Marcus Aurelius hated the gladiatorial games. He despised the violence and the pointlessness of it. But it was part of his job to attend them, so he did his best to distract himself with a book–often to the bemusement of the crowd. When he was emperor, he tried to give the gladiators wooden swords so they wouldn’t hurt each other. Seneca found the violence disturbing too, as he was wary of anything the mob loved.
Yet both Seneca and Marcus Aurelius understood the power of the metaphor–which is why allusions to the games are threaded through their works. They knew that life was a battle. They felt that the philosopher belonged in the arena. They knew that surviving, winning, depended on training and courage and tenacity. They didn’t live long enough to read Boswell, but they would have appreciated his description of the mental facilities of his muse and hero Samuel Johnson–what Marcus called the command center–through the imagery of what Marcus and Seneca saw first hand.
“His mind resembled a vast amphitheater, the Coliseum at Rome,” Boswell said, “In the center stood his judgment, which, like a mighty gladiator, combated those apprehensions that, like the wild beasts of the arena, were all around in cells, ready to be let out upon him. After a conflict, he drove them back into their dens; but not killing them, they were still assailing him.”
We don’t have to revel in combat sports to understand that we are in our own desperate fight. We are fighting against false impressions. We’re fighting against destructive emotions like greed and fear and envy and prejudice. We’re fighting against our lower self in order to reach that higher plane, that one worthy of being cheered and celebrated. It’s a fight that happens day in and day out, one that never really ends.
We’ll never “win” but we can be great in our brief moment in the arena. We can be mighty as we fight back the beasts that are let out upon us.
We can win. People of faith have a higher power than just mastery of self (which is a great thing in and of itself). The fight is not alone when you turn to a Higher Power, be it a nebulous Higher Power, the God of the Patriarchs & Covenant, the Holy Trinity or some other Great Spirit or spirits that you believe exist. For Disciples of the Master they believe that the Master has entered the ring, tasted defeat and rose victorious. He is both Lord of the Broken and Triumphant. Sermonizing done - keep fighting the good fight!
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
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XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
