Heathen philosophers, who took their names from the Greek word stoa, signifying a porch, or portico, because Zeno, the head of the Stoics, kept his school in a porch of the city of Athens. It is supposed that Zeno borrowed many of his opinions from the Jewish Scriptures; but it is certain that Socrates and Plato had taught much of them before. The Stoics generally maintained that nature impels every man to pursue whatever appears to him to be good. According to them, self-preservation and defense is the first law of animated nature. All animals necessarily derive pleasure from those things which are suited to them; but the first object of pursuit is not pleasure, but conformity to nature. Every ne, therefore, who has a right discernment of what is good, will be chiefly concerned to conform to nature in all his actions and pursuits. This is the origin of moral obligation. With respect to happiness or good, the stoical doctrine was altogether extravagant: they taught that all external things are indifferent and cannot affect the happiness of man; that pain, which does not belong to the mind, is not evil; and that a wise man will be happy in the midst of torture, because virtue itself is happiness. Of all the sects however of the ancient philosophers, it is said that the Stoics came nearest the Christian; and that not only with respect to their strict regard to moral virtue, but also on account of their moral principles; insomuch, that Jerome affirms that in many things they agree with us. They asserted the unity of the Divine Being
the creation of the world by the Word
the doctrine of Providence
and the conflagration of the universe. They believed in the doctrine of fate, which they represented as no other than the will and purpose of God, and held that it had no tendency to looseness of life.
a sect of Heathen philosophers, Act 17:18. Their distinguishing tenets were, that God is underived, incorruptible, and eternal; possessed of infinite wisdom and goodness: the efficient cause of all the qualities and forms of things; and the constant preserver and governor of the world: That matter, in its original elements, is also underived and eternal; and is by the powerful energy of the Deity impressed with motion and form: That though God and matter subsisted from eternity, the present regular frame of nature had a beginning originating in the gross and dark chaos, and will terminate in a universal conflagration, that will reduce the world to its pristine state: That at this period all material forms will be lost in one chaotic mass; and all animated nature be reunited to the Deity: That from this chaotic state, however, the world will again emerge by the energy of the efficient principle; and gods, and men, and all forms of regulated nature be renewed and dissolved, in endless succession: And that after the revolution of the great year all things will be restored, and the race of men will return to life. Some imagined, that each individual would return to its former body; while others supposed, that similar souls would be placed in similar bodies. Those among the stoics who maintained the existence of the soul after death, supposed it to be removed into the celestial regions of the gods, where it remains until, at the general conflagration, all souls, both human and divine, shall be absorbed in the Deity. But many imagined that, before they were admitted among the divinities, they must purge away their inherent vices and imperfections, by a temporary residence in some aerial regions between the earth and the planets. According to the general doctrine of the stoics, all things are subject to a stern irresistible fatality, even the gods themselves. Some of them explained this fate as an eternal chain of causes and effects; while others, more approaching the Christian system, describe it as resulting from the divine decrees—the fiat of an eternal providence. Considering the system practically, it was the object of this philosophy to divest men of their passions and affections. They taught, therefore, that a wise man might be happy in the midst of torture; and that all external things were to him indifferent. Their virtues all arose from, and centred in, themselves; and self approbation was their great reward.
Epicureans
Stoics and Epicureans. Reference is made in Act 17:18 to certain philosophers belonging to these celebrated sects as having ’encountered’ Paul at Athens.
The Stoics derive their name from stoa, ’a porch;’ because their founder Zeno (who was born from 360 to 350 years B.C.) was accustomed to teach in a certain porch at Athens.
The Epicureans were named after their founder Epicurus, who is said to have been born at Athens B.C. 344, and to have opened a school (or rather a garden) where he propagated his tenets, at a time when the doctrines of Zeno had already obtained credit and currency.
