Απάθεια and Προπάθειαι in Early Modern Discussions of the Passions Stoicism,Christianity and Natural History

'Απάθεια and Προπάθειαι in Early Modern Discussions of the Passions: Stoicism,
Christianity and Natural History

Author(s): Jill Kraye
Source: Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 17, No. 1/2 (2012), pp. 230-253
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41723189
Accessed: 12-06-2020 20:58 UTC
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(A) Seiend Medicine
BRILL Early Science and Med
Â7tá6sia and ÏIpoî

in Early Modern Dis
Stoicism, Christianit
Jill Kraye
The Warburg Institute*
Abstract
This paper examines the reception of the Stoic theory of the passions in the early
modern period, highlighting various differences between the way notions such as
àm0£i(x (complete freedom from passions) and 7ipom0eiai (pre-passions) were han-
dled and interpreted by Continental and English authors. Both groups were concerned
about the compatibility of Stoicism with Christianity, but came to opposing conclu-
sions; and while the Continental scholars drew primarily on ancient philosophical
texts, the English ones relied, in addition, on experience and observation, developing
a natural history of the passions.
Keywords
oitkxOekx, Aristotelianism, Francis Bacon, Christianity, humanism, Justus Lipsius,
natural history, passions, rcpomGeiai, propassiones, Stoicism, Edward Reynolds, Kas-
par Schoppe, Thomas Wright
The revival of Stoicism, initiated in the 1580s,1 received a boost in the

first decades of the seventeenth century through the publication of two
treatises by Continental scholars: in 1604 the Flemish humanist Justus
Lipsius issued his Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam in Antwerp;2
* The Warburg Institute, University of London, School of Advanced Study; Woburn

Square, London WC1H OAB (Jill.Kraye@sas.ac.uk).
1} Jill Kraye, "Neo-Stoicism," in Encyclopedia of Ethics, eds. Lawrence C. and Charlotte
B. Becker, second edition, 3 vols. (London and New York, 2001), II, 1228-32.
2) Justus Lipsius, Manuductionis ad Stoicam philosophiam libri tres (Antwerp, 1604).
He also published a companion treatise, Physiologiae Stoicorum libri tres (Antwerp,
1604), dealing with Stoic natural philosophy.
© Koninklijke Brill NY, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/157338212X631855
J. Kraye / Early Science and Medicine 1 7 (2012) 230-253 23 1
and two years later the Rome-based, but German-born, Catholic con-
troversialist Kaspar Schoppe brought out his Elementa philosophiae
Stoicae moralis in Mainz. A key aim of both works was to defuse long-
standing concerns about the philosophical validity of Stoic ethics, as
well as its compatibility with Christianity - concerns which were cen-
tred, to a large extent, on the so-called Stoic paradoxes, especially the
doctrine that the wise man achieves a state of àrcáGeia or complete
freedom from the passions. Lipsius and Schoppe each turned to another
Stoic notion, the 7ipO7cá0eiai, "preliminary preludes to the passions,"3
to argue that, implausible as it might seem, it was possible for the wise
man to feel no passions whatever. They also confronted, in different
ways, the contention that such a state was contrary to the Christian
religion. By contrast, in discussions of the passions from roughly the
same period written by English authors, including Francis Bacon, Stoic
aTcaOeia was rejected as both unfeasible and unChristian. Moreover,
the 7ipO7ca0eiai were given both a religious interpretation, based on
medieval scholastic sources, and a physiological interpretation. To some
extent, these differences derived from opposing approaches to the study
of the passions: the Continental writers, seeking to promote Stoicism,
relied almost exclusively on ancient texts expounding Stoic philosophy,
bolstered by quotations from the Bible and the Church Fathers, whereas
the English authors, desiring to expound the nature of the passions as
a means of helping their readers to cope with these psychological forces,
drew, in addition, on experience and observation (their own and that
of others, both past and present) and on reason and classification - the
various pillars, in other words, of early modern natural history.4
Although the Elementa of Kaspar Schoppe (1576-1649) was pub-
lished in 1606, two years after Lipsius' Manuductio , it was actually
written a few years earlier. Brought up in the Palatinate as a Protestant,
Schoppe converted to Catholicism and established himself in Rome as
a successful Counter-Reformation polemicist, with a keen interest in
persuading his former co-religionists to abandon Lutheranism and
3) Seneca, De ira II. 2. 6: "principia proludentia affectibus."

