The Stoics and Virtue: The Adiaphora

ALTHOUGH THE STOIC PHILOSOPHERS took their inspiration from Socrates, sidestepping the developments of Plato and Aristotle, their contribution to virtue theory was the addition of the notion of logos or reason underlying the entire virtue inquiry.  However, the Stoic thinkers did not disdain Plato or Aristotle in their entirety.

For example, the Stoic thinkers accepted the four-fold division of Plato, and thought it convenient to divide virtue into the four cardinal virtues that Plato had identified: fortitude, temperance, prudence, and justice.  They also followed the notion that these virtues were related to each other and mutually supported each other.  The Stoics found that the inter-relatedness of the virtues also applied to their corresponding vices.

The Stoics, however, rejected the Aristotelian moderation of virtue/vice distinction.  Whereas Aristotle saw vice and virtue as two extremes to a continuum, with most of mankind in between the two extremes, the Stoics saw virtue and vice as all-or-nothing qualities.  One either was virtuous in toto or not, and if not, one was vicious.  This led to a sort of moral rigorism for which the Stoics were famous.  As Diogenes Laertius put it in his work on the life of the philosophers (Vitae, 7.127), "'while the Peripatetics [Aristotelians] say that progress lies between virtue and vice,' the Stoics'believed there is nothing between virtue and vice.'"  Houser, 19 (quoting Laertius).

Cicero--himself a disciple of the Stoic moral school--described this Stoic position in his De finibus (3.14.48) thus:

For just as those who are submerged in the ocean cannot breath, whether they are so close to the surface that they are just about to emerge or they are down deep . . . so too whoever is making a little progress toward the habit of virtue is no less in misery than one who has progressed not at all.

(quoted in Houser, 19)

The Stoic Chrysippus

Another contribution of the Stoic school is that they did not adopt Plato's "philosopher king" (philosophos basileus) or Aristotle's "great-souled" man (spoudaios) as the exemplar of the virtuous soul.  These notions were too tied to the political life of the polis or were too practical in perspective.  Rather, consistent with their Socratic emphasis and their notion of the logos as the underlying standard, the Stoics looked toward the wise man or sage (sophos) as the paradigm of the virtuous human.

By putting a cosmic and cosmopolitan twist on Socrates' search for universal definitions, the Stoics thought [the sage's] single-minded devotion to the logos allowed [the sage] to submit with equanimity to death, seemingly the worse of evils . . . . The Stoic sages was conceived as a paragon of moral virtue.

Houser, 19.

It should be noted that the Stoic sage's equanimity before death in his devotion to the logos was a quality that was quite compatible with the martyr's devotion to the Logos made flesh, Jesus the Lord, which led him to spurn death and witness to the truth.  The heroism of the sage and the heroism of the martyrs were thus analogous.

The Stoics recognized that virtue was not only something that made a man extrinsically excellent (in his relations ad extra), but that virtue was something that pertained to the inner life and so made a man excellent in his interior life (ad intra).  Indeed, it was the inner aspect of virtue which was emphasized.  Thus virtue's intrinsic goodness is not necessarily measured by results, but rather by what is right and good.  The Stoics therefore came to see virtue as its own reward, irrespective of consequences or happiness.  The Stoic philosopher Zeno, for example, "concluded that virtues are not one among many things that are intrinsically good, they are the only things that are good intrinsically (agathon, kalon; honestum); and likewise th only thing intrinsically bad is vice (kakia; vitium)."  Houser, 20.

Diogenes Laertius (Vitae, 7.102-3) summarized the Stoics' view thus:

The virtues--prudence, justice, courage, temperance, and the others--are good (agatha); and their opposites--imprudence, injustice, and the others--are bad (kaka); neither good nor bad are those things which neither benefit nor harm, such as life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, good, reputation, noble birth, and their opposites death, disease, pain, ugliness, weakness, poverty, bad reputation, low birth, and such things . . . . For these things are not good, but things indifferent (adiaphora) in the category of preferred things (proegmena).  For just as heating, not cooling, is a property of the hot, so benefiting, not harming, is a property of the good; but wealth and health do not benefit any more than they harm; therefore, neither wealth nor health is a good.

(quoted in Houser, 20).  The Stoics therefore saw a great many goods as pre-moral goods to which a sage ought to be indifferent; whereas Plato and especially Aristotle tended to see man and his good (happiness) as more a blend of extrinsic and intrinsic qualities.  The Stoic man could be "happy" lacking all things but virtue.  The Aristotelian man could not be "happy" even if virtuous, if he was lacking health and a certain level of wealth.

As we shall see in the next posting, this scheme of the Stoics--which labeled a whole host of things seen as intrinsically good in the Platonic-Aristotelian analysis as morally indifferent.  In order to explain which humans gravitated to such supposedly indifferent goods and avoided such supposedly indifferent evils, the Stoics had to develop some explanation.  They therefore developed a sort of dualistic moral theory that distinguished between animal impulse and desire tied to man's animal nature and the higher reason-based nature of rational man.

The Stoics and Virtue: Introduction

THE STOICS ARE THE NEXT group of philosophical thought that might profitably be looked at in terms of the development of virtue theory.  The Stoics looked not towards Plato or Aristotle for inspiration, but rather turned to Socrates, from whom, like their philosophical adversaries the Skeptics and the Epicureans, they sought answers to the question of "how should we then live?" as a title to a famous book once put it.

