The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

ETHICS: DEFECTS 191
tude is
beyond the reach of tyrant, of untoward circum
stance, or of war. But, in happier days, this solace is
less required ; and then men come to feel that there is
such a thing as the beauty of virtue (in distinction from
its sublimity and grandeur], and the soothing influence
of goodness most effectually exerts itself when no sharp
line is drawn between inward felicity and outward
circumstances when the two are felt to be in harmony,
and the latter ministers to, and does not oppose, the
former, man and his environment being reconciled.
In this connexion, it is interesting to compare the
early Stoic contempt for
the sympathetic and amiable
virtues with the position of Christianity, which has
elevated humility, meekness, and the passive graces
(patience, long-suffering, and the like) to the highest
place. The Christian, like the Stoic, aims at being
self-sufficient ;
but what a difference there is between
the two kinds of self-sufficiency
! The difference has
been admirably expressed by Professor Findlay in the
contrast that he draws between the Pauline and the
Stoic conceptions of self-sufficiency or avrap/ceta, thus :
"The Christian self-sufficiency is relative;
it is an
independence of the world through dependence upon
God. The Stoic self-sufficiency pretends to be absolute.
The one is the contentment of faith, the other of pride.
Cato and Paul both stand erect and fearless before a
persecuting world :
one with a look of rigid and defiant
scorn ;
the other with a face now lighted up with un
utterable joy in God, now cast down with sorrow and
wet with tears for God s enemies. The Christian
martyr and the Stoic suicide are the final examples