The Evolution of God: From Polytheism to Monotheism

 

The above diagram is an attempt to illustrate Wright’s account of

the evolution of the Judaeo-Christian God from ancient Canaanite  polytheism.   click to enlarge

The Evolution of God

[from Polytheism to Monotheism]

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by Nathan Fifield

May 2, 2022

[editorial additions or reformatting are mine - re slater]

The Bible is usually read as a grand narrative from creation to apocalypse. This straight-forward reading presents some paradoxes. For example, the Biblical God commands wrathful genocides alongside loving forgiveness. At times He demands uncompromising nationalism and at other times He promotes generous universalism. For centuries, armies of apologists have been busy justifying these paradoxes, anxious to clear up doubts that could arise about the divine origins of Bible. Robert Wright’s monumental book The Evolution of God gives a much simpler explanation for God’s schizophrenic nature: the God of the Bible is actually an amalgamation of different Canaanite gods. According to Wright the Bible is a selectively edited compilation of sacred middle eastern texts and traditions forged together into a cohesive narrative by Jewish scholars during the Babylonian captivity (697 BC) and then added to by Christian fathers in the 3rd century AD. It was only during the Babylonian captivity that true monotheism emerged.

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June 2009 - In this sweeping narrative that takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils an astonishing discovery: there is a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy. He explains why spirituality has a role today, and why science, contrary to conventional wisdom, affirms the validity of the religious quest. And this previously unrecognized evolutionary logic points not toward continued religious extremism, but future harmony. Nearly a decade in the making, The Evolution of God is a breathtaking re-examination of the past, and a visionary look forward.

In Wright’s narrative, the Jews were actually much less genocidal than the Biblical narrative suggests they were. In the Old Testament, God is a wrathful champion of an ISIS-like nation cruising from victory to victory as long as they were loyal to Him. However Wright suggests that Israel was actually a loose coalition of polytheistic tribes fighting off gigantic empires surrounding them. Within this pressure cooker Israelites faced impossible decisions: whether to accept humiliating vassalage at the hands of oppressive empires or to stand bravely against them. Not everyone can relate to the genocidal Jews in the literal Biblical account. But everyone can relate to Wright’s narrative of a nation afflicted and beset by unresolvable dilemmas. Under these circumstances it’s easy to see how some of the more troubling views about God emerged. Israelis were always the “little guys,” but they were inspired by stories that made them and their God out to be just as great or greater than the ruthless empires they were forced to take on.

The above diagram is an attempt to illustrate Wright’s account of the evolution of the Judaeo-Christian God from ancient Canaanite polytheism. It is meant to be a kind of family tree with the ancestral gods depicted at the bottom and evolving over time to form the Holy Trinity at the top. Wright is quick to point out that this narrative is not universally accepted, especially among the religiously devout. Nevertheless it utilizes some of the more mainstream theories about the development of Judaeo-Christianity from the historical and archaeological perspective. And nothing in this account precludes belief in the divine origins of the Bible. In fact the emergence of monotheism from polytheism represents a kind of miracle in and of itself. The Jews were uniquely important in the history of the world and not because of dramatic miracles like the crossing of the Red Sea. They were, in a much more important sense, divinely inspired.

Canaan as a Syncretic Pressure Cooker

Wright argues that Judaeo-Christian monotheism evolved from Canaanite polytheism through a process called syncretism (wherein two or more gods combine to form a new god). Much of Wright’s book analyzes how and why this happened. My illustration attempts to show how the empires surrounding Canaan acted as a kind of imperial pressure cooker leading to new deity combinations not unlike the pressures inside a nuclear reactor which force individual particles to combine to form new ones.

The Ancient Canaanite Trinity: Ywh (the flame), Baal (the husband), El (the father)

There were many deities in ancient Canaan, but three of them are central to the evolution of monotheism: Ywh, Baal, and El:

Ywh (also Yhwh or Yahweh) was originally a warrior god with transcendent attributes. He enters the archeological record as a deity of the Shasu people, a religious minority persecuted in Egypt who later settled in Southern Canaan (the possible origin of the Exodus story). I’ve illustrated Ywh as an upside down triangle in an attempt to show that he represents the transcendence of heaven coming down into the human heart as a “still small voice” or a “fire in the bones.” Elsewhere in the Bible Ywh takes the form of a burning bush or fire from heaven. I’ve therefore given Ywh the subtitle “the flame.”

