The Pagan Good Life

Aristotle, though a Greek, made many good points. Even medieval Christians such as Aquinas referred to him as The Philosopher in their writings. For Aristotle, his disciples and those who followed him, the chief question of philosophy was practical; how do I live? The right answer, it was felt, would yield the good life.

To ancient common sense, man pales in comparison with the gods. He is mortal; he is limited in wealth and gifts; he grows old and ugly; he is liable to all manner of shortcomings (intellectual and ethical); he must labour and strive to know. The gods are subject to none of these things and, insofar as they are not human, they are happy. Despite human frailty, man does have some consolation in that his ability to know, although it requires toil, does ultimately yield, for the philosopher, an ability to comprehend things as do the gods. The highest form of life - of the quest for pleasure, the quest for success and the quest for knowledge - is the quest for knowledge, for which only a few persons are fitted.

For the virtuous pagan, human limitations are a given, but they must be overcome or limited, where possible. The happy man will be just, wise and moderately prosperous, largely at peace with his fellow men, with suitable leisure to boot. He will not be ruled by any single passion, save for arete (excellence) and, unlike the mere Stoic, he will feel his happiness and not just believe himself happy. His life is one in which thought and action are combined in a stable, though not necessarily unerring course. He returns thanks to the gods and to others who have been his just beneficiaries. He also forgets and lets go of all burdens that are pointless, or which betray his orientation towards knowledge.

Such men, to us, are the Priests of Jupiter. The orientation towards beatitude (i.e. the life of the gods) does not, crucially, depend on the gods actually existing, as does Christianity. Rather, devotion to knowledge, whether acquired informally or through formal education, also yields (naturally) a devotion to teaching and the propagation of truth. He is beneficient towards his fellow creatures, taking from them only what is rightly owed him. In them is devotion to the gods, their fellow men and themselves perfectly, for his search for perfection benefits them all in due proportion.

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