A set of fatalistic heathen philosophers so named from the Greek word signifying porch, or portico, because Zeno its founder, more than three centuries before Christ, held his school in a porch of the city of Athens. They placed the supreme happiness of man in living agreeably to nature and reason; affecting the same stiffness, patience, apathy, austerity, and insensibility as the Pharisee, whom they much resembled. They were in great repute at Athens when Paul visited that city, Mal 17:18 .\par
Sto’ics. The Stoics and Epicureans, who are mentioned together in Act 17:18, represent the two opposite schools of practical philosophy, which survived the fall of higher speculation in Greece. The Stoic school was founded by Zeno of Citium, (circa, B.C. 280), and derived its name from the painted "portico", (stoa), at Athens, in which he taught. Zeno was followed by Cleanthes, (circa, B.C. 260); Cleanthes was followed by Chrysippus, (circa, B.C. 240), who was regarded as the founder of the Stoic system.
"They regarded God and the world as power, and its manifestation matter as being a passive ground, in which dwells the divine energy. Their ethics were a protest against moral indifference, and to live in harmony with nature, conformably with reason and the demands of universal good, and in the utmost indifference to pleasure, pain and all external good or evil, was their fundamental maxim." -- American Cyclopaedia.
The ethical system of the Stoics has been commonly supposed to have a close connection with Christian morality; but the morality of stoicism is essentially based on pride, that of Christianity is based on humility; the one upholds individual independence, the other upholds absolute faith in another; the one looks for consolation in the issue of fate, the other in Providence; the one is limited by Periods of cosmical ruin, the other looks for consolation is consummated in a personal resurrection. Act 17:18. But in spite of the fundamental error of stoicism, which lies in a supreme egotism, the teaching of this school gave a wide currency to the noble doctrines of the fatherhood of God, the common bonds of mankind, the sovereignty of the soul. Among their most prominent representatives were Zeno and Antipater of Tarsus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius.
Act 17:18; Act 17:29. The pantheists of antiquity, as the Epicureans were the atheists. Zeno of Citium founded the Stoic school, 280 B.C. The painted
The Stoic bows to fate, the Christian rests on the personal providence of the loving Father. The Stoics had no notion of bodily resurrection, it is the Christian’s grand hope. In common with the Stoics Paul denied the Epicurean notion of the world’s resulting from chance, and a God far off and indifferent to human acts and sorrows; for, as the poet Aratus says, "in God we live, and move, and have our being"; but he agreed with the Epicureans, God "needs" nothing from us; but he rejects both Stoic and Epicurean doctrines in proclaiming God as the personal Giver to all of all they have, and the Creator of all, of one blood, and the providential Determiner of their times and places, and their final Judge; inferring the sinful absurdity of idolatry from the spiritual nature of God, which is that wherein man reflects His likeness as His child (not in visible body), and which cannot be represented by any outward image.
Stoics (stô’ĭks). Act 17:18. A sect of Grecian philosophers who derived their name from stoa, "a porch," because Zeno, their founder, in the fourth century before Christ, and succeeding leaders, used to teach in the painted porch or colonnade at Athens. In their physical doctrines they maintained two first principles, the active and the passive; the passive was matter; the active was God, who was one, though called by many names. Of him they pantheistically believed that all souls were emanations. They held the entire independence of man. The humbling doctrines of the cross, the preaching of Jesus, and the resurrection would, it is clear, be distasteful to such philosophers. Act 17:18. Epictetus and the emperor Marcus Aurelius were stoics.
A sect of the philosophers of Greece, founded by Zeno, and named after the Stoa, the porch at Athens where the philosopher assembled his pupils. He taught that there was one Supreme Being, but many subordinate gods, and that man had similar faculties to the gods. Intellect was to be their guide, and pleasures and pains of the body were not to be regarded. From this sect the English word ’stoic’ is derived. Pantheism, fatalism, and pride were the leading features of the stoics. Some of such were among the audience Paul addressed at Athens. Act 17:18.
STOICS.—When St. Paul met representatives of the Stoic philosophy at Athens (Act 17:18), that school had been in existence for about three centuries and a half. The name came from the Stoa or Porch where Zeno (about b.c. 340–265), the founder of the school, taught at Athens.