Skeptics took their inspiration from the Socratic aporia, the puzzlement, the "the only thing I know is that I do not know" tradition of Socrates.  This deconstruction by Socrates, of course, was a sort of intellectual unraveling of conventional knowledge so as to be put in a place where real thinking could begin.  However, what Socrates intended as a new beginning, the Skeptics apparently saw as an end.  All knowledge, the Skeptics held, is unknowable.  We are condemned not to know.  Translated into the moral life, this leads to a vicious relativism.

The Epicureans also sought inspiration from Socrates.  The Epicureans here focused on the elitism which was implicit in the Socratic manner.  It was not the many, the hoi polloi, that could be counted to provide us enlightenment as to how we should live.  The rabble is not the source of the good.  Rather, the Epicureans "found in Socrates' preference for the views of 'the few' inspiration for preferring the cultured pleasure brought by wisdom over the baser pleasures of 'the many.'"

When Christian thinkers came on the scene, they found both the Skeptic and the Epicurean schools unpalatable and not consistent or synthesizeable with the truth of the Gospel and the moral teachings of Jesus.  At root, a Christian cannot be a skeptic, for he believes in the sure footing of faith and reason.  Nor can a Christian be an epicurean or hedonist, for he would never adopt a pleasure principle as his moral pole star.

It was the last Socratically-inspired school--the Stoics--which Christians thought sufficiently aligned with their  teachings to make it an attractive complement to the teachings of Christ.

Stoicism, of course, takes its name from "painted porch," stoa poikile, the place alongside the marketplace of Athens where Socrates had spent so much time as philosophical gadfly to the consternation of the Athenian leaders who eventually found the need to condemn him to death for impiety and supposed corruption of youth.  When Plato and Aristotle founded their own schools (the Academy and the Lyceum, respectively), they abandoned to Stoa.  By re-appropriating the original teaching locus of Socrates, the Stoic philosophers manifest an intent to go back to the sources: a Socratic ressourcement.

Zeno of Citium, founder of the Stoic School

Unfortunately, much of the material of the early Stoic founders and thinkers has been lost to us.  Zeno of Citium (ca. 334-262 B.C.) has been generally honored as the founder of the Stoic school.  He authored a new Republic as a short of challenge-piece to the Platonic original.  Chrysyppus (ca. 280-226 B.C.), Zeno's disciple, carried this tradition on, authoring his own critique of Plato's Republic in his On the Republic.

One of the teachings of the Stoics that the Christians ultimately found attractive as analogous to the moral teachings of Jesus to which they were heir was the notion of Socrates's personal impetus--his daimon--a sort of spirit of universal reason that inspired Socrates, which warned him, which urged him on.  This Socratic daimon was identified by the Stoic philosopher Cleanthes (died 232 B.C.) with the universal reason (logos) which was further tied to Zeus (God), the author of nature.  One can see in Cleanthes' interpretation of the Socratic daimon a compatibility with the Christian notion of a God who creates a world through the Word (Logos) and which therefore displays in some manner in that world a truth about how we should then live.  Here, a notion of created order and the notion of an inspiration that acts in accord with that created order (reason, conscience, Holy Spirit).

It was the Stoic doctrine of the Logos that drew the early Christian thinkers toward Stoicism as a possible philosophical source with which to buttress the teachings they had received from Jesus and his apostles.  After all, it would have seemed as if the Apostle John had already given them the directive.  In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.  It was this Logos that became flesh, and had dwelt in the world, full of grace and truth.

What was the relationship between the Logos of the Stoic and the Logos-made-Flesh of the Gospel of John?

To answer that question, of course, we have to understand what the Stoics thought about the Logos, and we shall spend the next few postings on just this issue.

Schubert on St. Augustine's Teaching on the Eternal Law, Part 14

Augustine's Lex Aeterna Teaching
Its Content and its Source

by: P. Alois Schubert, S.V.D.

Part II
What Sources Inform St. Augustine's Teaching on the Eternal Law?

Bust of the Stoic Philosopher Chrysippus of Sol (ca. 278-206 B.C.)

D. THE STOA (336-207 B.C.)
(continued)

2. Attributes of the Common Law According to the Stoa.

a) Cleanthes calls this law the eternal applicable law. He writes in his hymn: "For the entirety of existence there is an eternal and subsisting law."(16) This law governs the things of the world and is eternal, just like Zeus himself.(17)

b) This law is, further, unchanging, in that it stays always one and the same.(18) It is right Reason which impresses itself upon and rules all things.(19)

c) This law is ultimately universal. Zeus rules the All by this law.(20) Even the evil are rejected and are confined back to it. The disorderly he brings into order, and the unlovely he makes lovely. You, O Zeus, sings Cleanthes, lead the law, the common, which impresses upon all things. You reign in your greatest power as the highest Lord of the entire world. Without you, Ruling Lord, nothing in the All occurs.(21) Even the deeds of the sinners, evil, you know, in your wisdom, how to even. The disorderly you place back into order, and the unlovely you make lovely."(22) Therefore everything, the orderly and disorderly, good and evil, is under the common law. It is therefore universal in the widest sense of that term.

