Stoicism in Early Christianity

Rasimus, Tuomas, Engberg-Pedersen, Troels, Dunderberg, Ismo

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781441233677
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Highlighting the place of Stoic teaching in early Christian thought, an international roster of scholars challenges the prevailing view that Platonism was the most important philosophical influence on early Christianity. They suggest that early Christians were more often influenced by Stoicism than by Platonism, an insight that sheds new light on the relationship between philosophy and religion at the birth of Christianity.

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SETTING THE SCENE: STOICISM AND PLATONISM IN THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD IN ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Troels Engberg-Pedersen
University of Copenhagen

The centuries immediately following the end of the Hellenistic age remain a murky area in the history of philosophy. While a great deal of work has been done in recent years to rehabilitate Hellenistic thought itself from the generally negative assessment of the nineteenth century, the thesis that later philosophy traces a decline into “eclecticism” . . . retains a programmatic hold over studies of the period. Three centuries of intellectual activity are held to mark out a kind of philosophical no man’s land between the earlier systems from which they are taken to derive their material, and the glories of “Neoplatonism” to which they look forward.

Thus George Boys-Stones began his intriguing book from 2001, Post-Hellenistic Philosophy, subtitled A Study of Its Development from the Stoics to Origen.[1] The period that he identified in this way was roughly 100 B.C.E.–200 C.E. This was also the period in which Greco-Roman philosophy began to make a serious impact on Jewish and early Christian thinking, as is documented by the essays in this book. In this introductory essay I will present some of the main features of this period, focusing on the interaction between the various philosophical schools and trying to understand the precise character of that interaction. Since at the beginning of the period Stoicism was the leading philosophical school but had been displaced as such at the end of the period by Platonism, I will also focus on trying to understand the development that resulted in this change. Traditionally, the period has been studied—at least by scholars interested in Platonism and its impact on Jewish and early Christian thinking—under the rubric “Middle Platonism.”[2] Scholars have identified two forms of Stoicism in it: so-called Middle Stoicism for the hundred years running approximately from 150 B.C.E. to 50 B.C.E. and so-called Late Stoicism or Neostoicism for the two first centuries C.E.[3] However, for the purposes of understanding both the interaction between Stoicism and Platonism (and in principle other philosophies) in the whole period and also the relationship of either with early Jewish and Christian thought, it is preferable to identify the period, as is proposed here, as the “Transitional Period” of ancient philosophy.[4]

1. Basic Changes During the Transitional Period

A number of momentous events directly relevant to the development of philosophy took place during the Transitional Period in the political and more broadly cultural fields of the ancient world.[5] While philosophy previously had been something of a Greek specialty focused on Athens, the Romans now began to make their presence felt. In Greece itself, the first representative of Middle Stoicism, Panaetius of Rhodes (ca. 185–109 B.C.E.), who had stayed in Rome in the 140s, maintained close contacts with high-level Romans when he became head of the Stoic school in Athens from 129 until his death. Even more importantly, as a result of the so-called First Mithradatic War (89–85), in which Athens had sided with King Mithradates of Pontus in Asia Minor against the Romans, the four schools of philosophy that had been operating in Athens since the beginning of the Hellenistic period were closed down by the Romans after Sulla had captured the city in the year 86. Philosophy now became homeless and had to go into exile. Even before that, however, the second main representative of Middle Stoicism, Posidonius of Apamea (ca. 135–51), who had studied with Panaetius at Athens, founded his own school of Stoicism in Rhodes. Posidonius, too, had close contacts with high-level Romans. In short, Athens was no longer the center of philosophy.

In Rome itself, the new superpower made itself felt in several ways in relation to philosophy. Around 50 B.C.E., Cicero wrote philosophical treatises on the main topics in philosophy—epistemology, physics and theology, ethics—in which he set forth the main positions adopted by the three schools that were recognized as the most important ones at the end of the Hellenistic period: Stoicism, Epicureanism, and the skeptical “New Academy” (which had developed the nondogmatic side of Plato’s philosophy), though also with some input from the Peripatetic school derived from Aristotle.[6] Two editorial undertakings had immense influence on the further development of philosophy. Sometime around the mid-first century B.C.E. in Rome, Andronicus of Rhodes produced an edition of Aristotle’s works, including the so-called esoteric ones, which are those that have come down to us and that were to make a huge impact on philosophizing in the centuries to come. About seventy-five years later, the court astrologer of the emperor Tiberius in Rome, Tiberius Claudius Thrasyllus (who notably came from Alexandria), produced what was probably a new edition of Plato’s writings, in which he apparently introduced the division of the dialogues into tetralogies that is still in use.

