Stoicism in Early Christianity

Is the name of a book I recently bought edited by Tuomas Rasimus, Troels Engberg-Pedersen and Ismo Dunderberg, it's a collection of articles written by even more authors but Engberg-Pedersen wrote the introduction.  Engberg-Pedersen has also written books on this subject that on Amazon are way too expensive right now.

I have already on this blog talked about potential affinity between Biblical Theology and Stoicism in God and The Universe and Spiritual and Heavenly what do they actually mean and opposed the common Platonist Interpretation of Biblical Theology in those as well as Pagan Greek Origins of Puritan Sexual Morality, the post on Divine Impassability and Divine Immutability, and also mentioned it in the post on The Sects of First Century Judaism.

These authors however argue for a Stoic Context to the New Testament and other Early Christian texts because they believe in the 1st century AD and even still early 2nd century Stoicism was the mainstream default Philosophical viewpoint and that Platonism took over during the 2nd Century. Which is true, the picture painted in Acts 17 for the Sermon on Mars Hill does imply only the Stoics and Epicureans were really relevant at that time and the Epicureans were the Atheists/Deists so their Philosophy wouldn't have been useful to Christians.  And so the Stoic texts they engage with are mostly the Roman Late Stoicism of Cato The Younger, Cicero, Thrasyllus of Mendes, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.  But earlier a key transitional figure in Stoicism abandoning it's more radical roots was Antipater of Tarsus.

I however believe Christianity was a fundamentally Rebellious religion at it's inception, Pacifist but Rebellious.  Within their Jewish Context the Early Christians were Pharisees but ones who rejected many of the traditions the Pharisees had developed during the Intertestamental period.  And likewise the Stoicism I see in the New Testament is a return to the Old Stoa of Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus.

One of the articles in this book talks about how during the period of Middle Platonism and Later Stoicism the two schools borrowed a lot from each other.  That Platonism that seeped into later Stoicism was the source of it's problems just as it would become the source of Christianity's problems.

The worst thing these Roman Stoics had taken from Platonism was the rigidly Pythagorean Sexual Morality of The Laws, particularly the argument that males lying with males is wrong because it's "Para Phusis".  The Laws was Plato's last work, so late some have argued he didn't actually write it, it is Platonism at the height of it's Pythagoreanism.  Symposium was one of Plato's oldest dialogues, possibly before any of the Pythagorean influence, and the Eros teaching of Diotima is the one thing in the Platonic canon that could have been compatible with Zeno's Eros or New Testament Agape at least in some ways.  But these Roman Stoics ignored that and followed The Laws instead, Musonius Rufus in Rome in the 50s AD used the Para Phusis argument verbatim and Epictetus repeated it.

But famously that argument that Homosexuality is wrong because it is "against nature" or "unnatural" technically appears in the writings of Paul, in Romans 1:26-27.  The context so many fail to get is that Romans 1:18-32 is not Paul's own opinion, it's him laying out the opinions that the rest of the Epistle is systematically refuting.  Romans is like a Breadtube response video, 1:18-32 is them simply playing clips from the PragerU video(s) they disagree with, then it proceeds with the take down.  In chapter 2 verses 1, 3 and 17 are Paul explicitly saying that part was someone else's argument.

The argument that this part of Romans 1 is Paul quoting or paraphrasing someone else isn't even limited to those trying to argue The Bible doesn't condemn Homosexuality, it's made by people who probably still think it's a Sin because of other mistranslated/misinterpreted verses.  It is well known that Romans 1:18-32 is largely based on Wisdom of Solomon 13:1-10 and 14:22-31.  [Update: and here is an article on how the influence of Philo was possibly also relevant.]

One article in this book also says that Wisdom of Solomon is an ultimately Platonist text even though it borrows a bit from Stoicism.  So someone who sees Paul as somewhat of a Stoic should easily agree that if Paul is quoting Wisdom it's a quotation made in disagreement.

Romans goes on even to refute stuff from Wisdom of Solomon not included in that specific paraphrase, like in Romans 5 when Paul says Death and Sin entered the world because of Adam's Sin, he's directly disagreeing with Wisdom of Solomon 2:24 which says Death entered the world because of the Envy of The Devil.  But the main argument of Wisdom and Romans 1:18-32 is that God gave up on the heathens and surrendered them to their sins.  In Romans 11:30-32 Paul says that God consigned ALL to disobedience so that he might have mercy on ALL, God doesn't give up on anyone, in Romans 5 he says ALL will be made righteous in Christ.