4) Paula Findlen, "Natural History," in The Cambridge History of Science, 3: Early
Modern Science , ed s. Katharine Park and Lorraine Daston (Cambridge, 2006), 435-68,
at 435-46.
232 / Kraye / Early Science and Medicine 17 (2012) 230-253
return to the true faith. For reasons which are not entirely clear, but no
doubt involving a combination of personal motives and ideological
disagreements, he became an outspoken opponent of the Jesuit Order.
Although he did not mount his public campaign of Jesuit-bashing until
the 1630s, when he began to issue treatises such as the Flagellum Jesu -
iticum ("The Scourge of the Jesuits"), already in the early years of the
century he was giving vent privately to his dislike of the order. From
1602 to 1603, he drafted a treatise entitled De recta iuventutis institu-
tione , in which he mercilessly attacked the Jesuit pedagogical pro-
gramme and set out his own plans for a thoroughgoing overhaul of the
Catholic educational system. Keeping his crusade against the Society
of Jesus under wraps for the time being, Schoppe left the most inflam-
matory sections in manuscript; but he decided to publish another por-
tion of the treatise, in which he argued that Stoic ethics should form
the centre of the moral philosophy curriculum of Catholic schools,
taking the place traditionally occupied by Aristotle's Ethics , one of the
cornerstones of the Jesuit ratio studiorum. He was spurred into making
this decision in 1604, after learning that Lipsius, with whom he was in
friendly correspondence but whom he clearly regarded as a competitor,
had published his Manuductio' it was not until 1606, however, that
Schoppe managed to get his own Elementa into print.5 These two con-
temporary expositions of Stoic philosophy, for all their differences of
scope, level and purpose, have a fair amount in common, not least in
their treatment of the wise mans àrcáGeia.
The dual purpose of Schoppe s Elementa is announced on the title-
page, which bears two epigrams. One is adapted from Book IV of the
Tusculan Disputations : "although we may attack the Stoics, I have a
5) Kaspar Schoppe, Elementa philosophiae Stoicae moralis, quae in Senecamy Ciceronem,

Plutarchum, aliosque scriptoreS commentarti loco esse possunt (Mainz, 1606). See Jill
Kraye, "Teaching Stoic Moral Philosophy: Kaspar Schoppe's Elementa philosophiae
Stoicae moralis (1606)," in Scholarly Knowledge: Textbooks in Early Modern Europe , eds.
Emidio Campi, Simone de Angelis, Anja-Silvia Goeing and Anthony Grafton (Geneva,
2008), 249-283; and Jan Papy, "Shifting Orthodoxy in the Republic of Letters: Caspar
Schoppius Mirroring Justus Lipsius," in Between Scylla and Charybdis : Learned Letter
Writers Navigating the Reefi of Religious and Political Controversy in Early Modern
Europe , eds. Jeannine De Landtsheer and Henk Nellen (Leiden, 2011), 353-66, at
364-65.
J. Kraye / Early Science and Medicine 17 (2012) 230-253 233
suspicion that they are the only true philosophers."6 This quotation
highlighted both the criticism to which the Stoics were continually
subjected and Schoppe s intention of countering it by demonstrating
that their philosophy was better than that of the other ancient sects, in
particular the Aristotelians, who had dominated the philosophical scene
since the thirteenth century. The second epigram came from St. Jerome:
"The Stoics agree with our dogma in many points," which signalled
Schoppe s objective of stressing the fundamental agreement of Stoicism
with Christianity.7 He needed to achieve both goals in order to convince
Catholic educators to adopt Stoic moral philosophy as the mainstay of
ethical instruction in their schools. His account might lack depth, but
he pointed out that it was not his design to teach philosophy but rather
to advise those who were going to teach it.8 The Elementa was not
intended as a textbook of Stoic moral philosophy, but rather as an
encouragement for such textbooks to be written and used in Catholic
schools.
Schoppe s most pressing task was to remove the nagging doubts about
Stoic ethics which had dogged the sect s reputation for centuries. He
therefore devoted several chapters to the paradoxes, since these had
attracted the lions share of controversy. Schoppe attempted to show
that although these paradoxes seemed startling and, at first glance,
unbelievable, in reality they were no different from the icopíai ôó^ai
("the principal doctrines") of the Epicureans and the a^icojiata ("self-
evident principles") of the Aristotelians. Moreover, as explained by
Cicero, Seneca and others, they contained nothing, apart from the
strangeness of the words, to offend Christian ears.9
6) Schoppe, Elementa , title-page: "Licet insectemur Stoicos, metuo ne soli philosophi

