There is today an unlooked-for revival of Stoicism as a way of life around the world. This month, October, has seen Stoicon-x events in cities around the world, including in Melbourne, as well as the global online Stoicon event held on October 18. This Stoic renaissance for the internet age raises questions as to its relationship with the Christian and Catholic traditions.
It is a widespread belief, and certainly one into which I was raised, that Christian ethics represent a fundamental, and fundamentally positive, break with the norms and ideas of the ancient pagan world. In particular, the idea that is presented as proof positive of such a break is the Christian idea of love of one’s enemies, turning the other cheek in the face of others’ aggressions, even praying for those who harm you.
It is a matter of these beautiful words by Jesus:
43You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ 44But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
The claims that there is a radical, altruistic or even self-abnegating break separating Christian and pagan ethics reflect a recurrent vision of ancient pagan philosophy. This is the view that ancient philosophical ways of life like Stoicism were in the business of what Michel Foucault calls “care of the self.” That is, they were fundamentally egoistic, all about number one.
Yet, when we turn to the ancient sources, it is not so clear that there is such a simple or complete break between some pagan philosophies, and the Christian ethical stance of non-retaliation and love of the neighbour. Indeed, recent work on ancient philosophy as a way of life has shown, not only that many Church fathers were keen to position Christianity itself as a philosophy, but that they also deeply admired Stoic ethics in particular.
Stoic ethics is often associated with a high-minded heartlessness. Indeed, today, many of the online versions of the ancient philosophy have become contaminated with the toxic ideals of the manosphere.
Yet, there is clear evidence in the Stoic texts that their philosophical way of life integrated teachings strikingly close to Christian precepts about loving one’s enemies and forgiving them their trespasses. For they know not what they do.
“It is foreign to the nature of the Wise Man not only to wrong but even to hurt anyone,” the Roman Stoic Seneca tells us. “It can never be the right thing to render evil for evil”, he writes in his work, On Anger. So “if someone strikes you, step back.”
For fellow Stoic Musonius Rufus, to seek revenge against those who harm you is typical of wild beasts, not human beings. On the contrary, whereas “we [commonly] say that the despicable man is recognized among other things by his inability to harm his enemies ... actually he is much more easily recognized by his inability to help them.” The wise person deems “worthy of forgiveness anyone who does him wrong, regardless of who that person is.”
Perhaps the most striking testimony of all comes from the first century Stoic teacher, Epictetus, who is kind of the punchy Stoic life coach of the ancient world. The Sage, Epictetus tells us at Discourses III, 22, 54, “must needs be flogged like an ass, and while he is being flogged, he must love (philein) the men who flog him, as though he were the father or brother of them all.”
We therefore begin to see why early Church Fathers would claim Christianity was itself a “philosophy” and even enjoin Christians to learn from philosophers like the Stoics, when it comes to shaping their ways of life. For those of us raised in the Christian tradition, the echo of Paul’s appeal to his followers to “love those who persecute you” (Rom., 12, 14), alongside the beatitudes, is as close as it is clear.
So, why might the Stoics have thought that such an ethics of nonretaliation, and loving even those who would harm us, was a good thing for anyone to follow? Why not look after number one, and avenge oneself on anyone who would try to bring you down a peg?
On one hand, the Stoics think that we are social creatures, born of and into community. Whatever is good for the hive, is good for the bee. So, any and all conduct which builds harmony is good for creatures like us. Forgiving those who trespass against us, rather than entering into endless cycles of vengeance, is an act of community preservation. We see its opposite playing out in ongoing, vicious conflicts around the world.
The second Stoic argument is that doing good to others, even those who don’t reciprocate, is something that will make you feel better. We feel pleasure when we fulfil any natural capacity. To fulfil our sociable natures is hence wont to give us what the Stoics call good feelings or passions, like joy in others’ successes (as against envy), and good will or benevolence towards neighbors, as well as agapêsis, which is a form of love (DL VII, 116) close, to the letter, to Christian theological virtue of charity (agapê).
Modern social science confirms what ancient wisdom counsels. Dunn, Aknin and Norton’s “Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness” (Science 319 (2008): 1687–1688) has demonstrated what its title advertises through a controlled survey of over 630 American subjects. Aknin et al.’s, “Prosocial Spending and Well-Being: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Psychological Universal” (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 104 (2013): 635–652) surveyed people across 136 countries, ranging from wealthy to poorer nations. It found that prosocial giving to others was associated with greater happiness everywhere. The Stoics, cosmopolitans for whom all human beings are capable of virtue—and no human being could be “illegal” or beyond humane concern—would not be surprised.
Catholicism and Christianity is hence not alone in a principled advocacy for non-retaliation in the face of harms, rooted in sociable love for the neighbour. But this fact does not detract from it in any way. On the contrary, the commonality of Christian principles with ideas from other great spiritual and philosophical traditions speaks to Christianity’s humane wisdom, and the continuing power of its ethic to build human communities.
In the face of growing global conflict, accelerating warnings about AI representing an existential threat, and massive inequalities feeding civil polarisation, this ethic shared by Stoics with Christians is more needed than ever.