Stoics

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

(οἱ Στωικοἱ φιλόσοφοι)

The Stoics are mentioned by name only once in the NT ( Acts 17:18), when St. Paul met with them and the Epicureans at Athens. For the circumstances of this encounter see articleEpicureans. 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’ ( Acts 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.  2 Peter 3:5-7;  2 Peter 3:10-13,  Hebrews 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, about342-270 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 ποικίλη στόα, hence the name ‘Stoic’). Of his earnestness, poverty, and contentment there can be no doubt. Cleanthes (circa, about300-220 b.c.), the master’s successor, is known best for his famous Hymn to Zeus, a remarkable production. Chrysippus (circa, about280-206 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 Britannica11, Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols), and Encyclopaedia Biblica.

J. W. Lightley.

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

a sect of Heathen philosophers,  Acts 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.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

STOICS . When St. Paul met representatives of the Stoic philosophy at Athens (  Acts 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’ ( Acts 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.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Sto'ics. The Stoics and Epicureans, who are mentioned together in  Acts 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.  Acts 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.

Charles Buck Theological Dictionary

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.

Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

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 ( Acts 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 ( Acts 17:24-26;  Acts 17:28). But they dismissed Paul’s belief in the resurrection as unworthy of serious consideration ( Acts 17:32).

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

 Acts 17:18;  Acts 17:29. The pantheists of antiquity, as the Epicureans were the atheists. Zeno of Citium founded the Stoic school, 280 B.C. The painted Stoa or "portico" where he taught originated the name. Cleanthes and Chrysippus succeeded; Seneca popularized their tenets; Epictetus (A.D. 115), as a Stoic, gives their purest specimens of pagan morality; and the emperor Marcus Aurelius tried to realize them in his public conduct. But egotism and pride are at the root, whereas humility is at the foundation of Christianity. Individual autonomy is their aim, faith in the unseen God is the Christian's principle.

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.

People's Dictionary of the Bible

Stoics ( Stô'Ĭks ).  Acts 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.  Acts 17:18. Epictetus and the emperor Marcus Aurelius were stoics.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

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.  Acts 17:18 .

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

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,  Acts 17:18 .

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

( Στωϊκοί ,  Acts 17:18), a notable and well-known sect of Greek philosophers, one of the; most important and influential of the schools after Socrates, entitled to claim descent from Socrates. The contentions of the Stoics with the other Socratic schools, and especially with the Epicureans, who deviated most widely from Socratic teachings, filled a large space in the intellectual history of Greece after the loss of Greek independence. The antagonism was continued under the declining Roman Republic and under the earlier Empire. During the reign of the Caesars, Stoicism became more prominent than it had been before, and assumed the complexion of a political opposition and of republican aspirations or regrets. It at length ascended the imperial throne in the person of Marcus Aurelius, and thenceforward gradually faded away into neglect and insignificance being completely eclipsed by the Neo-Platonic school when not supplanted by Christianity. Simplicius, writing in the reign of Justinian, remarks that the systematic instruction, or school tradition, and nearly all the writings of the Stoics had vanished. Yet if the Catena Stoicorum be considered to terminate with the emperor Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic doctrine had maintained a vigorous existence, and had exercised a wide dominion over the minds of men, for nearly half a millennium. It had been distinguished during its long duration, not only by numerous names eminent in the chronicle of speculation, but by molding the character of many persons prominent in public life, such as Blossius, Cato, Brutus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. The better part of Roman society, in both the republican and the imperial age, was profoundly impressed with Stoic doctrine and Stoic discipline. It attained that evidence of general reverence and regard, the fervid professions of hypocrites and canters:

"Qui Curios simulant et Bacchanalia viviunt."