However the Para Phusis argument is the one thing in Romans 1:18-32 not taken from Wisdom.  To people in Rome in the 50s AD this might have seemed like a direct reference to the teaching of Musonius Rufus in Lecture XII.  But as I said it came from Plato's Laws (though was probably a Pythagorean teaching before that) and so that is why it fits in with the Platonism of Wisdom of Solomon.  And in a first century Jewish Platonist context the basic concept is found in Philo even if not the exact phrase.

Paul in all his writings uses the phrase "Para Phusis" only twice, this section of Romans 1, and then again in Romans 11:24 where he uses it to describe what God does grafting Gentiles into Israel. Now Paul saying God did something that is "contrary to nature" sounds like something those who argue for a Stoic reading of Paul need to explain, since in Stoicism God and Nature are in a sense the same thing.  Well the explanation is that the context is Paul using this wording to refute the anti-Homosexual argument he quoted in chapter 1.  If males lying with males is "Para Phusis" because it can't result in biological reproduction, then God making people who don't biologically descend from Jacob into Israelites is even more "Para Phusis" since it's reproduction without sex.  

Diotima argued that all Love is Generative whether it results in an actual new baby person or not because you are generating the mind of both yourself and your lover when you love, and to me that fits in well with Zeno's understanding of Eros as well New Testament Agape.  1 John 4:7 says that all who Love are Born(Gennao) of God.  Isaiah 53 speaks of the Suffering Servant having Seed, but to Christians that Prophecy is of Jesus and He didn't biologically reproduce, His Seed was His Disciples who He called the Children of the Bridechamber (Matthew 9:15, Mark 2:19 and Luke 5:34).  In Galatians 3 Paul says that all who are Christ's are the Seed of Abraham.  Revelation 12:17 says the rest of the Remnant of the Seed of the Woman are those who keep the Commandments of God and Testimony of Jesus Christ, John's Gospel and 1st Epistle repeatedly teach that the commandments of Jesus are to Love one another.  This Spiritual generation is what Romans 11 is all about, that is how the Fulness of the Gentiles will be Grafted into Israel and then ALL Israel shall be Saved.

Romans 1 isn't the only time Paul has been painted as more "Conservative" then he really was because he quoted someone to refute them.  1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is also taken at face value by Engberg-Pedersen in his Paul on Identity book, but I've studied the chapter and it's clear to me those verses are Paul quoting someone else that he then immediately calls an idiot in the following verses.  

1 Corinthians 7 is Paul responding to being asked a question, and he more then once pretty much says that this is his personal thoughts and not God speaking, I think Paul was personally Asexual and so knew this wasn't his areas of expertise, but with all those qualifiers I still think what Paul says here is not as prudish as it's made out to be, most importantly he clearly contradicts the notion that marriage and sex are for biological reproduction.

Some other books on Stoicism I own are The Making of Fornication by Kathy L. Gaca, The Stoic Idea of The City by Malcolm Schofield and Cities of The Gods: Communist Utopias in Greek Thought by Doyne Dawson.  These books tend to fall into the outdated trap of thinking Paul was a Platonist, but they are useful in how they are in part attempts to reconstruct Zeno of Citium's Republic, and in doing so argue that the original Stoics were both the Communists and Free Love Hippies of the Hellenistic world.  And that is useful for the Christian Stoicism argument because I agree with Roman A Montero's All Things in Common that Jesus was a Communist and that the Church continued to be even for awhile after Constantine, but I do disagree with his conclusion on the Essenes who I feel were the Pythagoreans of 1st century Judaism, the most Stoic Jews were the Zealots.

One subject covered in those books is how Zeno essentially tried to redefine Eros, Eros in the classical Pagan Greek understanding was uncontrollable Passion, Zeno wanted to make it something more genuinely positive.  I talked in a prior post about how Agape was rarely used at all by Polytheistic Greeks, well my new theory is that among some Stoics, perhaps specifically Hellenized Jews in Galilee and/or Tarsus, Agape become their word for Zeno's Eros, and this is the Agape meant in the New Testament and the Septuagint version of Song of Songs, especially 1 John where God is Love.  Eros is also the name of the City in Zeno's Republic, in Romans 9:25 Paul uses a specific form of Agape as a title for God's people, which like some other forms is translated Beloved in the KJV, the only other time that exact form of Agape is used is of the Beloved City in Revelation 20:9 but I think one justify translating the word order different to instead read The City of Love.  Diogenes Laertius in Book VII of Lives of Eminent Philosophers in the chapter on Zeno does use a form of Agape.

