Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

172 STOICISM,be thought to share the scruples of some of the despisedraces of the East ; yet the Jews were spreadthrough every land, and quartering themselves in thecentre of the Roman world, had called the notice ofthe curious to their peculiar customs, and wonproselytes in every circle. Tacitus might show hiscontemptuous ignorance of their history in the past,but they clung with a tenacious grasp to their oldbooks, and diffused the utterances of the Law andProphets round them.While this spiritual influence was in the air, theStoics above others were likely to absorb some portionof it for ; though Hellenic in its origin and logic,the moral intensity of the Stoa and its ascetic tonewere Eastern. Its most celebrated teachers were drawnchiefly from the East, from the countries nearest tothe Holy Land, where the Jews of the dispersion mostabounded. All the currents of moral thought weremeeting and mingling at that time, and it is scarcelylikely that the two most distinctive should keep themselvesentirely apart.To this it has been added that Seneca himselfassociated freely with his slaves, and may well haveheard from some of them in hours of familiar intercourseabout the spiritual leaven that was working inthe bosom of the Jewish synagogue, and that wassoon to make the name of Christ the greatest in thecivilized world.And yet we must admit that the resemblances oftone and style do not touch the essentials of themoral system, and fail to bridge over the gulf between