The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

"
Duties
ETHICS: DEFECTS 197
nourished along with you, and you will take it by the
handle whereby it may be carried" (Encheir. 43). l
Furthermore, this doctrine of injury as involuntary
regards sin as a mere defect, just like blindness in a
man bereft of sight, and it led to counsel that, if
consistently acted on, would have undermined morality
itself. Both Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius frequently
give us the advice to take no heed of the man who
harms us, inasmuch as he has no power to hurt our
soul. But, surely, he has power to hurt our soul if his
injuring us simply leads
to our passively ignoring him,
instead of our actively attempting his reformation, by
resistance or merited punishment, in whatsoever form.
Our generosity must not be allowed to degenerate into
spiritual pride, or into selfish disregard of our brother s
highest good, or even into passive acquiescence in
wrong out of mistaken deference to the doer. There
is
something noble in Epictetus s deliverance, but it is
inadequate (Encheir. 30):
are in general
measured by relations. A man is a father. The
injunction is to care for him, to submit to him in all
things, to suffer him when he rebukes, when he strikes.
1 The later Stoics in general came to acknowledge this. See,
e.g., Aurelius, Med. xi. 18 : "Kindness is invincible if only
it is
honest, not fawning or insincere. What can the most aggressive
do, if you keep persistently kind, and as occasion offers gently
remonstrate, and seize the moment, when he is bent on mischief,
for trying quietly to convert hinvto a better frame of mind ? Not
so, my son, we are made for other ends :
you cannot hurt me, you
hurt yourself, my son. Then point him gently to the general law
of things, that neither do the bees act so, nor any of the gregarious
animals ;
but avoid any touch of irony or fault-finding, and be
affectionate and conciliatory in tone ;
not in schoolmaster style,
or to show off before others, but quietly in his own ear, even if
others are standing by."