Baal was a popular storm god who brought rain to farmers and fertility to families. Like Ywh, I’ve illustrated Baal as an upside down triangle because he is also a sky god who comes down from heaven. Baal is also the Hebrew name for “husband,” and in a sense the god Baal was the archetypal husband: protector, provider, and inseminator of the land. (See analysis of Psalm 29)

El was i) the head god in a large pantheon of sons, daughters and wives and ii) a popular god in Northern Canaan. He was iii) a nomadic deity who dwelt in a tent or tabernacle and iv) displayed the kind of patriarchal leadership that was emulated by kings and chieftains. I’ve illustrated him as a right-side-up triangle to emphasize the fact that he acts within a hierarchy. (El is also the generic term for “god” in Hebrew, so it is sometimes confusing distinguishing between El Shaddai, the proper name for this god, Eloheim, the name for El’s pantheon, and el, the name used for god generically.)

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Although Wright doesn’t go into this, I want to highlight the archetypal connotations of this ancient Canaanite trinity. The archetypes Father, Husband, and Flame are remarkably similar to the Catholic trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:

El, the Father, and God the Father, [are] both the crown [ of] the hierarchies of their respective theologies. The “Son” in Catholic theology is often described as a husband or bridegroom, an archetype similar to the “husband” Baal. The Holy Ghost also has remarkable similarities to the Biblical depictions of Ywh as a flame of fire or a still small voice. While there may not be a direct link between these ancient deities and the development of the Catholic trinity, monotheistic conceptions of God seem to reflect many of the ancient polytheistic archetypes.

[re slater - the ancient biblical text had incorporated these imageries into itself which the later developing early church placed drafted into it's Nicean Creed in 325 AD and formally adopted in 381 AD at the Council of Constantinople irrespective of resulting "philosophic" arguments for and against the Trinity.]

 Origins

• The belief in the Trinity emerged around 33-34 AD, shortly after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
• The term "Trinity" was first used by Tertullian, a church father who lived from around 160–225 AD. 
The New Testament passages that associate the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit include Matthew 28:19, which states "in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit". 

Influences

The Trinity doctrine has Pagan Egyptian-Semitic (Canaanite) roots, dating back to at least two centuries BC. 
The Neoplatonist Plotinus' triad of the One, Intellect, and Soul may have also influenced the Trinity. 

Development

The Trinity doctrine was brought into Christianity by the incipient, as-yet-unformed, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Church Councils before the Great Schism of 1054 AD between Roman and Orthodox Faiths. 
The Trinity doctrine was central to many early Christian baptisms. 

Syncretic / [Synchronising] Alliances

There were two major syncretic events in ancient Canaan that were central to the formation of monotheism. One was a 9th century BC anti-Egyptian alliance between Ywh worshipers in the south and El worshipers in the north. This alliance may have been the origin of the covenant rites of Israelite worship wherein various tribes of Canaanites gathered together around important shrines to swear allegiance to El and appeal for his protection from their aggressive imperial neighbors. An anti-Egyptian alliance would make sense from the perspective of the Shasu, who had been persecuted by the Egyptians before. In this alliance El retains his position as the top god and Ywh becomes one of his sons (see Mark S. Smith analysis of Psalm 82 in Origins of Biblical Monotheism). El’s importance in Canaan was reduced after the Northern Kingdoms were carried away captive by the Assyrians in 722 BCE, the so called “lost ten tribes.”

The Shasu were Semitic-speaking, pastoral nomads from the Southern Levant, known to the ancient Egyptians as "nomads" or "Bedouin" who lived in the region to the east of Egypt, from the late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. 