Stoicism produced its Roman poets in Manlius; in Lucan, and in Persius. It promoted the morals of the Roman world through the Offices of Cicero, the writings of Seneca, the Conversations of Epictetus, and the Meditations of the younger Antonine. It suggested to Roman jurist's the conception of general and systematic law. It furnished principles, axioms, theories, and tendencies to the renovated Roman law, and largely affected its scientific development. Through the agency of the Roman law it has permeated all modem jurisprudence. To this day, when "the state of nature" is proclaimed, or the dogmas is alleged that all men are born free and equal, Stoic fantasies are revived without their original, their import, their application, or their restrictions being suspected. The philosophy of the Stoics, eo nomine, disappeared with the growth and ascendency of Christianity; but the influences of Stoicism survived, in changed guise; its spirit and its terms reappear in Christian theology, and continue to operate on the minds of men even in the present times. There has never been an age, since the Antonines, when Stoic doctrines and Stoic sentiments and Stoic austerities have not claimed, with altered face, but with the ancient arrogance, the admiration and adhesion of the world. It is not a little singular, too, that in this closing 19th century, even the most extravagant dogmas of the visionaries of the Porch find a counterpart in the scientific fantasies of Huxley, and in the cosmical reveries of Helmholtz and his fraternity. The sudden favor, the long predominance, the enduring influence, the recent though partial revival, of Stoicism can be accounted for only by recognizing its peculiar consonance with the characteristics of the times when it appeared; its adaptation to the needs or appetencies of subsequent generations; its agreement with the healthy tendencies or the morbid aspirations of the human heart; and the recurrence, in our day, of social and intellectual conditions analogous to those which engendered or favored the speculations of Zeno and his followers.

I. Origin And Development. —

1. The sect of the Stoics was founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium, in Cyprus, a town which was, in part at least, of Phoenician origin Zeno himself has been, at times, suspected of having had Asiatic blood in his veins. The institution of the new heresy must be assigned to the close of the 4th century before Christ, or to the beginning of the 3d. There is such a total absence of contemporary information, such a dearth of authentic testimony, and so many discrepancies in later writers in regard to all details that dates, events, and incidents cannot be reported with exactness or with confidence. According to certain traditions, the father of Zeno was a merchant engaged in a regular and lucrative course of trade with Athens, who was in the habit of bringing back from that city the writings of eminent Athenians and other Greeks for the instruction and edification of his son, whose studious inclinations had been early manifested.

The son was, in the course of time, sent to Athens in charge of a cargo of merchandise. Having arrived in that still brilliant city, either after a prosperous voyage or after a shipwreck, he fell in with a copy of Xenophon's Memorabilia, and was fascinated with the delineation of Socrates and of the Socratic disputations. He determined to devote himself exclusively to the pursuit of philosophy; and of Citium, of Cyprus, and of his father nothing more is heard. Disposing of what property remained in his hands, whether much or nothing, and either distributing the proceeds or investing them in banking operations for the traditions vary and are altogether inconsistent he attached himself at first to the Theban Crates, the chief of the Cynic school at that time. He was repelled, however, by the coarseness, vulgarity, filthy habits, and arrogant ignorance of the Cynic, tribe; and for many years he wandered from teacher to teacher and from heresy to heresy. He was for some time a follower of Stilpo the Megarian, and also of Diodorus the dialectician. He attended through a whole decennium, it is said, the instructions of Xenocrates, then the scholarch of the Academy, and afterwards those of his successor, Polemo. It is difficult to find time in Zeno's life for this protracted education; but it is needless to investigate the amount of truth contained in such reports. The variety of instructors assigned to Zeno, and his oscillations between different schools, may be only a conjectural and retrospective interpretation of the composite character and frequent inconsistencies of his doctrine. A pretty anecdote is told in connection with his extensive and diversified range of knowledge. Having asked the oracle how he should secure the best mode of life, he was told to become of the same color with the dead.

