The Acts of the Apostles, the history of the early church, by Luke the physician - Acts 17:16-21 comments: Paul confronted by Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Athens

 

Acts 17:16 ¶  Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. 17  Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. 18  Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection. 19  And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? 20  For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. 21  (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)

 

Epicureanism was a philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome based on the writings of a philosopher name Epicurus who lived after 300BC. It was a challenge to the philosophy of Plato and then by Paul’s time was a challenge to Stoicism. Epicurus taught atheistic materialism so today he would have been one of those people who insist that the greatest good in life is to seek to be happy, to enjoy oneself, and also that there is nothing outside of the material world so any god is a physical being only. As Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson would say in the TV series, Cosmos, that it, the cosmos or universe, “is all that is or was or ever will be..”

 

The Stoics, on the other hand, are often mistaken for Christians in that noted Stoics believed that virtue was real happiness, along with self-control and fortitude in the face of pain and suffering. Stoicism was founded a little later than Epicurus’ time by Zeno of Citium. Make no mistake about it, though, Stoics were far from Christian. Like Epicureans and most so-called intellectuals today they were humanist who valued human will and the ability to conquer negative and damaging emotions as the greatest good. To the Stoic the universe and nature were god but they could consider non-physical entities as being real so they were not purely limited by the physical. We use Stoic today for someone who endures pain and misfortune well. Understand that for both of these philosophies as for all philosophies and religions there would be wide variations in belief.