Here's a more detailed explanation:

• Who they were:

  The Shasu were a group of semi-nomadic people, possibly Bedouin, who lived by raising livestock and were known from Egyptian texts, wall reliefs, and monuments dating from the 18th Dynasty (circa 1550–1295 B.C.E.) through the Third Intermediate Period (circa 1069–747 B.C.E.). 
• Where they lived:

  They inhabited the Southern Levant, an area to the east of Egypt, including regions like the Jezreel Valley, Ashkelon, Transjordan, and the Sinai. 
• How they were viewed by Egyptians:

  The Egyptians viewed the Shasu as "nomads" or "Bedouin", and they were often portrayed as brigands or mercenaries. 
• Possible meaning of the term "Shasu":

  The term "Shasu" is thought to be related to the Egyptian verb "to wander" or the Semitic word "to plunder," but the exact origin is uncertain. 
• "Shasu of Yahweh":

  There are references in Egyptian texts to "the land of the Shasu of Yahweh," which are the oldest references found in any ancient texts to the God Yahweh outside of the Old Testament. 

The second major syncretic event occurred during a 7th century BC alliance between the Israelite nations and the Phoenician Empire. According to Wright this event influenced the merger of Baal and Ywh which happened not through cooperation but through competition. The Bible gives a dramatic account of this competition in 1 Kings which tells the story of a conflict between the Israelite King Ahab, his Queen Jezebel and the Prophet Elijah. Jezebel was a Phoenician princess loyal to Baal, and her marriage to the Israelite Ahab represented an important alliance with Phoenicia that would help fend off threats from the aggressive Assyrian Empire. This gave political clout to worshipers of Baal and marginalized those loyal to Ywh. The worshipers of Ywh refused to go down without a fight. Their prophets decried the alliance and attempted to demonstrate that not only was Ywh a better god than Baal, he could also best Baal at his own game: bring rain in times of drought and stave off an Assyrian onslaught without the help of the Phoenicians. This conflict is depicted in the famous contest between the priests of Baal and Elijah. While this story was written long after it had supposedly occurred, it is nevertheless a remarkable illustration of the political situation at the time. Ywh upped his game, taking on the attributes of Baal in addition to his own so that he could be touted as a legitimate substitute for those who were partial to Baal and his generative powers.

Josiah

If there is any figure that comes closest to embodying the ugly Biblical violence celebrated in the Book of Joshua and elsewhere it is the Jewish king Josiah (641–610 BCE), who slaughtered the priests of other gods and enforced the complete domination of the cult of Ywh. While his reforms didn’t survive his reign, his accomplishments were celebrated by later Jewish scholars during the Babylonian captivity who recast him as a reformer reinstating an ancient monotheism laid down by the legendary prophets Moses and Abraham.

The Babylonian Captivity and a New Monotheism

The Babylonian captivity is the most important event in the creation of Jewish monotheism:

During the captivity Jewish scholars compiled and edited what would become today’s Old Testament. Traditions associated with each of the three gods (Ywh, Baal, and El) were combined into a cohesive narrative and the three gods became one: a new, all powerful deity who wasn’t just better than the gods of other nations but was in fact the only God in existence.

Exactly how this happened is the subject of much controversy but the most well known theory is called the documentary hypothesis. While many of the details of the documentary hypothesis are disputed, historians generally agree that there were various factions among the exiled Jews, each loyal to different traditions and conceptions of God. Their contributions resulted in a Biblical God who is quite diverse, at times nationalistic and at times internationalist, both pro-ritual and anti-ritual, both interventionist and non-interventionist, etc.

Wikipedia's diagram

re slater - this is an older theory which has been displaced by similar contemporary theories more in line with this article here:

Wikipedia diagrams of 20th century documentary hypothesis:

• J - Yahwist (10th–9th century BCE)[1][2]
• E - Elohist (9th century BCE)[1]
• Dtr1 - Early (7th century BCE) Deuteronomist historian
• Dtr2 - Later (6th century BCE) Deuteronomist historian
• P* - Priestly (6th–5th century BCE)[3][2]
• D† - Deuteronomist
• R - Redactor
• DH - Deuteronomistic history (books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings)

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Complicating the picture is the fact that Babylon was overtaken by the Persian Empire during the period of the captivity. The Persians allowed the Jews return to their homeland, but not without pressing the Jews to adopt a more globalist outlook. The Persians granted their people local control throughout the empire but wouldn’t tolerate belligerence. The so called “priestly source” of the documentary hypothesis was likely a pro-Persian faction among the Jews, one that emphasized the international, universal aspects of God as opposed to the nationalist Ywh. The priestly source uses El, not Ywh as God’s name and narrates stories from Elohist tradition like the story of Abraham.

