Has anyone read Marcus Aurelius, Meditations?
Hi Helen. You have hit it exactly right. When Aurelius committed his meditations to writing, for the guidance of his son, he was summing up the state of thought in the Roman world. He was a stoic, but the thoughts of the stoics heavily influenced Christianity as it spread through the empire and helped it get a grip in the higher classes of society. The ideas of self-restraint, modesty and treating all as equals were the same as Christianity was espousing. The stoics also had no problem imposing and using authority, so long as it was done in a positive way, and this more than anything penetrated Christian thought and helped impose a heirarchy within the nascent church that had not been there before (and has caused us a lot of trouble since!). Constantine took both philosophies, being a product of both (a stoic who had read Aurelius and who converted to Christianity), into the meeting that codified the faith at Nicaea. It was there that the orthodox church first took shape. So yes, Aurel
