"When Your Time Comes To Die..."
How often have we said or heard other people say, “The only things you can be sure of are death and taxes”? When we say this we generally don’t quite mean it. It is something that slips off the tongue when Income Tax Returns are due or when disappointment strikes. Generally it is life and how to live it that most concerns us.
But all of us will die! We know this. Nevertheless it is a crushing fact to many—fully accepted only by some—common to us all.
In flights of fancy we may deny what is inexorably in store for us. But if we are to be healthy individuals we must realize that such flights are fantasy. If we are to discover life’s deepest meanings we must deal with the realities of suffering and death. Medical science may alleviate the suffering and prolong life, but in time death will come. In all of our days we may try to push this night of lifelessness from our minds. We may seek to avoid writing the last chapter of our life history, but the final page will be written on the pulp of our substance.
Man alone of all the animals knows that he will die. How can he best face this knowledge? He needs examples in living and in dying that will strengthen and expand his understanding and acceptance of the last great human experience. He needs the courage that great men and women of the past can bring to him.
The lives and writings of such noble persons remain fresh and exciting throughout the centuries. What they say to human need is never out of date.
One such person was a lowly man about whose life we know relatively little…whose real name we don’t even know. He is known to history as Epictetus, which means “bought” or “acquired.” He was a Greek slave in the home of Epaphroditus, the secretary of the Roman Emperor, Nero.
Many great men have short autobiographies. Their real life is in their works. Although, as far as we know, Epictetus wrote nothing, his sayings carefully recorded by Flavius Arrianus, the historian of Alexander the Great. Arrianus, or Arrian as he is better known, tells us in his Preface to the Discourses of Epictetus:
“Whatever I heard him say, the same I attempted to write down in his own words as nearly as possible, for the purpose of preserving them as memorials to myself afterwards of the thoughts and freedom of speech of Epictetus.”
We are fortunate that just as Socrates had his Plato, Epictetus had his Arrian.
There is a wealth of strength and resources to be gained from the Discourses and Manual of Epictetus. He may not be able to fill completely the cups of our need, but he has much to give—and what he has, all may receive. He lived strictly according to his philosophy and what he says has a vital power which could have been attained by no other means. It is a power which offers courage and strength in the face of death.
But Epictetus’ approach to death grows out of his approach to life. To understand it we should first try to catch the flavor of the good life as he sees it. What he says is bold and clear for he has little patience with vague metaphysical abstractions. Consider this statement about right action:
“When you do anything from a clear judgment that it ought to be done, never shun the being seen to do it, even though the world should make a wrong supposition about it; for if you do not act right, shun the action itself; but if you do, why are you afraid of those who censure wrongly?”
Epictetus holds that happiness can be found by anyone who can control his own will. He believes that one should always be in complete control of his emotions and that a strong will can help one conquer pain. An example of this comes from the tradition about his life. Several writers have said that he was treated brutally as a young slave. His master is said to have tortured him on one occasion by placing his leg in some horrible instrument and twisting it little by little. According to the story, Epictetus, as the pain became excruciating, spoke quietly and said, “If you go on you will break it.” The torture continued—the bones of his leg snapped—and Epictetus, without a murmur of agony, said gently, “I told you that you would break it.” We may hope that this story is not true for other authorities tell us that he became lame through sickness or was lame from birth. Nevertheless, the fact that this account was believed by many, and has survived to be handed down to us may give us some insight into the character of Epictetus—his quiet heroism and strength of will.
This kind of personal strength served as a foundation upon which Epictetus constructed a common sense philosophy of life and of man’s relation to man. He asserted his belief in positive moral and ethical action quite clearly. His teaching represents some of the highest in Pagan religious thought and it has had a tremendous influence upon religion and ethics. The early Christian Church was so impressed with his ethics that versions of his Manual were recommended for use in monastic groups. Of course, in these versions Christian names were substituted for Pagan names.
Epictetus even advances beyond Christianity. He denounces slavery. He condemns capital punishment, and he would have us treat criminals as sick men. He advises the following as a sort of Golden Rule: “What you shun to suffer, do not make others suffer.”
An indication of his humanity is to be found in many of the anecdotes he relates. One of them is about a poor suffering pirate. Some person had seen a shipwrecked pirate near the point of death and took pity on him. He carried him home and clothed him and furnished him with food and shelter. Somebody reproached him for doing good to such a wicked man and he answered, “I have honoured not the man, but humanity in his person.”
Such is the concern of Epictetus for right living. But what does he have to say about death? We don’t know the circumstances of his death, but we do know that he was once banished. In 89 A.D., under an edict of the Emperor, Domitian, against the philosophers, Epictetus was exiled from Rome and from Italy. How would he have taken this? Judging by the approval with which he tells about Agrippinus, I should think quite calmly. While the cause of Aggripinus was being judged in the Roman Senate, he went about his daily routine as if nothing concerning his future were happening. As he returned from bathing he was informed that he had been condemned. “To death or banishment?” he asked. “To banishment,” replied the messenger. “Is my propery confiscated?” he continued quietly. “No.” “Very well, then let us go as far as Aricia and dine there.”
Would Epictetus have us face death with this same calm acceptance? Perhaps the answer will become apparent as we see just what death means to this gently Stoic philosopher.
