183 - The Stoic as Heroic

The Stoic as Heroic
Hugh T. Kerr

IN a time when so many in public life, and in our culture generally, seem to have lost their moral directions, Stoic resignation may be as heroic an ideal as most of us can contemplate. In an age of the non-hero, it may seem the best we can do is to cultivate qualities of imperturbability and stolid aloofness. "Blessed are those who expect nothing," wrote Alexander Pope in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, "because they shall not be disappointed." That is a Stoic beatitude that commends itself to many in our contemporary society. Consider the following random items:

The newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan, speaks of our culture as "a sick society" that cannot become healthy until "it starts living by some rules again." He then went on to say something that would otherwise seem to be a piece of pious banality, except in a time of utter moral chaos such as ours: "There's a lot to be said for the Ten Commandments." Not very exciting perhaps, but at least prudent and elemental.

Speaking to Columbia University graduates, President William J. McGill observed, solemnly, "Our country is in the midst of a crisis of moral values …. Many writers now seem to assume that American society is rotten to the core."

At the same time, across the street, Margaret Mead, the articulate anthropologist, told Barnard seniors that we "need to redefine our moral values." Since we are "totally without leadership" where leaders are most expected, it is "more than ever true" that today we must look to the young for moral renewal, even though they have good reason to be unmoved by such appeals.

Apparently, we can't expect much from the older generation, since they have so little reason for hope. Like the elderly woman who shocked Congressman Edward Mezvinsky of Iowa, the junior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, when she offered him her philosophy of life: "I'm glad I don't have long to live, because there really isn't much to live for.

High school students, according to an annual poll conducted by Rep. Edwin B. Forsythe, of the Sixth (N.J.) Congressional District, express moods of "worry, uncertainty, disillusionment, and, at times, sarcasm." Almost without exception, students described the recent fuel shortage as

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"fake, fraud." As one high schooler put it, "There are too many politicians who are out just to make money off the people, instead of trying to help the public."

A survey sponsored by Potomac Associates, Inc., a non-profit, foundation-supported organization, reports that "there has been a pronounced tendency to turn inward," internationally and domestically, and that more Americans than ever think they and the country as a whole are "worse off today and with less hope for the future."

In a less somber vein, Art Buchwald, the columnist, speaking at the Holy Cross (Massachusetts) commencement, wagered with the graduates: "If you believe President Nixon knew nothing about Watergate, I invite you to see me after the commencement exercises. I have some lovely swamp land in Florida I'd like to sell you." And to the seniors at Miami University (Ohio), he said: "Don't get me wrong about Nixon. I worship the quicksand he walks on." (Mr. Buchwald, incidentally, returned four thousand dollars in college speaking fees for scholarship purposes).

I

Some of these sentiments seem more tilted toward cynicism than Stoicism. If Stoicism adopts an attitude of impassive aloofness to the world ("apathy" in the classical sense), cynicism has nothing but contempt for the world or for values and ideals. It is easy, and sometimes very tempting, to adopt a cynical point-of-viewing, partly because it doesn't cost the believer anything, and it can readily pose as an arch and expansive perspective. But to be a true Stoic means to live one's life with a certain heroic nobility despite the crumbling of culture all around.

Classical Stoicism was itself the product of cultural disintegration in the Greco-Roman world. Initiated by Zeno of Citium, a Phoenician colony in Crete, early Stoicism merged eclectic emphases from both oriental and Semitic sources. Unsystematic but rigorous in its demands for personal rectitude, Stoicism emerged within and spoke to a time of religious, political, and philosophical dissolution-not unlike our own day. In Seneca, a contemporary of St. Paul, and in Marcus Aurelius, who sensed the breakdown of his own culture without being aware of the coming Holy Roman Empire, Stoicism paralleled and competed with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the ethics of redemptive, suffering love.

While writing this, I remembered that Reinhold Niebuhr had often spoken appreciatively of Stoic heroism. There are, as I checked it, some twenty references to Stoicism in his Nature and Destiny of Man. On one occasion, he correlates the Stoic search for serenity with the word of Jesus, "Be not anxious." And in a well-known sermon on "The Providence of God" (a tape of which I have used in my classes), he argues that, against the Christian temptation to lobby in the courts of the Almighty for special privileges, "there is an element of nobility" in Stoicism which impassively takes things as they come.

This eloquent sermon, by the way, is reproduced in a new volume of Niebuhr's prayers and casual pieces, Justice and Mercy (Harper and

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Row, 1974), edited by Ursula M. Niebuhr. And on the page after the frontispiece, Niebuhr's so-called "serenity prayer" (1943) is also reproduced:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

II

With all its nobility of purpose and heroic restraint, Stoicism has always been clouded with a sense of portending doom, and its mood has always been inevitably glum. Stoic resignation can insulate us against sympathizing with the plight of others less fortunate, but it cannot of itself generate contentment, happiness, or joy. It can steel us against the vagaries and vicissitudes of a disintegrating culture, but it is powerless to save, heal, or recreate.

