Religion and Theology

The possibility of a relationship between Jesus teaching, early Christianity and the Stoics has been discussed from at least the mid nineteenth century. Discussion of contact between Paul and Stoicism dates from Jerome (d. 420). He alluded to supposed correspondence, consisting of fourteen letters, between Paul and Seneca (Sevenster 12). Bryant discussed Stoic-Christians relations in his 1886 book. At Acts 17, Paul disputes with Stoics. Some argue that Stoicism had very little impact, other than use of language, while some argue that Christianity had a great deal in common with Stoicism. Voegelin points out similarities between Christian Patristic literature and Stoicism (200). A middle position says that the Stoics and Jesus, and such an important interpreter of Jesus as Paul, were familiar with Stoic thought and deliberately stressed what they had in common in order to better communicate what was a universal message across the classical world.  This does not mean that they borrowed from the Stoics but that they recognized common truths and used similar language to express their ideas, since their audience was the whole human race, not this or that particular community. An exploration of the ideas and language of Jesus and Paul against the background of the time, which includes Second Temple Judaism and Greek (Hellenic) ideas, suggests that early Christianity may very well have consciously drew on the Stoics. First, the broad outline of Stoic thought is explored. Then the teachings of Jesus and Paul are explored, within the intellectual and religious context of the day and with their goal of communicating on a universal scale in view. This demonstrates that Paul especially wanted to locate Christianity within humanitys intellectual heritage, not as an exotic, alien development from outside the tradition of human thought. At the time, Stoicism was the dominant philosophy. Paul was anxious to embrace anything that was compatible with Christian ideas, although in doing so he also added distinctive aspects about the personal nature of the divine.

Who were the Stoics
Stoicism began at the start of the 3rd century BCE. It became an intellectual and social influence of prime importance over the next five centuries. Stoics are best known for their ethics (Sandbach 9). Zeno of Elea (d. 430 BCE) was the founder of the Stoic school, although Stoicims became a way of life as much as an intellectual tradition. He was primarily interested in conduct, to lay down principles for good conduct but beyond that he wanted to demonstrate that they were right (Sandbach 14). The goal was the attainment of virtue. Right conduct (virtue), Zeno believed, could not be settled without understanding the relation of man to the universe (Sandbach 14). Man requires knowledge of the physical world in which he lives. Thus, the central question for Zeno was how should we act Chrysippus (d. 207 BCE) is credited with restating, expanding and to some extent modifying Zenos ideas. His successors, says Sandbach, were mainly concerned with defending what became known as Stoic orthodoxy. Later Stoics took account of the thought of Plato and Aristotle (Sandbach 15). From Greece, Stoicism spread to Rome, where Seneca (d. 65CE) was one of the most influential exponents. An advisor to Nero, he ended up committing suicide following implication in a plot against the emperor, due to his despotism. The emperor Marcus Aurelius (d. 180) has been described as one of the last great Stoics

What did the Stoics teach
Knowledge of what constitutes virtue can transform individuals, according to Stoic thought. Thus, human transformation was a central concern. This is why Stoicism became a way of life, since engaging in right conduct is a full-time activity. Stoics believed that all events have a cause. Only physical bodies can affect causes, thus only bodies can act and be acted upon (Sellars 88). Stoics posited that God possesses a body, which for them was Nature itself. If existence is corporeal and God exists, God must have a body, although this does not necessarily resemble human bodies. God is pure reason. God is active within, not outside, nature, immanent, not transcendent. Thus, the cosmos is a living being (Sellars 92). Zeno appears to have held that the cosmos is itself conscious (93). God was not thought of by the Stoics as a personal deity external to nature (95). The concept of a conscience was of primary importance, without which virtue cannot be attained. Gods reason is identifiable with the logos and with the power of reason that all people possess. Spermaticos Logos, or regenerative reason, links people and God. This spark of the divine in all beings was also identified with fire  God brought existence into being with fire and ultimately all returns to God through fire  there is no eternal, separate, individual existence. How then can virtue be achieved Virtue is achieved by conforming to nature, within which God exists. By following reason we can live according to natural law. Moral conduct and rational action are synonymous. Why, then, do people act immorally, if reason is within us and nature as well. We act immorally because of passion, which is irrational. Passion (lust, envy, anger) and evil result from ignorance, which is persistent among people. Wisdom negates these. Discipline can control passion. Choice is critical. People can choose to elect those things that agree with nature, and reject those that do not thus Stoics emphasized human capacity for moral choice (Flusser 229). Once all that is has returned to God, the cycle of existence will begin again. This suggests the possibility of a new beginning, even of a Golden Age, a restoration of an earlier Golden Age before ignorance obstructed wisdom and reason.

