The Hellenistic school that teaches virtue as the only good, life according to nature and reason, and freedom through wanting what the world brings.
Stoicism was founded by Zeno of Citium around 300 BC and carried by Seneca, Epictetus, and the emperor Marcus Aurelius into the conscience of Rome. Its physics holds the cosmos to be one rational, providential whole; its ethics bids the soul agree with that order, master its judgments, and treat externals as indifferents. It has never quite died, and in recent decades it has returned as a popular discipline of resilience.
Sources
Primary
- Epictetus, Discourses.
Secondary
- Pierre Hadot, The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (1998).
How this compares to Christianity
How does this branch relate to the historic Christian faith?
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- Does it consider itself Christian?
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- Did it arise from the Christian tradition?
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- Is it recognized as Christian by the historic bodies?
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- This site's assessment
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- Reviewer
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The comparative record for this entity, its points of convergence and divergence across the ten loci, has not yet been populated. It stands in the assessment queue on the criteria page.
What this assessment cannot settle
This assessment determines what this entity teaches and how that teaching relates to the historic Christian creeds. It does not determine whether any person is saved, whether God accepts their worship, whether they are sincere, or whether the criteria applied here are correct.
This assessment is made from the standpoint described in our editorial statement and our criteria page. It reports classifications; it does not rank sincerity, spiritual standing, or the eternal state of any person.