Hereupon he devoted himself to the perusal of the older authors. The wide range of sources whence he borrowed his scheme of philosophy may be implied in thy tale. His doctrine was compounded from materials derived from many schools. "Stoici fures" was a jesting reproach in antiquity that acquired the currency of a proverb (Cicero, De. Fin.). The sect was certainly an offshoot from the Socratic school. It took much from previous systems. It always retained a close affinity with the Cynics, and at times, or in particular persons, was almost identified with them. Its logic it received from the Peripatetics, extending it into many bewildering refinements. Its captious and incessant disputation, its dry argumentation; its nugatory hair-splitting, its "ratiunculae" and "ieptiae" and "verborum conservationes," with all its briery subtleties ("subtile vel spinosum potius disserendi genus" [Cicero, De Fin. 3, 1, 8]), it borrowed from the Megarians. From them, and particularly from Stilpo, it received its exclusive consideration and estimation of virtue. Its physical principles it took partly from Pythagoras and largely from Heraclitus, who communicated to it the belief in the ultimate conflagration of the world and other characteristic tenets. This diversity of obligation, and the strange syncretism which proceeded from it, direct attention to the general character of the Stoic innovation, and to its peculiar relations to the political, social, and intellectual condition of the age in which it transpired.

In the full tide of modern progress and of vigorous civilization it is difficult to form an accurate and adequate conception of the dismay, despondency, and hopelessness which overwhelm with gloom the minds of eager, active, and intelligent men when the course of political development is suddenly arrested and crushed beneath the rude coercion of military power and alien rule. In such a condition were the Greeks left after the amazing victories of Alexander the Great and the establishment of Macedonian, domination or Macedonian influence. The memory of political independence and of free political action became a vain regret. The hope of renovated liberty was a tormenting dream, and must have rapidly ebbed away with the constant repetition of disheartening experiences. Political dejection, political indifference, or political servility was substituted for the violent but earnest and inspiriting conflict of parties in a free state. At the same time, the vast extension of Hellenic domination over new lands, strange people, and ancient civilizations aroused curiosity, introduced the knowledge of foreign habits of thought, and brought Asiatic tradition and Asiatic speculation within the sphere of Greek intelligence. Coincidently with these potent agencies of intellectual change the splendid systems of the great chiefs of the Socratic school reached a sudden check; Socrates had contemplated the reformation of political life and public morals by investigating the foundations of truth, discovering a basis for knowledge, and thus securing the rectification of principles. The restoration of political and social health to his city and to his fellow citizens was his chief aim. The same purpose may be discerned throughout the writings of his brilliant disciple, Plato, as the Republic and the Laws may sufficiently attest. (See Plato); (See Socrates).

A like design, but with broader views and with less regard to particular; applications, may be ascribed to Aristotle; though his alien nativity, his restless pursuit of all knowledge, his marvelous comprehension, and systematization, may disguise the tendency, and may have disguised it even to himself. Still, the moral bearing and the political direction of the inquiries of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle can hardly be misapprehended. It is a curious confirmation of this prevailing direction of thought that Zeno's first work, composed before his separation from the Cynics, was a treatise on the State. This was, perhaps, the last marked manifestation of the spirit of an age that had passed away. It should be noted, too, that ethics, as such, had constituted a large part of the meditations of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and had been prominent in secondary schools. The reformation of morals had been the immediate design of Socrates, and the impulse communicated by him had not ceased to operate. Indeed, the necessity for moral reform had greatly increased since Socrates urged the Athenians to a just and pure life. The crimes, the treacheries, the frauds, the greed, the selfishness, the rapacity, and the sensuality of the Greeks had been multiplied and aggravated in the days since Alcibiades and Critias; they had assumed larger proportions and greater disregard of restraint. The plundering triumphs of Alexander; the sack, spoliation, or oppression of cities; the acquisition of thrones, principalities, dominations, powers, and fortunes by the companions and followers of Alexander, raised the hopes of the enterprising and lowered their principles. If, in the days of Socrates, the reformation of knowledge was requisite for the reform of the State, after the Macedonian supremacy there was scarcely any State to be reformed.