The leading Stoic maxim is, ‘Live according to nature.’ Nature both in the world and in man is to be interpreted by its highest manifestation—Reason—which appears in the world as the all-pervading ethereal essence or spirit, forming and animating the whole; and in man as the soul. This World-spirit occupies the place of God in the Stoic system. Thus we find St. Paul quoting the words of a Stoic writer, ‘We are also his offspring’ (Act 17:28). The approximation, however, is in language rather than in reality. The theology of the Stoics is pure pantheism. Their so-called God has no independent or personal existence.
The supremacy of reason in man is pushed to such an extreme that virtuous conduct demands the entire suppression of the emotional side of man’s nature. This rigorous moral standard became, for practical reasons, considerably modified; but Stoic morality was always marked by its rigidity and coldness.
The great quality of Stoicism, which set it above Epicureanism, and brought it into line with Christianity, was its moral earnestness. In his dissertation on ‘St. Paul and Seneca’ Bp. Lightfoot has said, ‘Stoicism was the only philosophy which could even pretend to rival Christianity in the earlier ages of the Church.’ Perhaps there was in St. Paul’s mind at Athens the high hope of bringing to the side of Christ such a noble rival of the gospel. Yet Stoicism and Christianity ran parallel rather than came into contact with one another, until through the weakness inherent in its theology and its ethics the current of Stoic philosophy was dissipated and lost.
W. M. M‘Donald.
1. Origin and Propagation
2. Metaphysics and Religion
3. Sensationalist Epistemology
4. Ethical Teaching
5. Relation to Christianity
LITERATURE
1. Origin and Propagation:
The name was derived from the
2. Metaphysics and Religion:
The main principles of Stoicism were promulgated by Zeno and Cleanthes, and Chrysippus formulated them into a systematic doctrine which became a standard of orthodoxy for the school, and which permitted but little freedom of speculation for its subsequent teachers. Whatever may have been the Semitic affinities of mind of Zeno and his followers, they derived the formal principles of their system from Greek antecedents. The ethical precept, “Follow Nature,” they learnt from the Socratic school of Antisthenes, the Cynics. But they followed the earlier philosopher Heraclitus in defining the law of Nature as reason (
While the Stoics rejected the forms and rites of popular religion, they defended belief in God and inculcated piety and reverence toward Him. Their pantheism provided a basis for Greek polytheism also alongside of their monism, for where all the world is God, each part of it is divine, and may be worshipped. Another consequence of their pantheism was their attitude to evil, which they held to be only apparently or relatively evil, but really good in the harmony of the whole. Therefore they bore evil with courage and cheerfulness, because they believed that “all things worked together for good” absolutely.
3. Sensationalist Epistemology:
The materialistic trend of their metaphysics also comes out in their epistemology, which was sensationalist. The human mind at its birth was a tabula rasa. Its first ideas were derived from sensations, the impressions made by the external world upon the soul, which they also conceived as a material body, though made of finer atoms than the external body. Out of these sense-impressions the mind built up its intuitions or preconceptions, and its notions, which constituted its store of ideas. It is not clear how far they attributed originative power to the mind as contributing some factor to the organization of knowledge, which was not derived from experience. The Stoic system is never consistently materialistic, nor consistently idealistic. Most of its terms are used in a dual sense, material and spiritual.
4. Ethical Teaching:
But its ethical teaching shows that the main trend of the system was spiritualistic. For its crown and climax was the ethics. The Stoics did not pursue knowledge for its own sake. They speculated about ultimate problems only for the practical purpose of discovering a rule of life and conduct. And in their ethics, the great commandment, “Follow Nature,” is interpreted in a distinctly idealistic sense. It means, “Follow reason,” as reason inheres both in man and in the universe as a whole. It is submission to Providence or the rational order of the universe, and the fulfillment of man’s own rational nature. The life according to Nature is man’s supreme good. How actual Nature could be the ideal good that man ought to seek, or how man was free to pursue an ideal, while he was bound in a system of necessity, were fundamental paradoxes of the system which the Stoics never solved. They summed up their moral teaching in the ideal of the sage or the wise man. His chief characteristic is ataraxy, a calm passionless mastery of all emotions, and independence of all circumstances. He therefore lives a consistent, harmonious life, in conformity with the perfect order of the universe. He discovers this order by knowledge or wisdom. But the Stoics also defined this ideal as a system of particular duties, such as purity in one’s self, love toward all men, and reverence toward God. In Stoic ethics, Greek philosophy reached the climax of its moral teaching. Nowhere else outside Christianity do we find so exalted a rule of conduct for the individual, so humane, hopeful and comprehensive an deal for society.