It certainly means a change he tells us. He speaks of the ears of corn that are reaped. He talks about falling autumn leaves and dried figs taking the face of green figs, and raisins made from grapes. Then he says in these words:
“All these things are changes from a former state into other states; not a destruction, but a certain fixed economy and administration…such is death, a greater change, not from the state which now is to that which is not, but to that which is not now. Shall I then no longer exist? You will not exist, but you will be something else, of which the world now has need: for you also come into existence not when you choose, but when the world has need of you.”
When we die the elements of which we are composed return to the universe from which they came. Our bodies, as bodies, eventually cease to exist. Our souls pass out of existence as well, for what we call the soul has no existence apart from the body.
That is the way Epictetus views the physical facts of life and death. He believes the things which happen to men are not as disturbing as the opinions they have about things: For example—there is nothing disturbing or terrible about death. If death itself were terrible it would have seemed so to Socrates. Socrates is another man we might look to as an exemplar of courage. Epictetus refers to him often and has great respect for him.
These words of Socrates, as he stood before his judges, a condemned man, could well be found on the lips of Epictetus. Socrates speaks about death:
“Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of hi who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night.”
Perhaps few of us would view death as gain, but we can find a measure of freedom from torment in such words. Epictetus says the fears we have about death are like tragic masks. Just as children are frightened by what seems terrible in masks through inexperience, we are fearful of all kinds of events, some real, but most imagined—and we are fearful of death for the same reason.
“We need not fear death,” he says, for “there is no Hades, no fabled rivers of Sighs, of Lamentations, or of fire…courage then ought to be employed against death, and caution against the fear of death.”
Paul Tillich, one of the century’s most creative minds, and an outstanding theologian, would have us face this basic anxiety about life and death with courage. He tells us that every being, every person, strives to preserve the space he occupies, be it his body or “a piece of soil”—his home or nation or the world. He also wishes to preserve his “social space”—“a sphere of influence,” a “place in remembrance”—“a place in the structure of values and meanings.” “Not to have space is not to be.” “Everything finite,” he says, (and we are all finite) “is innately anxious that is substance will be lost.” People through the centuries have postulated some kind of immortality of the substance of the soul because the knowledge that we have to die “anticipates the complete loss of identity” with ourselves. These arguments for the so-called immortality of the soul are wrong, says Tillich, but the anxiety they express cannot be silenced. Again, what is needed is courage. Tillich puts it this way: “Courage accepts the threat of losing individual substance and the substance of being generally.”
In a situation where we know death is to come soon, and there is no way to prevent it, what kind of courage is needed? Epictetus gives this example: He is on a ship and a storm comes. The ship is sinking. The master of the ship is doing all he can to avert disaster. “What have I to do?” asks Epictetus. “I do the only thing that I can, not to be drowned full of fear, nor screaming nor blaming God, but knowing that what has been produced must also perish: for I am not an immortal being, but a man, a part of the whole, as the house is a part of the day: I must be present like the hour, and past like the hour.”
It takes unusual courage to face what lies beyond the human power to change. But an emancipated religion can contribute much to morality in its courage and commitment in the face of the inevitable. No special revelation of vision is necessary to produce such an attitude. Epictetus hold this attitude along with countless others in the pages of history and literature. We find it at the conclusion of Homer’s Iliad, a work very familiar to Epictetus.
It is in the midst of the brutal and foolish Trojan War. Priam, king of Troy and father of the slain Hector, comes to Achilles to beg for the return of the body of his son:
“Think of your father (says Priam) who is such even as I am, on the threshold of old age…Think of your own father and have compassion upon me, who am the more pitiable, for I have steeled myself as no man has ever steeled himself before me, and have raised to my lips the hand of him who slew my son.”
Achilles was deeply moves and the two men wept bitterly. “But when Achilles was now sated with grief and had unburdened the bitterness of his sorrow he left his seat and raised the old man by the hand…Then he said: “Unhappy man, you have indeed been greatly daring…Sit now upon this seat, and for all our grief we will hid our sorrows in our hearts, for weeping will not avail us…bear up against it and let there be some intervals in your sorrow. Mourn as you may for your brave son, you will take nothing by it. You cannot raise him from the dead.”
Then Achilles has Hector’s body washed and anointed and placed upon a bier to be returned to Priam.
“Sir,” he said, “your son is now laid upon this bier and is ransomed according to your desire. You shall look upon him when you take him away at daybreak; for the present let us prepare our supper.” This may sound heartless, but is it really? Grief is something all of us have known or will know. The psychiatrists tell us that it is good to express our grief. We should not bottle up such emotions inside. But having mourned, we should not hold ourselves in bondage to the deceased. A difficult readjustment is ahead, but it must be made. The dead do not suffer. They are gone, but their influence lives on. It touches the hearts of those who remain and can help to build a better future.
Chances are, we will not be able to choose what we would be doing when death comes to us. I’d like to read what Epictetus has to say about this:
“Do you not know that both disease and death must surprise us while we are doing something? The husbandman while he is tilling the ground, the sailor while he is on his voyage? What would you be doing when death surprises you?”
“I for my part would wish to be found doing (some deed of true humanity), beneficent, suitable to the general interest, noble. But if I cannot be found doing things so great, I would be found doing at least that which I cannot be hindered from doing, that which is permitted me to do, correcting myself, cultivating the faculty which makes use of the senses, (laboring at tranquility of mind), rendering to the relations of life their due…”
“I would be found engaged in the task of liberating mine own will from the assaults of passion, from hindrance, from resentment, from slavery.”
“Such I would were the subject of my thoughts, my pen, my study, when death overtakes me.” “…What life is better or more becoming than that of a man who is in this state of mind? And what is more happy?”