Jesus and his intellectual background Judaism
From the perspective of much Christian thought the idea that Jesus had an intellectual background is ridiculous. He was God, so spoke a divine not a human message. From the perspective of critical and historical scholarship that sets aside what Christians believe about Jesus (the Christ of Faith) and focuses on available historical material, Jesus lived within a specific context, so his relationship with that context can be explored. There are some scholars who argue that Jesus did not exist. Several actually suggest that Paul invented him, such as George Albert Wells (see Bennett 209-210). Ma Many read pagan influence rather than philosophical into Paul, suggesting that he drew on the mystery cults and ideas about divine son-ship, sacrifice and new life found in the Greek and Mediterranean world. Much traditional Christian scholarship ignored any possibility of outside influence on Jesus, even minimizing his Jewish identity and continuity between his teachings and Jewish tradition. Instead, differences were stressed. Jesus may have lived in what was then the Roman province of Palestine in Second Temple Judaism but none of this contributed to his life and teaching. The Gospels and other New Testament documents were taken to be divinely inspired, thus comparison with other contemporary writing is irrelevant.

More recent scholarship treats the New Testament documents differently, surmising that they were written over a longer period of time involving an editorial process that combined what Jesus actually said with subsequent Christian thinking and doctrines. Words were back-projected onto Jesus lips to give authority to later Christian belief, even to score points against rivals. From at least the late eighteenth century, more attention has been paid to Jesus context, including Jesus Jewish background. From abstracting Jesus from out of his historical context, theory has shifted toward depicting him as a child of the times. Indeed, his teaching has been described as more or less derived from other sources, making him a Pharisee, a Cynic, an Essene or even a Buddhist, as one writer put it

From Jesus the violent revolutionary to Jesus the gay magician, from Jesus the apocalyptic fanatic to Jesus the wisdom teacher or Cynic philosopher unconcerned with eschatology, every conceivable scenario, every extreme theory imaginable, has long since been proposed, with opposite reaction canceling each other out and eager new writers repeating the mistakes of the past (Meier 3).

In his survey of the Quest for the Historical Jesus, Bennett suggests that a dominant motif in recent scholarship has been a stress on continuity rather than discontinuity between Jesus and Jewish thought, so that what distances Jesus from first century Judaism is the result of later Christian editing. Some prominent scholars, such as E, P Saunders, see no essential difference  between Jesus teaching and the wider Jewish community (Bennett 142).

Jesus and his intellectual background Hellenic thought
Others point out that Palestine had an exposure to Greek thought since Alexanders conquest. A Hellenizing school existed within Judaism that stressed the universal not particular aspects of Jewish belief. Among those who take the wider intellectual context seriously are such writers as Dominic Crossan, Gerd Theissen and Gerald Downing. All refer to the possible influence of the Cynics on Jesus. Downing identifies many similarities, Jesus lives simply, he relates to people, he does without a secure home base, he travels light  he takes examples from the animal world as the Cynics  the example of birds which do not store anything (cited in Bennett 155). Sending out his disciples without any food, secure accommodation but with a staff and sandals resonates with the Cynics, for whom cloak, wallet and staff were part of an official triad while what Crossan calls the Stoic side of the Stoic-Cynic hyphenation left out sandals as well, walking bare-foot (Crossan 82 Mark 6 1-13). Others think that Stoic though may also have impacted Jesus, indeed pointing out that by Jesus time the differences between Stoicism and Cynicism was blurred (Crossan 74). Bennett says that later Christians saw too much resemblance between Jesus teaching, Stoic and Cynic thought, to reject the latter out of hand (177). There may have been convention-flouting, aphorism-spouting, bread-begging Cynics wandering through Palestine contemporary with Jesus (Bennett 155).

