Stoicism

Stoicism was so called from the Colonnade¹ at Athens, where Zeno about 300 b.c. first taught its doctrines. More religious in character than any other Greek philosophy, it brought a new moral force into the world. It put intellectual speculation more into the background, and carried the moral attitude of the Cynics further into the domain of right conduct. Oriental fervour was in it grafted on Greek acumen, for Zeno was a Phoenician Greek of Cyprus, and Chrysippus, the St. Paul who defined and established² Stoicism, a Cilician like the Apostle.

In spite of its origin Stoicism proved wonderfully adapted to the practical Roman character, and under the tyranny of the early Caesars it formed the only impregnable fortress³ of liberty for the noblest Romans. It reached its culmination, and found its highest exponents as a living creed in the courtier Seneca, the Phrygian slave Epictetus, and the emperor Marcus Antoninus.

Stoic philosophy consisted of Logic, Physics, and Ethics.⁴ Logic, which comprised Dialectics and Rhetoric, was the necessary instrument of all speculation;⁵ but Marcus found no satisfaction in either branch of it, nor in such Physics as dealt with Meteorology.⁶

The key-note of Stoicism was Life according to Nature, and Marcus was converted to the pursuit of this possibly by Sextus the Boeotian.⁷ By “Nature” was meant the controlling Reason of the Universe.⁸ A study of Physics was necessary for a proper understanding of the Cosmos and our position in it, and thus formed the scientific basis of philosophy; but it was regarded as strictly subordinate, and merely a means to an end.

Though he confesses to some disappointment in his progress therein,⁹ there is no doubt that Marcus was well versed in Stoic Physics. Fully recognizing the value of a scientific spirit of enquiry,¹⁰ he describes it as a characteristic of the rational soul to “go the whole Universe through and grasp its plan”¹¹ affirming that “no man can be good without correct notions as to the Nature of the Whole and his own constitution.”¹²

To the Stoics the Universe—God and Matter—¹³was One, all Substance, unified by the close sympathy ¹⁴ and interdependence of the parts, forming with the rational Power, that was co-extensive with it, a single entity. The Primary Being, by means of its informing Force,¹⁵ acting as igneous or atmospheric current¹⁶ upon inert matter, evolved out of itself a Cosmos, subsequent modifications being by way of consequence.¹⁷ This Universe is periodically destroyed by fire,¹⁸ thus returning again to its pristine Being, only however to be created anew¹⁹ on the same plan even to the smallest details; and so on for ever.

God and Matter being thus indistinguishable, for all that was not God in its original form was God in an indirect sense as a manifestation of him, the Stoic creed was inevitably pantheistic. It was also materialistic; for the Stoics, allowing existence to nothing incorporeal, by means of their strange theory of air-currents²⁰ inherent even in abstract things such as virtue, rendered not only them but God himself corporeal, terming him the “perfect living Being.”²¹ But their conceptions on this point seem to be really irreconcilable, for while on the one hand they speak of the Supreme Power by such names as Zeus, Cause or Force, Soul, Mind, or Reason of the Universe, Law or Truth, Destiny, Necessity, Providence, or Nature of the Whole, on the other they identify it with such terms as Fiery Fluid, or Heat, Ether (warm air) or Pneuma (atmospheric current).

Other physical theories were borrowed from Heraclitus, and Marcus constantly alludes to these, such as the “downward and upward” round of the elements²² as they emanate from the primary Fire, air passing into fire, fire into earth, earth into water and so back again,²³ and the famous doctrine that all things are in flux.²⁴

Man consists of Body, Soul, Intelligence, or Flesh, Pneuma, and the Ruling Reason.²⁵ But the ψυχή (soul) can be looked upon in two ways, as πνευμάτιον, an exhalation from blood,²⁶ and as ἡ νοερά, ἡ λογικὴ ψυχή, i.e. the ruling Reason. It is the latter, a “morsel” or “efflux”²⁷ from the Divine, which constitutes the real man. Marcus often speaks of this rational nature ²⁸ of a man as his daemon, or genius enthroned within him,²⁹ and makes the whole problem of life depend upon how this Reason treats itself. As all that is rational is akin, we are formed for fellowship with others and, the universe being one, what affects a part of it affects the whole. Reason is as a Law to all rational creatures, and so we are all citizens of a World-state.³⁰ In this cosmopolitanism the Stoics approached the Christian view, ethics being divorced from national politics and made of universal application. It was no cloistered virtue the Stoics preached, showing how a man can save his own soul, but a practical positive goodness;³¹ though it cannot be denied that the claims of αὐτάρκεια (the self-sufficiency of the Inner Self) and κοινωνία (social interdependence of parts of a common whole) are not easy to reconcile. It is certain, however, that the Stoic admission of slaves into the brotherhood of man had an ameliorating effect upon slavery, and the well-known bias of Marcus in favour of enfranchisement may well have been due to his creed.³²

From virtue alone can happiness and peace of mind result, and virtue consists in submission to the higher Power and all that he sends us, in mastery over our animal nature, in freedom from all perturbation,³³ and in the entire independence of the Inner Self. Since life is Opinion³⁴ and everything but what we think it, the vital question is what assent we give to the impressions of our senses. “Wipe out imagination,” says Marcus, time after time, “and you are saved.”³⁵ “Do not think yourself hurt and you remain unhurt.”³⁶ He longs for the day when he shall cease to be duped by his impressions and pulled like a puppet by his passions,³⁷ and his soul shall be in a great calm. But virtue must also show itself, like faith, in right actions. It means not only self-control but justice and benevolence to others and piety towards the Gods.

