Book Reviews: Greco-Roman Stoic and Cynic Philosophers, and Epicurus
These quick book reviews include links to our YouTube videos and blogs on the Stoic and Greco-Roman philosophers. […]
These quick book reviews include links to our YouTube videos and blogs on the Stoic and Greco-Roman philosophers. […]
Although the Bible does not specifically condemn slavery, the Bible does encourage us to treat all of our fellow men with dignity and respect, whether they are slave or free. In succeeding centuries, several early Church Fathers either condemned the institution of slavery or tried to weaken its grasp. […]
These works on the trial and execution of Socrates by Xenophon and Plato testify to their anger at the citizens of Athens for condemning their gadfly teacher and friend. Xenophon and Plato also show their anger at Socrates for the hubris and arrogance displayed in full force in his trial speech and his sentencing speech. They want to remind us that just as the Homeric heroes of the battle of Troy showed their hubris at the battlefield, so too did their hero Socrates show hubris in the public courtroom of Athens. […]
Many millennia ago there was another injustice when a five-hundred person jury convicted Socrates to death, and in his trial Socrates felt compelled to protest to the jurors that he was not the same Socrates as the miscreant Socrates lampooned by the Athenian comedian Aristophanes in his play “The Clouds.” […]
Diogenes Laertius tells us the Cynics were only interested in ethics, and unlike the other philosophical schools, they had no interest in logic and physics, much like the later Roman Stoics. They had no interest in general education or literature, their only concern was how to live a life of virtue. The Cynics “lived frugally, eating only for nourishment, wearing only a clock, despising wealth, fame, and royal birth.” Some ate only vegetables, some drank only water, some lived in tubs in the marketplace, like Diogenes of Sinope. The Cynics believed that “virtue can be taught, and when acquired cannot be lost.” […]
Zeno speculates that “God is a living being, immortal, rational, perfect in happiness, immune to anything evil, exercising forethought for the cosmos and all it contains. But he is not of human shape. He is the craftsman of all things, both generally and in that particular part of him that pervades everything, and which is called by many names in accordance with all his various powers.” […]
Justin compares Jesus to Socrates, who was accused of the same crimes as the Christians, being accused of atheism and impiety, and of corrupting the youth. The Greeks accused Socrates “of introducing new divinities, and did not consider those to be gods that the state recognized. In the Republic he cast out from the state both Homer and the rest of the poets, and taught men to reject the wicked demons and those who did the things which the poet related.” The early Church Fathers, including Justin, did not deny the existence of the pagan gods, rather they saw them as demons active in the world. But Jesus was mightier than Socrates, whereas “no one trusted in Socrates so as to die for his doctrine,” many willingly believes and are martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ. […]
To Epictetus, only the good can be truly happy, only the good can truly be free, tyrants may take all you own, but they can never take your most prized possession, your freedom of will; tyrants can throw you in jail, but they can never take away the freedom of your mind; tyrants can take your life, but they can never have your soul. Epictetus, the great philosopher of freedom, was a former slave, a slave to a freed man, and was both poor and a cripple, eking out a living by teaching philosophy. Epictetus was not wealthy like Plato, and although Socrates was executed like Jesus, and is often compared to Jesus, Epictetus was closer to Jesus in social status, and like Jesus many of his teachings teach the common man how to live a godly life. Epictetus lived shortly before St Paul, close enough that it is doubtful they directly influenced each other, but like the Church Fathers Epictetus did not seek to teach original teachings, but rather repeated in his own distinctive fashion the teachings of the stoic philosophers who preceded him. […]
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