Humanitext Reader

Marcus Aurelius · Meditations §4.14.1

Dissolution into the Seminal Reason of the Universe

Passage 64 of 486 · Greek

Summary

Explains that a human exists as a part of the whole and will, through change, be resolved and absorbed back into the seminal reason of the universe that produced them.

§4.14.1Ἐνυπέστης ὡς μέρος.
You existed as a part.
ἐναφανισθήσῃ τῷ γεννήσαντι· μᾶλλον δὲ ἀναληφθήσῃ εἰς τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ τὸν σπερματικὸν κατὰ μεταβολήν.
You will vanish into that which produced you; or rather, you will be received back into its seminal reason through change.

Notes

  1. §4.14.1Ἐνυπέστης — Second-person singular aorist of ἐνυφίστημι (to exist in, to come to subsist in). It implies that the individual came to have a distinct existence 'as a part' (μέρος) within the larger whole of the universe.
  2. §4.14.1τῷ γεννήσαντι — Dative case of the substantiated aorist participle of γεννάω, functioning as the object of the compound verb ἐναφανισθήσῃ (with the prefix ἐν- taking the dative to indicate that into which one vanishes). It refers to the generative whole that brought the individual into being.
  3. §4.14.1τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ τὸν σπερματικὸν — The pronoun αὐτοῦ refers back to τῷ γεννήσαντι (that which produced you). The 'seminal reason' (λόγος σπερματικός) is the active Stoic cosmological principle that generates things and eventually receives them back.

Cite this passage

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations §4.14.1. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0562.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:4.14.1

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