"In the beginning God." So it might well be said of the leading ideas of Epictetus. This is indeed the central thought of his system, from which all other ideas have been thrown off, like planets from the sun. To ignore this or to minimize it is at the outset to misunderstand the great Stoic, while rightly to apprehend this is to find ready entrance into the mind of Epictetus. So he himself says: " We are first to learn that God is."...
The supreme witness to the being of God is found, not in the laws and phenomena of external nature, but in the mind and constitution of man. For into man God has put a portion of Himself. " You are a fragment of God, you have in yourself something that is a part of Him." The moral nature of man testifies to the being of God...
In other words, the moral nature of man functions through the organ of his intellect; and that intellect must be trained: howbeit, that moral nature which thus functions is itself the presence of God in the soul of man. Thus Epictetus anticipates modern thought; and the words of Martineau seem an echo of the thought of the great Stoic: " The revelation of authority, this knowledge of the better, this inward conscience, this moral ideality — call it what you will — is the presence of God in man."...
No easy-going faith is here however. For if there is a Providence, the implications are weighty. If there is a Providence, then to blame God is to dethrone Him. Like Job, the Stoic must stalwartly refuse to " curse God." All judgment and criticism must be withheld. Hence submission and resignation have a large place in the teaching of Epictetus. As the educated person does not spell words as he happens to wish, but spells them as they should be spelled; so the man who is morally educated submits joyfully to Providence...
Epictetus was fully aware that without "a moral and pious life," formal acts of worship count for nought; but he also knew that the godly life craves expression in worship. " Had we but understanding, should we ever cease hymning and blessing the Divine Power, both openly and in secret, and telling of His gracious gifts? . . . and upon you, too, I call to join in this selfsame hymn." Yet this worship must be no vague nor vain thing. For it must kindle in man the passionate desire to become, so far as in him lies, like unto Him whom he worships. "If the Deity is faithful, he too must be faithful; if free, beneficent, and exalted, he must be so; and, in all his words and actions, behave as an imitator of God."
Blessings
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