The reformation must, therefore, be restricted to private morals and to private life in order to redeem society or to insure individual contentment and respectability. Even this tendency had been already exhibited. The spirit of the approaching age is always anticipated, for "coming events cast their shadows before." Aristippus, the pupil of Socrates, preceded Epicurus in presenting pleasure as the object of life; the Megarians gave nearly all their solicitude to ethical precepts and practices; and Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynics, was before Zeno in proclaiming indifference to worldly honors, worldly cares, and every indulgence to be the essence and substance of wisdom. In the confusion or cessation of political life, in the crash of the brilliant organizations of the past; in the ruin of social health, the independence or ease or dignity of individual existence naturally engaged the attention of innocent natures and of original and inquiring minds. Earlier speculations might be continued - expanded rather than advanced; but the yearning anxiety of the time, and the "regnum futuri," centered in the individual, and sought escape both from political domination and social corruption. The need of moral satisfaction, and of spiritual solace was, of course, augmented by the decay of effectual belief in the creed of polytheism.

Such was the condition of the Hellenic world when Zeno and Epicurus almost simultaneously appeared with antagonistic schemes, as with diverse temperaments, to institute new systems of philosophy, which long rivaled the Academics and Peripatetics, and divided the mass of intelligent and dissatisfied men between their contending schools.

It would be very instructive to investigate the manner in which new schools of philosophy established themselves among the Greeks. The materials for such an inquiry are widely scattered, and they are neither abundant nor distinct. The process seems to have been both irregular and fortuitous. It bore much resemblance to, the institution of new religious orders in the Middle Ages; to the gathering of vast congregations of disciples by illustrious schoolmen; and to the generation of new sects and separatist churches in our time. An ardent or ambitious student, earnest in the pursuit of truth, or consumed with the desire of notoriety, full of self-confidence, and stubborn in his convictions, finds himself at variance, on some points of greater or lesser importance, with the teachers whom he has long attended; or is dissatisfied, like Lucian's curious seeker, with all. He ventilates his doubts; he discusses his differences; he argues, he extends, he corroborates, he systematizes his opposition; he draws around him others who have experienced the like dubitations, or who catch the same infection from his own vehemence; and, as the numbers of such acolytes increase, the desire and the demand for fuller and more orderly exposition, for a more pronounced assertion of differences, and for the consolidation of the dissentients become active forces, and provoke the establishment of a new congregation. A place of meeting and of formal instruction is sought out, and the groves of Academus, the shady walks near Athens, an open colonnade, a pleasant and retired garden, a retreat in the mountains, forests, or meadows, or a new meeting house, give "local habitation and a name" to a school of philosophy, a monastic order; or a modern sect. That Zeno, during his long peregrination through the existing heresies, was speedily led to contemplate the institution of another, is indicated by the keen censure attributed to Polemo: "It does not escape my notice, Zemio, that you, in your Phoenician garb, are gliding through the gates of others' gardens and stealing their doctrines" (Diog. Laert. 7, 25).

By whatever motives induced, or by whatever circumstances favored, Zeno established a new school at Athens. At what time this occurred cannot be definitely ascertained. According to some accounts, he was thirty years of age when he reached Athens, and attended philosophers of high repute for twenty years. But the chronology of his life is uncertain and confused. The beginning of the 3d century before Christ may be conveniently accepted as the proximate date of the foundation of his school. This school maintained itself successfully against older and later competitors. It ministered to a latent and growing want. The character and bearing of the teacher gave weight to his doctrine and secured respect. He devoted himself and his instructions, with earnest assiduity, to the inculcation of individual morality and personal purity. Retaining the Cynic aim and the Cynic abstemiousness and self-sufficiency, he divested, Cynicism of its coarser, more ignorant, and more offensive characteristics. He taught his hearers to seek contentment and satisfaction in conscious rectitude of thought, feeling, and conduct; to recognize and to discharge faithfully every duty; to contemn indulgences; to resist temptations; to endure with serene disregard the accidents of life; and to maintain the same unswerving equanimity in adverse and in prosperous fortune.