Note well: the Stoics did not teach that the evil were destroyed by the common law. By this clarification they generally drew back to theodicy. Compare Anathon Aall in his The History of the Logos Idea (Die Geschichte der Logosidee) [Leipzig 1896].

The Stoa placed on the Logos the same qualities as Augustine did on the eternal law. Even here Augustine stands under a stoic influence.

STOA	AUGUSTINE
1. λόγον αἰὲν ἐόντα. S. 52, Anm. 16. λόγον καὶ ἐόντα ἀΐδιον	1. lex est aeterna, sempiterna, perpetua. S. 63, Anm. 1 and 2.
2. νόμου μέτα πάντα κυβερνῶν. S. 52, Anm. 20.	2. lex est universalis. S.7, Anm. 8 and S. 8, Anm. 10 and 12.

3. The Logos koinos is the Fundamental Norm of all Laws

The Stoics linked justice upon the natural law. They taught that justice or right has its wellspring not as a result of any human warrant, but as an outflow of reason be that from nature.(22) According to Chrysippus, there is no other wellspring for right that may be found, no other path other than that of Zeus and the common nature. From there must all human law find its source if we want to talk in terms of good and evil.(24) This common law is the king of all divine and human things, the dominant ruler of the good and the ugly, the most-high guide from which nature commands what things are permitted, what prohibited, and what is allowed in terms of political custom, and thereby is the norm and measure of justice and injustice.(25) The measure for good and evil, for the just and unjust is also the common law. All right and law, the law of nature, the moral law, and the law of the state all point backwards to the Logos orthos. Looking at these individually, we get the following picture:

a) The Law of Nature stems from the Logos koinos

The Logos impresses itself upon all things of this world.(26) Certainly, the Logos is but one.(27) It divides itself, however, in myriad subordinated rational individuals, the logoi spermatikoi. These rational seeds are the cause of the always renewing individuals, the never corrupting forms, the measure of propriety, the measure, the relationship, the beauty, the order, and the security of all earthly things.(28) The Logoi spermatikoi are the primary moving powers for the Stoic diakosmesis, the world environment (Weltausstattung). The Logos koinos can appropriately divide itself into are myriad of appropriate displays of its power. Through this principle the world is created and holds together.(29) The innumerable laws of of individual things run together into the one eternal law. Felicitously, there is preserved in an Armenian text alone some of the writing of the Stoic Poseidonius which deals with the role of the Logoi spermatikoi in the underlying law of things. In that text it says: "The earth does not stop in bringing forth the same plants. The heavens continues in its unending order. Sun, moon, and the stars overhead do not vary from their joint paths. The sea does not overstep its indicated boundaries. The creatures of the waters, the creatures of the air, the creatures of the land live in fidelity to their tasks; only man, that has authority over all things, is entrusted with the quality of freedom, and is able to disregard Providence and neglect the law of what is right."(30) The Logoi spermatikoi express themselves as the power that holds together all inorganic things, (hexis) as the physis of organic things, as psyche in the things that live, and as nous in mankind.(31) These laws run together into the one Logos orthos to the most high God.(32) In this manner the Stoics the natural law upon the eternal law. The Stoic manner of thinking about the derivation of the temporal law, especially the natural law, is the same as that in Augustine.

STOA	AUGUSTINE
1. The Stoa derived all right and law back to the Logos koinos: οὐδὲ γάρ ἐστιν εύρεΐν της δικαιοσύνης ἄλλης ἄρκὴν . . . ἤ τὴν ἐκ τοῦ Διὸς καὶ τὴν ἐκ τὴς κοινὴς φύσεως. S. 53, Anm. 24	1. Augustine derived the inner order of things (the natural law) from the divine wisdom and righteousness. S. 9, Anm. 3 and 4.
2. The Stoa derived the Logoi spermatikoi back to the Logos koinos tes physeos. Οἱ Στωικοί νοερὸν θεὸν ἀποφαίνονται πῦρ τεκνικον ὁδῶ βαδίζον ἐπὶ γένεσιν κόσμου ἐμπεριειληφὸς πάντας τους σπερματικούς λόγους, καθ’οὓς ἕκαστα καθ’ ειρομένην γίνεται. Diels, Doxographi Graeci 1879, S. 305.	2. Augustine derived the rationes seminales (the literal translation of Logoi spermatikoi) upon the divine power and wisdom. Aug., PL 34, lib. 9, 17. Potestas creatoris habet apud se posse de his omnibus aliud facere, quam eorum quasi seminales rationes habent. Aug., De gen. ad lit. PL 34, lib. X, 20; lib. X, 21. Vgl. Hans Meyer, Geschichte der Lehre von den Keimkräften, Bonn 1914, S. 63ff. Aug. in Heptat, II, 21. Insunt enim corporeis rebus per omnia elementa mundi quaedam occultae seminariae rationes, quibus cum data fuerit opportunitas temporalis atque causalis, prorumpunt in species debitas suis modis et finibus.

b) The Logos koinos is the principal source of the moral law.

