In the 170’s, in the evenings, as campfires were burning along the Danube river, after a hard day of fighting against the Germanic tribes that threatened Rome’s northern frontier, Marcus Aurelius made notes in his journal.  Marcus Aurelius, last emperor of the Pax Romana, and perhaps the greatest of Rome’s emperors, wrote not about tactics, the events of the day, billetings, homesickness, the weather, or any of the other things generals keep a log of.  His notes, which may or may not have been intended for others, were about ethics, about wisdom, about living in balance with the ordered universe.  Although trained to be emperor at least from the age of 17, he did not love the trappings of power.  Although trained as a Stoic, he was influenced by many schools of thought.  Although a persecutor of Christians (who were in violation of Roman Law), the vocabulary and sensibilities of his Meditations often correspond with New Testament thought.

I read in the Meditations almost every day, and reread a quote the other day that sounded as if John had written it.  In Meditations 12.31, he writes that what is more important than “breathing, feeling, desiring, growing, speaking, thinking,”  is “to follow the logos, to follow God to the end.”  I include his exact word logos, because he wrote his journal in Greek, not in Latin, and because this word (which means “word,” and from which we derive the word “logic”), is so important to John’s gospel.

“Follow the logos, follow God to the end,” he writes, and readers have often wondered if he means that the logos is God, or that the logos explains God, reveals him.  He could mean both or either, and be consistent with what he has already written.  John says that both are true – the logos is God, and the logos reveals God.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

No one has seen God at any time.  The only begotten of God who is in the bosom of the Father has revealed him.   John 1.1,14,18

There is a sadness in the Meditations which stems, I believe, from the impersonal stance he believes a good man is required to take.  Marcus’ stoicism taught him self-denial, detachment, and that finality of death to which all are headed.  He ends his journal, shortly before his own death by reminding himself not to wish for longer life:

You’ve lived as a citizen of a great city – for five years or a hundred, what is the difference? To be sent away not by a tyrant, or a dishonest judge, but by Nature, who first invited you in – why is that terrible?  (Your life) is fixed by the Power that directed your creation, and now directs your dissolution.  Neither was yours to determine. So exit with grace, the same grace that was shown to you.

Paul, in Romans 1.18-23, argues that there are certain, self-evident things about God that a Gentile could perceive from observing the order of creation – namely that God is, and that he should be honored as God.  Marcus has perceived this and so much more.  He understood that God determines our beginning and ending, that our responsibility is to humbly submit to Him, and that He is revealed by the Word.  What he didn’t get, and what I’m sure he would have had he had an hour of philosophical conversation with Irenaeus, or some other able Christian, is that the Word became flesh.

The logos is not something abstract, not the engineering plan of the universe, but a Person.  It is God himself.  This fact brings not detachment, and denial, but fellowship and fulfillment.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love; just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.  These things I have spoken to you that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full. John 15.10-11

I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full.  John 10.10

Jesus said to the scribe who correctly identified the greatest commandments, that he was not far from the kingdom of God (Mark 12.34).  The Apostle Paul, when speaking to the philosophers gathered on the Areopagus in Athens he was able to identify several truths they already knew to build upon, and preach the gospel (Acts 17.16ff).  The people we share our days with – the denominational people, those unattached to a particular religious group, those doubters, even those avowed “secular humanists” we read so much about, have realized some true things – perhaps many true things. But without Jesus, there is that truth lacking which harmonizes all, connects us to each other and to God, and gives us fulfillment now and forever.

We, who seek to share the truth, are thus reminded of the need we address, and of the place we may begin.  Follow the Word, follow God to the end.