Stoicism in general has aged very well. When I read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, I was amazed at how relevant the thing still is, even though it’s 1.8K+ years old at this point.
It’s funny, I’ve always heard great things about Meditations but I found it to be one of the least approachable books on stoicism. Perhaps I didn’t like the terse note format. On the other hand Seneca’s letters are extraordinary
Hum... It didn't age any well before it got a chance to age well.
It's coherent with modernity because we have are in a time where that mindset is popular, and since there are only a few alternatives, we are prone into cycling between them at random and revisit each one from time to time.
Eventually, it will pass, and it will become old and unfit again.
It's often claimed that the Meditations are actually Marcus Aurelius's own words. When I traced the lineage of the text, the best I could find was something like several hundred years back with the primary text being possessed by the church. None of this takes away from the relevance of the text—it stands on its own.
Does anyone know of an accounting of the primary text which shows that it wasn't written by a monk or priest of the Catholic church?
I'm definitely no textual criticism expert, but I do have a book recommendation.
The Inner Citadel by Hadot is a great analysis of the Meditations. It explains extracts from the Meditations – such as references to certain people in Marcus's life – with facts we know about Marcus from other sources.
For me personally... While it could be an elaborate imitation, it would raise the question why Marcus espouses views that don't necessarily tie with Christian doctrine. Obviously something about the Meditations appealed to Christians of the time, but if they were inventing it whole cloth, they probably wouldn't have included only one reference to Christianity, which is arguably negative. (Book 2, chp3)
Just because you were of the cloth didn't mean you were a raving fundamentalist. Who else was going to house, feed, and protect you and allow you to read and think all day?
It gives you a really solid framework for not worrying about why things happen and who they happen to. A very valuable skill indeed in our world where everywhere you look there is preventable misery. Modern indeed! It's no wonder it's so popular with tech workers.
He has some Epicurean influence as well. In the early days they were both popular, then changes in religious sentiment and denunciation of Epicureanism as sensualism changed that. Stoicism is ingrained with comparatively more spirituality and austerity.
