The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

136 THE STOIC CREED
who could both devote himself to statesmanship and
to the furtherance of the interests of the empire, and
could carry the spirit of his philosophy
charge
of his
onerous duties.
into the dis
But there is a further point to be noticed in con
nexion with Cynicism namely,
its attitude towards
the popular religion. As it was the Cynic s function to
criticize and oppose established customs and accepted
ideals, it might naturally be supposed that he would
disown religion and make a speedy end of the gods and
of the heroes of mythology. This, however, was not
what he did ; and, when we remember his acceptance
of primitive man as his model for life and conduct, we
can readily see that he could not consistently have done
it. For, to primitive man were due the gods and the
accredited mythologies and so these mythologies must
;
somehow be accepted,
if we are to return to a life con
formable to nature. Obviously, however, they could
not be accepted by philosophers in
their bare literality,
and so they must be allegorized. The allegorical
method, consequently, was the great method in the
hands of the Cynics, and those stories of the gods and
of the heroes which appealed so forcibly to the un
tutored fancy became the subjects of rationalistic inter
pretation
were taken as the mere popular expression
of philosophical conceptions.
To the Cynics the Stoics were here indebted ;
for
this same allegorical method came to play a great part
in their religious philosophy, keeping them philosophers
while they also remained loyal citizens ;
and through
them it was handed on to Philo the Jew, who applied