In Revelation 21 it is stated that there is no Temple in New Jerusalem.  On my Prophecy Blog I've explained that entirely in the context of Old Testament Prophecy.  But perhaps in addition to that it was also meant to remind some of the Greek readers of how in Zeno's Republic the ideal City of Eros should have no Temples.  One of these books (I currently forget which one) argued this and other things the City is not supposed to have is a response to Plato's Laws where a major Temple is at the center of Magnesia, but it's also been argued that Temples are abolished in Zeno's city because his God doesn't need Temples but rather is Imminent and Omnipresent, which sounds a lot like Stephen in Acts 7:48. 

1 John 5:6-8 gives Biblical support to the Stoic World Soul

My somewhat Stoic readings of The New Testament are also consistent with Hebrew Bible ideas, when it says that for God the Heavens are His Throne and the Earth His Footstool (Isaiah 66:1 quoted in Acts 7:49), that to me shows He's not Outside the Universe as we have come to traditionally think of Him but within it as He is in Stoicism.  That God made Adam a Living Soul by breathing His Breath of Life into him, and how Ezekiel 37 describes the coming Resurrection the same way fits the Stoic view of Pneuma pretty well I think.  Even the association of God and His Pneuma with Fire has roots in the Hebrew Bible stuff I talked about in my Baptism of Fire post.  Ecclesiastes 12:7's description of the Spirit returning to God who gave it also anticipates The Stoic ideas about Pneuma, the same idea is also in Psalm 104:29.  Isaiah 46:9-11 also agrees with Stoics over Middle Platonists on divine foreknowledge.  And when you fully understand the nuances of the Hebrew and Greek words translated "living" then God being called The Living God does support the Stoic view of God being corporeal.

Before I got into this research of Stoicism I was very hostile to using any kind of Greek Philosophy in studying the New Testament because I don't like trying to explain anything in it in a Greek context rather then Hebrew.  And some of this Stoicism in Early Christianity stuff can seem like it too is going there.  But the key difference is Zeno was a Phoenician, and so was Chrysippus, so some of their ideas may have been Semitic in origin and that's why Stoicism is more compatible with the Hebrew mindset then any other school of Greek Philosophy, and so their ideas made a good context in which the Early Christians could explain their ideas to the Greeks.

At first one is inclined to assume those the Greeks called Phoenicians were simply the Biblical Canaanites particularly of Tyre and Sidon.  However I think the Greeks used that term of maybe even all the ancient Israelites, but particularly the Tribes of Dan and Asher had strong ties to the same coastal regions that the Greeks and Romans called Phoenicia.  But even the Canaanites while Polytheistic still spoke a similar language and I think had basically similar ideas to the Hebrew Bible on Metaphysics simply using Polytheistic rather then Monotheistic framing.  Some have already argued Zeno's ideas about Eros could be related to the cosmology presented in Philo of Byblos, Byblos is part of what I believe became Danite, but also in that same Danite region was Apheca with it's cult of Aphrodite and Adonis.  The Danites became Pagan Polytheists, but even if there was a minority who tried to stay faithful to YHWHism they wouldn't have had a text of The Hebrew Bible as we know it, that Canon was developed in the Southern Kingdom, up North even The Torah was only Oral Tradition.

Zeno of Citium was contemporary with when the Septuagint is traditionally said to have been written.  I think the actual history of the Septuagint is more complicated, it developed over time and it's final form we have comes in part through Christian copyists.  But the process may have still began then, and thus some of the key words Stoic Philosophers used could have come from Zeno independently making similar translations of Semitic words/concepts into Greek, while perhaps translating some others differently.

That includes Theos/Dios/Zeus being El/Eloah/Elohim. And from something like Psalm 33:6 he could have gotten both The Logos being the Dabar/Deber (1697 and 1698 in the Strongs Concordance) and Pneuma being Ruwach, but Nshamah is sometimes used interchangeably with Ruwach. Also Psyche for Nephesh, Sophia for Chokmah and Phronesis for Binya.  And then Zeno's Eros could have been a translation of Ahav/Ahavah.

The main thing the Stoics lacked was the Resurrection, but their Cyclical view of the Universe is what I'd expect from getting most of the basic metaphysics right while still lacking The Resurrection.

Further evidence that even the Hebrew Bible can be read Stoically are the existence of Modern Jewish Philosophers who's Theology and Metaphysics sound fairly Stoic, from Baruch Spinoza to Moses Hess to Aaron David Gordon.