The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

by Ward Farnsworth

A last perspective: if you receive an insult that is wrongful, you may consider it to have been directed at someone else – the person you were thought to be. It was a case of mistaken identity. This was Joseph Addison’s interpretation of the Stoic stance in a paraphrase of Epictetus that he devised.

Does a man reproach thee for being proud or ill-natured, envious or conceited, ignorant or detracting? Consider with thy self whether his reproaches are true; if they are not, consider that thou art not the person whom he reproaches, but that he reviles an imaginary being, and perhaps loves what thou really art, tho he hates what thou appearest to be. If his reproaches are true, if thou art the envious ill-natur’d man he takes thee for, give thy self another turn, become mild, affable and obliging, and his reproaches of thee naturally cease: his reproaches may indeed continue, but thou art no longer the person whom he reproaches. Addison, The Spectator no. 355 (1712)

13. Empathy and forgiveness. Beyond viewing antagonists as disabled by bad judgment, the Stoic meets them with empathy. This starts with the idea that those who give offense are seeking to do right by their own lights. Nobody wants to be wrong. “Every soul is deprived of truth against its will” – and is likewise deprived against its will of justice, self-control, kindness, and everything of the kind. It is necessary to keep this in mind always, because it will make you milder toward everyone else. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.63

Whenever someone does you a wrong or speaks ill of you, remember that he is doing what he thinks is proper. He can’t possibly be guided by what appears right to you, but only by what appears right to him. So if he sees things wrongly, he is the one who is hurt, because he is the one who has been deceived. . . . Starting from this reasoning, you will be mild toward whoever insults you. Say each time, “So it seemed to him.” Epictetus, Enchiridion 42

The Stoics mean to correct our preoccupation with the past and future; they regard the time we pour into memories, hopes, and fears to be mostly ill-spent (though not always, as we shall see). They also regard us as unconscious of the value of time generally. We give it away lightly, and waste it with less alarm than we waste money, though time is more valuable in the end. The Stoics’ analysis of time resembles their more general view of intangible costs and benefits, which this chapter will consider as well. We overrate money and undervalue time, just as we overrate material goods and the approval of others while undervaluing the gains we get by forgoing them. Stoics look at many things that way.

Our errors of valuation continue with respect to ourselves and others. We overlook faults in ourselves but find them easily in those around us. Recognizing this is an encouragement to forgiveness. What another has done that annoys you is probably no worse than what you have done on another day. But the point is also subtler: we condemn in others precisely what we detest but cannot see in ourselves; we project our faults onto them. So the Stoic works hard for self-knowledge and makes unhesitant confessions of weakness.

There is a parallel between the Stoic analysis of our mistakes in judging time and our mistakes in judging material things. Chapter 5 discussed the difficulty of being satisfied with anything once it belongs to us. The present moment fails to satisfy in a similar way. We worry and plan in the same spirit that we crave the next acquisition; whatever we look forward to, whether it be the future or some new object, looks more appealing than it ever quite turns out to be once it arrives. The Stoic holds that satisfaction can better be found by making peace with what we have than by chasing what we don’t, and by paying attention to the present rather than by dwelling on the past and the future.

Present time is very short – so short, indeed, that for some it seems not to exist. It is always in motion, it flows and hurries on; it ceases to be before it arrives. Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 10.6 Keep this in mind, that each of us lives only this present and indivisible moment. Everything else has either already been lived or is uncertain. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.10 Stoic reflections on the present are usually more practical, though. They seek to address the bad habit of burdening the mind with worry about the future. Part of the argument is that imaginings of the past and future are harder to bear than the present moment tends to be. The present is always tolerable. Do not disturb yourself by imagining your whole life at once. Don’t always be thinking about what sufferings, and how many, might possibly befall you. Ask instead, in each present circumstance: “What is there about this that is unendurable and unbearable?” You will be embarrassed to answer. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.36 Memory recalls the torments of fear, and foresight anticipates them. It is only the present that makes no one wretched. Seneca, Epistles 5.9

Apart from the refuge the present moment provides from imagined troubles, it is the only place where actual living occurs. By spending our thoughts on the future, we fail to attend to what is happening now and so fail to live.

