# Chapter XCVII explained — Short Works

> Chapter companion for Short Works by Epictetus.

## What happens

Epictetus compares the guardian role of a childhood pedagogue to the mature, divine guardianship of one's innate conscience, urging reverence for this internal guide to avoid displeasing God and becoming an enemy to oneself.

## Themes in this chapter

### Inner Freedom and Slavery

Contrasts external guardianship with the internal, free governance of conscience, which one must not enslave by despising it.

### Practical Ethics and Self-Discipline

Focuses on the practical duty to heed one's conscience as a form of self-care and ethical discipline bestowed by God.

## Character check-ins

### Epictetus

The author and teacher presenting the analogy between a pedagogue and the conscience.

### The Gods

Referenced as the entity who delivers us to our innate conscience for guardianship in adulthood.

## Key lines

> When we are children our parents deliver us to a paedagogue to take care on all occasions that we suffer no harm. But when we are become men, God delivers us to our innate conscience ( συνειδήσει ) to take care of us.

In youth, a tutor protects us from external harm. In adulthood, God entrusts us to our own built-in conscience for protection and guidance.

_Establishes a developmental analogy from external to internal guardianship._

> This guardianship then we must in no way despise, for we shall both displease God and be enemies to our own conscience.

We must never disregard this inner guardian, as doing so angers God and turns us against our own moral sense.

_Warns of the dual consequence—divine and personal—of ignoring conscience._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/epictetus_short_works_se/chapters/xcvii
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/epictetus_short_works_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/epictetus_short_works_se/chapters