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Bible Encyclopedias
Stoics
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or (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.)
These files are public domain.
McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Stoics'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/s/stoics.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.
