The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

We
"
i8o
THE STOIC CREED
IV
A fourth striking peculiarity is
the Stoic s insistence
on altruism his cosmopolitanism and doctrine of the
"
universal brotherhood of man: are made for co
operation, like the feet, the hands, the eyelids, the
upper and the lower rows of teeth
ii.
(Aurelius,
Med.
i).
This struck at the very root of selfishness ;
and by teaching the individual habitually to view his
actions in the light of deeds done by one who was yet
not isolated and independent, but part of a body, in
living communion and intercommunion with the whole,
enunciated a truth of the greatest practical significance.
Morality now became the chief concern of life, for
morality was essentially social ;
and the notion of virtue
was widened, so as to have a really ennobling effect on
character.
No cramped, stunted ethics was offered to
mankind, but an expansive ethics social, universal ;
the true import of which would be apparent
to the
world only as thought matured and men tried to adjust
their practice to their profession. The contrast was
explicitly to Epicureanism not so much, however, in
the area that ethical action covered (for the Epicurean,
too, recognized the social character of morality), as in
the motive and disposition
: it was the exaltation of
unselfishness against egoistic hedonism and selfishness.
In this respect, Stoicism showed a distinct parallel to
Christianity, and, as a matter of fact, is very likely
to have affected the early Christian teaching more
especially that of St. Paul, who himself belonged to a
city that was a chief seat of Stoicism (namely, Tarsus),
and who could, on occasion, as in the Areopagus at