sint"; cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations IV. 53.
7) Jerome, In Isaiam IV. 1 1 : "Stoici nostro dogmati in plerisque concordant." The same
phrase is quoted by Lipsius, Manuductio , 56 (I. 17).
8) Schoppe, Elementa , 76v: "Omnia hie pertractare, consilii nostri ratio nobis non
permittit, quibus non docere philosophiam, sed docturos admonere decretum est."
9) Ibid., 50v-51r: "quod etiam decretum Paradoxen est, sive Admirabile (sic enim Sto-
ici sententias dogmaticas ..., ut Cicero ait [De finibus IV. 74], breviter enunciatas,
easdemque prima specie incredibiles appellant, iisque non secus quam Epicurei KDpíaiç
ôóÇaiç, Peripatetici àÇicô|j,(XTOiç suis utuntur) et a Cicerone, Seneca aliisque sic expli-
catur, ut non nisi verborum insolentia Christianas aures possit offendere."
234 J. Kraye / Early Science and Medicine 17 (2012) 230-253
The paradox which had always aroused the most hostility and which
continued to anger opponents of Stoicism states, as formulated by
Schoppe, that "no mental disturbance {perturbatio) occurs in the wise
man," or, in other words, that "he lacks passions (affectus)"10 It was the
Peripatetics, above all, who had challenged the Stoic doctrine of the
wise mans árcáGeia, denying that the passions could be wholly extirp-
ated from the soul, since they had been implanted by nature and served
a useful function. They believed instead that the passions merely needed
to be governed by reason and kept to a moderate degree (jiexpio-
7t(X0£ia) - a view, Schoppe was quick to point out, which Cicero had
dismissed as "weak and effeminate."11 Recognizing, however, that this
seemingly commonsensical Peripatetic position was widely accepted,
he set out to demonstrate the philosophical superiority of the Stoic
doctrine that the passions were excessive impulses of the soul and con-
trary to reason; and that since reason was the essential quality of human
beings and the wise man embodied perfect reason, it was not possible,
or even intelligible, for any passion to arise in him. The boundary
between passions and reason was absolute and impermeable: the notion
that there might be a sort of psychological Schengen convention,
enabling reason to relax its border controls and permit the passions to
enter its sovereign territory, was not merely unthinkable but a contra-
diction in terms. Schoppe defended this stance by weaving together a
cento of quotations from the obvious Latin sources - the Tusculan Dis -
putations and Senecas letters and moral essays, especially De ira and De
dementia - as well as from a few Greek Stoic works recovered in the
Renaissance, such as Epictetus' Enchiridion and Discourses.
10) Ibid., 67v: "In sapientem nulla cadit perturbatio, sive: Sapiens caret affectibus."
n) Ibid.: "Hoc Paradoxon valdequam omnibus saeculis exagitatum fuit, multisque
hodie etiam bilem movet. Peripateticorum enim, quorum Cicero möllern et enervatam
vocat rationem [ Tusculan Disputations IV. 38], xa rcáOri sive affectus evelli et exstirpari
ex animis radicitus non posse contendunt, cum eos a natura, et id quidem utiliter,
nobis Ínsitos esse dicant, ratione tarnen moderandos censeant, |i,£TpiOTcá0eiav denique
seu mediocritatem perturbationum probent." See also John M. Dillon, " Metriopatheia
and Apatheia : Some Reflections on a Controversy in Late Greek Ethics," in Essays in
Ancient Greek Philosophy , II, eds. John Peter Anton and Anthony Preus (Albany, NY,
1983), 508-17; and Lorenzo Casini, "Aristotelianism and Anti-Stoicism in Juan Luis
Vives s Conception of the Emotions," in Moral Philosophy on the Threshold of Modernity,
eds. Jill Kraye and Risto Saarinen (Dordrecht, 2005), 283-305, at 285-88.
J. Kraye / Early Science and Medicine 1 7 (2012) 230-253 235
His strategy entailed going through each of the passions - from