In my chart I attempt to illustrate the Elohist emphasis during the captivity by enlarging the right-side-up triangle of El and merging it with Ywh’s upside-down triangle to create a new “star of David.”

The Evolution of Christianity

Jesus was a messianic Jew crucified by the Romans. However it wasn’t obvious to his followers what his death and resurrection was supposed to mean. There were many early versions of Christianity and they had widely divergent views. Robert Wright examines three main branches: Ebionite Christianity, Marcionism, and Pauline Christianity.

The Ebionites denied that Jesus was divine in any way. He was a messiah for the Jewish people and Christians were to continue to obey the Jewish laws of the Old Testament. Thus for Ebionite Christians, Jewish conceptions of God stayed intact.

Marcionism on the other hand held that Jesus had been sent by the true God and that he had defeated the evil god of the Old Testament. Therefore, the entire Jewish conception of God was to be done away with.

Somewhere in between the extremes of Marcionism and Ebionite Christianity is Pauline Christianity. A Jew himself, Paul believed that:

• Jesus was the fulfillment of old Jewish law but that he did not overthrow the Jewish God.
• Rather, Jesus was in some sense the God of both the Old and New Testament. This was a conception that would later evolve into the [pre-] Catholic Trinity.

Wright gives an extensive analysis as to why Pauline Christianity succeeded where other versions failed. Here is a brief summary:

• Christian missionaries relied initially on converts from the Jewish diaspora (which had occurred due to the collapse of the Alexandrian empire.) Jews scattered around the Hellenistic world were well regarded by the Greeks (who had also been scattered around the Mediterranean by the collapse of the Alexandrian empire). In fact many Greeks wanted to become Jews themselves although they balked at all the formal rules involved, particularly circumcision.

• Christianity was an attractive alternative. However Ebionite Christianity was too harsh and demanding, too much like existing Judaism. And Marcionism treated the Jews with contempt. In the end, Pauline Christianity represented a more ideal balance between Greek and Jewish culture.

• The newly baptized Greeks proclaimed that Jesus was “Socrates for the masses” and celebrated the God of both Old and New Testament as a single, universal Logos (stoicism) or One (neo-platonism).

Wright’s thesis is informed by game theory and its notions of zero-sum and non-zero sum thinking. Both Marcionism and Ebionite Christianity were zero-sum religions. They either excluded the Jews or excluded the Gentiles. Pauline Christianity on the other hand was a non-zero sum phenomenon that allowed Greeks and Jews to come together in a way that enhanced the cultures and prospects of both groups.

Wright’s book goes on to discuss the development of Islam and skips over the development of the Catholic Trinity. At the top of my illustration however I’ve added a ven diagram with stocism and neo-platonism intersecting with Pauline Christianity. In my view, the Holy Trinity emerges from the combination of these three philosophical and religious traditions. This emergence was formalized by the great 4th and 5th century theologian St. Augustine. It’s a complicated topic I intend to cover more deeply in future posts. For this analysis I’ll only note that the Catholic conception of God was perhaps the greatest non-zero sum accomplishment of the human race up to that point. As Philosopher John Vervaeke points out, St. Augustine took the best philosophy (neoplatonic), the best theology (Christian), and the best psychology (stoic) of his day and melded it into a cohesive worldview so powerful that it would endure for over a thousand years, eventually giving birth to the modern world.

Part 4 - Stoicism and Christianity

Part 4

Stoicism and Christianity

SERIES

Part 1 - Hellenism and Judaism

Part 2 - Stoicism and Judaism  <--- added: processual view

Part 3 - Hellenism and Christianity

Part 4 - Stoicism and Chrstianity

Chronology and Theology of Stoicism

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by Mike Anderson

June 11, 2012

I

In the previous post we briefly discussed Stoic philosophy and hinted at a kinship with Christian philosophy. Now we will describe Stoicism in more detail and explain its standing in Eastern Europe and Asia during the time of Jesus.

