“If it could be proven that Christ didn’t rise from the dead, I would abandon Christianity and become a Stoic.” So says Louis Markos, a professor at Houston Baptist University, in “Why I Would Become a Stoic.” Every spring he teaches a course on the Meditations of the Stoic emperor and philosopher, Marcus Aurelius. And he meant what he said:
If the resurrection didn’t happen, then Christianity is a hoax. If Christianity is a hoax, then God has not really spoken. And if God hasn’t really spoken, then the best plan of action is to rein in one’s passions, curb one’s desires, and conform to nature. In a word, play it safe. And nobody plays it safer than the Stoics.
While Aurelius’s Meditations is the best-known Stoic work, Markos said the Encheiridion by Epictetus was the best place for a modern reader to start. It presents Epictetus’s view on freedom “as living in agreement with nature, owning and ruling oneself, becoming a world citizen, desiring always and only what you are assured of getting.” Epictetus (55-135 AD) was born a slave and served as a slave in the household of Epaphroditus, a freedman and secretary of Nero. He was executed by Domitian for failing to prevent Nero’s suicide. Epictetus opened the Encheiridion with the following succinct statement:
Some things in the world are up to us, while others are not. Up to us are our faculties of judgment, motivation, desire, and aversion—in short, everything that is our own doing. Not up to us are our body and property, our reputations, and our official positions—in short, everything that is not our own doing. Moreover, the things up to us are naturally free, unimpeded, and unconstrained, while the things not up to us are powerless, servile, impeded, and not our own.
He went on to add that if you think you own only what is yours, no one will ever pressure or impede you, you will not do anything reluctantly; no one will harm you, “because nothing harmful will happen to you.” Epictetus warned you will have to be highly motivated to achieve such goals, forgoing some things completely and postponing others. “Don’t ask for things to happen as you would like them to, but wish them to happen as they actually do, and you will be all right.”
Similar to the Serenity Prayer, Markos noted how modern psychologists advise their clients to distinguish between the things done to them which they cannot control, and their reactions to those things, which they can control. “Such advice lies at the core of Epictetus.” He said the Christian reader will see many moral-ethical parallels between the Encheiridion and the New Testament. Yet the only direct reference to Stoics in the Bible occurs in Acts 17:18, where Paul is talking with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers at Athens. He knew who they were and spoke to his audience when he quoted the Stoic poet Aratus, “for we are indeed his offspring,” in Acts 17:28.
We also see Stoic influence when Paul said he had learned to be content “in whatever situation” (Philippians 4:11). Markos also noted parallels between the Encheiridion and the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus instructed his disciples to stop worrying about their life, what they will eat or drink (Matthew 6:25).
The Dictionary of New Testament Background said Stoicism was arguably the most influential philosophical traditions in New Testament times. Founded by Zeno of Citium (335-263 BC), it offered its adherent a systematic, comprehensive worldview, based on material pantheism, where “god” monistically permeated all of nature. God as the active principle, or reason (logos), acted upon the passive principle, matter. Both principles had a bodily existence: “Nothing exists outside the world and its material principles; there is no spiritual world or world of ideas.” Logos or god was the ordering and creative principle present in all things as a fine, fiery substance or pneuma (breath or spirit, a fiery form of air), which gives everything its form and internal cohesion. As an immanent ordering principle, it was very different from a transcendent Creator, outside and distinct from the world.
Since all of nature is imbued with the universal reason (logos), all events form part of a goal-directed rational process and a rigorous causal nexus; nothing is left to chance. Everything is providentially arranged for the good of the world system as a whole. Such a deterministic view of the world does not allow for the existence of evil—even apparently bad events such as illness, pests or natural disasters contribute to the overall well-being of the universe.
Stoic virtue consisted in using your reason to make right selections from those things that are good for us, such as health and wealth (as opposed to illness and poverty), “and in trying to make these selections come true.” Happiness does not depend on attaining positive things, but rather on making right choices and attempting to achieve them. “A choice may be considered right only if it is made consciously and for the right reasons.” Two identical actions could be valued differently, depending on a person’s motivation for performing the action. Everything in nature was rationally and providentially arranged.
The wise person therefore accepts his or her fate willingly without trying to resist, because it is at the same time the divine will and providence. The Stoics took pains to defend their view against the charge of determinism: according to them, even if one cannot change what providence has in store, one has the freedom to accept one’s fate voluntarily or be forced to submit.
Paul’s use of natural theology in Romans 1-2 and the substance of the household codes (Ephesians 5:21-6:9; Colossians 3:18-4:1) also suggests Stoic influence. Early Christian writers appreciated Stoic philosophers like Seneca, who Tertullian called saepe noster, “often one of us.” There is evidence of Stoic influence in how 1 Clement presented the divine order. Nevertheless, Stoicism differs from the Christian gospel at essential points. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia said:
It has no concept of a personal God, no radical view of sin, no place for historical divine acts culminating in the incarnation, no idea of ethical renewal through the ministry of the Word and Spirit, and no hope of the resurrection and eternal fellowship with God in His kingdom.
Marcus Aurelius was the last true Stoic. After him, Stoicism ceased to exist as a distinct philosophical movement. “The values of virtue, indifference, ethics, the control of logic over passion, and the interconnectedness of all things (pantheism) had become fully absorbed into the culture of the Roman Empire.” But there is a renewal of interest in Stoicism, with blogs and online communities like Modern Stoicism, which is “creating Stoic philosophy resources for modern living.”
The site claims there are similarities with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and that the Stoics are the great grandparents of the self-help movement. It was formed as a team of seven academics and psychotherapists “working together to explore what the ancient philosophy as a way of life, Stoicism, still has to offer today.” There is much in Stoicism that can be helpful and relevant today. For instance, consider how these words of Zeno of Citium apply to our modern culture, political and otherwise: “We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”