anger, desire, love and pleasure to fear, pain, pity and greed - and
explaining why it was logically impossible for any of these to afflict the
wise man. A typical argument ran as follows: Will we say that the wise
man gets angry? Yet no injury befalls him, as is apparent from what
Seneca taught in De ira , and from Epictetus' division between those
things which are in our power and belong to us, on the one hand, and
those which are not in our power and do not belong to us, on the other.
Someone is hurt when an injury is done to him; but we say that no one
harms or benefits the wise man.12
Schoppe s analysis of the wise mans amÖeia was relatively superfi-
cial - an advocate and proponent of Stoic philosophy, he (rightly, as we
shall see) made no claims to expertise in its doctrines. He was forced,
however, to delve deeper into the philosophical issues at stake by the
French humanist Marc-Antoine Muret, who had strongly criticized this
Stoic position. Like Schoppe, Muret was a foreigner who had made a
successful career for himself in Rome, in his case as a highly regarded
professor of moral philosophy at the Sapienza. In his commentary on
the Nicomachean Ethics , posthumously published in 1602, 13 the year
Schoppe began writing his Elementa , but based on lectures from the
1560s, Muret identified those thinkers who, according to Aristotle,
"define the virtues as states of impassivity (amGeiai) or tranquillity"
as predecessors of the Stoics and launched an attack on this doctrine,
which, in his view, like much else in Stoic philosophy, was "totally
absurd" and "in conflict with nature herself, who would never have
instilled these impulses of the soul in mankind if they were to be
removed and eradicated as completely useless."14 Throughout the
12) Schoppe, Elementa , 68v: "Num irasci sapientem dicemus? Sed nulla in ipsum cadit
injuria: id quod eleganti libro docuit Seneca, et ex Epictetea rerum divisione [. Enchiri-
dion 1] ... , perspicuum est."
13) Marc-Antoine Muret, Commentarii inAristotelisX libros Ethicorum adNicomachum
... nuncprimum e m[anu] s[criptis] edita (Ingolstadt, 1602). See Jill Kraye, "Italy, France
and the Classical Tradition: The Origins of the Philological Commentary on the Nico-
machean Ethics ," in Italy and the Classical Tradition: Language , Thought and Poetry
1300-1600 , eds. Carlo Caruso and Andrew Laird (London, 2009), 1 18-40.
14) Marc-Antoine Muret, Commentarii in Aristotelis X. libros Ethicorum ad Nico-
machum , in his Opera omnia , ed. David Ruhnken, 4 vols. (Leiden, 1789), 3, 254
commentary, Muret consistently defended the Peripatetic line, enjoin-

ing his students "to accept the splendid and immortal doctrine of Aris-
totle, the supreme philosopher."15 Although he published an edition of
Seneca's philosophical writings, Muret made no effort to hide his regret
that such a sensible man had been taken in by the "foolish wisdom" of
the Stoics.16
In rebutting Murets arguments, Schoppe displayed his impressive