Chrysippus teaches expressly: "There is simply no other source and background for justice that may be found other than Zeus and the common nature.(33) Nature and reason are the only measure for good and evil. Reason tells everyone what he should do and what he ought to avoid.(34) The highest morality is equivalent to living according to nature, that is reason."(35) Ergo the famous Stoic canon: "One must live according to Nature, that is to say Reason."(36) Living a life in accordance with reason is, at the final end, life in accordance with the Logos koinos. From this Logos, man takes a part in through reason, which he obtains by nature. The part of him that is reason lives in him as Logos andiathetos.(37) According to the Stoics, the moral law also is based upon the Logos koinos. Augustine holds that the moral law is innate. God writes it in the heart of man. The Stoa and Augustine both trace back the moral law to the divinity.

c) The Logos koinos is the Fundamental Norm of the Laws of the State.

The common law ties both the gods and men. Both use the world as a common home.(38) Cleanthes prays to Zeus from there: "Your progeny are we and part of your form, all which lives and is composed to die on earth."(39) Man and God are bound by the same law, and so it naturally follows that human laws, the laws of the State, must be arranged to conform to the One, the divine one. This is so because justice has its source, not in human law, but in the outflow from reason, that is nature.(40). Augustine derives in the same way the law of the State from the eternal law. Nihil esse iustum atque legitimum quod non ex aeterna lege homines sibi derivaverint.

d) Conclusion regarding the Stoic teaching on the Logos.

The concept of the Logos is at the center of the Stoic philosophy. The concepts of taxis, heimarmene, pronoia, physis koine, logos orthos, nomos koinos become in many cases synonymously used. The Stoics name the Logos eternal and universal. The evil are under the law of the Logos. The law of nature, the moral law, the law of the State all are derived from that source. The same or similar termini and manners of thinking in Augustine show the reliance of Augustine on the Stoa. Cicero and Plotinus are Augustine's bridge to them.