Back in the first century B.C.E., Alexandria in Egypt had come into its own as a place where dogmatic, nonskeptical Platonism began to develop into Middle Platonism. Eudorus of Alexandria, who flourished around 25 B.C.E., “seems to have turned the very Stoicized Platonism of [the dogmatic apostate from the nondogmatic Platonic New Academy] Antiochus of Ascalon in a more transcendental direction, under the influence of Neopythagoreanism.”[7] This statement made by an authority on Middle Platonism, John Dillon, points to our theme: the relationship between Stoicism in the Transitional Period and a newly conceived Platonism, which eventually led to the final victory of Platonism over Stoicism both in Neoplatonism (third century) and in Christian thought that is contemporary with Neoplatonism. Witnesses to this victory are two more, later and Christian Alexandrians: Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–215 C.E.) and the great Origen (184/185–254/255 C.E.). But into this development we should also fit yet another Alexandrian (on whom Clement drew heavily): the Jewish Platonist Philo of Alexandria, back around the birth of Christ (ca. 20 B.C.E.–45 C.E.), who played an important, if somewhat enigmatic, role in the development of Middle Platonism.[8] Dillon’s comment also points to the elusive role played at the beginning of this whole development by the “new Academician turned Stoic” Antiochus of Ascalon (ca. 130–69/68 B.C.E.), who had studied in Athens with the last representative of the New Academy, Philo of Larissa (159/158–84/83 B.C.E.), had then founded his own school in the same city, but also maintained extensive contacts with high-level Romans in whose company he even visited Alexandria. We will come back later to Antiochus, who is a characteristic representative at an early stage of the change in the relationship between Stoicism and Platonism that we will consider.

What we have, then, is a move away from Athens as the philosophical center to Rhodes, Alexandria, and Rome; a summary by Cicero in Rome around 50 B.C.E. of Hellenistic philosophy as it more or less appeared before the developments that inaugurated the Transitional Period (though Cicero does make relatively much of the novelties introduced by Antiochus of Ascalon);[9] developments in Alexandria throughout the first century B.C.E. that contributed to creating the form of Platonism known by modern scholars as Middle Platonism (and here we may specifically note the extensive amount of Platonism to be found in the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria); and finally, the fact of major editorial undertakings in Rome of the writings of Aristotle and of Plato. Even as described in these broadly cultural terms, philosophy looked very different in the first century B.C.E. compared to previous centuries.

The changes in the social practices of doing philosophy that took place during the first century B.C.E. and were quite often in one way or another connected with the presence of the Romans laid the ground for a period that runs to the end of the second century C.E. During this period, the development in philosophy gradually changed the overall philosophical landscape rather drastically. Both Epicureanism and Stoicism were still around during the whole period, the latter in the form of Late Stoicism or Neostoicism as represented by, among others, the Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca (ca. 1–65 C.E.); the Roman knight (who wrote in Greek) Musonius Rufus (ca. 30–100); the Roman (but originally Greek) slave (who also taught in Greek) Epictetus (ca. 50–120); and finally the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180), who also wrote in Greek. But alongside these two schools, Aristotelianism (the Peripatetics) came into its own as a very important intellectual presence in philosophy, as is witnessed by the extensive amount of commentaries that began to be written on Aristotle’s texts—for instance, by the great Alexander of Aphrodisias (ca. 200 C.E.). Similarly, Platonism in the new form that it had achieved during the first century B.C.E. eventually became the reigning type of philosophy, which would then also, from the latter half of the second century onwards, exercise a profound influence on Christian theologians such as the Christian Alexandrians noted earlier. This is the period of a number of main representatives of Middle Platonism: Plutarch (ca. 50–120) and a number of figures from the second century C.E. such as Albinus (ca. 150), Alcinous (second century), Apuleius (ca. 125–170), Atticus (ca. 150–200), and Numenius (second century). At a specific point in time at the end of the Transitional Period, in 178 C.E., the emperor Marcus Aurelius sealed the intervening development by setting up four new chairs of philosophy in Athens, which thereby reasserted—if not in actual fact, at least in appearance—the role it had had until the Romans closed the schools in 86 B.C.E. Where Cicero had focused on three philosophies—Epicureanism, Stoicism, and the skeptical New Academy (though also with some input from specifically Aristotelian philosophy)—Marcus Aurelius now installed chairs for the four philosophies that were henceforth to be the four philosophies of the ancient world: Epicureanism, Stoicism, Aristotelianism, and dogmatic Platonism. However, and most importantly, by this time both Epicureanism and Stoicism were for all intents and purposes basically extinct, only to be rediscovered at a far later period in the history of European thought, after the Renaissance. The two philosophies that were alive and influential were Aristotelianism and Platonism, with the latter being the leading force.