By the Gods Marcus sometimes means the controlling Reason,³⁸ sometimes, apparently, Gods in a more popular sense, such as are even visible to the eyes.³⁹ He often puts the alternative God (or Gods) and Atoms,⁴⁰ but himself firmly believes that there are immortal Gods⁴¹ who care for mankind, live with them, and help even bad men.⁴² He bids himself call upon them, follow them,⁴³ be their minister, live with them and be likened to them.⁴⁴ They too are part of the Cosmos and subject to its limitations, and by our own loyalty to Destiny we contribute to the welfare and permanence of God himself. But a predestined Order of things involved fatalism, and the Stoics were hard put to it to maintain the complete freedom of the will.

Unfortunately the Stoic scheme left no room for Immortality. At most a soul could only exist till the next conflagration, when it must be absorbed again into the Primary Being. Seneca indeed, who was no true Stoic, speaks in almost Christian terms of a new and blissful life to come,⁴⁵ but Epictetus turns resolutely, and Marcus with evident reluctance, from a hope so dear to the human heart. In one place the latter even uses the expression “another life,”⁴⁶ and finds it a hard saying that the souls of those who were in closest communion with God should die for ever when they die.⁴⁷ But he does not repine. He is ready for either fate, extinction or transference elsewhere.⁴⁸

One more question remains, that of Suicide. The Stoics allowed this, if circumstances made it impossible for a man to maintain his moral standard.⁴⁹ The door is open, but the call must be very clear.⁵⁰ Still the act seems quite inconsistent with the doctrine of submission to Destiny, and the classing of things external as indifferent.

In this brief sketch of Stoicism much has perforce been omitted, and much may seem obscure, but Marcus confesses that “things are in a manner so wrapped up in mystery that even the Stoics have found them difficult to apprehend.”⁵¹ This at least we know, that Stoicism inspired some of the noblest lives ever lived, left its humanizing impress upon the Roman Law, which we have inherited, and appeals in an especial way to some of the higher instincts of our nature.

• 1.Στοὰ ποικίλη.
• 2.εἰ μὴ γὰρ ἦν Χρύσιππος, οὐκ ἂν ἦν Στοά, an anonymous verse quoted by Diogenes Laertius, Life of Chrysippus 5.
• 3.See viii. 41, 48.
• 4.See viii. 13.
• 5.See Epictetus’s Discourses i. 17.
• 6.See i. 7, 17, § 4; vii. 67; viii. 1.
• 7.i. 9, § 1, 17, § 5. But Rusticus (i. 7) and Maximus (i. 15) were his chief instructors in Stoicism.
• 8.See vii. 11.
• 9.See vii. 67.
• 10.See x. 11.
• 11.See xi. 1,2.
• 12.See viii. 52; xi. 5.
• 13.αἴτιον and ὕλη.
• 14.See iv. 27; v. 26; ix. 9, § 3.
• 15.σπερματικὸς λόγος (used by Justin of Christ), iv. 14, 21; vi. 24; ix. 1, near the end.
• 16.πνεῦμα. This set up tension (τόνος), resulting in expansion and contraction (compare our attraction and repulsion) and gave to things shape, quality, and relation.
• 17.See vi. 36, § 2; ix. 1, § 4.
• 18.v. 13, 32; x. 7. The doctrine of ἐκπύρωσις was Heraclitan. Compare 2 Peter iii. 7; Justin Martyr’s Apology i. 20; ii. 7.
• 19.παλιγγενεδία, vii. 19; xi. 1. Compare St. Matthew xix. 28.
• 20.πνεύματα.
• 21.See iv. 40; x. 1.
• 22.ἄνω κάτω. vi. 17; ix. 28.
• 23.See iv. 46.
• 24.ἅπαντα ῥεῖ, ii. 17; iv. 3, near the end, 36; v. 10; vi. 15; vii. 25; ix. 19; x. 7.
• 25.See iii. 16; xii. 3.
• 26.v. 33; vi. 15, or ζωή, an inhalation from the air.
• 27.See ii. 1; ii. 4; v. 27.
• 28.See xi. 1.
• 29.ii. 17; iii. 7, 16; v. 27, etc., and he calls this God, iii. 5; v. 10; xii. 26.
• 30.See iv. 4.
• 31.See vi. 30.
• 32.See Digest, xxviii. 4. 3.
• 33.ἀταραξία, ix. 31.
• 34.See iv. 3; vii. 17; xi. 18, § 7, etc.
• 35.See xii. 25.
• 36.See iv. 7.
• 37.See ii. 2; iii. 16; vi. 16, etc.
• 38.xii. 5; vi. 44; viii. 17; iii. 3; ix. 1. He even calls the Supreme Nature πρεσβυτάτη τῶν θεῶν, ix. 1.
• 39.xii. 28; iii. 16; viii. 19: ὁ ἥλιος καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ θεοί.
• 40.See iv. 3, §2; viii. 17; xi. 18, §1.
• 41.See ii. 11; vii. 70.
• 42.See ix. 11, 27, 40.
• 43.A Stoic precept.
• 44.Compare Julian’s The Caesars 421.
• 45.Seneca’s Epistles 54, 102; Consolation to Polybius 28; Consolation to Marcia 25.
• 46.See iii. 3.
• 47.See xii. 5.
• 48.See iv. 21; xi. 3; xii. 31.
• 49.See v. 29; ix. 2.
• 50.xi. 3; Epictetus’s Discourses i. 29, § 28; i. 24, near the end; iii. 13, § 14.
• 51.See v. 10.