____________________

(16) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 537. ὥσθ’ ἕνα γίγνεσθαι πάντων λόγον αἰὲν ἐόντα . . .
(17) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. II, No. 300. τοῦτον γὰρ ἀΐδιον ὄντα διὰ πάσης αὐτῆς (= τῆς ύλης) δημιουργεῖν ἕκαστα.
(18) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 537. λόγον αἰέν ἐόντα . . .
(19) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 162. ὀρθὸς λόγος, διὰ πάντων ἐρχόμενος . . .
(20) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 537. Ζεῦ, φύσεως ἀρχηγέ, νόμου μέτα πάντα κυβερνῶν, χαῖρε . . .
(21) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 537. σὺ κατευθύνεις κοινὸν λόγον, ὃς διὰ πάντων
φοιτᾷ, μιγνύμενος μεγάλῳ μικροῖς τε φάεσσιν ᾧ σὺ τόσος γεγαὼς ὕπατος βασιλεὺς διὰ παντός. οὐδέ τι γίγνεται ἔργον ἐπὶ χθονὶ σοῦ δίχα, δαῖμον . . . πλὴν ὁπόσα ῥέζουσι κακοὶ σφετέραισιν ἀνοίαις . . .
(22) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 537. ἀλλὰ σὺ καὶ τὰ περισσὰ ἐπίστασαι ἄρτια θεῖναι, καὶ κοσμεῖν τἄκοσμα, καὶ οὐ φίλα σοὶ φίλα ἐστίν .
(23) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. III, No. 308. φύσει δὲ τὸ δίκαιον είναι καὶ μὴ θέσει ὡς καὶ τὸν ὀρθὸν λόγον καθάφησι Χρύσιππος ἐν τῷ περὶ τοῦ καλοῦ. . .
(24) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. III 326. Χρύσιππος ἐν τῴ περί θεῶν οὐ γὰρ ἐστίν εὑρείν τὴς δικαιοσύνης ἀλλην ἄρκὴν, οὐδέ ἀλλην γένεσιν ἤ τὴν ἐκ τοῦ Διὸς καὶ τὴν ἐκ τὴς κοινὴς φύσεως ἐντεῦθεν γὰρ δεῖ πᾶν τὸ τοιοῦτον τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔχειν, εἰ μέλλομεν ὀρθῶς τι ἐρεῖν περὶ ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν.
(25) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. III, No. 314. ὁ νόμος παντων ἐστί βασιλεὺς ϑείων τε καὶ ἀνϑρωπίνων πραγμάτων, δεῖ δὲ αὐτὸν προστάτην τε εἶναι τῶν καλῶν καὶ τῶν αἰσχρῶν καὶ ἄρχοντα καὶ ἡγεμόνα καὶ κατὰ τοῦτο κανόνα τε εἶναι δικαίων καὶ ἀδίκων καὶ τῶν φύσει πολιτικῶν ζῴων προστακτικὸν μὲν ὧν ποιητέον ἀπαγορευτικὸν δὲ ὧν οὐ ποιητέον . . .
(26) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 162. ὁ νόμος ὁ κοινός, ὅσπερ ἐστὶν ὁ ὀρθὸς λόγος, διὰ πάντων ἐρχόμενος . . .
(27) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. II, No. 1128. ὡς μέν οἱ Στωϊκοί λέουσιν εἰς τε ἐστὶν ὁ λόγος καὶ ἤ αυτή πάντως διανοίησις.
(28) Vgl. Anathon Aall, Geschichte der Logosidee, Bonn 1914, S. 129.
(29) Stobaeus, Ecl. I 374 and Anathon Aall S. 129. καὶ ὥσπερ τίνες λόγοι των μερών εις σπέρμα συνιόντες μίγνονται καὶ αύθις διακρίνονται γινομένων των μερών οὗτος ἐξ ενόζ τε πάντα γίνεσθαι και εκ πάντων εις ἐν συγκρίνεςθαι.
(30) Anathon Aal, Geschichte der Logosidee, Bonn 1914, S. 129. Sol et luna ceteraeque stellae a cedenti cursu non cessant, mare regulam mandati non excedit, aquatilia, volatilia et terrestria debitis officiis non desunt, solus libertate praeditus mundi civis homo, cui etiam principatus imperialis concessus fuit, talis, inquam, providentiam, dimisit, legemque iustitiae neglexit.
(31) Cf. v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. II, No. 708, nos. 773-911, I nos. 134-151, nos. 518-526.
(32) St. v. fr. I 537. Ζεῦ φύσεως ἀρχηγέ, νόμου μετὰ πάντα κυβερνῶν. St. v. f. III 326. οὐδὲ γάρ ἐστιν εύρεΐν της δικαιοσύνης ἄλλης ἄρκὴν ἤ τὴν ἐκ τοῦ Διὸς καὶ τὴν ἐκ τὴς κοινὴς φύσεως.
(33) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. III, No. 326. Χρύσιππος ἐν τῴ περί θεῶν οὐ γὰρ ἐστίν εὑρείν τὴς δικαιοσύνης ἀλλην ἄρκὴν, οὐδέ ἀλλην γένεσιν ἤ τὴν ἐκ τοῦ Διὸς καὶ τὴν ἐκ τὴς κοινὴς φύσεως .
(34) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. III, No. 314. [νόμον] κανόνα τε εἶναι δικαίων καὶ ἀδίκων καὶ τῶν φύσει πολιτικῶν ζῴων προστακτικὸν μὲν ὧν ποιητέον ἀπαγορευτικὸν δὲ ὧν οὐ ποιητέον.
(35) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 179. Διόπερ πρῶτος ὁ Ζήνων ἐν τῷ Περὶ ἀνθρώπου φύσεως τέλοςεἶπε τὸ ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει ζῆν, ὅπερ ἐστὶ κατ' ἀρετὴν ζῆν·ἄγει γὰρ πρὸς ταύτην ἡμᾶς ἡ φύσις.
(36) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 179. τὸ δε τέλος ὁ μὲν Ζήνων οΰτως ἀπέδωκεν τὸ ὁμολογουμένως ζῆν τούτο δ' εστί καθ' ένα λόγον ζῆν καὶ σύμφωρον ζῆν.
(37) De plac. phil. III 11. 900 B. Οἱ Στωϊκοί φασιν· ὅταν γεννηθῇ ὁ ἄνθρωπος, ἔχει τὸ ἡγεμονικόν μέρος τῆς ψυχῆς. St. v. fr. II 837. ἡγεμονικόν δὲ εἶναι τὸ κυριώτατον τῆς ψυχῆς.
(38) Stobaeus, Ecl. I 444. Χρύσιππος κόσμον ἔναι τὸ ἐκ τῶν θεῶν καὶ ἀνθρώπων καὶ σύστημα τῶν ἕνεκα τοῦτον γεγονότον. . . cf. Cicero, De finibus bon. et mal. III 20, 27.
(39) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 537. Έκ σου γάρ γένος είσ' ήχου μίμημα λαχόντες. μούνοι, όσα ζώει τε και έρπει θνήτ' έπί γαίαν.
(40) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. III, No. 308. φύσει δὲ τὸ δίκαιον είναι καὶ μὴ θέσει . . .

Schubert on St. Augustine's Teaching on the Eternal Law, Part 13

Augustine's Lex Aeterna Teaching
Its Content and its Source

by: P. Alois Schubert, S.V.D.

Part II
What Sources Inform St. Augustine's Teaching on the Eternal Law?

Bust of the Stoic Philosopher Chrysippus of Sol (ca. 278-206 B.C.)

D. THE STOA (336-207 B.C.)

In his teaching on the eternal law, Augustine is further reliant on the Stoa and Heraclitus. Nowhere do we find any evidence to establish that Augustine directly drew from Stoic sources. Doubtlessly, he learned about the Stoa from knowing Cicero and Plotinus.

Cicero himself witnessed that his philosophical works relied upon Greek sources. "Apographa [Aπόγραφα] sunt, minore labore fiunt, verba tantum affero, quibus abundo."(1) [They are copies, and are but little trouble. I only supply words, and of these I abound."]

Cicero's writings De re publica and De legibus are in the form of imitations of Plato's works Politeia and Nomoi.(2) In substance, the work De re publica most especially relies upon Panaetius and Polybius. With respect to his work De legibus we come particularly close to certain sources, especially Panaetius and Antiochus present themselves as sources. In the Academica priora et posteriora Cicero used Antiochus and Philo. In his work De finibus, he was assisted by the following: Zeno, Philodemus, and Antiochus of Ascalon. The Tusculan Disputations rely in part on Posidonius, and in part on other sources. The first book of De natura deorum bases itself on the writing of the Epicurean Phaedrus called Peri Theon, and on Carneades and Posidonius. The second book is based upon Posidonius's Peri Theon. The third book goes back to Cleanthes. The first book of De divinatione is reliant upon the the writing of Cleitomachus called Peri mantikes. The second books is based upon the work of Cleitomachus and Panaetius, perhaps his Peri pronoias. For the first two books of Cicero's De officiis, Panaetius is the main source, for the third book, Posidonius.