Whatever opinion may be entertained in regard to the invalidity of his theories or the hypocrisy of members of his sect in later days, he rendered an important service to his own and to subsequent generations by winning men from the abounding infamies of the time, and guiding them to the pursuit of honesty, integrity, justice, unselfishness, and personal propriety of sentiment and action. During his extended career as a teacher he earned the cordial regard of his fellow- citizens (or rather of his fellow-inhabitants of the same city, for he refused Athenian citizenship) and of his contemporaries. Antigonus Gonatas, king of Macedon, attended his lectures and invited him to his court; Zeno excused himself on account of his age, but sent two of his disciples to represent him. Another pupil, Sphaerus, illustrated his doctrine at the court of the Ptolemies. The Athenians honored him with a panegyric, a golden crown, a statue, and a public tomb "because he had exercised his vocation in Athens as a philosopher for many years, demeaning, himself as a truly good man in all the offices of life; because he, had trained to virtue and sobriety the youth who had resorted to him for instruction; and because he had exhibited in his own course of life an exemplar for all, consonant with his professions and doctrine" (Diog. Laert. 7, 10). After a long life of uninterrupted but not robust health, and the guidance of his school for nearly sixty years, as was alleged, the frail, thin, dark-skinned philosopher ended his career by a voluntary death, in consequence of a trivial accident. As he was coming out of his school he fell, and broke or crushed his finger. He exclaimed, "Why call me, death? I come;" and himself terminated his existence by suffocation. He left many writings, on a great diversity of subjects, which have been enumerated by Diogenes Laertius. They have all been lost. They, like his living instructions, justified the eulogy of Antipater of Sidon, that he had shown "the path to heaven by the way of virtue:" Τὰν Δὲ Πότ᾿ Ἄστρα

Ἀτραπιτὸν Μούνας Ευρε Σωφροσύνας .

2. The disciples of Zeno were at first called Zenonians, after the master. They received the name of Stoics from the painted porch ( Στοὰ Ποικίλη ) at the northwestern angle of the Agora, in which they were accustomed to assemble for instruction.

The numerous changes in the Stoic doctrine, and, still more, the variations and oscitancy in the exposition of that doctrine, readily explain the disappearance of the works of Zeno and of the other chiefs of the school. These changes were themselves due to the imperfections and inconsistencies in the philosophy which resulted from its syncretistic complexion, and naturally provoked and excused partial dissent, frequent rectifications, and repeated attempts at systematization. Its very defects, however, rendered it pliant, and easy of adaptation to the changing sentiments and the altering needs of successive generations, and thus maintained its vitality and increased its adaptability to dissimilar ages and circumstances. Aristo of Chios, one of the pupils of Zeno, manifested Cynic proclivities. He did not accord with the wider range of his master's expositions, and deviated widely from his teachings. Herillus of Carthage, another pupil, approximated more closely to Plato and to the Peripatetics, and subordinated the acquisition of virtue to the attainment of knowledge which should lead to virtue. Cleanthes, another disciple, and the immediate successor of Zeno in the direction of the Stoic, school, differed from the founder in many important respects. The pupil and successor of Cleanthes, Chrysippus of Soli, modified, harmonized, enlarged, and reorganized the doctrine of the Porch to such an extent that the saying became proverbial,