5. Relation to Christianity:
When “certain ... of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered” Paul at Athens, and when, after the apostle had spoken on Mars’ Hill, “some mocked; but others said, We will hear thee concerning this yet again” (Act 17:18, Act 17:32), it is no improbable inference that the Epicureans mocked, while the Stoics desired to hear more. For they would find much in the apostle’s teaching that harmonized with their own views. Paul’s quotation from the classics in his Athenian speech was from the Stoic poet, Aratus of Soli in Cilicia: “For we are also his offspring.” His doctrine of creation, of divine immanence, of the spirituality and fatherhood of God, would be familiar and acceptable to them. His preaching of Christ would not have been unwelcome to them, who were seeking for the ideal wise man. Paul’s moral teaching as it appears in his Epistles reveals some resemblance to Stoic ethics. it is possible that Paul had learnt much from the Stoic school at Tarsus. It is certain that subsequent Christian thought owed much to Stoicism. Its doctrine of the immanent
Literature.
The chief extant sources are the writings of Cicero, De Finibus, De Natura Deorum, etc.; Seneca, Plutarch, M. Antoninus Aurelius, Epictetus, Diogenes Laertius, Sextus Empiricus and Stobaeus. Modern works: H. von Arnim, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta; Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics; R. D. Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean; W. L. Davidson, The Stoic Creed; E. V. Arnold, Roman Stoicism, which contains a full bibliography and deals with the relation of Stoicism to Christianity; on the latter point see also Lightfoot, Philippians, Excursus II, “St. Paul and Seneca”; histories of philosophy by Rogers, Windelband, Ueberweg, and E. Caird.
(ïἱ Óôùéêïἱ öéëüóïöïé)
The Stoics are mentioned by name only once in the NT (Act_17:18), when St. Paul met with them and the Epicureans at Athens. For the circumstances of this encounter see article Epicureans. Though the Stoics are not again mentioned, St. Paul’s speech on the Areopagus seems framed with them in mind, and one of his sentences, ‘for we are also his offspring’ (Act_17:28), a quotation from Aratus, is almost identical with the words of Cleanthes, one of the founders of the sect. Moreover, several other passages in the NT. e.g. 2Pe_3:5-7; 2Pe_3:10-13, Heb_4:12, suggest acquaintance with this system of philosophy. Among philosophies of this period Stoicism occupied an exalted position. The teaching of Plato and Aristotle had waned in popularity, the Epicureans suffered from an evil reputation, while Stoicism claimed to enable men to endure the prevailing hardships of thought and life. Its cultivation of high ideals, the nobility of its foremost adherents, its repression of the coarser and insistence on the nobler elements in human nature, won esteem and admiration. Though its unrelenting severity prevented it from ever becoming the creed of the multitude and restricted it to the select few, Stoicism has always been a potent influence among serious men far beyond the limits of its actual disciples.
1. Circumstances which favoured its growth
(a) The disappearance of the city-States.-Earlier Greeks had rejoiced in their citizen-life, and gladly identified their individual lives with the life of the city. But evil days arrived, and internal quarrels led to the intervention of the Macedonian power and the consequent loss of self-government. Later still came the all-conquering Romans, sweeping them all into the Imperial net. Now, bereft of all interest in civil affairs, the more serious-minded turned for relief to those deeper human considerations in which they could think as they would, and adulation and sycophancy would not be required. It was in part, therefore, a movement of despair.
(b) Loss of faith in the traditional religion.-The old mythologies and pagan practices had now lost their power over the Greek mind.
