It was not given to all, he says, to abide even as he was, and therefore marriage should be adopted as a sacred and indissoluble bond.

Still, without being sure that he has any divine sanction for what he is about to say, he considers celibacy good "for the present distress," and warns those that marry that they "shall have trouble in the flesh." For marriage involves a direct multiplication of the cares of the flesh: "He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife....

And this I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a snare upon you, _but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction_." It is clear, then, that St.Paul regarded virginity as a "counsel of perfection," and Epictetus uses respecting it almost identically the same language.

Marriage was perfectly permissible in his view, but it was much better for a Cynic (i.e.for all who carried out most fully their philosophical obligations) to remain single: "Since the condition of things is such as it now is, as though we were on the eve of battle, _ought not the Cynio to be entirely without distraction_" [the Greek word being the very same as that used by St.Paul] "_for the service of God_?
ought he not to be able to move about among mankind free from the entanglement of private relationships or domestic duties, which if he neglect he will no longer preserve the character of a wise and good man, and which if he observe he will lose the function of a messenger, and sentinel, and herald of the gods ?" Epictetus proceeds to point out that if he is married he can no longer look after the spiritual interests of all with whom he is thrown in contact, and no longer maintain the rigid independence of all luxuries which marked the genuine philosopher.

He _must_, for instance, have a bath for his child, provisions for his wife's ailments, and clothes for his little ones, and money to buy them satchels and pens, and cribs and cups; and hence a general increase of furniture, and all sorts of undignified distractions, which Epictetus enumerates with an almost amusing manifestation of disgust.