Paul and the Stoics
The gospels make no specific reference to philosophical ideas that can be explicitly linked with Stoic thought, except for the use of the concept of the logos in Johns prologue. Where scholars identify similarity is mainly between the style of Jesus sayings and of the Cynics, although the simple life style that he preached also resembles Cynicism. Jesus teaching that a life of obedience to God demands our total commitment, leaving behind family to serve others, too, resonates with aspects of Stoicism (Matthew 1037-39). It is with Paul, whom many credit as the first to systematically re-present Jesus teaching (some say misrepresent) that specific reference occurs to pre-existing Hellenic thought. For example, at Acts 17 17 Paul encounters Stoics in Athens, who dispute with him. Scholars have seen similarity between Paul on the role of the conscience, on sin and on the possibility of personal transformation and Stoicism. Pauls political comment (Romans 13 1) has been linked with Stoic ideas (Engberg-Pedersen). Grant (1915) wrote that the theory of a dependent relationship, one way or the other, between St Paul and Stoicism, is by no means a novelty, nor the offshoot of recent scholarship. He then refers to the tradition that Paul and Seneca corresponded, recorded by Jerome (268). Grant assumes that reference to Senecas correspondence with Paul represented a desire to place him in Christianitys debt, rather than to represent Paul as indebted to Seneca. Christians at this point were sensitive to the charge that Christianity was merely Greek philosophy in a new guise, contributing nothing new. Critics either dismissed Christianity as puerile and silly or said that it had been concocted from preexisting sources (Bennett 169). Grant points out that Stoic thought were daily set forth in the streets and markets of Towns such as Pauls native Tarsus, so asks How could it remain unknown to a keen-eyed Jewish boy (274). Grant then suggests that Pauls Pharisaic allegiance precluded anything other than a chance exposure to Stoicism, since such a boy would not have stopped to listen to propagandists preaching on the corners (274). He also suggests that Pauls style precludes any indebtedness to the Greek schools of Tarsus (275). On the other hand, the effects of Stoicism were in the air so there might be instances when Paul sub-consciously used Stoic language while expressing ideas and principles that were diametrically opposed and utterly alien to Stoicism (276). He concluded that Paul was closer to Wisodm schools in Jewish thought and to the thinking of Philo than to the Stoa (280). Thus, popular semi-philosophical language may have come to Pauls hand helping him express his theology (281). Grant does hint that Paul and the Stoics may have shared the same goal, if the moral ideal is a universal reality, it is quite possible for Paul and the Stoics top have aimed toward a common center, working in the same atmosphere, though from different points of view (281). Grant also points out, though, that Philo drew on Stoic thought (Grant represents the position that similarity does not represent any actual cross-fertilization. Turtullian (d 210CE) famously asked What has Athens to do with Jerusalem, the academy with the Church

There was, though, another approach, one that saw commonality as due to the universal nature of truth and the free-ranging activity of the logos. This notion is actually found in Paul, so could suggest a different relationship between Paul and pre-existing thought. Writers such as Lee think that Stoicism provides a very important context for Pauls thought and that especially when he entered Rome he set out to use Stoic philosophy as a starting-point for Christian thought (Lee 3). Engberg-Pederson identifies nine features in common between Paul at Romans 12-13 and the Stoics (287). At Acts, Paul cites a Greek poet and speaks of how the people are already very religious since they worship an unknown God, whose true identity he will reveal. This does not reject pre-existing ideas but sees then as preparation for Christian faith. Elsewhere, Paul speaks about the role of the Mosaic Law as a schoolmaster (Galatians 3 23) pointing toward Christian faith. In Romans, Paul refers to nature and the conscience as a source of law, so we excuse and accuse ourselves on the Day of Judgment because we are not ignorant of virtue (Romans 2 15). Similarity between Pauls idea of the total depravity of people and Stoic ideas about universal ignorance are widely noted. The idea of a Fall that corrupted an originally perfect world has parallels with Stoic belief that existence is cyclical, moving from a primordial Golden Age to the final conflagration.

Sampley examines a series of Pauline passages (Phil 1 20-26 I Cor 7 25-28 and I Cor 7 20-23) and concludes that Paul is likely to owe a debt to Stoicism (387). The list of what Paul says we should regard with indifference toward what can distract us from virtue, such as a wife, possessions, political office (Sampley 391). While most early Christians wanted to distance Christian thought from pre-existing philosophical ideas, later a trend was to stress that similarity indicated a shared source. God speaks through nature as well as revealed scriptures. Whatever philosophers said that was right was due to their share in the same logos that was present in Jesus. The same logos formed and ordered the universe. In this view, Christianity did not replace but subsumed whatever was deemed wholesome in earlier thought (Bennett 177). Justin Martyr, who trained as a philosopher and still wore his academic robe, said that Socrates and Heraclitus and all who lived with reason were Christians, even though they were thought atheist (Bennett 177, citing Justin Apology 1, 46).

Similarities and Differences between Christian Thought and the Stoa
What, then, are some of similarities and differences between Christian, especially Pauline thought, and the Stoa As indicated above, the possibility that humans can choose to act virtuously is one common denominator. However, for Christians, this involved accepting new life through faith in Jesus, which represents a gift not a human work. Perfection is from outside. Yet Stoics and Christians agree that what defiles is internal, not external. For the Stoa, passion and ignorance defile. Jesus said that what defiles a man comes from within (Mark 7 21). Blaming sin on Satan does not work because Adam and Eve were personally responsible for their own choice. That Paul posited the need for external aid in turning ones life around, while the Stoa did not, illustrates that Paul wanted to add new to older truths. Yet the Stoics believed that God has a plan for the world, which by definition is good, so events all have good consequences, even when this is obscure or even apparently bad. One should remain unmoved by the apparent anomalies of life  hence the use of the word Stoic as in Stoically facing adversity or remaining un-emotional. Paul wrote that all things work together for good for those who love God (Romans 8 28), echoing Stoic ideas.

