The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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222 THE STOIC CREED
The Deity limited by Fate
Nevertheless, the Supreme Being, in the Stoic
theology, is subject to a peculiar limitation.
Strangely
to modern Western thought, but not strangely to any
ancient Greek, He is conceived as under the sway of
Fate. Behind the throne of Zeus stands Moira ;
and
Fate rules in the affairs of men : irrevocabilis htimana
pariter ac divina cursus vehit (Seneca, De Prov. v. 6).
Hence, Cleanthes in his Hymn to Zeus speaks in
differently of
"Zeus,"
"the Universal Reason,"
"Destiny."
Obviously, this conception, if strongly obtruded, or
if tenaciously held and applied with logical rigour,
would produce a very cramping effect upon ethics, and
might be disastrous in the sphere of conduct. 1 But,
with a noble inconsistency or a sublime forgetfulness,
the Stoics did not allow the conception unduly to
obtrude itself; and, although they used it as a solace
in the case of adverse fortune and untoward occurrences,
they cast it aside, or quietly ignored it,
in the province
of ethical effort, in training the will and shaping the
mind, in dealing with those highest of all things
things within our own power." It is recorded of Zeno
that once, when he was chastizing a slave for theft, the
slave
said,
It was fated that I should steal (ci/xa/oro
/xoi K\<tyai)." "Yes," replied Zeno, "and that you
should be beaten (Diog. Laert. vii. 19). That, from
the Stoic standpoint, is the proper answer.
Compare with this the Calvinistic theology, which is the
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strictly logical outcome of its primary conception of God as
Absolute Sovereign.