Just as the same chain joins the prisoner and the guard, so do these two things, which are so dissimilar, keep pace with each other: fear follows hope. I do not find this surprising. Each is the mark of a mind in suspense, a mind troubled by awaiting the future. The principal cause of either hope or fear is that we do not adapt ourselves to the present, but send our thoughts far ahead. Thus foresight – the greatest blessing of the human condition – is turned into an evil. Seneca, Epistles 5.7–8

Schopenhauer’s rendition of the Stoic point: Those who strive and hope and live only in the future, always looking ahead and impatiently anticipating what is coming, as something which will make them happy when they get it, are, in spite of their very clever airs, exactly like those donkeys one sees in Italy, whose pace may be hurried by fixing a stick on their heads with a wisp of hay at the end of it; this is always just in front of them, and they keep on trying to get it. Such people are in a constant state of illusion as to their whole existence; they go on living ad interim, until at last they die. Instead, therefore, of always thinking about our plans and anxiously looking to the future, or of giving ourselves up to regret for the past, we should never forget that the present is the only reality, the only certainty; that the future almost always turns out contrary to our expectations; that the past, too, was very different from what we suppose it to have been. But the past and the future are, on the whole, of less consequence than we think. Distance, which makes objects look small to the outward eye, makes them look big to the eye of thought. The present alone is true and actual; it is the only time which possesses full reality, and our existence lies in it exclusively. Schopenhauer, Our Relation to Ourselves (1851)

The man who is only happy with present things sets narrow limits to his enjoyment. Both the future and the past can delight us – one in anticipation, the other in memory – but one is uncertain and may not happen, while the other cannot fail to have been. What madness it is, therefore, to lose our grip on that which is the surest thing of all! Seneca, Epistles 99.5 In that last passage, from a letter on the subject of grief, Seneca is advising the bereaved to value their memories. So he does not say that recollection of the past should be avoided on principle. He discourages the recollection of the bad but encourages happy memories, for they help us. The Stoic goal is not just to see time accurately but to make good use of it – the past as well as the present.

Really like this; make good use of everything for the virtuously endeavor of tranquility of the mind.

It was just a moment ago that I sat, as a lad, in the school of the philosopher Sotion, just a moment ago that I began to argue cases in the courts, just a moment ago that I lost the desire to argue them, just a moment ago that I lost the ability. The swiftness of time is infinite – something that appears more clearly to people looking backwards. It escapes the notice of those focused on the present, so gentle is the passage of its headlong flight. Do you ask the reason? All bygone time is in the same place; it looks the same, it lies together. Everything falls into the same abyss. Seneca, Epistles 49.2–3

Inattention to time leads to waste of it. To make the point, Seneca introduces a favorite theme: comparisons of time to material wealth. Life as we receive it is not short, but we make it so; nor do we have any lack of it, but we are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner – while wealth, however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases with use – so our life is amply long for him who orders it properly. Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 1.4

Seneca viewed time as the most valuable thing we own – really the only thing. Yet we guard it with none of the care we apply to our property. To lose some cash is alarming to anyone; to lose some time is alarming to few. None will be found willing to distribute their money to others; but among how many others do each of us distribute our lives! Men are tight-fisted in guarding their fortunes, but extravagant when it comes to wasting time – the one thing about which it is right to be greedy. Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 3.1 Our stupidity can be seen by this, that we only think we have bought those things for which we pay cash, while we regard as free those things for which we expend our very selves. Things that we would never be willing to buy if we had to give our house in exchange, or some attractive and productive estate, we are fully prepared to attain at the cost of anxiety, danger, lost honor, lost freedom, and lost time – for we treat nothing as cheaper than ourselves. Seneca, Epistles 42.7

If we fail to grasp that time is more important than money, for example, we might compare the distress typically felt by those who are running out of each. No one values time; everyone spends it extravagantly, as if it were free. But see how these same people clasp the knees of physicians if they fall ill and the danger of death draws nearer; see how ready they are, if threatened with capital punishment, to spend all that they have to live longer! Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 8.2

