Shared Teachings: Christianity and Stoicism
Introduction
Christianity: the most popular world religion today. Stoicism: an ancient Greek philosophy, predating Christianity. What do they have in common? One is considered a philosophy, one a religion. They’re different in nature, but do they circle the same ideas? Let’s see…
Impervious to Circumstance
The following is from apostle Paul’s letter to the Phillipians, during his imprisonment in Rome: “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” — Philippians 4:12–13.
Written just thirty years after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, Paul illustrates to believers in Phillippi (a Roman colony in Macedonia) what he has learned through his struggles: to be abased (brought low, humbled) and how to abound (exist in great quantity, overflow). Paul, regardless of the circumstances, prison or not, is instructed to be full and hungry: a paradoxical state where he can do all things, through Christ.
Over a hundred years later, Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor and Stoic) will write: “If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.” He is circling the same concept: the idea that your internal state is not set by external circumstances. Paul’s verse and Aurelius’s writing live on. They encapsulate an idea so powerful that it has stood the test of time—thousands of years of it.
Virtue Above Material
Jesus, while delivering his Sermon on the Mount, said: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal” — Matthew 6:19–20. He is advising his followers to not direct their energy towards earthly things, but to things of eternal value — a profound conception.
If we rewind several hundred years, back to ancient Greece, we find Socrates (the immortalized Greek philosopher) delivering a statement to the Athenian assembly after being accused of corrupting the youth and worshiping false Gods: “Wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and the state.” Through a more pragmatic approach, Socrates found the same concept that Jesus would deliver during the Sermon on the Mount: material possessions should not be the goal. Virtues are supreme. We know that Socrates meant it, because he was ultimately sentenced to drink poison for standing by his principles — hundreds of years before Jesus willingly accepted the cross.
Struggle Brings Strength
James the Just, brother of Jesus, also martyred, writes in an Epistle (a formal letter) to the Jewish Christians scattered abroad: “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.” — James 1:2–3. He is assuring scattered followers of Christ that being tested is a good thing, for it brings patience. This is a very common theme in the Bible: through struggle, one finds strength.
Another famous stoic (alive at the same time as Jesus Christ under the rule of Emperor Tiberius Caesar) delivers the same concept in one of his letters: “Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.” The stoic that wrote this (Seneca the Younger) believed that self-imposed struggle was an indispensable habit. He would famously periodically live as if he were poor, eating simple food and wearing humble clothing to train his mind to endure misfortune. Later in life, Seneca would be ordered to commit suicide, just like Socrates, after being accused of conspiring against the Roman Emperor Nero. Seneca would remain stunningly composed in the face of death for he believed: “It is not death that we should fear, but we should fear never beginning to live.”
Present Over Future
Back to Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, which he delivered to a large crowd of followers: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” — Matthew 6:34. A member of the crowd processes this, thinking to himself: Jesus is instructing me to focus on the present day, which offers its own, sufficient share of challenges.
Seneca the Younger (who may or may not have known about Jesus), was alive while this sermon was delivered. He felt similarly: “The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable” he wrote in a letter. It is utterly amazing, coincidental only to a fool, that the Stoics converged on the same ideas. Whether you were a Stoic, or the son of God, you were delivering markedly similar concepts about focusing on the present: ideas that would ironically be projected thousands of years into the future.
Examination
“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” — Corinthians 13:5. This Bible verse is a writing from the Apostle Paul addressing the Christian community in Corinth: a Greek city known for its wealth and moral challenges. He is advising that they examine themselves in order to find out whether or not they are faithful.
Funny enough, Socrates felt completely the opposite. He felt that self-examination was the worst thing a human could possibly do, which is why he is so famous for his obsessive self-examination — just kidding. Socrates, like Paul, was a big believer in self-examination. In his famous defense to the Athenian assembly, he said: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Conclusion
As you can see, Christianity and Stoicism have nothing in common. Key figures from both did not deliver stunningly similar remarks — in front of crowds — before they were martyred — and they definitely didn’t write about similar concepts in letters to their followers.
So, unfortunately this exploration has failed, but I’m not one to give up easily — if you or anyone you know can find a similarity between Christianity and Stoicism, please shoot me an email: mrfrasetto@gmail.com