Political Uses of Stoic Theology: A Commentary on Med. VI, 44

Abstract

The debate on whether it is appropriate to draw a parallel between the Meditations and the legal and political activity of their author has led historiography to put forward various hypotheses on the philosophical affiliation of Marcus Aurelius. Taking these previous works into account, we wonder how to approach the passage Med. VI, 44, in which Marcus Aurelius wonders about divine providence. The theme seems to take up a debate typical of Hellenistic philosophy with a typically Stoic vocabulary and approach, but its purpose is no longer merely theological, nor does its position follow the orthodoxy of this school. The Stoic inspiration allows him to defend the demand for religious wordship by means of institutionalised rites, even if philosophically the existence of the divinity cannot be concluded with certainty.  In order to achieve this aim, he reproduces the position of Ciceronian Cota, who, in De natura deorum, represents the position of the supreme pontiff who must protect religious rites and the philosopher who seeks a theoretical foundation to facilitate their defence. In this way, Marcus Aurelius, like Cicero before him, politicises in the service of Rome a debate that was initially confined to theology.