This newsletter is about stoicism: the painful dealing with the inevitable.
Unlike skepticism, stoicism was well compatible with Christian teachings. Even in the Middle Ages, its Stoic influences remained an integral part of Christianity. In the Renaissance and the Reformation, appreciation for Stoicism revived, especially with Erasmus and even with Calvin.
Dealing with pain
I've had a sore knee for years. It doesn't mean much, but I can no longer make multi-day mountain trips, for example. I've tried all kinds of therapies, but they don't help. This allows me to imagine a little what it's like to live with chronic pain.
I watched YouTube videos of patients with fibromyalgia, a condition where you suffer from long-term (chronic) pain in your muscles and connective tissue. Patients describe it as lava flowing through your entire body, as if someone is torturing your voodoo doll, as if you have to lift two heavy buckets of water all day long.
Of course, pain can be suppressed with medication. If we know the cause, medical interventions are possible. But if the cause cannot be found, and the pain is chronic, what can we do? Hypnotherapy sometimes works, and placebos sometimes do too. But one of the most effective methods is called ACT: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Our natural response to pain is defence. We treat, we fight, or we deny. The pain is an intruder, it has to go. But that response happens to make the pain worse. ACT teaches us to integrate the pain into our lives. Yes, the pain is real and sometimes excruciating. But we have to learn to live with it; the pain is part of our life whether we like it or not. Like a heavy backpack that you can never take off. That acknowledgment, even acceptance, makes the pain more bearable.
Tolerating the unbearable
This insight can already be found in stoicism. Cicero (106-43 BC) thought it nonsense to ignore pain. Pain can sometimes be unbearable. How on earth can you ignore something so horrible? He also rejected thinking of something beautiful, or thinking that the pain will hopefully pass soon, because then you are fooling yourself. He considered learning to deal with inevitable pain and misery, to endure the unbearable, a virtue in itself.
You better tell yourself that it's shameful and sad to succumb to the pain, let it break you down and crush you. And if you say: 'short if it's serious, but light if it's long' you have a nice mantra. But virtue, magnanimity, bravery and forbearance are the true remedies by which you can relieve pain.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero, De officiis (44 BCE)
The Roman Stoa
Stoicism originated with Greek philosophers such as Zeno of Elea and Chrysippos of Soli around 300 BCE. But it really took hold with the Roman thinkers Seneca, Cicero, Epiktetos, and Marcus Aurelius in the first and second centuries CE. Although Stoic epistemology, metaphysics, logic and ethics were also developed, stoicism is best known for its practical life lessons. That is what this newsletter is mainly about. The stoic philosophy that presents itself as the designated way to make man happy.
Everything that happens in the world, according to the Stoics, is predetermined, or at least inescapable. We already read that the Greek skeptics mocked them for that. You really can't know that. But one might assume that we have very little influence on the events around us.
We are free to react to the inevitable
When so much in life is inevitable, how does one relate to it? Man's autonomy lies in his freedom in his reaction. This reaction is decisive for human happiness. Understanding the necessity of everything, acknowledging that it’s how it’s meant to be. On the other hand, the insight that catastrophic events need not really affect us, as long as we keep our distance. Don't let it rattle you. Step back from your emotions to see what's really going on.
The stoic idea is that we should focus on what we can control: our reaction, our opinions and our behaviour. What we have no control over, we better leave it as it is. Events happen, people have opinions and they do things. You can't control it all, so don't worry about it.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.— Reinhold Niebuhr, Prayer for Serenity (1943)
Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE) belonged to the top elite of the Roman Empire. In Nero's early years as emperor, he effectively administered the Roman Empire. Seneca thought anger was a primitive and destructive reaction, which you had better curb:
Anger, if left unchecked, often hurts us more than the source of that anger.
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca, De ira (45 CE)
The solution to annoyance with bad people and ideas, according to Seneca, is not to fight, but inner serenity, and association with pleasant company:
Do not become equal to the wicked because there are many of them, but also do not become an enemy to the masses because they are so different. Turn in to yourself as much as possible; associate with those who will make you a better person, admit those you can make better people.
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (62-64 CE)
Seneca did not necessarily believe in the goodness of man, but he did believe in the opportunity of positivity:
Wherever we meet people, we get an opportunity for goodness.
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca, De vita beata (ca. 58 CE)
Marcus Aurelius (121-180) lived a century later, received the rank of (prospective) Caesar at the age of 18 and wrote down the insights that he gained as a top administrator. He regarded anger as a primitive emotion:
When you get up in the morning, tell yourself: I'm going to meet all kinds of people today: busybodies, ungrateful, selfish, liars, jealous types, and goofballs.
They have become this way because they do not know the difference between good and evil. But I do, and I have seen one beautiful and the other hideous. Moreover, I understand what animates the sinner, and I have found that we have much in common, not because we are of the same blood or seed, but because we partake of the spirit and the divine spark.
