Meditations VII.22

It is a man’s especial privilege²⁶ to love even those who stumble. And this love follows as soon as thou reflectest that they are of kin to thee and that they do wrong involuntarily and through ignorance,²⁷ and that within a little while both they and thou will be dead²⁸; and this, above all, that the man has done thee no hurt²⁹; for he has not made thy ruling Reason worse than it was before.

• 26.Fronto’s letter to Verus, ii. 2: Hominis maxime proprium ignoscere. Compare St. Matthew v. 44; Dio’s Roman History 71. 26, § 2.

  Fronto’s Latin, in translation: “forgiveness is most proper to man.” Matthew 5:44 has “Love your enemies”; the Dio passage is the speech on the revolt of Avidius Cassius, in which Marcus hopes to be able to pardon him.

• 27.Compare St. Luke xxiii. 34.

  Luke 23:34 has “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (King James).

• 28.See iv. 6.
• 29.See ii. 1; ix. 38.