2. The Problem

With this brief overview in place, we may raise the question of a deeper understanding of some of the changes noted above. One thing particularly striking about the Transitional Period is that almost all philosophers within the period to some degree adopted ideas from philosophies other than their own. In the context of the present book and the overall change from Stoicism to Platonism as the leading force, we will focus particularly on these two schools. What we find is that many philosophers who were basically Stoics, and who saw themselves as such, also drew on ideas that had a specifically Platonic pedigree. Conversely, many philosophers who were basically Platonists, and who saw themselves as such, also drew on ideas that had a specifically Stoic pedigree. Traditionally, as Boys-Stones noted in the quotation with which we began, this phenomenon has been identified as a matter of “eclecticism.” More recently, however, this category has been called seriously into question.[10] As John Dillon concludes his analysis of the phenomenon, “Eclecticism has for too long been used as a term of contempt in the area of later Greek philosophy. As such, let us have done with it.”[11] But then, how should we understand the fact itself of the existence of various types of blending of philosophies in our period? For of course, the fact itself does not go away by calling into question our way of categorizing it.

This question becomes even more serious when one notes that the very same philosophers who in this or the other area engaged in a blending exercise also quite often had very strong opinions about the inadequacy of the philosophy as a whole from which they nevertheless drew certain ideas. At least, while there is a certain openness toward input from Plato, as we will see, in certain Stoics during our period (beginning with Panaetius and extending from him over Posidonius and Seneca to Marcus Aurelius), the Platonists, on their side, wrote explicitly against Stoicism while also adopting Stoic ideas in a number of places. How is that apparent paradox to be understood and explained? Can we find a way of understanding the character of philosophy itself in our period that will also explain and dissolve the paradox?

Before addressing this question, we should note that the question is directly relevant to the issue being discussed in the present book. It is well known, and we have already noted the fact, that from a certain point in time onward, namely, toward the end of the second century C.E., the kind of philosophy that influenced Christian thought was basically that of Platonism. Before that, however, the situation was far less clear-cut. In early Christian texts from the New Testament and well into the second century, one may in fact find traces of Platonism. But one may also find traces of Stoicism. Indeed, some (including the writer of these pages) have argued that at least in the thought of the apostle Paul the Stoic component is far more extensive than normally admitted.[12] But then, since no early Christian writer was either a Platonist or a Stoic per se (rather, they had their own worldview, focused on Christ), how should one understand this adoption of either Platonic or Stoic ideas? And indeed, how may one and the same Christian writer adopt both Platonic and Stoic ideas if that is in fact the case? In order to answer these questions we must obtain a better grasp of the interaction between Platonism and Stoicism during our period in philosophy proper, outside the Christian context.

3. Attempts at a Solution

Important steps have been taken in recent scholarship to find a solution to the apparent paradox of the copresence of, for instance, Platonism and Stoicism in philosophers who saw themselves as belonging to one of the two schools only and were even highly critical of the school from which they did incorporate certain ideas.

In his excellent overview of “Les écoles philosophiques aux deux premiers siècles de l’Empire,” Jean-Marie André spoke of a “cultural integration” of the philosophical schools into society in the way their dogmatic positions had become part of “the encyclopedia of antiquity.”[13] That explains Marcus Aurelius’s installation of the four chairs of philosophy at the end of our period, but hardly the blending exercise that also took place throughout the period. More recently, in an epilogue to the Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, Michael Frede focused, in a manner that I have basically adopted above, on the change in the role of Athens at the beginning of our period, which saw what David Sedley has also called “the great philosophical exodus from Athens” around 86 B.C.E.[14] When the Athenian schools went out of existence, says Frede, there was no longer any “scholarch to define the philosophical position of the school. It was no longer relatively clear what the position of a school was on a particular question at a particular time.”[15] “This vagueness and indefiniteness about what it is to belong to a certain school must have reinforced greatly t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• 1. Setting the Scene: Stoicism and Platonism in the Transitional Period in Ancient Philosophy
• 2. Stoicism as a Key to Pauline Ethics in Romans
• 3. Stoic Law in Paul?
• 4. Jesus the Teacher and Stoic Ethics in the Gospel of Matthew
• 5. An “Emotional” Jesus and Stoic Tradition
• 6. The Emotional Jesus: Anti-Stoicism in the Fourth Gospel?
• 7. Stoic Physics, the Universal Conflagration, and the Eschatological Destruction of the “Ignorant and Unstable” in 2 Peter
• 8. The Stoics and the Early Christians on the Treatment of Slaves
• 9. Facing the Beast: Justin, Christian Martyrdom, and Freedom of the Will
• 10. A Stoic Reading of the Gospel of Mary: The Meaning of “Matter” and “Nature” in Gospel of Mary 7.1–8.11
• 11. Stoic Traditions in the School of Valentinus
• 12. Critical Reception of the Stoic Theory of Passions in the Apocryphon of John
• 13. Stoic Ingredients in the Neoplatonic Being-Life-Mind Triad: An Original Second-Century Gnostic Innovation?
• Index of Modern Authors
• Index of Subjects
• Index of Ancient Sources
• Notes