I cannot be hurt by any of them, because what is ugly slides off me. I cannot get angry with my neighbor or hate him, for we are there to work together, like the feet, the hands, the eyelids and the upper and lower teeth. Therefore, it is against nature to work against each other by being annoyed or disgusted with each other.
— Marcus Aurelius, Ta eis heauton (167 CE)
Are you upset if someone's armpits smell bad or if they have bad breath? What are you worrying about? A mouth like that and armpits like that stink. You say: they have to think about that, don't they realize that they annoy others? Well, you also sometimes think about something, congratulations! So use your common sense to awaken that to them, show it to them, shout it out. If that person will listen, you have healed them without undue anger. No drama or misplaced stamping required.
— Marcus Aurelius, Ta eis heauton (167 CE)
Marcus Aurelius considered modesty, flexibility, social involvement and toleration as virtues:
So someone easily knocks down an opponent. But that doesn't make him more sociable, or more humble, or more prepared for chance, or more tolerant of other people's mistakes.
— Marcus Aurelius, Ta eis heauton (167 CE)
Although the Stoics considered forbearance a virtue, that did not mean that a dissenter also deserved respect.
In Gaul, for example, the fiercest persecution of Christians of the 2nd century came under the Stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Mild to others, strict to yourself
The Welsh philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was critical of the consistency of Stoic morality. He accused the Stoa of having an inverted double standard: Stoics are kind to others, but hard on themselves.
Jesus, Paul and the evangelists
In 332 BCE, Alexander the Great conquered Palestine. It became a Greek vassal state. The elite of Palestine embraced secular Greek culture, but the rest of the country remained rebellious. A Jewish monarchy, the Hasmoneans, was eventually established under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus. The joy was short-lived. In 63 BCE the Romans invaded the country; Palestine became a vassal state again. The Romans would continue to call the shots for four centuries.
When Jesus was born, around 4 BCE (!), the country had already been under the influence of Greco-Roman culture for a few centuries. The Jewish elite was familiar with the main philosophical schools of the time: the Platonists, the Epicureans, the Aristotelians and the Stoics.
Jesus was probably not a stoic
Most of what we know about Jesus we owe to the evangelists. Jesus was probably of humble origins. Insofar as he had an education, it was probably one with mainly Jewish rabbinical elements. The influence of Greco-Roman philosophy will not have been great.
The Stoic influence came later
But his evangelists, who probably never met Jesus (several of them may not even have been born when Jesus died), were well-educated gentlemen. It is more likely that they were influenced by Greco-Roman ideas. Especially Platonic and Stoic influences on the Gospel are undeniable. They were probably woven in by Jesus' biographers. It is even questionable whether, apart from affirmations and interpretations of Jewish law, Jesus dealt with ethical questions at all.
So it is difficult to determine which of Jesus' instructions are his own, and which are later attributed to him. For the sake of convenience I will now pretend to be an orthodox, and take the evangelists at their word.
Jesus of Nazareth preached charity, compassion, and forgiveness.
Yes, if you forgive others for the things they do wrong, then your Father in heaven will also forgive you for the things you do wrong.
—Jesus of Nazareth, quoted in Matthew 6:14
You should love the people around you as much as you love yourself.
—Jesus of Nazareth, quoted in Matthew 22:39
Don't judge other people, then God won't judge you either. Don't say other people are bad, then God won't say that about you either. Forgive people when they make mistakes, then God will too.
—Jesus of Nazareth, quoted in Luke 6:37
Jesus also advised not to worry about things beyond our control. Trust in God, was the attached message.
Watch the birds. They don't work the land and they don't have a cellar or shed. God feeds them. And you are much more important to him than birds are. So don't worry. That's no use. You won't survive another day.
—Jesus of Nazareth, quoted in Luke 12:24-25
Paul of Tarsus had attended the best school in Jerusalem, was a contemporary of Seneca, and had a Roman passport. Many stoic terms and metaphors recur in his letters. Like Cicero and Seneca, he considered forbearance, the ability to endure pain and wickedness, to be a virtue in itself.
Love is: being patient and kind. Love is: don't be jealous, don't tell how good you are, don't consider yourself more important than someone else. Love is: not offending another, not thinking only of yourself, not quarreling and not wanting to take revenge. Love is to rejoice in good and hate evil.
Love makes you endure everything that happens to you. Love keeps you believing and trusting. Love keeps you going forever.
—Paul of Tarsus, First Letter to the Corinthians 13:4-7
The Church Fathers Tertullianus, Cyprianus and Augustinus also used Stoic language when they talked about dealing with inevitable misery. After all, Jesus also carried his way to the cross with dignity. Torture and persecution—still the order of the day for Christians in their day—test the faith of the true Christian, the Church Fathers argued.