(c) Influx of Oriental ideas.-This was due to that intermingling of peoples which followed the Alexandrian conquests. Comparison with the beliefs of others showed how abstract, improbable, and unpractical were their own philosophies in face of the new needs.
2. The founders of Stoicism were not pure Greeks, although the chief centre of instruction was Athens, nor was the system a product of the true Greek spirit. As its later history shows, it was much more congenial to the sterner Roman temperament, and it was at Rome that it achieved its greatest triumphs. The earliest teachers came from Cyprus, Cilicia, Babylon, Palestine, Syria, and Phrygia, and the universities of Tarsus, Rhodes, and Alexandria were its strongholds. The founders of Stoicism were Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus. Zeno (circa, about 342-270 b.c.) came to Athens from Citium in Cyprus. He seems to have visited all the existing schools of philosophy before settling down among the Cynics. And even they did not entirely satisfy him. The Cynics banned speculation absolutely, despised all human delights, and welcomed hardships with open arms. In the end Zeno forsook them, and became a teacher himself in the ‘painted porch’ (ἡ ðïéêßëç óôüá, hence the name ‘Stoic’). Of his earnestness, poverty, and contentment there can be no doubt. Cleanthes (circa, about 300-220 b.c.), the master’s successor, is known best for his famous Hymn to Zeus, a remarkable production. Chrysippus (circa, about 280-206 b.c.) is usually regarded as the second creator of this system. ‘Had there been no Chrysippus, there had been no Porch’ (Diog. Laertius, VII. vii. 183). He collected and systematized the earlier doctrines, but, while contributing to its logic, psychology, etc., made no addition to its ethics. At Rome Stoicism came to its own, and Seneca, Epictetus, and M. Aurelius Antoninus stand pre-eminent among its adherents. Seneca (4 b.c.-a.d. 65), a contemporary of St. Paul, was the tutor and later the counsellor of Nero. Between his professed devotion to placid Stoic principles and his actual life a strange contradiction exists (see T. B. Macaulay, Lord Bacon, London, 1852). An advocate of poverty and self-abnegation, he became wealthy and maintained his position at Court by abject flattery and perhaps worse. In Epictetus (fl. c. [Note: . circa, about.] a.d. 100), the poor lame slave of Epaphroditus afterwards freed, we meet a kindlier, humbler, and altogether more beautiful character. He taught the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man. Laughing at misfortunes or even denying their very existence, he bore all hardships cheerfully and regarded even death as a mere incident to be left complacently in the hands of God. M. Aurelius (a.d. 121-180), the Stoic Emperor, would have been happier as a private citizen. Confronted with distasteful duties both without and within his Empire, he proved no great success as a monarch. Meditation was more to his liking than activity, and his literary remains are a treasure-house of fine sayings. The persecution of the Christians, to which he lent himself, must have appeared to him a political necessity.
3. The teaching of the Stoics may be divided into the following branches: Logic, Physics, Ethics, and Religion. Individual differences will here be ignored, and indeed they are not always easy to determine. On the whole, Stoicism laid emphasis on the requirements of practical life, and everything was subordinated to this aim.
(a) Logic.-This term was employed somewhat vaguely and included Dialectic, Rhetoric, and Logic properly so called. Its comparative unimportance in the system may be gathered from two well-known illustrations which were employed. Ethics was likened to the yoke of an egg, physics to the white, and logic to the shell. Again, physics was said to resemble the trees in a field, ethics the fruit which the trees produced, and logic the fence around the field. It need only be said, therefore, that the Stoics’ chief aim was to reach a criterion of truth; and this they found in the feeling of certainty. The mind is at first a complete blank and depends on impressions received from the outside world. These impressions are either confirmed or rejected by the reaction of the mind’s own reasoning powers. Certainty is reached when the impressions become distinct and overwhelming.
