Meditations IV.23
All that is in tune with thee, O Universe,39 is in tune with me! Nothing that is in due time for thee is too early or too late for me! All that thy seasons bring, O Nature, is fruit for me! All things come from thee, subsist in thee, go back to thee.40 There is one who says Dear City of Cecrops41! Wilt thou not say O dear City of Zeus?
- 39.Nature, God, and the Universe were identical in the Stoic creed; see Seneca’s Natural Questions ii. 45.
In Natural Questions ii. 45 Seneca says that the supreme god may rightly be called fate, providence, nature, or the world.
- 40.St. Paul, Romans xi. 36: ἐξ αὐτοῦ δι’ αὐτοῦ εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ πάντα.
The Greek of Romans 11:36, in the King James rendering: “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things.”
- 41.Seemingly a Fragment from Aristophanes.
Cecrops was, in legend, the first king of Attica, so the “City of Cecrops” is Athens. Marcus answers the line with “O dear City of Zeus,” the universe as the single city of the Stoics.