Don't associate with bad people, but don't judge them either
At that time, it was mainly about the evil that came from outside. So from non-Christians, from whom not much good could be expected anyway. But when it comes to internal misconduct, Paul took a different approach:
I wrote to you in my letter that you should not associate with those who take part in sexual sin. But I did not mean that you should not associate with the sinful people of this world. People of the world do take part in sexual sin, or they are selfish and they cheat each other, or they worship idols. But to get away from them you would have to leave this world.
I am writing to tell you that the person you must not associate with is this: anyone who calls himself a brother in Christ but who takes part in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or lies about others, or gets drunk, or cheats people. Do not even eat with someone like that.
It is not my business to judge those who are not part of the church. God will judge them. But you must judge the people who are part of the church.
— Paul of Tarsus, First Letter to the Corinthians 5:9-12
Here we see the double standard that you also encountered with the Stoa: the bar is set higher for themselves and their followers than for outsiders. And it is a clear explanation why the church was so anxious to keep the believers in line, while non-Christians were — in theory — to be left alone.
Often ours
Stoicism has had a lot of influence on Christian thought over the centuries, especially Seneca. Some Church Fathers saw him as a pagan philosopher, albeit one who often got it right (“saepe noster” he was often called: often ours).
The Flemish scholar Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) was the first to carry out an integral study of the entire Stoic philosophy. Although he had reservations about the morals of the Romans, he believed that there was a lot of agreement between the Stoa and Christianity. Dirck Volckertsz. Coornhert (1522-1590) often bickered with Lipsius, but they agreed on one thing: stoicism deserved revaluation. Coornhert translated works by Cicero and Seneca, among others, into Dutch for the first time.
Calvin accused the Stoics of a lack of compassion
The stoa was criticised in particular from Christian circles because of alleged indifference, lack of compassion. There is a youth writing by Jean Calvin from 1532 that contains an extensive commentary on Seneca's work De Clementia. For all his admiration, he struggled with Seneca's view that compassion is not a virtue. A person who does not know compassion is not a human being, Calvin thought.
The concept of apatheia, a- ("without") pathos ("emotion"), should not be confused with our current understanding of apathy, which rather expresses a lack of motivation or enthusiasm, or indifference. The Stoics regarded apatheia as a virtue: it was a state of impassivity to events and things over which we have no influence, as opposed to one's own experiences and judgments. However, the Stoics also used the concept of oikeiosis: connectedness, advised altruism (without expecting gratitude for it) and understanding for the other.
Temperance, mildness and irony
The humanist Erasmus edited Seneca's works. With Cicero, he shared his preference for moderation, mildness and irony, as well as his appreciation for a good education and the expressiveness of language. In a sense, Erasmus's work was constantly aimed at reconciling Christian ethics with the rediscovered "pagan" authors such as Cicero. The classical authors could thus contribute to the deepening of the Christian faith.
In his writings, Erasmus often used the terms humanitas (humanity), lenitas (kindness) and necessitudo (need for brotherhood), which he borrowed from Horatius and Cicero, among others. This gentle, benevolent, moderate disposition was often chosen by Erasmus himself when there were dogmatic conflicts in which he became involved.
Further reading
• An accessible website about stoicism is Daily stoic.
• A readable introduction to Roman stoicism in particular can be found on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• In Dutch, an instructive introduction to the history of early Christianity can be found in the articles on the blog of the historian Jona Lendering, mainzerbeobachter.com.
• You can read specifically about the Stoic elements in early Christianity in Tuomas Rasimus, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Ismo Dunderberg (eds.), Stoicism in Early Christianity (2010)
• The most complete book on Stoicism is probably Brad Inwood (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics (2003), which also includes a chapter on the influence of Stoicism on the Renaissance and Reformation.
This was the fourth episode in the series about the ancient sources of toleration. Here are the other episodes in this series:
Why we really can't know anything for sure
Classical sources of toleration, part one: epistemology and skepticism. About the doubts of Xenofanes, Plato, Sokrates, Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, Cicero. And their rediscovery in the Renaissance.
Why we need opposing views
Dialectics and free speech in classical Athens and Rome
Are our moral beliefs just illusions
Moral skepticism between classical Greece and the Enlightenment
Don't let it get to you
How our thinking about toleration is influenced by classical stoicism
Humanitas and forgiveness
Clemency and humanity as a source of toleration. About the biological tendency to forgiveness, the humanity of Cicero, the source of Jesus' forgiveness, and about repentance and retribution.
We don't owe our ideals of liberty and equality to Antiquity
Freedom and equality are quintessential in toleration. And the Greeks and Romans knew them too. But we hardly owe them this source of toleration.
On pragmatic rulers and subjugated nations
Pre-modern despots could be quite tolerant towards conquered peoples. About idols taken hostage, Roman exceptionalism, and the tolerance of Genghis Khan.
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