(b) Physics.-In this branch of their system the Stoics derived much from Heraclitus, as did their contemporaries the Epicureans from Democritus. They declared the primary element to be a fiery ether which, after assuming grosser forms such as fire, as we see it, air, water, and earth, finally resumes its original character. They also held that the only reality is matter; and in this substance they expressly included air, sky, and stars, the mind of man, including even his thoughts, passions, and virtues, and finally God. The novelty of their teaching lay in the idea of tension which they believed permeated all things. It was according to the variations of this quality that one substance differed from another. Yet even this is material or corporeal, differing only in its varying degrees of fineness or subtlety in different objects. Notwithstanding this materialistic view of things, the Stoic maintained that the whole world of men and things is under the government of reason, which permeates and harmonizes all. In this reason man participates, and may partly understand its larger operations and in his own degree co-operate therewith. Man’s lower nature must be kept subordinate to these higher purposes, and in the end he will be re-absorbed into the Universal Reason.
(c) Ethics.-Here we reach that branch of Stoicism for which all the rest existed and to which it was only preliminary. It may be summed up in the well-known phrase, ‘live in conformity with Nature.’ But it is the Stoic interpretation of this formula that is significant. As against the Epicureans, who made pleasure the object of life, they insisted that virtue is the only Good. All those objects which are usually regarded as desirable they banned-position, honours, wealth, health, men’s favour, etc. In this they differed from the Cynics, their predecessors, only in being somewhat less harsh and severe. In opposition to the Epicureans, who held that pleasure was the motive power of animals and young children, they taught that these were guided rather by the instinct of self-preservation. And, though allowing that pleasure is often associated with virtue, they declared that it was too precarious a factor to be relied on and should be ignored altogether. The aim of this attitude was practical, viz. to set man free from all the varying chances and changes of fortune and to reach a condition of ‘apathy.’ Whether, therefore, civil and personal affairs were congenial or otherwise, a man must remain master of both his feelings and his actions.
‘In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbow’d’
(W.E. Henley, Invictus, 5-8).
Confronted with ordinary human affections and passions, whose disturbing influence is obvious to all, they declared them one and all to be wholly injurious. Even pity and compassion should be eschewed. No one suffers as much as we suppose. It is only just to note that in later times this general austerity was slightly modified. Some things might be preferred, others avoided, and the range of totally indifferent things was made narrower. But the underlying principle was never changed. Man must ignore or even laugh at circumstances and act quite independently of them. Emotion is only perverted reason. Further, Stoicism recognized no degrees or gradations of virtue or vice. A man was entirely virtuous or entirely vicious. The ‘wise man’ of the Stoics was perfect in every way. This extraordinary doctrine, modified later, was due in part to the emphasis laid on motive or intention. Right motives made an act virtuous, however unfortunate its effects. The tendency to suicide, so marked a feature among them, seems to contradict their theoretical indifference to pain. They explained this by saying that a man need live only as long as it was possible to do so with dignity and utility.
Cosmopolitanism was a striking element in the Stoic system. The only city to which they acknowledged fealty was the City of Zeus. All men being sons of God were brothers, and distinctions of race and country must be abolished. In theory friendships and the customary relations of home and State might not be prohibited, but in practice reasons for their neglect were invariably forthcoming.
(d) Religion.-This was materialistic pantheism. God, the ruler and upholder of all that exists, is identical with universal law, and like all else is material. Though believing in a First Cause and a Mind governing all, both are corporeal. The different parts of the universe may be finer or coarser, but they are only forms of the one primary force. Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus, which includes both adoration and supplication, seems in strange conflict with all this. Perhaps it may be taken as the revolt of the devout spirit against the arbitrary theories of the reason. In regard to the traditional and often debasing ceremonies of religion then in vogue, the Stoic attitude was one of compromise. Essentially they could not but be opposed to them. Prayer was generally an error and by implication showed distrust in Divine goodness. Earthly temples were unworthy of God. Yet they tolerated the popular forms of worship, and explained them ns a picturesque way of setting forth poor human ideas of the Deity. The age-long problems of Evil and Freedom proved insoluble on Stoic assumptions.
