Meditations II.3
Full of Providence are the works of the Gods, nor are Fortune’s works independent of Nature or of the woven texture and interlacement of all that is under the control of Providence. Thence6 are all things derived7; but Necessity too plays its part and the Welfare of the whole Universe of which thou art a portion. But good for every part of Nature is that which the Nature of the Whole brings about, and which goes to preserve it. Now it is the changes not only of the elements but of the things compounded of them that preserve the Universe. Let these reflections suffice thee, if thou hold them as principles. But away with thy thirst for books,8 that thou mayest die not murmuring but with a good grace, truly and from thy heart grateful to the Gods.
- 6.See vi. 36; xii. 26.
- 7.Referred to by Arethas on Dio Chrysostom’s Orations 32. 15 as πάντα ἄνωθεν ῥεῖ. Compare St. James, Epistle i. 17.
Arethas, a Cappadocian bishop of about 900, knew the Meditations and refers to it in marginal notes on Lucian; Haines’s Introduction attributes the similar notes on Dio Chrysostom, such as this one, “possibly” to him as well. The note quotes the passage as panta anōthen rhei, “all things flow from above.” Dio Chrysostom, the “golden-mouthed,” was a Greek orator and philosopher, not to be confused with the historian Cassius Dio. The epistle of James (1:17) has “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.”
- 8.See ii. 2.