Εἰ Μὴ Γὰρ Ην Χρύσιππος , Οὐκ Ἄν Ην Στοά

(unless Chrysippus had lived, there would have been no Stoic school). He treated all the departments of philosophy, and treated them with fullness, ingenuity, and minuteness. To Stoic dialectics, however, he rendered such signal services as to suggest the eulogistic remark, Εἰ Παρὰ Θεοῖς Ην Ἡ Διαλεκτική , Οὐκ Ἄν Ην Ἄλλη '''''Ἢ''''' '''''Ἡ''''' Χρυσίππειος (if the gods had any art of dialectics, it could be no other than that of Chrysippus). In consequence of the complete reintegration of Stoicism by Chrysippus, the phrase Chrysippi Gypsum is employed by Juvenal to designate the Stoic system. Aristo of Chios had confined philosophy to ethics, and Panaetius of Rhodes, near the close of the 2d century B.C., gave his chief attention to this branch, and furnished the substance of the celebrated treatise of Cicero De Offciis. Posidoniuis, the pupil of Panaetius, and his successor in the Rhodian school, was distinguished for the variety of his knowledge and for the extent of his information. The citations of Athenaeus manifest the wide range of his intelligent curiosity. His collections and researches in natural history and other departments of natural science supplied Seneca with the materials for his Natural Questions, one of the most curious of the surviving treasures of antiquity. Posidonius numbered many eminent Romans among his hearers, and was induced, by his influential pupils of the dominant race, to migrate to Rome himself towards the close of his long life. He left the school at Rhodes under the charge of his grandson, Jason, the eighth and last of the regular succession, of Stoic heresiarchs. The Stoic doctrine had, however, been very widely disseminated before this time. It had become coextensive with civilization. The philosophical treatises of Cicero show how profoundly it had interested the best intelligences under the expiring republic of Rome. The interest was not diminished by the establishment of the empire, when a wider field and a new role for the Stoic doctrine were presented both in public and private life. Indeed, Stoicism seems never to have been more widely diffused, more favorably accepted, or more dominant than during the first two centuries of our era. Athenodorus of Tarsus was the instructor, the friend, and the adviser of Augustus. But independent of any personal relations, the establishment of the empire was conducive to the spread of the doctrine. The marked cosmopolitan tendency of Stoicism; the obliteration by the Stoics of all distinctions of state, race, climate, or fortune; their disregard of "race, color, or previous condition of servitudes" were congenial to a universal empire, and became more pronounced under an imperial system which embraced under its rule and under one political organization Romans, Greeks, Egyptians; Spaniards, Gauls, Germans; "Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judea and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia," etc. Hence, the Roman jurisprudence readily accepted from it dogmas which have become the foundation of natural, international, and often of constitutional law the state of nature, the natural equality of man, etc. The influence which the philosophy of the Porch exercised on the reorganization and scientific constitution of the Roman law cannot be doubted; though the mode and the degree of its operation may still be open to debate. The most striking manifestation of the potency of Stoicism was, however, displayed in its ready coalescence with republican hopes and republican pretences. It became the characteristic and, too often, the shibboleth of a party which fretted and pouted and palavered under imperial rule, and hoped, or pretended to hope, for the restoration of the republic; which sometimes conspired against the emperors, in a small way, and, more frequently, cherished its sense of heroism by affecting conspiracy; This party found its expression alike in the philosophic ostentation of Seneca, in the conduct of Helvidius Priscus and Paetus Thraseas, in the crabbed satires of Persius, and in the declamatory and epigrammatic turgescence of Lucan. It seemed to ascend the imperial throne with Marcus Aurelius when the imperial station accepted the same moral and intellectual level with the slave Epictetus. The Stoic meditations of the emperor are, however, an evidence of the natural goodness of the man, of the purification of morals under the Antonines, of the experienced need of a new heart in society, and of the pervading influence of Christianity.