If each of us could have the number of our future years set before us, as we can with the years that have passed, how alarmed we would be, and how sparing of them, if we saw only a few remaining! And while it is easy to manage something when the amount you have is known, even if it is small, you must guard what you have more carefully if you don’t know when it may give out. Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 8.3 These views lead to particular alarm at the prospect of one’s time being lightly seized by another. I am often amazed when I see some nagging others for their time, and those who are asked so indulgent. Each of them is looking at the object for which the time is sought, neither of them at the time itself, as if nothing were being asked and nothing given. Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 8.1

This is why I lost my lamp: because a thief was better than I am at staying awake. But he bought the lamp at a high price. In return he became a thief, he became untrustworthy, he became an animal. This seemed to him a good bargain! Epictetus, Discourses 1.29.21

When you see someone often wearing the robe of office, or someone whose name is famous in the Forum, do not be envious; those things are bought at the cost of one’s life. Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 20.1

So whenever we hear someone say that our affairs are insignificant and woefully minor because we are not consuls or governors, we may reply, “Our affairs are splendid and our life is enviable: we do not beg, or carry burdens, or flatter.” Plutarch, On Tranquility of Mind 10 (470f–471a)

before envying others, ask whether you would accept an offer to pay what they did to get what they have. I find that most of the time we envy others for their wealth, honor, and privilege; but if someone were to say to us, “You can have the same amount that they have for the same price,” we would not want it. For in order to have these things that they do, we must flatter, we must endure insult and injury, we must give up our freedoms. du Vair, The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics (1585)

5. Self-knowledge; humility. We turn to another family of self-deceptions: those involving our own qualities. Stoicism, as we have seen at many points, is a humble philosophy. It starts with candid assessment of one’s own flaws and foolishness. As the Stoic sees it, a confession of weakness is not weakness; it is the way to wisdom. The beginning of philosophy – at least for those who take hold of it in the right way, and through the front door – is an awareness of one’s own weakness and incapacity when it comes to the most important things. Epictetus, Discourses 2.11.1 Epicurus expressed the idea as a maxim: The knowledge of error is the beginning of deliverance. Epicurus, in Seneca, Epistles 28.9

It’s not my fault that I’m irritable, that I haven’t yet decided on a settled way of life – that’s just my youth.”

The trouble with fear, first, is that it multiplies our problems. If something will be bad when it arrives later, we increase its effects when we pull them into the present by fearing them. Why suffer twice? If foolishness fears some evil, it is burdened by the anticipation of it, just as if the evil had already come. What it fears lest it suffer, it suffers already through fear. . . . What then is more insane than to be tortured by things yet to be – not to save your strength for actual suffering, but to summon and accelerate your wretchedness? You should put it off if you cannot be rid of it. Seneca, Epistles 74.32–34 And fear does more than bring misfortunes forward. It tends to overdraw them. There are more things, Lucilius, that frighten us than affect us; we suffer more often in conjecture than in reality. . . . We magnify our sorrow, or we imagine it, or we get ahead of it. Seneca, Epistles 13.4–5

In addition to causing us to endure twice, or many times, what might have been endured once, fear spoils the enjoyment of the present. The pain of whatever is coming is not here yet, so we can’t feel it unless we impose it on ourselves by thinking about it. As discussed in the previous chapter, meanwhile, what is here is probably bearable. It is ruinous when a mind is worried about the future, wretched before its wretchedness begins, anxious that it may forever hold on to the things that bring it pleasure. For such a mind will never be at rest, and in awaiting the future it loses sight of what it might have enjoyed in the present. The fear of losing a thing is as bad as regret at having lost it. Seneca, Epistles 98.6

Reason considers nothing but the question at issue; anger is moved by trifling things that lie outside the case. An overconfident demeanor, a voice too loud, unrestrained speech, overrefined attire, over-solicitous advocacy, popularity with the public – anger is inflamed by all of them. Many times it will condemn the accused because it hates his lawyer; even if the truth is piled up before its very eyes, it loves error and upholds it; it refuses to be convinced, and counts persistence in what is wrongly begun to be more honorable than penitence. Seneca, On Anger 1.18.2

Still you are indignant and complain, and you don’t understand that in all the evils to which you refer, there is really only one – that you are indignant and complain. Seneca, Epistles 96.1 Nothing is heavy if we take it lightly; nothing need provoke anger if one does not add one’s anger to it. Seneca, Epistles 123.1