Plotinus was familiar with all the Greek philosophical systems. He also knew the Stoa well.(3)

Augustin learned also the Stoa through his familiarity with Cicero and Plotinus. We will investigate now what the Stoa understood under the notion of the eternal law, the Logos.

1. What did the Stoa Understand by the Logos?

The Stoa understood the Logos to be the right Reason impressed upon all things. This Reason is Zeus himself, the ruler of the actions of all things.(4) The Logos is here right Reason, and it is identified even with Zeus, the ultimate governor of the All. Chrysippus praises this law as King of all the divine and human things, as head over all the good and the ugly, as the highest leader of all nature, of political matters, and therefore also the norm and measure of the just and the unjust, and ordering of what ought to be done and what ought to be left alone.(5) This common law is further regarded as the necessity behind fate. Chrysippus, Posidonius, and Zeno teach that this necessity is the fundamental cause of Being, and of Reason under which all things fall.(6) Zeno understands this fundamental cause further as a kinetic power of things. He calls it Nature and Providence. In reality, these are different names for the same thing.(7) The heimarmene [Fate] stands surely with the inner cause of all things, as long as the impression of the pronoia [Providence] imports the control and concern of God into the ruling of the world. Again, Zeno names the Logos or Physis the fiery, artistic, working world reason.(9) He means thereby that nature itself the artistic, constructive fire that purposefully advances the formative path of the world.(10) This fire is depicted as artistic to distinguish it from a consuming fire.(11)

The fundamental fire flows in the fullness of art in the becoming of things. This art lies in the underlying order and the purpose of things. The entire world knows that this same nature is equivalent to the reason of the world, the necessity of fate, Providence, even Zeus himself. This is especially heralded by the Stoics.(12) Cleanthes speaks of Zeus as father of the world order. He prays to him: "You, O Zeus, know in your Wisdom, to make even that which is crooked. You order what is without order, and that which is not beautiful you make beautiful. You also make into one the many, and bring good out of evil, so that the entire stands forth in the eternal and sure Logos."(13)

The thinking regarding order is impressed upon us even more sharply by the Stoic view of the cosmos as a living organism (zoon). Just as in the microcosmos all is law and order, so also in the macrocosmos. The world reason lives, is ensouled, and in measured order manages the cosmos.(14) Chrysippus calls the heimarmene [fate] a kinetic power, one that arranges all things in order (taxei). This requirement he also calls the world law, truth, first cause, nature, fate, and other things.(15) So in fact is the concept of the Stoa of taxis, heirmarmene, ananke, pronoia, aitia, aletheia, physis, logos orthos, and nomos koinos [fate, destiny, providence, cause, truth, nature, right reason, eternal law]. These names all refer to that law, which, at its ultimate basis, is the Reason of the omnipotent Jupiter.

The Stoic termini: order, law, are the same that Augustine used. By comparing the two, we get the following picture:

STOA	AUGUSTINE
1. τάξις. S. 52, Anm. 15	1. ordo. S. 3, Anm. 1
2. αἰτία εἰρομένη. S. 50, Anm. 6. εἱμαρμένη. S. 50, Anm. 6.	2. ordo causarum, causa suprema. S. 7, Anm. 8.
3. ὁ ὀρθὸς λόγος. S. 50, Anm. 4.	3. summa ratio, recta ratio. S. 5, Anm. 14. .
4. ὁ κοινός τὴς φύσεως λόγος. S. 51, Anm. 12.	4. ratio divina. S. 5, Anm. 19.
5. πρόνοια. S. 51, Anm. 7.	5. providentia. S.8, Anm. 14
6. ὁ νόμος ὁ κοινός. S.50, Anm. 4.	6. lex aeterna. S. 9, Anm. 2.

