Stoics and Saints - College of Stoic Philosophers

THE STOIC IDEA OF GOD. 31
things represented only a passing stage in the grand
progress. From God all things proceed, and to him they
return; and everything that is, fulfils the universal Law.
But their language oftentimes seems to distinguish God as
a personal, intelligent and righteous Being, above all,
beyond all, his works, upholding and ruling them all.
This appears in the great hymn of Cleanthes to Zeus,
one of the noblest passages of the earlier Greek Stoicism,
which exhibits to us in their highest form a Stoic s
thoughts
about God.
Thee it is lawful for all mortals to address. For we are thy off
spring, and alone of all living creatures possess
a voice which is the
image of reason. Therefore I will ever sing thee and celebrate thy
power. All this universe rolling round the earth obeys thee, and
follows willingly at thy command. Such a minister hast thou in thy
invincible hands, the two-edged, flaming, vivid thunderbolt. O King
most High, nothing
is done without thee, neither in heaven nor on
earth, nor in the sea, except what the wicked do in their foolishness.
Thou makest order out of disorder, and what is worthless becomes
precious in thy sight ; for thou hast fitted together good and evil
into one, and hast established one law that exists for ever
Nay but, O Zeus, giver of all things, who dwellest in dark clouds arid
rulest the thunder, deliver men from their foolishness. Scatter it
from their souls, and grant them to obtain wisdom, for by wisdom
thou dost rightly govern all things that ; being honoured we may
repay thee with honour, singing thy works without ceasing, as it is
right for us to do. For there is no greater thing than this, either
for mortal men or for the Gods, to sing rightly the universal Law.
Here is
something which is at the opposite pole
to the
doctrine of Epicurus. A righteous power at work in the
universe was before the eye of the Stoic ;
a fortuitous con
course of atoms without reason or law was before the eye
of the Epicurean. The latter had nothing but himself to
look to or to be bound by ;
the former, the Stoic, had
what he called God. He saw one universal Law per
vading and ruling all things and all beings, and that Law,
if stern, was righteous, and enjoined virtue on man. To