Reverence of the daemon

Commentary on Meditations 2.13

Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations 2.13 is the first place in Meditations where the Roman emperor speaks of the daemon.

Let’s read the passage then discuss the meaning of the Stoic daemon and guardian spirit. Did you know you had one?

2.13

Nothing is more wretched than a man who goes around and around, and pries into the things beneath the earth, as the poet says, and lives by guessing what is in the mind of his neighbors, without perceiving that it is sufficient to attend to the daemon within him, and to revere it sincerely.

And reverence of the daemon consists in keeping it pure from passion and thoughtlessness, and dissatisfaction with what comes from gods and men.

For the things from the gods merit veneration for their excellence; and the things from men should be dear to us by reason of kinship; and sometimes even, in a manner, they move our pity by reason of men’s ignorance of good and bad; this defect being not less than that which deprives us of the power of distinguishing things that are white and black.

Notes

Here we see familiar themes. We must examine our thoughts – not the thoughts of our neighbors or we must do our duty and not avoid it and go around “prying into things beneath the earth.”

Why? In order to revere the daemon inside us.

Well, what is that?