Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

STOICISM*, STOICS

A widespread Greek philosophy, well represented in the audience at Athens listening to Paul (Acts 17:16-34). The apostle was probably familiar with it, for it had begun in Athens around 300 BC, with Zeno’s teaching in the “stoa” (porches) of public buildings, and had spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. It was known, for example, at Tarsus and on the island of Cyprus, so that Paul would no doubt have encountered Stoics earlier in his journeys and possibly even in his hometown. The scope and power of its influence are indicated by the fact that the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (d. AD 180) was himself a Stoic, some of whose philosophical writings have survived.

The earliest Stoics were primarily concerned with cosmology, that is, the study of nature’s origin and its laws. They were materialists, who held that all things come from the one basic element of fire and will eventually return to that one element in a vast cosmic conflagration. They, therefore, had a cyclical view of cosmic history, in which one universe after another arises and is destroyed. Both the orderliness of things as we know them, and this cyclical pattern of history, were ascribed to the organizing and sustaining power of a pervasive force known as the Logos that is sometimes regarded as divine. Its laws were the laws of nature to which all creatures must conform. It gives to all things their essential nature and so gives life and reason to men. In fact, the Logos is in man, taking the form of the human soul. Hence, to live according to reason is to live according to the natural order of things, and this is good. Conscious obedience to natural law liberates a man from fear and concern about external circumstances over which he has no control but which are still ruled by nature’s laws. The good life, then, is one in which reason, not passion, rules, and peace of mind and harmony with nature consequently prevail.

Stoic ideas proved attractive to some Christians because of the apparent similarities between the Stoic logos and the Logos of John 1:1-18, and between the idea of natural law and the law of God.