The Stoic tenets naturally underwent considerable alteration in passing from the speculative ingenuity of the Hellenic schools to the hard, practical earnestness of Roman life. They were in much closer harmony with the spirit of the self-poised, arrogant Roman, people than they had been, or could be, with the versatile and vivacious genius of the Greeks. This greater harmony, with the intrinsic flexibility of Stoic opinion, facilitated the adaptation of the doctrine to the diverse idiosyncrasy of the new race of disciples. Stoicism had been syncretistic and variable from the first, as already stated. It had been variously accepted by the immediate disciples of Zeno; it had been modified, and, in several respects, transmuted by his successors. It assumed a still more unsettled and elastic character in the writings and opinions of the Roman Stoics - sometimes coquetting with Platonism, sometimes assimilating itself to Peripateticism; more commonly blending itself with Cynicism. Yet, with all its fluctuations, it became more influential than ever in regulating moral conduct, or, at least, moral professions, and in determining moral sentiments. With the progress of time and the enlargement of social relations and conditions, it became more of a religion than of a philosophical theory. Its teachers became preachers; its instructions resembled homilies; its assemblies were like congregations of religious worshippers. Throughout its whole duration, unity of spirit and consistency of moral tone were more regarded than uniformity of doctrine. Such unity and consistency it maintained. Hence, while the philosophic doctrine became laxer in details, it became more rigorous in its professed discipline. It was thus able to offer itself as a pagan competitor to the rising Christianity. With the growth of the new religion it gradually waned. Its discrepancies, discords, and intestine controversies destroyed its authority by dividing its followers. Its extravagances and absurdities, and its want of any tenable philosophic basis, rendered it impotent in conflict with the new revelation. In its later period it borrowed much, undoubtedly, from Christian teachings; but it borrowed in vain. It was "impar congressus Achilli." The very consonance of its teachings with Christian precepts weakened it in the combat, and only promoted the victory of its rival, Yet whatever changes it underwent in its successive developments, it retained throughout its well-marked character as an authoritative scheme of ethics. The Stoics may, accordingly, be regarded as the precursors of the Christian faith in the department of practical morals, and as having prepared the path and made smooth the way for the progress and reception of its heavenly successor.

II. Later Teachers . — The regular "catena Stoicorum" extended only from Zeno to Jason, a period of two centuries and a half. Zeno was said to have guided his school for fifty-eight years. Among the numerous pupils of those long years are specified Cleanthes of Assos, in the Troad; Aristo of Chios; Herillus of Carthage; Persaeus of Citium, a slave of Zeno; Aratus of Soli; Dionysius of Heracleia, in Pontus; and Sphaerus of Bosporus.

1. Cleanthes was the immediate successor of the founder, and retained many of his fellow-disciples in the school. A very beautiful and most characteristic hymn, addressed by him to Jove of many names," has been preserved, and is our most valuable relic of early Stoicism.

2. Chrysippus Of Soli (B.C. 280-206), the reformer and renovator of the Stoic creed, succeeded Cleanthes. He was singularly perspicacious and of indefatigable industry. The works which he composed are said to have numbered seven hundred and fifty. Among his more noted disciples were his nephew Aristocreon, Teles, Eratosthenes, and Boethus.

3. Zeno Of Tarsus.

4. Diogenes Of Seleucia.

5. Antipater Of Tarsus, among whose pupils was Blossius of Cumae, the teacher and friend of Tiberius Gracchus.

6. Panoetius Of Rhodes succeeded him, and died before A.C. 111. He had several noble Romans among his hearers, including Scipio Africanus, according to the declaration of Cicero.

7 . Posidonius Of Apamea (B.C. 135-51) succeeded his preceptor Panaetius, and was the last illustration of the formal Stoic school. He taught at Rhodes, where his lectures were attended by Pompey and many other eminent Romans of that day. By their persuasions he was induced to remove to Rome at a very advanced age. He left his school at Rhodes in charge of

8. Jason, his grandson, the last of the Stoic succession, with whom the history of the school, as such, closes; and with whom, likewise, Zeller's account of the Stoics proper terminates.

III. For the Doctrine of the Stoics, (See Stoic Philosophy).

IV. Literature . — To the works mentioned under this head in the notice of the Stoic Philosophy (See Stoic Philosophy) (q.v.) may be added: Buchner, Aristo Von Chios (Leips. 1725); Mohnike, Cleanthes Der Stoiker ; Baquet, De Chrysippi Vita, Doctr. Et Relig. (Lovan. 1822); Van Lynden, Disp. De Pancetio Rhodio (Lugd. 1802); Bake, Posidon. Rhod. Relig. Doctrina (ibid. 1810); Scheppig, De Posidon. Apam. ; (Berol. 1870); Rifault, Hist. Phil. Litt. De Empereur Marc Aurele (Paris, 1830); Suckau, Etude Sur Marc Aurele (ibid. 1858); Grosch, Die Sittenlehre Des Epiktet. (Wernigerode; 1867). (See Stoicism And Christianity). (G.F.H.)

