Marcus Aurelius, Dallas Willard, and New Testament Salvation
Text
Σωτηρία βίου ἕκαστον δἰὅλου αὐτὸ τί ἐστιν ὁρᾶν, τί μὲν αὐτοῦ τὸὑλικόν, τί δὲ τὸ αἰτιῶδες˙ ἐξ ὅλης τῆς ψυχῆς τὰ δίκαια ποιεῖν καὶ τἀληθῆ λέγειν. τί λοιπὸν ἢἀπολαύειν τοῦ ζῆν συνάπτοντα ἄλλο ἐπ ἄλλῳἀγαθόν, ὥστε μηδὲ τὸ βραχύτατον διάστημα ἀπολείπειν;[1]
Translation
Salvation, which is a life,[2] is to examine each thing entirely [with the following questions]:
- What
it is in itself? - What is it made of?
- What is its purpose?
[It is also] from the whole soul to do righteousness and to speak the
Thoughts
Dallas Willard regularly claimed that Christian salvation is a life that is entered into by faith. It is not merely a gift to be passively received but rather a sort of life one begins (eternal life) upon becoming a disciple of Jesus.
In terms of the overall theological meaning of salvation in Christian thought, this made perfect sense to me. But I’d never really considered that it could be the case in terms of the usage of σωτηρια in the New Testament era. But right here in the meditations, Marcus Aurelius (who is certainly not thinking of a future salvation or an intervention from a deity) speaks of salvation as a kind of life.
Btw, while the life Aurelius describes is not the Christian life, nothing in it is contrary to what Christ enjoins us to do and everything in it is Biblical. So even if you don’t read Dallas Willard, I hope you learned something from the meditations.
References
[1] Marcus Aurelius and Charles Reginald Haines, The communings with himself of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, emperor of Rome: together with his speeches and sayings (London; New York: W. Heinemann ; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916), 338
[2] I take the genitive to be an appositive or an epexegetical here.