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(1) Cicero ad Atticum XII 52, 3.
(2) Fr. Überweg, Grundriß der Geschichte der Philosophie des Altertums. I. Bd., S. 497, Ausgabe Praechter, Berlin 1920.
(3) Fr. Überweg, Grundriß der Geschichte der Philosophie des Altertums. I. Bd., S. 497, Ausgabe Praechter, Berlin 1920.
(4) V. . Arnim, Joh. Stoicorum veterum fragmenta, Bd. 1-3, Leipzig 1905, I, No. 162. νόμος ὁ κοινός, ὅσπερ ἐστὶν ὁ ὀρθὸς λόγος, διὰ πάντων ἐρχόμενος, ὁ αὐτὸς ὢν τῷ Διί, καθηγεμόνιτούτῳ τῆς τῶν ὄντων διοικήσεως ὄντι
(5) V. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. III, No. 314. ὁ νόμος πάντων ἐστὶ βασιλεὺς ϑείων τε καὶ ἀνϑρωπίνων πραγμάτων˙ δεῖ δὲ αὐτὸν προστάτην τε εἶναι τῶν καλῶν καὶ τῶν αἰσχρῶν καὶ ἄρχοντα καὶ ἡγεμόνα, καὶ κατὰ τοῦτο κανόνα τε εἶναι δικαίων καὶ ἀδίκων καὶ τῶν φύσει πολιτικῶν ζῴων προστακτικὸν μὲν ὧν ποιητέον ἀπαγορευτικὸν δὲ ὧν οὐ ποιητέον . . .
(6) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 175. καθ’ ειμαρμένην δε φασιν τα πάντα γίγνεσθαι Χρύσιππος, . . . καὶ Ποσειδώνιος καὶ Ζήνων . . . ἔστι δὲ εἱμαρμένη αἰτία τῶν ὄντων εἰρομένη ἤ λόγος καθ΄ον ο κόσμος διεξάγεται.
(7) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 176. Ζήνων, ὁ Κιττεὺς, δύναμιν κέκληκε τὴν εἱμαρμένην κινητικὴν τῆς ὕλης, τὴν δὲ αὐτὴν καὶ πρόνοιαν καὶ φύσιν ὠνόμασεν.—St. v. fr. I, No. 102. Ἕν τ' εἶναι θεὸν καὶ νοῦν καὶ εἱμαρμένην καὶ Δία πολλαῖς τ' ἑτέραις ὀνομασίαις προσονομάζεσθαι λέγει Ζήνων ἐν περὶ τοῦ ὅλου . . .
(8) Cf. Überweg I, Berlin 1920, S. 446.
(9) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. II, No. 1027. πνεῦμα διῆκον δι' ὅλου τοῦ κόσμου πῦρ τεκνικόν.
(10) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 171. τὴν μὲν φύσιν εἱναι πῦρ τεχνικόν ὁδω βαδίζον είς γένεσιν.
(11) Cf. Überweg I, S. 446, Berlin 1920.
(12) Plutarch, De Stoic. repug. 34, 5 nach Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen 31.2 S. 72, Anm. 2, Tübingen 1857. v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. I, No. 171. ὅτι δ' ἡ κοινὴ φύσις καὶ ὁ κοινός τὴς φύσεως λόγος εἱμαρμένη καὶ πρόνοια καὶ Ζεύς ἔστι ὅυδὲ τοὺς αντίποδας λέληθεν παντακοῦ γὰρ ταῦτα θρυλεῖται ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν . . .
(13) Mohnike, Gottl. Fr. Chr., Kleanthes der Stoiker, Greifswald 1914 and Überweg I 1920, S. 447. ἀλλὰ σὺ καὶ τὰ περισσὰ ἐπίστασαι ἄρτια θεῖναι, / καὶ κοσμεῖν τἄκοσμα, καὶ οὐ φίλα σοὶ φίλα ἐστίν. / ὧδε γὰρ εἰς ἓν πάντα συνήρμοκας ἐσθλὰ κακοῖσιν, / ὥσθ’ ἕνα γίγνεσθαι πάντων λόγον αἰὲν ἐόντα . . .
(14) v. Arnim, Joh. St. v. fr. II, No. 633. ὅτι δε καὶ ζώον ὁ κόσμος καὶ λογικόν καὶ ἔμψυχον καὶ νοερόν καὶ Χρύσιππος φησιν ἐν πρώτω περί προνοίας ... Ποσειδώνιος ζώον ζωον μεν ούτως όντα οὐσίαν ἔμψυχον αἰσθητικήν. . .
(15) Stobaeus, Ecl. I 180 and Anathon Aall S. 133. Χρύσιππος δύναμιν πνευματικὴν τὴν οὐσίαν τῆς εἱμαρμένης, τάξει τοῦ παντὸς διοικητικήν . . .Εἱμαρμένη ἐστὶν ὁ τοῦ κόσμου λόγος ἢ λόγος τῶν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ προνοία διοικουμένων, μεταλαμβάνει δε ἀντι τοῦ λόγου τὴν ἀλήθειαν, τὴν αἰτίαν, τὴν φύσιν, τὴν ἀνάγκην προστιθείς καὶ ἕτερας ὄνομασίας . . .

Tertullian and the Natural Law: Christ not Chrysippus

NEQUE DEUS NEQUE NATURA MENTITUR, neither God nor nature lie. In this striking statement found in his De testimonium animae, Tertullian brings together both strands of the natural law and the divine law as components of our striving to comprehend the truth about what is, and what is good. Tertullian's theology was therefore informed by both nature and revelation. While he accepted the Christian revelation without reserve, he did not for all that disdain the testimony of natural theology and a natural moral law. Much of Tertullian's notion of a natural moral law was borrowed from the Stoic philosophy which Christians found so hospitable to their concept of the good. The notion of the natural moral law was complimentary, indeed, a necessary adjunct to, the Law of Christ. And yet in crafting their ideas of the natural moral law, the early Christians, including Tertullian, were not slavish, uncritical adopters of the Stoic moral philosophy. Tertullian was a follower of Christ, not of Chrysippus.

In light of Christ's abrogation of some of the Mosaic ceremonial and juridical laws, and under the divine commission to bring the Gospel to all men, Jew and Greek, the Christians sought to found their moral thinking upon those aspects of the divine law that remained binding, e.g., the Decalogue, and the law that was communicated by the natural moral law, that is, by reason and by conscience. Christ's redeeming death overcame the mankind's failure to obey both the Mosaic Law and the Natural Law. Christ was the end, the fulfillment, the telos of both the Mosaic Law and the Natural Law.