Pauls reference to the foolishness of the world and to the inability of the philosophers to redeem humanity shows that in his view the Gospel was not only a restatement of existing wisdom but a new message (I Cor 1 20). He speaks about secret wisdom that has been hidden from humanity. This is not set forth in the Gospel. The Gospel is not a human construct but originates with God, who communicates this to humanity, expressing spiritual truths in human words (I Cor 2 14). Paul in fact never uses the word logos in the technical way that John did in his Gospel. Yet when he writes about the Gospel as word (he of course uses logos) he hints that this is equivalent to Gods wisdom, which can in turn be compared with Stoic views of Gods nature. The Stoic God is identical with reason (logos). There is no distinction between them. Paul does popularize use of the Greek word Christos (Christ) as Jesus title, which all but serves as a synonym for logos. Long before John wrote his Gospel, Paul developed the view of Jesus as pre-existing creation, which is difficult to locate in Matthew, Mark or Luke. Pauls Jesus is a Cosmic figure, the image of the invisible God (Col 1 15). For him, everything was created. John went further, saying that creation took place through Christ. However, both affirm that the fullness of God dwelt in Jesus. Reconciliation with God is possible because God acted bodily to redeem humanity, he has now reconciled you by Christss physical body (Col 1 22). While Jews found the idea that God entered a human body, to then die on the cross obnoxious, this resonated with Stoic conviction that reason is has a corporeal body. Lee and others carry this emphasis on the corporeal nature of Jesus (or Christs) body over to Pauls reference to the Church as Christs body at Corinthians 12 27. The Stoics referred to society as a body and of the need for cooperation among all the parts or members of society (Lee 10). Indeed, for the Stoics, the universe is a Body, a living being (46). Stoics took it as axiomatic that social unity is possible because all people mirror a cosmic body. Grant commented that Stoics considered themselves to be world citizens (277), since they addressed the universal human condition. Seneca saw body and soul as corporeal, thus the soul also exists as a body (Lee 130). Seneca even described Rome as Neros body, because he was the one who led Rome. United in Christ, Christians as members of his Body, represent a new humanity, transformed by faith into virtuous people. This is very close to use of the body metaphor by Stoics to represent the perfect society, led by the wise ruler. Paul almost certainly saw the Church as counter-cultural, , over and against the corrupt yet to be perfected Roman society, although Romans 13 1 says that Christians should submit to the political authorities. Perhaps as a Roman citizen, Paul wanted the new society to demonstrate the virtuous life through loving devotion to each other, living in harmony, feeding your enemy, overcoming evil with good, not violent revolution (see Romans 12 9-27). The quality of peoples transformed lives, conforming to spiritual values, practicing a Christ-like ethic of self-less service to improve human life, would in turn transform Roman civilization. Humanity as ultimately a single society was a belief shared by Paul and the Stoics.  Scholars who point to similarity between Jesus teaching and that of the Pharisees also argue that what distinguished him from them was a universal vision. For their part, Sadducees focused exclusively on priestly purity, with little interest in the wider Jewish society. In contrast, the Pharisees, less interested in the Temple and priestly rules, had a vision of the whole Jewish people becoming holy.
 
Two main differences can be identified between Paul and the Stoa. For Paul, the Gospel represented divine communication, specific instruction on how people can die to sin and enter a new life. This did not have to be intuited through human or rational effort. God speaks, using actual words, directly to human minds. Crossan, open to the idea of Stoic impact on Jesus, says that what was distinctive about Jesus was his openness to all people, regardless of gender, status or ethnicity. He describes the heart of the original Jesus movement as open commensuality, a shared egalitarianism of spiritual and material resources that broke purity taboos and redefined honor and shame in a way that challenged privilege and rank (Crossan 72). According to Theissen, Jeus preached an inclusive form of Judaism which had love of God and neighbors at its heart. By relaxing some of the rules, Jesus opened up the possibility that non-Jews could also enter the kingdom (Bennett 142). What Jesus consistently referred to as Gods Kingom becomes a new social system in the here and now, not some spiritual existence after death. The Stoics did not believe in an after-life, at least not one in which individuality persisted. The dead join or re-join the cosmic Body. Paul added to Stoic belief in individual and societal transformation the idea of an after-life involving personal immortality, not loss of self. Yet Stoics also wanted and believed in the possibility of a virtuous society. In that Paul located individuals within the body of Christ, he too anticipated a renewed social order. What most distinguished Pauls theology from Stoicism was Pauls conception of Gods as personal. This differed from the Stoic God, who existed within nature. Christian theology has tended to Nature from God as a creature, not as identical with God. Stoic pantheism or panentheism differs from the traditional Jewish and Christian concept of God as creator of nature, speaking through but not residing within creation. Of course, there are Jewish traditions, such as the Hasidim, for whom God is imminent within creation and hints of this can be detected in such Pauline passages as Christ holding all things together (Col 117).