It is not what men do that disturbs us (for those acts are matters of their own control and reasoning), but our opinions of what they do. Take away those opinions – dismiss your judgment that this is something terrible – and your anger goes away as well. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.18

Believe me, these things that incense us not a little are little things, like the trifles that drive children to quarrels and blows. Not one of them, though we take them so tragically, is a serious matter; not one is important. That is where your anger and madness come from, I tell you – the fact that you attach such value to trifles. Seneca, On Anger 3.34.1–2

“On your view,” he says, “a brave man will expose himself to dangers.” Not at all: he will not fear them, but he will avoid them. Caution suits him, not fear. Seneca, Epistles 85.26

Stoics view adversity, or developments contrary to one’s wishes, as misjudged in various ways we can now consider. Adversity is a raw material needed for building strong things. To adjust the comparison: an unwanted card has been dealt, or the dice have come up a certain way; the Stoic goal is to avoid even the feeling of “oh, no” wherever possible on these occasions, and to replace it with sentiments closer to “now what?” or “let’s see what can be done with this.” The work of life is to turn whatever happens to constructive ends. That is the most important Stoic idea about adversity, and a theme to which all of its authors contribute, often with metaphors.

By the aid of philosophy you will live not unpleasantly, for you will learn to extract pleasure from all places and things. Wealth will make you happy, because it will enable you to benefit many; and poverty, as you will then have few things to worry about; and glory, as it will make you honored; and obscurity, for you will then be safe from envy. Plutarch, On Virtue and Vice 4 (101d–e)

Plutarch had a funny way of expressing this. This then we should practice and work on first of all – like the man who threw a stone at his dog but missed and hit his stepmother. “Not so bad!” he said. For it is possible to change what we get out of things that do not go as we wish. Diogenes was driven into exile: “Not so bad!” – for it was after his banishment that he took up philosophy. Plutarch, On Tranquility of Mind 6 (467c) 9. Point of view. As we have seen elsewhere, much of Stoicism amounts to the art of perspective – that is, of finding the most useful point of view from which to look at anything that happens. The Stoic learns to see things from angles more helpful than the self-centered one that we are prone to use without reflection. As another example, Stoics respond to their own adversities by asking what they think when the same things happen to others. If your neighbor’s slave has broken his wine cup, it is common to say right away that “These things happen.” When your own cup is broken, your reaction should obviously be the same as when the neighbor’s cup was broken. Apply the same idea to more important things. Someone else’s child has died, or his wife: there is no one who wouldn’t say, “This is our human lot.” Yet when someone’s own child dies, right away it’s “Woe to me, how wretched I am!” We have to remember how we feel when we hear the same thing about others. Epictetus, Enchiridion 26

In days of peace the soldier performs maneuvers, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and is wearied by unnecessary toil, in order that he may be equal to that which is necessary. If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes. Such is the course those men have followed who, in their imitation of poverty, have every month left themselves almost destitute, that they might never recoil from what they had often rehearsed. Seneca, Epistles 18.6

Much of Stoicism involves stripping externals of illusion and gaining detachment from them. But of course Stoicism has an affirmative side as well, which many would regard as its most central and important idea: the pursuit of virtue. This topic could have come at the start of the book. It appears here instead because the Stoic meaning of virtue follows in part from lessons that by now we have considered. Virtue is the natural result of an accurate use of reason; reason is the distinct gift that sets humanity apart from animals, so the purpose of human life must be found there. Earlier chapters have shown us much of what reason means to the Stoics. For one thing – and most relevant here – it should cause us to accurately see our individual insignificance (a theme of Chapter 3); and from this we might infer our corresponding place in the world, which is to function faithfully as parts of a whole.

