with Reason (for those only are by their nature fitted to hold
communion with God, being by means of Reason conjoined with Him)
--why should not such an one call himself a citizen of the world?
Why not a son of God? Why should he fear aught that comes to pass
among men? Shall kinship with Caesar, or any other of the great
at Rome, be enough to hedge men around with safety and
consideration, without a thought of apprehension: while to have
God for our Maker, and Father, and Kinsman, shall not this set us
free from sorrows and fears?

XVII

I do not think that an old fellow like me need have been
sitting here to try and prevent your entertaining abject notions
of yourselves, and talking of yourselves in an abject and ignoble
way: but to prevent there being by chance among you any such
young men as, after recognising their kindred to the Gods, and
their bondage in these chains of the body and its manifold
necessities, should desire to cast them off as burdens too
grievous to be borne, and depart their true kindred. This is the
struggle in which your Master and Teacher, were he worthy of the
name, should be engaged. You would come to me and say:
"Epictetus, we can no longer endure being chained to this
wretched body, giving food and drink and rest and purification:
aye, and for its sake forced to be subservient to this man and
that. Are these not things indifferent and nothing to us? Is it
not true that death is no evil? Are we not in a manner kinsmen of
the Gods, and have we not come from them? Let us depart thither,
whence we came: let us be freed from these chains that confine
and press us down. Here are thieves and robbers and tribunals:
and they that are called tyrants, who deem that they have after a
fashion power over us, because of the miserable body and what
appertains to it. Let us show them that they have power over
none."

XVIII

And to this I reply:--
"Friends, wait for God. When He gives the signal, and
releases you from this service, then depart to Him. But for the
present, endure to dwell in the place wherein He hath assigned
you your post. Short indeed is the time of your habitation
therein, and easy to those that are minded. What tyrant, what
robber, what tribunals have any terrors for those who thus esteem
the body and all that belong to it as of no account? Stay; depart
not rashly hence!"

XIX

Something like that is what should pass between a teacher