The man who is a priest of the god within
Read the full text in our reader
ὁ γάρ τοι ἀνὴρ ὁ τοιοῦτος, οὐκέτι ὑπερτιθέμενος τὸ ὡς ἐν ἀρίστοις ἤδη εἶναι, ἱερεύς τίς ἐστι καὶ ὑπουργὸς θεῶν, χρώμενος καὶ τῷ ἔνδον ἱδρυμένῳ αὐτῷ, ὃ παρέχεται τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἄχραντον ἡδονῶν, ἄτρωτον ὑπὸ παντὸς πόνου, πάσης ὕβρεως ἀνέπαφον, πάσης ἀναίσθητον πονηρίας, ἀθλητὴν ἄθλου τοῦ μεγίστου, τοῦ ὑπὸ μηδενὸς πάθους καταβληθῆναι, δικαιοσύνῃ βεβαμμένον εἰς βάθος, ἀσπαζόμενον μὲν ἐξ ὅλης τῆς ψυχῆς τὰ συμβαίνοντα καὶ ἀπονεμόμενα πάντα, μὴ πολλάκις δὲ μηδὲ χωρὶς μεγάλης καὶ κοινωφελοῦς ἀνάγκης φανταζόμενον τί ποτε ἄλλος λέγει ἢ πράσσει ἢ διανοεῖται. μόνα γὰρ τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πρὸς ἐνέργειαν † ἔχει καὶ τὰ ἑαυτῷ ἐκ τῶν ὅλων συγκλωθόμενα διηνεκῶς ἐννοεῖ κἀκεῖνα μὲν καλὰ παρέχεται, ταῦτα δὲ ἀγαθὰ εἶναι πέπεισται· ἡ γὰρ ἑκάστῳ νεμομένη μοῖρα συνεμφέρεταί τε καὶ συνεμφέρει.
Such a man, no longer deferring his standing among the best, is a kind of priest and minister of the gods, making use also of what sits enthroned within him — which keeps a man unstained by pleasure, unwounded by any pain, untouched by any outrage, insensible to all wickedness — an athlete in the greatest contest, that of not being overthrown by any passion, dyed deep in justice, welcoming with his whole soul all that happens and is allotted to him, and not often, nor without great and public necessity, imagining what someone else says or does or thinks. For only his own affairs he keeps ready for action, and continually reflects on what is spun for him out of the Whole; those he renders beautiful, while these he is convinced are good — for the lot allotted to each is borne along with him, and bears him along.
Closing the run of portraits in Meditations 3.4, Marcus describes the fully disciplined man: no longer aspiring to virtue but possessing it, he serves as priest and minister of the divine faculty enthroned within him, untouched by pleasure, pain, or the opinions of others, and at peace with whatever fate spins for him out of the Whole.
This passage crowns the sequence of self-portraits running through Meditations 3.4, and it does something Marcus rarely allows himself: it describes the finished man rather than the man still striving. He is no longer "postponing" his place among the best (ὑπερτιθέμενος) — the virtue is achieved, not aspired to — and the figure Marcus reaches for is priestly: ἱερεύς τις καὶ ὑπουργὸς θεῶν, one who serves the god already seated within him. That inward god is the ἡγεμονικόν under another name, and the string of alpha-privative adjectives that follows — ἄχραντον, ἄτρωτον, ἀνέπαφον, ἀναίσθητον — builds toward ἀπάθεια not as numbness but as a kind of ritual purity, a man kept clean by attending the god he houses. The athletic image, ἀθλητὴν ἄθλου τοῦ μεγίστου, recasts moral effort as the one contest that matters, where the opponent is πάθος itself and the only way to lose is to be thrown by feeling.
The second half turns from the man's inward constitution to his stance toward fate, and the real undercurrent of the passage is there: freedom from consequence requires freedom from other people's business. The clause μὴ πολλάκις... φανταζόμενον τί ποτε ἄλλος λέγει ἢ πράσσει ἢ διανοεῖται treats watching what others say, do, or think as a leak in attention, not a neutral curiosity — precisely the vice Marcus diagnoses at length in 4.18 and returns to with the "eight things" of 9.42. What is properly his own turns out to include his portion of the cosmic weave, τὰ ἑαυτῷ ἐκ τῶν ὅλων συγκλωθόμενα, the destiny spun for him by the Whole. The closing near-tautology, συνεμφέρεταί τε καὶ συνεμφέρει, is not padding but the passage's real claim: his allotted fate is not a fixed rope pulling him along from outside but a shared motion — it is borne along with him and bears him along in turn, acceptance and agency folded into a single verb, used twice.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Meditations 3.4.3 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the Meditations — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Meditations 3.4.3 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/meditations-greek/3.4.3/