The above chronology provides a snapshot of Stoic history. Of course the word Stoic comes from the meeting place of Zeno and his followers – the Stoa (covered porch) in the center of Athens. But Zeno was not from Athens. He was born in Citium, a town in southwest Cyprus. Immersed in philosophy from a young age, Zeno migrated to Athens in 311 B.C. at the age of 22. There he studied with the Cynic Crates, Polemo, head of the Academy, and the Megaric philosopher Stilpo. Finally rejecting Platonic metaphysics, Zeno launched his own school around 300 B.C.

There were three components to Zeno’s philosophy: ethics, physics, and logic. His ethics came from Cynic morality, physics from Plato’s Timaeus, and his logic was a self-developed view of argument and theory of knowledge. Zeno believed that impressions could lead human beings to the external truths that help them understand the world.

By the time of Zeno’s death in 262 B.C. Stoicism had become the dominant Hellenistic philosophy. But with his death came a period of uncertainty among his followers, who did not know what direction to take. Because their mentor was more of an inspiration than systematic thinker, they began to distill Zeno’s teachings into dogma in an effort to create a formal structure for the philosophy. They called themselves “Socratics” and admired the life of their great predecessor.

But then a new leader arose, Chrysippus, a man who may have been greater than Zeno. He was inspirational but at the same time thoroughly analytical. At first Chrysippus was unhappy with the direction of the Stoic school based on doctrinal arguments with the school’s leader Cleanthes, but when the latter died in 230 B.C, Chrysippus became the leader. He helped create structure for Zeno’s beliefs and defended them without reservation. When Chrysippus died in 206 B.C. another leaderless period began (refer to diagram above).

By the middle 2nd century, the school was led by Antipater, who pushed for recognition of the relationship between Stoicism and Platonism. The common ground identified with the Academy would influence Stoic thinking for all of the future.

At this point in the chronology, I note an event that took place in the middle of the second century – I label it Stoic ambassadors to Rome. On this occasion, representatives of the Stoic school and the Academy traveled to Rome to protest a fine imposed on Athens for its sack of Oropus. During their visit, the Greeks lectured in sold out pavilions and overwhelmed the Romans with their intellectual power. This ignited a permanent interest in Greek philosophy in general and Stoicism in particular which lasted until the end of the empire.

By the late second century, Athens’s role as the center of Stoicism began to wane. The last Athenian leader, Panaetius, died in 110 B.C. without a successor. Posidonius, his pupil, opened a new school in Rhodes.

As the influence of Athens dimmed, the Stoic schools in Rhodes and Rome grew to replace it. By the end time of the Roman republic we see Stoics exerting great influence over Cicero and Brutus. Later Augustus hired Athenodorus to act as his philosophical advisor.

The peak for Roman Stoic thought was reached when Seneca, advisor to Nero, became the leader of the Roman Stoics. Seneca’s death removed the champion, but the belief system carried on through the time of Marcus Aurelius.

II

Our best sources for Stoic theology are Cicero and Sextus who wrote extensively in the first century B.C. What was this theology? Fundamentally, the Stoics sought to address three issues:

1) proving that the gods exist,

2) explaining the nature of the gods,

3) showing that the world is governed by the gods.

Proving the gods exist

Many proofs are offered for the existence of god – most notably the ordered universe proving the existence of a creator with a guiding hand. Stoics also believed that atheism must be false because, if it were true, that would mean that man, with all his faults, is the highest being in the universe -- an illogical conclusion.

With respect to the nature of the gods, the Stoics provide a definition:

God is an immortal living being, rational, perfect and thinking in happiness, unreceptive of anything bad and provident with regard to the cosmos and the things therein. But he is not of human form. He is the demiurge of the whole and as it were the father of all things, both in general and insofar as the part of him is concerned which pervades all things, and which is called by many names, corresponding to its powers.

Both Zeno and Chrysippus claimed that the cosmos is the substance of god.

How the gods exist and govern the world

Next we turn to the problem of the world governed by gods and the implications of fate. This is the age old problem – if the gods have created a world that is pre-determined, then man has no control over things that happen to him, is life still worth living?

