XII. He leaves life as he would leave a banquet-when it CHAP. is time. He lays aside his body when it no longer suits him, as he would lay aside worn-out clothes; and withdraws from life as he would from a house no longer weather-proof.1 A very different question, however, is that, whether life can be treated in this way as something indifferent, and whether the attempt to evade what destiny, with its unalterable laws, has decreed for us, can be reconciled with an unconditional resignation to the course of the world. Stoicism may, indeed, allow this course of action. But does not the difficulty here suggested prove the impossibility of ever uniting two tendencies so different as that towards individual independence and that towards submission to the universe, without involving some inconsistencies, greater or less? Teles, in Stob. Floril. 5, 67. Y CHAP. A. General connection of Stoicism and religion. CHAPTER XIII. THE RELATION OF THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY TO Religion. It would be impossible to give a full account of the philosophy of the Stoics without, at the same time, treating of their theology; for no early system is so closely connected with religion as that of the Stoics. Founded, as their whole view of the world is, upon the theory of one Divine Being-begetting from Himself and containing in Himself all finite creatures, upholding them by His might, ruling them according to an unalterable law, and thus manifesting Himself everywhere-their philosophy bears in general a decidedly religious tone. There is hardly a single prominent feature in the Stoic system which is not, more or less, connected with theology. A very considerable portion of that system, moreover, consists of strictly theological questions; such as arguments for the existence of God, and for the rule of Providence; investigations into the nature of God, his government, and presence in the world; into the relation of human activity to the divine ordinances; and all the various questions connected with the terms freedom and necessity. The natural science of the Stoics begins by evolving things from God; it ends with resolving them again into God. God is thus the beginning and end of the world's development. And, in like manner, their moral theory begins with the notion of divine law, which, in the form of eternal reason, controls the actions of men; and ends by requiring submission to the will of God, and resignation to the course of the universe. A religious sanction is thus given to all moral duties. All virtuous actions are a fulfilment of the divine I will and the divine law. That citizenship of the world, in particular, which constitutes the highest point in the Stoic morality, is connected with the notion of a common relationship of all men to God. Again, that inward repose of the philosopher, those feelings of freedom and independence, on which so much stress was laid, rest principally on the conviction that man is related to God. In a word, Stoicism is not only a philosophic, but also a religious system. As such it was regarded by its first adherents, as the fragments of Cleanthes prove;1 and as such, together with Platonism, it afforded in subsequent times, to the best and most cultivated men, a substitute for declining natural religion, a satisfaction for religious cravings, and a support for moral life, wherever the influence of Greek culture extended. 1 The well-known hymn to Zeus, in Stob. Ecl. i. 30. Nor is the poetic form used by Cleanthes without importance. He asserted, at least according to Philodem. De Mus. Vol. Herc. i. col. 28: ἀμείνονά γε εἶναι τὰ ποιητικὰ καὶ μουσικὰ παραδείγματα καὶ τοῦ λό γου τοῦ τῆς φιλοσοφίας, ἱκανῶς CHAP. XIII. CHAP. (1) Con Stoicism with popular faith. In itself, this philosophic religion is quite independent of the traditional religion. The Stoic philosophy contains no feature of importance which we can pronounce with certainty to be taken from the popular faith. Even the true worship of God, according to their view, consists only in the mental effort to know God, and in a moral and pious life.1 A really acceptable prayer can have no reference to external goods; it can only have for its object a virtuous and devout mind. At the same time, there were reasons which led the Stoics to seek a closer union with the popular faith. Attaching a great importance to general opinion, particularly in the attempt to prove the existence of God,3 they could not, without extreme danger to themselves, declare the current opinions about the Gods erroneous. Moreover, the ethical basis of the Stoic philosophy imposed on them the duty of supporting, rather than destroying, the popular creed that creed forming a barrier against the violence of human passions. The practical value of the popular faith 1 Compare the celebrated dictum of the Stoic in Cic. N. D. ii. 28, 71: Cultus autem Deorum est optimus idemque castissimus plenissimusque pietatis, ut eos semper pura integra incorrupta et mente et voce veneremur; and Epict. Man. 31, 1: TŷS TEρl Toùs θεοὺς εὐσεβείας ἴσθι ὅτι τὸ κυριώτατον ἐκεῖνό ἐστιν, ὀρθὰς ὑπολήψεις περὶ αὐτῶν ἔχειν . καὶ σαυτὸν εἰς τοῦτο κατατεταχέναι, τὸ πείθεσθαι αὐτοῖς καὶ εἴκειν ἐν πᾶσι TOîs Vivoμévois, K.T.λ. Id. Diss. ii. 18, 19. - 2 M. Aurel. ix. 40: We ought not to pray the Gods to give us something, or to protect us from something, but only to pray: diδόναι αὐτοὺς τὸ μήτε φοβεῖσθαί τι τούτων μήτε ἐπιθυμεῖν τινος τούTwv. Diog. vii. 124: We ought only to pray for what is good. Sext. Math. ix. 28, says that some of the younger Stoics traced the belief in Gods back to the golden age. 4 In this spirit, Epict. Diss. ii. 20, 32, blames those who throw doubts on the popular Gods, may, then, be the principal cause of their theological orthodoxy. Just as the Romans-long after all faith in the Gods had been lost under the influence of Greek culture 1-found it still necessary and useful to uphold the traditional faith, so the Stoics may have feared that, were the worship of the people's Gods to be suspended, that respect for God and the divine law on which they depended for the support of their own moral tenets would, at the same time, be exterminated. CHAP. XIII. Meantime, they did not deny that much in the (2) Free popular belief could not harmonise with their criticism of popular principles; and that both the customary forms of belief. religious worship, and also the mythical representations of the Gods, were altogether untenable. So little did they conceal their strictures, that it is clear that conviction, and not fear (there being no longer occasion for fear), was the cause of their leaning towards tradition. Zeno spoke with contempt of the erection of sacred edifices; for how can a thing be holy which is erected by builders and labourers? Seneca denies the good of prayer.3 He considers it absurd to entertain fear for the Gods, those ever-beneficent beings. without considering that by so doing they deprive many of the preservative from evil. Characteristic are the utterances of the sceptic pontifex Cotta, in Cic. N. D. i. 22, 61; iii. 2. 2 Plut. Sto. Rep. 6, 1; Diog. vii. 33. 3 Ep. 41, 1: Non sunt ad He would have God cœlum elevandæ manus nec ex- Benef. iv. 19, 1: Deos nemo |