In his excellent, and still delightfully readable, essay on "St. Paul and Seneca," Lightfoot concludes his largely affirmative evaluation of Stoicism by demonstrating its essential contrast with the Christian ethic.

Though the sterner colors of Stoic morality are frequently toned down in Seneca, still the foundation of his ethical system betrays the repulsive features of his school. His fundamental maxim is not to guide and train nature, but to overcome it. The passions and affections are not to be directed, but to be crushed. The wise man, he says, will be clement and gentle, but he will not feel pity, for only old women and girls will be moved by tears; he will not pardon, for pardon is the remission of a deserved penalty; he will be strictly and inexorably just. (J.B. Lightfoot's commentary on Philippians, 1903, pp. 296-297).

In the same manner, for Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic virtues are clearly impressive if equally unavailing to salvage a sinking society. In an introductory essay on "The Background out of which Christianity Came and the Environment into which it was Born," Kenneth Scott Latourette sketches the portrait of a heroic but tragic figure.

In Marcus Aurelius, indeed, one can see the shadow of impending doom. Possessed of a strong sense of public duty, upright, stern in his self-admonitions, living as under the eye of a God who desires righteousness, there seems to have been about him no enthusiasm …. He was weighted down by sadness, the burden of empire, and the certain expectation of death …. There is no sense of joyous expectation, either for himself, his friends and neighbors, or for the world as a whole. In him can be caught a glimpse of an age which was fearful of approaching demise and was steeling itself to meet it. (Kenneth Scott Latourette, The First Five Centuries, Vol. I in A History of the Expansion of Christianity, 1937, p. 18).

III

With this slight review of Stoicism, it may be instructive to turn again to Paul's celebrated address before the Athenians on Mars' Hill in view of the Areopagus (Acts 17:16-34).

Paul's apologetic approach and the content of his argument indicate clearly that he knew the substance of the Stoic philosophy (which he

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summarizes in vss. 24-26). And like Zeno of Citium who precipitated oriental and Semitic influences upon classical Greek philosophy, the Apostle to the Gentiles was also an eclectic, a Greek-speaking Jew of Roman citizenship, and a Christian.

The conventional wisdom, when expounding Paul's Mars' Hill address, is to suggest that he failed to persuade his audience on rational grounds and henceforth determined to preach only "Jesus Christ and him crucified" (I Cor. 2:1-6). But there are three other, quite different, comments to make. First, however we evaluate the impact of Paul's address, the historical fact remains that Stoicism, with all its Christian parallels and with all its heroic posturing, increasingly dissipated its force until it fizzled out like a spent firecracker.

Second, it is illuminating to remember that the Areopagus was the same court that five hundred years earlier had charged Socrates with corrupting the city youth and for not believing in "the gods of the state" (Plato's Apology, 24B; cf. Acts 17: 18). The irony of the coincidence is that while Stoicism ran parallel to Christianity, it never substantially intruded on its thought processes, whereas the Platonic-Socratic tradition, with its built-in idealism, became the basic philosophic apparatus for the normative theology of the early church. So in spite of the fact that Stoicism was the existential perspective of the day, reflecting academic and sophisticated ennui over against the collapse of conventional values, religious, political, and philosophical, it was the Platonic-Socratic tradition that impinged its trademark on the emerging Christian culture.

And third, we must be careful how we interpret Paul's crucial reference in his address to "Jesus and the resurrection." Too easily Christian apologists have assumed that this kerygmatic intrusion put off the curious but detached Athenians. Perhaps so. It is a daring, and philosophically absurd, idea anywhere, anytime. But it could be that the main difference between Christians and Stoics was not so much particular tenets of belief but the implication of those beliefs on mood and outlook. Both affirmed divine existence and the creation of the world, both acknowledged the commonality of humanity, both argued for an intelligent faith and a life of moral restraint and uprightness, and both believed in life beyond death.

It is easy to say that "Jesus and the resurrection" make the difference, and that is true. But on another level this Christian conviction also implied that because of "Jesus and the resurrection" the classical Stoic attitude of imperturbability was shown up to be essentially hopeless and therefore powerless. In times of confusion, whether in the first or twentieth century, the Stoic can exhibit a certain heroic nobility. The Christian should not scorn or despise that posture, and it may be as-much as many today can aspire to; but it cannot take up the cause of the oppressed in our midst, it cannot provoke a mood of expectation, and it cannot bring in the future.