To the Stoics, God as fate determines everything including setting the example for what is morally good. There is no separation between the divine and practical world. Both are operated by the same principles. Man can develop an understanding of God and the cosmos through divination – the subtle communication of God to man, but divination results from contemplation.

God operates through man via the Pneuma or divine essence. For an inanimate object, Pneuma is its physical properties, but in man Pneuma is the essence of reason which allows him to operate autonomously and interact with his environment. So the Stoics attempt a balance between the predetermined world created by God and the flexibility man can create through his individual personality.

Stoicism at the time of Jesus

Now that we have looked at some basic theology, how do we view Stoicism at the time of Jesus?

The Romans have been criticized for adding nothing to Stoic philosophy and this criticism is largely valid. Even in the case of Ethics where they spent most of their energy, the Romans concentrated more on the interpretation of Zeno and Chrysippus than they did on any new ideas.

Stoicism in the first century A.D. was not a refined or reinterpreted version of the original, but a continuation of its founder’s ideals. The impact on Christianity, then, was mainly due to its penetration of Hellenistic culture over three centuries prior to its time. For those who embraced Stoicism at the time of Jesus, Christian philosophy appeared as a kindred belief system once it had gained the form of dogma.

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Here's a subtle but profound difference between Stoicism and Christianity. The two worldviews clashed in ancient times. Thank God the Christian approach prevailed! Letting yourself feel the joy/grief of others (com+passion) is exactly what our minds need to jolt us into action. - John Dickson

The Stoic-Christian Connection

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by Mike Anderson

June 15, 2012

We have been discussing the development of Stoicism as the leading Hellenistic philosophy so that we might look at its relationship to Christianity -- the theory being that Christianity has some Stoic ideas in it.

Think of the way early Christian leaders (circa 100 A.D. and beyond) viewed their situation. They believed in Jesus as the Messiah, based on the Gospels and the teaching of Paul, but those beliefs were missing a substantive philosophical framework, or more correctly a theology, that could be taught and defended. The only way to overcome this lack of structure was to create it.

But there is a problem with creating this framework -- objectivity. How do men living in a Hellenistic world permeated by Stoicism develop a Christian theology without being influenced by Stoicism? Only with difficulty it turns out.

As discussed in a previous post, the Christian apologists had two adversaries: splinter religious groups like the Arians and Gnostics and more seriously the classic Greek philosophers who enjoyed centuries of wide acceptance. The reputation of the Greeks was too strong to dismiss out of hand, so many Christian thinkers made peace with the Greeks, either my attributing Christian beliefs to them or finding Christianity in their philosophy.

My source book for this discussion is The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition by Jaroslav Pelikan. Professor Pelikan was an eminent scholar in the history of the Catholic Church and Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale from 1972-1996. He wrote a five volume set on the Catholic tradition including the work cited above which serves as volume one.

Pelikan cites the closing of the Greek philosophical school by Justinian in 529 A.D. as the triumph of the church over pagan philosophy. Or as Gibbon put it,

“this was a time when Christian theologians superseded the exercise of reason, resolved every question by an article of faith, and condemned the infidel or skeptic to eternal flames.”

We start by highlighting the most famous work of Boethius (executed 522 A.D.) called Consolidation of Philosophy. This paradoxical work attempts to reconcile Greek philosophy and the Christian religion. The paradox derives from the fact that the book reads like its writer is a secular philosopher and not a devout Christian. Pelikan accuses Boethius of pressing reason to the boundaries of faith.

Pelikan also suggests that the triumph of Christianity over Greek philosophy was “Pyrrhic” because the victory by the former included the absorption of some of the tenets of the latter.

Let’s look at the example of transubstantiation. The fourth Lateran council of 1215 A.D. decreed that the sacrament of the altar .. the bread is substantiated into the body of Christ. Substance in this case is no more than the metaphysics of Aristotle as laid out in his fifth book on that subject. As Aristotle says, “A substance is not predicated of a subject but everything else is predicated of it. That which, being present in all such things as are not predicated of a subject, is the cause of its being, as the soul is of the being of an animal.” It follows then that if you are using Aristotle’s definitions, then you are embracing Aristotle. It’s not surprising that this issue has been cited as an example of the problem of “Hellenization of Christianity.”