Another difference between Paul and the Stoics surrounds the sacredness of life itself. For Paul, ending life is Gods prerogative, while Paul abhorred suicide (Grant 277). Two reasons can be offered for this difference. Firstly, Paul believed in the immortality of individual souls. To take your own life without having personally experienced redemption results in permanent loss. For Seneca, who took his own life, the dead wait return to nature. Individuals do not survive. Bryant put it like this, if death were the end for man, as a separate person, why should it not be also held to be under the control of each (38). He suggests that for Stoics, life was both the battle field and the scene of the victory, while for Christians life is a battle-field or training ground for a victory that follows death, as Paul wrote, Death, where is thy victory, where is thy sting (I Cor 15 55) The Stoics, says Bryant, lived for this world (36). There is little doubt that the Christian equivalent of a loving, merciful, personal creator God has no parallel in Stoic thought. Some speculate that Stoics may have used the word God for the sake of appearances, not from conviction (Sellars 93). The charge of atheism was not courted in the Greek world.

Conclusion
On the one hand, similarity of ideas and language does not prove any direct borrowing or relationship. Grant, though, probably overstates the case that Paul, as a devout Pharisee, would have avoided contact with pagan philosophy. His writing suggests familiarity with the Greek thought world around him. He certainly wanted to communicate the Gospel in language that people, his target audience, would understand. To do this, he became a Jew to Jews, a Gentile to Gentiles so that he might save some by using any possible means (I Cor 9 20-23). Paul consciously employed languages borrowed from other cultures to express the Gospel, what is now called acculturation. This indicates a more deliberate use of language than Grant was prepared to admit, seeing coincidence of language as more accidental than planned. Paul passionately wanted to communicate to gentiles. He saw himself as the apostle for the gentiles (Acts 13 47). Even if he grew up with little exposure to Hellenic thought, as a highly intelligent, educated man, he may have acquired knowledge after his conversion. There is no evidence either way. Arguments from silence are easy to demolish but it is at least plausible that Paul not only knew Stoic ideas but deliberately used them in his letters. This could be understood as strategic only, implying no agreement with Stoic ideas. On the other hand, it can mean that Paul chose to use ideas and language that did not contradict his theology to communicate with greater clarity. He cited a Greek philosopher at Titus 1 12. He imitated the Stoics and others in his habit of preaching in the market places. In doing so, he was contesting their space, offering his theology in competition. Hence he entered a dispute with them in Athens. This does not imply that he rejected all that his disputants said. Rather, he supplemented their ideas, adding Christian belief in the personhood of the God whom some worshipped as Nature, for whom the Stoics did not have a name. Engberg-Perdersen argues that Stoicism provides a framework within which Pauls thought becomes more coherent than it sometimes seems. Similarity between some of Pauls basic ideas, and Stoicism, sheds invaluable light on Pauline thought. On the one hand, Paul and later Christian tradition see salvation and revelation as inseparable  we cannot save ourselves. A special communication from the divine to the human was essential. Yet Paul also believed that what God has disclosed to us through revelation is wholly consistent with what out inner consciences affirm, thus the law is written on the human heart. This corresponds with the Stoic idea of human rationality. All that distracts from this is to be abandoned, to be treated with indifference. Again, this resonates with Stoicism. Both saw a relationship between inner potentiality to know virtue (even if we fail to practice it) and the source of life, God or the world-soul, an external reality. Both held that a single-minded commitment to achieve this goal is needed (Engberg-Perdersen 233), to the exclusion of all distractions. Where Paul parts company from Stoicism was on the necessity of external, divine grace transform human lives. At the very least, Paul was aware of Stoic ideas, so used them to better communicate the Gospel. However, it is reasonably likely that Paul saw Stoic ideas as evidence of the truth he taught, that the human conscience knows truth from falsehood. Thus, he not only utilized Stoic ideas but affirmed their truthfulness, even if this fell short of what he saw as the fuller truth of the gospel.