The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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214 THE STOIC CREED
system that life is utterly detestable and bad, it was
while Nero and the other human monsters occupied
the Imperial throne, and when pagan society was
rotten to the very core. Yet, those were the times
when Stoical optimism was strenuously preached, and
when faith saw, behind the corruption and brutalities
and inhumanities of life, the universal righteousness
and wisdom.
Is God personal or impersonal ?
Nevertheless, whether the supreme providence is a
living personal God or merely an impersonal principle,
the course of nature, or the universe itself, is
very
doubtful. Had the Stoic physics ruled the ethics,
there would have been no doubt. There the law of
causation and the uniformity of nature are supreme,
and the Ethereal Fire is impersonal. There, too, the
term Cosmos was used indifferently, as by Chrysippus,
of the ordered universe, which consists of heaven and
earth and all that they contain, or of God, the source
from which the ordered universe proceeds and whereby
it is perfected. But the physics did not drastically rule
the ethics. The conception of the Deity as primitive
ethereal fire came to be practically regarded as an
intellectual speculation merely, with little or no influence
on the ethical doctrine ;
and the conception
of the
Divine personality, as distinct from the universe,
became more and more articulate. Accordingly, Epictetus
speaks, almost uniformly, in language of the most
fervent theism. To his intensely religious nature, God is
personal ever-present
Guardian,"
Father,"
Creator," " Ruler,"
seeing our every deed, knowing our every