii, 3) or αἴσθησις ἑτεροία in an ἀλλοῖον ζῷον (viii, 58). This is no allusion to metempsychosis (in which the envelope into which the soul goes is another but its αἴσθησις does not become ἑτεροία): it means the turning of the soul-pneuma, exhaled in death, to new forms of life united to the previous forms by no identity of soul-personality. In this case we can indeed say τοῦ ζῆν οὐ παύσῃ: but there can be no idea of the survival of the personal ego. ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις exchanges and redistributes its elements; all things are changing (viii, 6; ix, 28). The Emperor never seriously thinks of the survival of personality; he seeks rather to inquire why things are as they are; but he never doubts that as a matter of fact even the noblest of mankind must also “go out” completely with death (xii, 5). Everything changes and one thing perishes to make way for another (xii, 21); and so each man must say to himself μετ’ οὐ πολὺ οὐδεὶς οὐδαμοῦ ἔσῃ (xii, 21; viii, 5). The wise man will say it with calmness: his soul is ἕτοιμος ἐὰν ἤδη ἀπολυθῆναι δέῃ τοῦ σώματος . . . xi, 3. Living among men to whom his way of thought is strange (ἐν τῇ διαφωνίᾳ τῆς συμβιώσεως) he sighs at times θᾶττον ἔλθοις, ὦ θάνατε . . . ix, 3; cf. Bonhöffer, Epikt. u. d. Stoa, 59 ff.