Ark of the Covenant - Bible History Online
Bible History

Naves Topical Bible Dictionary

stoics Summary and Overview

Bible Dictionaries at a GlanceBible Dictionaries at a Glance

stoics in Easton's Bible Dictionary

a sect of Greek philosophers at Athens, so called from the Greek word stoa i.e., a "porch" or "portico," where they have been called "the Pharisees of Greek paganism." The founder of the Stoics was Zeno, who flourished about B.C. 300. He taught his disciples that a man's happiness consisted in bringing himself into harmony with the course of the universe. They were trained to bear evils with indifference, and so to be independent of externals. Materialism, pantheism, fatalism, and pride were the leading features of this philosophy.

stoics in Smith's Bible Dictionary

The Stoics and Epicureans, who are mentioned together in #Ac 17:18| represent the two opposite schools of practical philosophy which survived the fall of higher speculation in Greece. The Stoic school was founded by Zeno of Citium (cir. B.C. 280) and derived its name from the painted "portico" (stoa) at Athens in which he taught. Zeno was followed by Cleanthes (cir. B.C. 260); Cleanthes by Chrysippus (cir. B.C. 240) who was regarded as the founder of the Stoic system. "They regarded God and the world as power and its manifestation matter being a passive ground in which dwells the divine energy. Their ethics were a protest against moral indifference, and to live in harmony with nature, conformably with reason and the demands of universal good, and in the utmost indifference to pleasure, pain and all external good or evil, was their fundamental maxim." --American Cyclopaedia. The ethical system of the Stoics has been commonly supposed to have a close connection with Christian morality; but the morality of stoicism is essentially based on pride, that of Christianity on humility; the one upholds individual independence, the other absolute faith in another; the one looks for consolation in the issue of fate, the other in Providence; the one is limited by Periods of cosmical ruin, the other is consummated in a personal resurrection. #Ac 17:18| But in spite of the fundamental error of stoicism, which lies in a supreme egotism, the teaching of this school gave a wide currency to the noble doctrines of the fatherhood of God, the common bonds of mankind, the sovereignty of the soul. Among their most prominent representatives were Zeno and Antipater of Tarsus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius.

stoics in Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Acts 17:18; Acts 17:29. The pantheists of antiquity, as the Epicureans were the atheists. Zeno of Citium founded the Stoic school, 280 B.C. The painted stoa or "portico" where he taught originated the name. Cleanthes and Chrysippus succeeded; Seneca popularized their tenets; Epictetus (A.D. 115), as a Stoic, gives their purest specimens of pagan morality; and the emperor Marcus Aurelius tried to realize them in his public conduct. But egotism and pride are at the root, whereas humility is at the foundation of Christianity. Individual autonomy is their aim, faith in the unseen God is the Christian's principle. The Stoic bows to fate, the Christian rests on the personal providence of the loving Father. The Stoics had no notion of bodily resurrection, it is the Christian's grand hope. In common with the Stoics Paul denied the Epicurean notion of the world's resulting from chance, and a God far off and indifferent to human acts and sorrows; for, as the poet Aratus says, "in God we live, and move, and have our being"; but he agreed with the Epicureans, God "needs" nothing from us; but he rejects both Stoic and Epicurean doctrines in proclaiming God as the personal Giver to all of all they have, and the Creator of all, of one blood, and the providential Determiner of their times and places, and their final Judge; inferring the sinful absurdity of idolatry from the spiritual nature of God, which is that wherein man reflects His likeness as His child (not in visible body), and which cannot be represented by any outward image.