Indeed, Christian doctrine still bears the marks of pagan philosophy which is the price paid for the triumph over it. How high a price? We need to look no farther than the apologists to answer that question.

Extremists labeled many of the theologians of the early church hellenizers, a purposeful derogatory sobriquet. They said of Origen, “While his manner of life was a Christian, contrary to law he played a Greek, and introduced Greek ideas.” They were critical of his kinship with the Greek philosophers regarding the immortality of the soul.

The same can be said of Tertullian. Unsure of the characterization of the soul in the scriptures, he called upon the Stoics to help him explain it as a spiritual essence.

And Clement of Alexandria describes virtue as “a will in conformity to God and Christ in life, rightly adjusted to life everlasting.” This is basic Stoic metaphysics.

Now we can see how the Greek philosophers in general (Plato and Aristotle) and the Stoics in particular were able to influence Christian theology. This influence was undoubtedly caused by:

1. The longstanding assimilation of Stoicism into Hellenistic thought and its subliminal influence over those living at that time.

2. The lack of a philosophical foundation in the Christian religion which was originally built solely on the facts of the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

3. The thought processes of early Christian theologians whose intellects required examining all fundamental ideas, even those originating from the pagan enemy.

At the end of the day, our discussion becomes esoteric because the "Pyrrhic" character of the Christian victory over pagan philosophy was forgotten long ago. Those elements formerly Greek stand today as Christian dogma.

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Warning: Caring could hurt your soul

Justin Toh weighs up Stoicism and Christianity

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by Justine Toh

February 14th, 2019

“Everything old is new again” may be a phrase of uncertain origin, but it’s a reliable formula for the return of trends thought long over – like bell-bottom jeans, making your own jam and the revival, in some quarters at least, of the ancient Greek and Roman wisdom of Stoicism.

It’s an unlikely resurrection. When we call someone “stoic,” at best we mean that they maintain a calm composure even in the grimmest of conditions. This is roughly continuous with the ancient Stoic belief that the good life was one of equanimity and tranquillity no matter the individual’s circumstances. But, at worst, we mean it far more pejoratively: the stoic is seen as stiff upper lipped, even emotionally flat – the kind of person who kills everyone’s buzz by having no buzz at all. It’s not exactly a compliment.

Still, there’s enough interest in Stoicism to have sustained annual gatherings of Stoic Week across the globe since 2013, for seven days of Stoic scholarship, inspiration and practice. There, thousands might find themselves exploring how the technique of negative visualisation – imagining the worst that can happen – counselled by Roman statesman Seneca – can help them master anger and frustration. Or discussing a key Stoic tenet by Epictetus, a slave turned philosopher, who wrote:

“Our thoughts are up to us, and our impulses, desires and aversions – in short, whatever is our doing … Of things that are outside your control, say they are nothing to you.”

In other words, the secret to a more satisfied existence is to care less about what you can’t control.

Plenty are drawn to the practical advice Stoicism offers for life in our turbulent world today. Among them are those looking to this ancient philosophy as a replacement for religion – such as philosopher Massimo Pigliucci.

In How to Be a Stoic: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Living, Pigliucci recounts his own journey to Stoicism, “not on my way to Damascus, but through a combination of cultural happenstance, life’s vicissitudes, and deliberate philosophical choice.”

Since abandoning Catholicism in his teenage years, Pigliucci found himself on his own – existentially speaking – in dealing with the meaning of life. The angry and belittling tone of the New Atheists repelled him; Buddhism was too mystical; and secular humanism too rational (“it comes across as cold and not the sort of thing you want to bring your kids to on a Sunday morning,” he writes).

But Stoicism ticked Pigliucci’s boxes: it was rational, science-friendly and agnostic enough on the question of God (more on this in a moment) to satisfy his scientific and philosophical bent. It was also eminently practical and promised to help him prepare for his inevitable death – a prospect increasingly on his mind after he turned 50.

For Pigliucci, Stoicism was a source of life guidance and ultimate meaning in the absence of religion. Or, more specifically, Christianity. Pigliucci’s passing comments about Damascus, where he alludes to the conversion of the Apostle Paul (who previously persecuted the church), as well as Pigliucci’s nods to church gatherings on Sunday, indicate that his reference points for his post-Christian life are Christian in nature.