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

stō´iks ( Στωΐκοί , Stōikoı́ ):

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 Stoá Poikı́lē , the painted porch at Athens, where the founders of the school first lectured. This school of Greek philosophy was founded at Athens circa 294 Bc by Zeno (circa 336-264 BC), a native of Citium, a Greek colony in Cyprus. But the Semitic race predominated in Cyprus, and it has been conjectured that Zeno was of Semitic rather than Hellenic origin. His Greek critics taunted him with being a Phoenician. It has therefore been suggested that the distinctive moral tone of the system was Semitic and not Hellenic. Further color is given to this view by the fact that Zeno's immediate successors at the head of the school also hailed from Asia Minor, Cleanthes (331-232 BC) being a native of Assos, and Chrysippus (280-206 BC) of Soli in Cilicia. Several other adherents of the system hailed from Asia Minor, and it flourished in several Asiatic cities, such as Tarsus and Sidon. In the 2nd century Bc the doctrine was brought to Rome by Panaetius of Rhodes (circa 189-109 BC), and in the course of the two succeeding centuries it spread widely among the upper classes of Roman society. It reckoned among its adherents a Scipio and a Cato, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, as well as the freedman Epictetus. The most adequate account of the teaching of the Greek Stoics has been preserved in the writings of Cicero, who, however, was a sympathetic critic, rather than an adherent of the school. The system acquired its most lasting influence by its adoption as the formative factor in the jurisprudence of imperial Rome, and Roman law in its turn contributed to the formation of Christian doctrine and ethics.

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 ( lógos ), which was at once the principle of intelligence in man, and the divine reason immanent in the world. This doctrine they again combined with the prevalent Greek hylozoism, and therefore their metaphysics inclined to be a materialistic pantheism. On the one side, Nature is the organization of material atoms by the operation of its own uniform and necessary laws. On the other side, it is a living, rational being, subduing all its parts to work out a rational purpose inherent in the whole. As such it may be called Providence or God.

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" ( Acts 17:18 ,  Acts 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 Logos was combined with Philo's conception of the transcendent Logos , to form the Logos doctrine through which the Greek Fathers construed the person of Christ. And Stoic ethics was taken over almost bodily by the Christian church. See Epicureans; Philosophy .

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.

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

The disciples of Zeno; derived their name from the stoa or portico in Athens where their master taught and founded the school in 340 B.C. The doctrines of the school were completely antagonistic to those of Epicurus, and among the disciples of it are to be reckoned some of the noblest spirits of the heathen world immediately before and after the advent of Christ. These appear to have been attracted to it by the character of its moral teachings, which were of a high order indeed. The principle of morality was defined to be conformity to reason, and the duty of man to lie in the subdual of all passion and a composed submission to the will of the gods. It came short of Christian morality, as indeed all Greek philosophy did, in not recognising the Divine significance and power of humility, and especially in its failure to see, still more to conform to, the great doctrine of Christ which makes the salvation of a man to depend on the interest he takes in, as well as in the fact of the salvation of, other men. The Stoic was a proud man, and not a humble, and was content if he could only have his own soul for a prey. He did not see—and no heathen ever did—that the salvation of one man is impossible except in the salvation of other men, and that no man can save another unless he descend into that other's case and stand, as it were, in that other's stead. It is the glory of Christ that He was the first to feel Himself, and to reveal to others, the eternal validity and divinity of this truth. The Stoic morality is selfish; the morality of Christ is brotherly.

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

Epicureans

Stoics and Epicureans. Reference is made in 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.