The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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156 THE STOIC CREED
just or unjust, and cannot be more just than just or
more unjust than unjust."
1
This carries with it the
paradox that there are two, and only two, classes of
men the good and the bad, or, as the Stoics called
them,
the wise
and "the foolish." 2 The good are
wholly good, the bad are wholly bad ; for, at this high
ethical level, the alternative is, either perfection or
nothing at all. As Cicero puts it (De Finibns, iv. 19) :
All who are not wise are equally miserable ;
all wise
men are perfectly happy
: all actions done rightly are
equal to one another; all offences are Hence
equal."
Zeno s paradox, that "those who are not wise are
unfriendly and hostile, and slaves, and aliens to each
other, parents to children, and brothers to brothers,
and relatives to relatives ;
while the wise alone are
citizens and friends and relatives and free ;
so that to
the Stoics parents and children are enemies, for they
are not wise"
(Diog. Laert. vii. 28). 3
This stern doctrine was further intensified by the
teaching that
the vast majority of men belong
to the
class of the foolish that, indeed, human nature in
general is
utterly depraved,
and that there seems little
hope of reformation. On this topic Seneca loves to
dwell ; and, not unnaturally, considering the times in
which he lived and the state of Rome in the days of
1
Heracleides of Tarsus, "
"
however," he adds, the acquaintance
of Antipater of Tarsus, and Athenodorus say that sins are not
equal."
2
See Stobaeus, Eclogte, ii. 7. u. Compare Christ s teaching in
the Parables.
3
That the good or wise alone can be friends, was a prominent
Stoic doctrine, previously maintained by Aristotle. See, e.g.,
Epictetus s famous chapter on Friendship (Diss. ii. 22).