(e) Relation to Christianity.-Many facts make this an interesting subject of study. Even the OT, and Apocalyptic books such as Sirach, 4 Maccabees, and Wisdom of Solomon had been affected by Stoicism. And, with so many points of contact in their ethical teaching, it is small wonder that Stoicism and Christianity have been suspected of influencing each other. Again, Tarsus, the home of St. Paul, was likewise a great centre of Stoic teaching, and it is supposed that the great Apostle shows traces in his writings of this early association. In regard to Seneca, too, a tradition arose that he became a disciple of St. Paul and a Christian. A full discussion of the value and bearing of these facts is given in Lightfoot (see Literature). On the acquaintance of St. Paul with Stoic literature and ideas as shown in his speech on the Areopagus we have already remarked. Striking coincidences occur between the language of the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles and the sayings of Seneca and Aurelius. It may certainly be acknowledged that in these two pagan writers we reach the high-water mark of non-Christian ethics. For various reasons it is not possible to say certainly whether indebtedness exists on the one side or on the other. But in relation to fundamental principles many vital differences separate them. Each system starts from different premisses and reaches different conclusions.
(1) The Stoic conception of God was materialistic and pantheistic. Fatherhood in any real sense was thereby excluded. Divine love and paternal care were impossible and fellowship with the Father of our spirits was out of the question.
(2) Self-repression, with the object of attaining complete ‘apathy,’ was the fundamental demand of Stoicism, but how the ordinary man was to effect this it did not show. In any case, his resources were restricted to himself: there was no place for a Saviour, and the weak were left to fail.
(3) In regard to a future life, the Stoics leave us with a feeling of great uncertainty. One wonders, indeed, that they should have desired it. At most they thought of it as a bare possibility. Such continuance could only be an endless rotation, resulting probably in experiences as unpleasant as in this life. In the presence of such contrasts we are therefore obliged to conclude that, however many or close the resemblances between Christianity and Stoicism, they were in vital matters fundamentally different. That St. Paul should show some acquaintance with Stoic teaching was inevitable, and that he did not openly expose its weakness was probably due to the fact that the system was never likely to trouble those to whom he preached. As for Seneca, he would doubtless encounter Christians at Rome, but probably in circumstances that would leave him indifferent to their principles and beliefs.
Literature.-The leading sources are: Diogenes Laertius, de Vitis Philosophorum, vii.; Cicero, de Finibus; Plutarch, de Stoicorum Repugnantiis, and de Placitis Philosophorum; works of Seneca, Epictetus, and M. Aurelius. Of modern authorities we may refer to E. Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, Eng. translation , London, 1880; H. Ritter, History of Ancient Philosophy, Eng. translation , iii. [Oxford. 1839]; A. Grant, The Ethics of Aristotle, 2 vols., London, 1866; W. W. Capes. Stoicism, London, 1880; W. L. Davidson, The Stoic Creed, Edinburgh, 1907; J. B. Lightfoot, Philippians 4, London, 1878. ‘St. Paul and Seneca,’ p. 270 ff.; article ‘Stoics’ in Encyclopaedia Britannica 11, Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , and Encyclopaedia Biblica .
J. W. Lightley.
Athens was famous for the freedom it gave people to lecture publicly on such matters as religion, philosophy, politics and morals. There was, however, a council of philosophers, called the Areopagus, that exercised some control over public debate in the city. The council consisted of philosophers from two main schools, the Epicureans and the Stoics, and both were keen to hear the travelling preacher Paul give an account of his new religion (Act 17:18-22; see AREOPAGUS).
Stoics took their name from the place in Athens where their founder, Zeno, taught his philosophy (about 300 BC). The Stoics believed that everything in life is determined by a universal Mind or Reason, which is the ‘soul of the world’. People must therefore accept whatever they meet in life without fear or complaint, and order their lives to fit in with what nature has determined for them. In doing so they will find real contentment. Stoicism therefore had a number of distinctive features: rigid self-discipline, free of both pleasure and pain; moral earnestness, free of all feelings and desires; devotion to duty, free of all emotion; and reliance upon reason, free of all superstition and irrationality.
The Stoics would have agreed with Paul that there is a supreme God who is living, who is the source of all life, and who determines the times and places in which people live (Act 17:24-26; Act 17:28). But they dismissed Paul’s belief in the resurrection as unworthy of serious consideration (Act 17:32).