Seneca, in turn, elaborated on the tranquility, or peace of mind, associated with virtue: What we want to discover, then, is how the mind may always maintain an even and favorable course, may be well-disposed toward itself, may be happy in contemplating its own condition, and may have this happiness without interruption – how it can stay calmly in that position, never carrying itself off and never cast down. This will be peace of mind. Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind 2.4

4. Consistency. The Stoics had a test for virtue, and perhaps a shortcut to it: consistency. Consistency sounds like a quality that has nothing to do with substance; it might seem as easy to be consistently bad (or wrong) as consistently virtuous. But consider the relationship between consistency and the openness of thought and action described in the previous section. True consistency would mean always thinking the same thing is right and never deviating from it. It also would mean acting and thinking the same way in all settings – in public, at home, and alone, never phony; for phoniness may accurately enough be described not only as dishonesty but as a form of inconsistency. Someone who managed to be consistent in the senses just described would, the Stoic suggests, inevitably be virtuous. To abandon the old definitions of wisdom and use one that covers the whole range of human life, I can be content with this: What is wisdom? To always want the same things and reject the same things. No need to add that little qualification, “so long as what you want is right” – since one could not always be pleased with the same thing if it were not right. Seneca, Epistles 20.5 This is how a foolish mind is most clearly shown: it appears now as one thing, now as another, and – worst of all, in my opinion – it does not appear as itself. Believe me, it is a great thing to act as just one person. Seneca, Epistles 120.19, 22

If we were able to examine the mind of a good man, what a beautiful sight we should see: how pure, how astonishing in its noble calm – bright with justice and strength, with moderation and wisdom. In addition to these, thrift and moderation and endurance, kindness and affability, even humanity – a quality, hard as this is to believe, rarely encountered in humans – would add their own brilliance. Seneca, Epistles 115.3

We have seen Seneca and Marcus Aurelius refer to the value of compassion. That is a nuanced topic for the Stoics. Their philosophy calls for a felt sense that all of humanity are their relations. It also calls for help to those who need it. But the Stoic does not favor compassion in the different sense of feeling sorry for other people and making their sadness one’s own – that is, becoming despondent because others are despondent. Seneca’s position was that good Stoics will do all that would be done by anyone who feels pity for others, but that they will not feel the pity themselves; pity is considered a form of distress that serves no purpose and impairs good judgment. Sorrow is not suited to seeing things accurately, to understanding how to get things done, to avoiding dangers, or to knowing what is just. So the wise man will not indulge in pity, because there cannot be pity without mental suffering. All else that those who feel pity are inclined do, he will do gladly and with an elevated spirit; he will bring relief to another’s tears, but will not add his own. To the shipwrecked man he will give a hand; he will give shelter to the exile, and charity to those in need. Seneca, On Mercy 2.6.1–2

Seneca kindly supplied a model of the daily accounting to oneself suggested above: See that you don’t do that again; I’ll pardon you this time. In that discussion you spoke too aggressively. After this, don’t get into arguments with ignorant people. If they’ve never learned, they don’t want to learn. You criticized that one fellow more candidly than you should have; as a result you didn’t correct him, you just offended him. From here on, watch out – not so much that what you’re saying is true, but that the person you’re talking to can stand the truth. Seneca, On Anger 3.36.4

The advice here given is on a par with a rule recommended by Pythagoras – to review, every night before going to sleep, what we have done during the day. To live at random, in the hurly-burly of business or pleasure, without ever reflecting upon the past – to go on, as it were, pulling cotton off the reel of life – is to have no clear idea of what we are about; and a man who lives in this state will have chaos in his emotions and certain confusion in his thoughts; as is soon manifest by the abrupt and fragmentary character of his conversation, which becomes a kind of mincemeat. Schopenhauer, Our Relation to Ourselves (1851)

Begin the morning by saying to yourself: today I will meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, and the arrogant; with the deceitful, the envious, and the unsocial. All these things result from their not knowing what is good and what is evil. But I have seen the nature of the good – that it is beautiful; and the nature of evil, and that it is ugly; and the nature of him who does wrong, and that he is akin to me – not because he is from the same blood and seed, but because he partakes of the same mind and the same small bit of divinity. I cannot be injured by any of them, because no one can involve me in anything ugly except myself. And how can I be angry with my kin, or hateful towards them? Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.1

Canopus was a city of the coast of Egypt; Baiæ was a town in the southwest part of modern-day Italy (near Naples). Both were ancient resort areas famous for debauchery. Notwithstanding the challenge presented by such places, the usual attitude of the Stoics is skepticism about the importance of being in one place rather than another. They regard life as lived in the mind more than at any physical site, and view the appetite for new locations as arising from the same source as the appetite for other new things: our sensibilities are too dull to appreciate what is around us already.