In deriving their synthetic position on universal morality, i.e., the existence of a natural moral law that bound all men, that governed their relationship with God, and by which they would be judged, the Christians both borrowed and added to the Stoic and Jewish concepts, and therefore enlarged both. "Broadly speaking," Michael Crowe states in his The Changing Profile of the Natural Law, "the Fathers seem to have been content with a conception of the natural law similar to that of Cicero. This conception was, of course, now put into a Christian setting; the impersonal deity or nature of the Stoics gives way to the Christian God, sovereign lord and lawgiver; and the knowledge of the the natural law and its precepts becomes more intimately a matter of conscience." (Crowe, at 59.) Tertullian followed this pattern. As Professor Marcia Colish puts it in her historical review of Stoicism:

By natural law, [Tertullian] means both the order of the universe and the moral bonds that unit all men, as well as man's natural capacity to know them, a distinctively Stoic amalgam although he does not name it as such. All men can know God and the good by natural law (naturale iuri), he avers, but this knowledge is by no means adequate to man's needs. It does not constitute the saving knowledge of god's ethical commandments or of God's transcendent power over nature, nor does it create a personal relationship between man and God. These vital epistemological and moral conditions are met only be revelation, first in the Mosaic covenant and consummately in the Gospel. In this instance, Tertullian rigorously deemphasizes any harmony that can be found between pagan truth and Christian truth in the light of the superiority of revelation.

Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), 16-17.

Mosaic Depiction of Tertullian

Though therefore not an uncritical advocate of Stoic ideas, and though clearly not seeing the Stoic conception of the good sufficient in the light of Christ, Tertullian readily employs Stoic philosophy, especially in the areas of natural theology and the natural moral law. "He draws freely on the Stoic argument for the existence of God and His primary attributes on the evidence of the created order and on the basis of man's natural rational capacity to perceive God's connection with the creation." Colish, 17. Tertullian naturally "correlates man's natural knowledge of God with revelation, observing that God provides a fuller and more authoritative knowledge of Himself and His moral law in Holy Scripture." Colish, 18. One can summarize Tertullian's treatment of Stoicism thus: Tertullian treats Stoicism "as an ancilla [ancillary or sevant] to Christian truth." Colish, 18. Obedience to the natural law is a necessary, but not sufficient condition of salvation. The natural law formula alone is insufficient. But though the revelation of Christ must be joined thereto, the natural moral law is not therefore without essential value.

Tertullian saw the universal basis of the natural law in God's creation, and in the natural brotherhood of man that arose from mankind's common nature. In Chapter II.4-5 of his Spectaculis, Tertullian found that our nature bespoke of its creation by a benevolent God, and so was the source of universal moral instruction. Tertullian found that belief nearly universal, indeed, almost self-evident, although subject to limitations arising from ignorance or lack of clarity:

No one denies, because no one is ignorant of, that which nature of herself suggests: that God is the maker of the whole universe, and that that universe is both good and placed under man's dominion. But because they [the Pagans] know not God thoroughly, except by the natural law (naturali iure), not as being also of his household, but from afar, not close by, they necessarily must be ignorant regarding the manner in which he administers what he made, that is, what he encouraged and what he prohibited with regard to them, as well as the rival force from the opposing side which acts in adulterating the uses of the creatures of God. For they cannot know either the will, or that which resists the will, of him of whom they know nothing.

Nemo negat, quia nemo ignorat, quod ultro natura suggerit, deum esse universitatis conditorem eamque universitatem tam bonam quam homini mancipatam. Sed quia non penitus deum norunt nisi naturali iure, non etiam familiari, de longinquo, non de proximo, necesse est ignorent, qualiter administrari aut iubeat aut prohibeat quae instituit, simul quae vis sit aemula ex adverso adulterandis usibus divinae conditionis, quia neque voluntatem neque adversarium noveris eius quem minus noveris.

De spect., II.4-5. The natural law, therefore, found its source in the creation of the universe. This included man's nature, something that all men shared. So it was the common brotherhood of man, man created by the one God, that allowed for a common or universal notion of right and wrong, a univeral natural moral law. For example, in Chapter 39 of this Apologeticus pro Christianis, Tertullian dedected the natural law in the common humanity Christians shared with all men:

But we are also your brothers, by right of nature, the one mother, although you are little deserving of the name men, because you are evil brothers. But how much more worthily are those both called and considered brethren who have recognised one Father, namely God, who have imbibed one spirit of holiness, who from one womb of the same ignorance have quaked before one light of truth! (Souter, trans.)

Sed et quod fratres nos vocamus, non alias, opinor, insaniunt, quam quod apud ipsos omne sanguinis nomen de affectione simulatum est. Fratres autem etiam vestri sumus iure naturae matris unius, etsi vos parum homines, quia mali fratres. At quanto dignius fratres et dicuntur et habentur, qui unum patrem deum agnoverint, qui unum spiritum biberint sanctitatis, qui de uno utero ignorantiae eiusdem ad unam lucem expaverint veritatis!

Apol., XXXIX.8-9.

16th Century Woodcut of Tertullian