In other words, the teenage faith that Pigliucci disavowed has nonetheless left its mark on his adult self. Maybe that’s a predictable mix: even leaving aside Pigliucci’s back story, there are undeniable similarities between Stoicism and Christianity.

But whether we are atheists, believers, or anything in between, all of us bear the stamp of Christianity – and not Stoicism – on our souls.

Stoicism and Christianity were closely associated in the ancient world: both counselled discipline and self-control in the face of pagan decadence, and a commitment to contentment despite hardship. For instance, the Apostle Paul’s declaration that he has “learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (Philippians 4:12) seems straight out of the Stoic playbook.

These convergences between Stoicism and Christianity even led to a cooked-up correspondence between Seneca and Paul, both prolific letter writers in their day – though never, in fact, to each other.

But Christianity and Stoicism are sharply opposed in one respect particularly – and it makes all the difference:

The Stoics’ goal was tranquillity, which sounds peaceful enough, but this tranquillity was the product of apathy – literally “without suffering” in the Latin. Apathy was how someone could preserve their peace of mind, and the route to that imperturbability lay in detachment.

To involve yourself with others, then, was to risk the serenity of the soul.

Take the example of death: for the Stoics, not principally a personal tragedy or even an irreparable tear in the human fabric, but an occasion for self-mastery. Epictetus writes that we should discipline our fears of death:

“To this let all your reasonings, your lectures, and your trainings be directed; and then you will know that only so do men achieve their freedom.” And if you encounter anyone grieving the death of a loved one, he writes, remind yourself that death itself is not the problem – only the judgments they attach to it. “Certainly do not moan with him,” he sternly adds. “Do not moan inwardly either.”

Compare Epictetus’ words with the call of the Christian to “mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15) – to radically identify with the suffering of others, even to take it on.

Jesus certainly did – as much is suggested by the shortest, and perhaps the most poignant, entry in modern Bibles: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). And he did so at the tomb of Lazarus, the text says, moments before he was to call his friend out of it. It turns out that even the one whom the Scriptures said conquered death could also be undone by it.

But that was the nature of the Jesus whom Christians knew as God. He cared. Even if both Christianity and Stoicism agreed enough on God’s existence – both were convinced that an all-pervading logos or rationality governed the universe – Christianity proclaimed an involved, loving God since the logos or word became flesh in Jesus (John 1:14).

And all this has influenced us no matter what we believe about God.

1 - The Stoics, like other ancient Greek philosophers, believed that only spiritual things could be good. That God would become human – take on a body – was a reprehensible thought.

2 - It was even worse that this God was passionately involved with people, identifying with their sorrows and weaknesses, even to the point of dying upon a cross for them.

And all this has influenced us no matter what we believe about God. Detachment was prized by the ancients, but we are passionate about passionate engagement. Consider that very profane and very popular self-help book by Mark Manson. While it spends many pages arguing why you should care less, the book’s real thesis is that you should stop sweating the small stuff so you can devote yourself to what you really care about.

Manson channels [USA TV Personality] Oprah when he asks his readers: “What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?” It’s revealing that our word “passion” is the Latin word for “suffering” because, to us, how much we’re prepared to suffer for something we love is a measure of how much we care about it.

Similarly, we value compassion: active involvement to relieve the pain and struggle of others. As Edwin Judge, Emeritus Professor at Macquarie University and expert on early Christianity and the Greek and Roman world, explained to CPX,

“Care, for us, means actually bearing the cost, when you actually do something about the person you allegedly care for.”

The Stoics, on the other hand, practised “courtesy”: a distanced, polite awareness of others’ struggles but one that insulated the self from the other. “This is the real difference between the Stoic and the Christian bond between one person and other,” Judge said. “In the Christian case it is commitment to their problem. In the other case, it is recognition that there’s a difficulty. You offer politeness but that protects you from any grand involvement.”

Apparently, the ancient Stoics never actively sought converts, even if plenty can be found today. But since we believe that true care is costly, it turns out that Christian compassion did convert us. When it comes to that, we – even the sceptics among us – are all true believers.

*Justine Toh is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity.