The Wisdom of Hypatia: Ancient Spiritual Practices for a More Meaningful Life (15 page)

progress at a different rate.

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74 the discipline of assent

In this chapter you will learn, first, a little of the historical background of Stoicism, including its origin and a few of its masters. Next, I will explain the goals of the Stoic way of life, which can be achieved only by living in accord with nature. Therefore I will present the essence of the Stoic views of Nature and human nature, and you’ll learn how these determine the three fundamental disciplines of the Porch. With these preliminaries out of the way, we’ll turn to the first of the three disciplines, the Discipline of Assent, and you will learn how to apply it in your life.

Historical Background

Stoicism was one of the most popular philosophies from the Hellenistic period (third century BCE) through the end of the Roman Empire, so there have been many Stoic philosophers. I will mention just four who were important or whose works survive.

The founder of Stoicism was Zeno of Citium (c.334–c.262 BCE), who was a contem-

porary of Epicurus (and not, incidentally, the Zeno who propounded Zeno’s Paradoxes).

He was born in the harbor city of Citium (modern Larnaca) in Cyprus, a city with a large Phoenician population, and he was probably of Phoenician descent.

When Zeno was a boy, he asked an oracle what sort of life he should lead, and the oracle replied that he should converse with the dead. Zeno interpreted the oracle to mean that he should read the books of ancient authors. Therefore his father, who was a merchant, regularly brought his son philosophical books from Athens.

When Zeno was about 22, his father set him up in business with a ship, goods to sell, and money to lend. Thus Zeno went to Athens, where he was successful as an entrepre-neur until his ship was wrecked. He accepted the accident with equanimity and said, “You do well Fortune to drive me to philosophy,” and so he sought a teacher. This is an example of how Stoics turn the accidents of fate to their advantage.

According to an ancient biographer,91 Zeno was standing in a bookseller’s stall, reading about Socrates, and asked, “Where can I find people like this?” The Cynic philosopher Crates happened to be walking by, and so the bookseller pointed and said, “Follow him!”

Thus Zeno began to study with Crates (c.368/365–288/285 BCE).

The Cynics were ascetic followers of Socrates (469–399 BCE) who sought happiness

through freedom, in particular freedom from desires, from emotions such as fear, grief, and anger, freedom from religious and societal customs, and freedom from family and

other social obligations. They argued that the simplest life is the best and the only secure way to happiness.

the discipline of assent 75

Crates was born into wealth, but he gave it all away and adopted the Cynic way of life.

He wandered around the city, entering the homes of friends to settle their disputes and to give other advice. Hipparchia, the wealthy sister of one of his students, fell in love with him, gave away her money, and married him. Crates treated her as an equal, which was remarkable at that time, and they lived the ascetic life together. They lived happily, not in spite of their poverty, but because of it. He is supposed to have written:

If this way of practicing philosophy is unpleasant,

it is a shortcut.

It leads to happiness

even though we have to walk through fire.92

It was considered a shortcut because it required only practicing the Cynic way of life but not studying and discussing philosophical doctrines. He also wrote:

Do not shun practicing,

but avoid discussing,

for the long road to happiness is through words,

but the short way is through the daily practice of deeds.93

Zeno was an excellent philosophy student, but Crates thought he was too modest and

self-respecting to be a good Cynic philosopher, so to teach him a lesson, he had Zeno accompany him through downtown Athens carrying a pot of lentil soup. Zeno, who had a

proud disposition, was ashamed to be seen carrying the pot, so he hid it under his cloak.

When he saw this, Crates smashed the pot with his staff and the soup ran down Zeno’s legs. Mortified, Zeno ran away, and Crates called after him, “Why are you running away, my little Phoenician? Nothing terrible has happened to you!” Here you have an example of ancient Cynic philosophical instruction: awakening Zeno to the difference between what is important and what is not.

Eventually Zeno became dissatisfied with Crates and turned to other philosophers,

with whom he studied for twenty years. During this time he developed his own philosophy and about 300 BCE he decided to begin teaching his philosophical practice. He might have been inspired by disagreements with Epicurus, whose Garden has been established just a few years earlier. Since Zeno was not an Athenian citizen, he could not buy property in the 76 the discipline of assent

city, and so he took to teaching in the
Stoa Poikile
, the “Painted Porch,” which was not so much a porch as a colonnade on the front of a building on the Athenian
agora
(market and meeting place). This colonnade was decorated with famous paintings and made a kind of arcade in which Zeno walked conversing with his disciples. Therefore his disciples became known as Stoics (those of the Stoa).

Zeno wrote at least twenty philosophical works, of which we have the titles, but none have survived, except in the form of isolated quotations by other authors. When the master died, his pupil Cleanthes (331–232 BCE) became the first of a long succession of leaders of the Stoic school. Due to its practicality as a way of life, Stoicism became the most popular philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

The second Stoic I will discuss is Seneca the Younger (c.4 BCE–65 CE), who was born

to an aristocratic family in Cordoba in Spain. He was brought to Rome as a young child, where he first became acquainted with Stoic philosophy.

Beginning after 31 CE Seneca held various government positions, during which he

was sometimes in favor and sometimes out. About 49 CE he was appointed tutor to Nero, who was then twelve years old. When Nero became emperor in 54, Seneca became his

advisor. For the next eight years Seneca was able convince Nero to behave and the empire was relatively well governed. Unfortunately Seneca’s influence waned after 62, and so he retired from public life and devoted himself to philosophy. He also gave away most of his wealth. Seneca was accused of involvement in a conspiracy against Nero and was forced to commit suicide in 65 CE.

Although at least a dozen of Seneca’s philosophical works have been lost, fourteen

have survived, including a collection of 124 letters (in twenty “books”) on philosophical topics to his friend Lucilius. They are not actual letters, but philosophical essays in the form of letters. They are filled with Stoic philosophical gems.

One of the most important Stoic philosophers was Epictetus (60–117 CE), who was

born in Hierapolis in Phrygia (modern Pamukkale, Turkey) shortly before Seneca’s suicide. His name means “Acquired” and so he was probably born a slave. In any case he was brought to Rome by his owner, a wealthy freedman of Nero, who permitted Epictetus to study with the famous Stoic G. Musonius Rufus.

Epictetus was eventually freed and began to teach Stoicism in Rome. His house was

so poor it didn’t have a lock because it contained only the mattress and mat on which he slept. He taught there until 93 CE, when the emperor Domitian banished all philosophers from Rome and later from the rest of Italy. Epictetus moved his school to Nicopolis (on the the discipline of assent 77

Gulf of Arta in northwest Greece). There he had many powerful and influential Romans as students, including perhaps the emperor Hadrian.

Epictetus’ oral teachings were published by his disciple Arrian of Nicomedia as the

Discourses of Epictetus
, of which four of the eight books survive. In fact, all existing manuscripts of these four books appear to be more or less accurate copies of a single eleventh- or twelfth-century manuscript currently in the Bodleian Library at Oxford; but for this manuscript we might not have any of the
Discourses
at all! Arrian said that he tried to record the actual words of Epictetus, so as to reproduce the effects they had on listeners, so the
Discourses
give an idea of ancient philosophical instruction. We also have Arrian’s summary of Epictetus’ philosophy, called the
Handbook
(also called the
Manual
or
Enchei-ridion
, its Greek name). It is especially valuable as a source of Stoic maxims. Arrian was a student of Epictetus for a year or two and afterward applied Stoic principles in a successful political career.

Marcus Aurelius is perhaps the best-known Stoic. He was born in 121 CE, shortly af-

ter Epictetus’ death, to an aristocratic family near Cordoba in Spain. He was educated by many well-known teachers and had already shown an interest in philosophy by age 12. He began wearing the philosopher’s simple robe and sleeping on the ground, but his mother objected and convinced him to go back to using a bed. Throughout the ages Stoics have adopted this practice from time to time as a way of returning to basics. (Camping is a good modern version of this practice.)

When he was about 15, Marcus met Apollonius of Chalcedon, a Stoic philosopher from

whom he learned much, but he was influenced even more by the most distinguished Stoic philosopher of the time, Quintus Iunius Rusticus (c.100 – c.170), who might have studied with Epictetus. Marcus was influenced especially by Epictetus’
Discourses
, and perhaps by notes that Rusticus had recorded when he studied with Epictetus. Rusticus continued a Stoic tradition of “speaking truth to power” by criticizing bad emperors; his grandfather Arulenus Rusticus (c.35–93 CE) had been condemned to death by the emperor Domitian

for his writings, and was considered a Stoic martyr. Iunius Rusticus was a successful states-man, as were Musonius, Seneca, and Marcus, for there is nothing contradictory about

being a Stoic philosopher and leading an active life. When Antoninus Pius died in 161 CE, Marcus became emperor at the age of 39. He was an effective leader and is considered a good emperor, who had to deal with natural disasters including plagues, floods, and earthquakes. Furthermore, there had been trouble on all the borders of the empire following 78 the discipline of assent

Antoninus’ death, and Marcus died in 180 while defending the northern borders near the Danube.

Many people are familiar with the
Meditations
of Marcus Aurelius. It is actually titled simply “To Himself,” and is his philosophical notebook, probably recorded in his later years each night before he went to bed. Thus it is a good example of how a practicing philosopher used his notebook to keep the maxims and demonstrations of the philosophy before his eyes in order to live by its principles. The
Meditations
is more like a commonplace book, recording general maxims in striking form, than a journal or diary recording the particularities of a life. It is especially valuable because Marcus was not living in a garden, out of the stream of affairs; he faced greater challenges and stresses than most of us.

Marcus’ notebook seems to have been intended for his own eyes, and none of his con-

temporaries appear to be aware of its existence. We are probably fortunate that it survived.

It seems to have escaped notice until the fourth century, but by the tenth century it was well enough known that complete manuscripts were circulating. However, the text that we have now comes from only two manuscripts, one of which has been lost, but not before it was published in 1559, and the other of which is still in the Vatican libraries, but missing 42

lines here and there. We are lucky that the
Meditations
—a cultural treasure—has survived.

Marcus Aurelius’
Meditations
(except Book I) are filled with maxims expressing Stoic doctrines, and all the maxims in the Stoic chapters are from it, unless I say otherwise. The emperor’s book is a treasure chest for you; find the maxims that speak most clearly to you and learn them.

Marcus’ commonplace displays a philosophy that was not purely Stoic, but mixed with

Epicurean and Platonic practices, and so it is especially relevant to practicing Hypatia’s philosophy. In ancient times, the Garden and the Porch often regarded each other as opposed philosophies, but we will see that in their practices they are more alike than different. One difference is that, while the Garden teaches that happiness is relatively easy to obtain if we change our thinking, and disengage from the world, the Porch teaches that a deeper, more endurable serenity is obtainable by engaging in life and the world appropriately.

Goals of Wisdom

One of the goals of Stoics is to live with serenity and happiness, which they contrast with (Epicurean) pleasure. A second goal is autonomy, that is, the impregnability of the mind to outer circumstances, so that it becomes an “inner acropolis.” A third goal is a sort of “cosmic consciousness,” by which the philosopher’s reason becomes identical with Universal the discipline of assent 79

Reason, the law of Nature, and in this sense identifies with the divine will. This goal is one way of becoming more godlike, a goal of all the ancient Greek philosophies.

These goals can be achieved only by understanding Nature (our own nature and uni-

versal nature) and by living in accord with it, but this requires us to understand what is in our control and what it not. According to Stoics, only the present moment is in our control, since we cannot change the past, and we can affect the future only by what we do in the present. Furthermore, our control in the present moment is limited to (1) our judgment of what is true or not, (2) our evaluation of what is good or not, and (3) our intention to pursue the good. These mental actions are governed by the three Stoic disciplines (discussed later).