The Stoic is less interested in changes of scenery than in changes of the self, and regards the first as unlikely to be pleasing without the second. How can the sight of new countries give you pleasure? Getting to know cities and places? That agitation of yours turns out to be useless. Do you want to know why your running away doesn’t help? You take yourself along. Your mental burden must be put down before any place will satisfy you. Seneca, Epistles 28.2

And Plutarch used a similar example as an analogy to describe superficial changes of all kinds that don’t help us. Like people at sea who are cowardly and seasick and think that they would get through this voyage more comfortably if they should transfer from their little boat to a ship, and then again from the ship to a man-of-war; but they accomplish nothing by the changes, since they carry their nausea and cowardice along with them; in the same way, changing one’s way of life for its opposite will not relieve the mind of the things that cause it grief and distress. These are ignorance of affairs, thoughtlessness, the inability (and the not knowing how) to make proper use of what is at hand. These are the defects which, like a storm at sea, torment rich and poor alike, that afflict the married as well as the unmarried; because of these, men avoid public life, then find their life of quiet unbearable; because of these, men seek advancement at court, by which, when they have gained it, they are immediately bored. Plutarch, On Tranquility of Mind 3 (466b–466c)

Solitude, in itself, does not teach integrity, nor does the countryside give lessons in moderation; but those vices whose object is show and display will subside where no witness or onlooker remains. Who puts on the purple robe when he has no one to show it to? Who serves a single dinner on a golden plate? . . . No one is elegant just for their own benefit, or even for a few close friends; we set out the implements of our vices in proportion to the crowd there to see them. So it is: the stimulus of all our extravagance is the complicit admirer. You will cause us not to desire things if you keep us from showing them off. Ambition and luxury and lack of restraint all need a stage: you will heal them if you are kept from view. Seneca, Epistles 94.69–71

They say that Crates – a disciple of that Stilpo I mentioned in an earlier letter – when he saw a young man walking by himself, asked him what he was doing there alone. “I am conversing with myself,” he said. To which Crates replied, “Watch out, I beg of you, and listen carefully: you are conversing with a bad man.”. . . No ignorant person should be left alone. That is when they make bad plans and create future troubles, either for others or for themselves; it’s when they organize their ignominious desires. Whatever the mind once concealed, whether from fear or from shame, it now reveals: it sharpens boldness, stimulates lust, goads anger. Seneca, Epistles 10.1–2

On the dangers of bad company: A man who frequently consorts with certain others, whether for conversation, for banquets, or just generally for good fellowship, must either become like them or else change them along his own lines. For if you put a charcoal that has gone out next to one that is burning, either the first will extinguish the second or the second will ignite the first. Since the danger is so great, we should enter very cautiously into social relations of this sort with laymen, and remember that it is impossible for the man who rubs up against someone covered with soot to avoid getting the benefit of some soot himself. Epictetus, Discourses 3.16.1–3

The Stoic shouldn’t avoid the crowd, then, but has to maintain a careful relationship to it. Epictetus takes a benevolent view of massed humanity, comparing it to pleasing masses of farm animals. If you find yourself in a crowd – say a contest, or a festival, or a holiday – try to enjoy it with the others. For what could be a more agreeable sight, if you love your fellow man, than a number of them? When we see herds of horses or oxen, we are pleased; when we see a fleet of many ships, we are delighted; when we see many men, who will find it distressing? Epictetus, Discourses 4.4.26–27 Seneca sought a moderate approach to the crowd. Sometimes this is found by alternation. The two things must be combined and taken by turns: solitude and the multitude. The former will leave us with a longing for the society of others, the latter for our own, and one will be the remedy for the other. Solitude will cure our aversion to the crowd; the crowd, the boredom of solitude. Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind 17.3

The bold course is to remain dry and sober when the crowd is drunk and vomiting. The alternative is more moderate: not holding yourself aloof and making yourself conspicuous – not mingling with the crowd, either – but doing the same things, just not in the same way. Seneca, Epistles 18.4