orthodox Stoic doctrine endows it. It is not easy to see why
one should pray to a power whose decisions one can hardly
hope to influence, and indeed Marcus several times seems to
admit the possibility that one should not (5.7, 6.44, 9.40).
It is all the more surprising, then, to find Marcus
elsewhere suggesting a more personal concern on the gods’
part. The final entry of Book 1 is the most obvious example.
Here Marcus indicates that the gods have aided him quite
directly “through their gifts, their help, their inspiration,” just
as they have others (cf. 9.11). Their help is curiously
concrete. Among the things for which they are thanked are
“remedies granted through dreams,” including “the one at
Caieta” (1.17; the text is uncertain). The gods also assist
other people, he reminds himself, “just as they do you—by
signs and dreams and every other way” (9.27). That Marcus
himself did believe deeply in the gods, not merely as a figure
of speech but as a real force in his own life, is suggested by
his refutation of those who doubt their existence: “I know the
gods exist... .—from having felt their power, over and
over” (12.28). How was this personal relationship with the
divine to be reconciled with the impersonal logos of the
Stoics? The question seems to be played out in the dialogue
at Meditations 9.40. “But those are things the gods left up to
me,” protests one voice, to which another responds, “And
what makes you think the gods don’t care about what’s up to
us?” Marcus himself may not have fully recognized or
acknowledged this conflict, but its existence may point to a