skills as a controversialist, accusing his opponent of acting more like an
orator than a philosopher, of preferring to damn the Stoics than to learn
more about them, of begging the question and of stubbornly defending
his own Aristotelian position.17 But he also brought new sources into
the discussion, such as Simplicius' commentary on the Enchiridion of
Epictetus and Diogenes Laertius' "Life of Zeno"; and he presented
further information about the Stoic theory of the passions. He claimed,
for instance, that the Stoics did not attempt to eliminate certain pro -
clivitates towards one or the other of the passions, which were implanted
by nature in different men to varying degrees, making some more
(commenting on II. 3, 1 104b24-25): "Ut autem alia pleraque, ita hoc quoque Stoi-
corum placitum absurdissimum est, et pugnai cum ipsa natura, quae numquam illos
animorum motus hominum generi insevisset si illi eradicandi et evellendi, tanquam
prorsus inutiles essent ... ."
15) Ibid., 231 (commenting on I. 9): "Accipite praeclaram et immortali memoria dig-
nam summi philosophi Aristoteli s sententiam, quam in omnibus huius generis dispu-
tationibus teneatis, quam sequamini, ad quam sensus cogitationesque vestras perpetuo
dirigatis."
16) L. Annaeus Seneca a M. Antonio Mureto correctus et notis illustratus (Rome, 1585),
207 (commenting on Epistula LXX. 1: "Post longum intervallum"): "Vellern, Seneca
aut ab illa insania abfiiisset, aut saltem in ea commendanda parcior ac moderatior
fuisset." See Jill Kraye, "Hie Humanist as Moral Philosopher: Marc-Antoine Muret s
1585 Edition of Seneca," in Moral Philosophy on the Threshold of Modernity, 307-30,
at 325.
17) Schoppe, Elementa , 72v-73r: "apparet ilium non semel orátorem potius quam phi-
losophum egisse, et caussae sive instituti sui rationibus servire quam ad libellam singula
exigere maluisse" (Muret was the official orator of King Charles IX before the Holy
See and, notoriously, delivered a speech in celebration of the St Bartholomew's Day
Massacre); 73r: "si Muretus noster Stoicos probius pernoscere quam damnare maluis-
set ..."; 73v-74r: "Principium ... Muretus petiit"; 76v: "satis demonstratum est nihil
aliud Mureto nostro in explanatione Aristo telis propositum fuisse quam ... xr'v Géaiv
qyoÀxxTTeiv ... ."
inclined to anger, others to fear and still others to sadness.18 Here,

however, Schoppe was confusing propensities or inclinations towards
the passions, which the Greek Stoics referred to as e')£|i7CTú)GÍai and
e')K(XTa(popia,19 with the pre-passions, which they called 7ipO7i<x0eiai.
The Stoics regarded the latter not as innate propensities towards a par-
ticular passion but rather as instinctive and involuntary reactions - ini-
tial shocks and agitations, often accompanied by blushing, turning pale
or trembling - which were not subject to control by reason, even in the
wise man, but which in him did not develop into full-blown passions
since he did not voluntarily give them his rational assent.20 It is evident
from Schoppe s citation of Senecan passages on the 7cpo7cá0eiai to
explain the proclivitates that he failed to understand the difference
between the two.21 He therefore mistakenly claimed that the proclivi -
tates , negative traits which the Stoics associated with illnesses and infir-
mities of the soul,22 occurred in the wise man.23 Given the obscurity
and complexity of Stoic terminology, Schoppe s inability to grasp this
distinction is perhaps excusable and was, no doubt, caused by his
18) Ibid., 72v: "et quasdam etiam proclivitates ad illos ipsos affectus aliis plures, aliis
pauciores a natura Ínsitas fatentur. Alii enim ... natura sua ad iram procliviores sunt,
quod iracundos dicimus, alii ad metum, qui meticulosi, alii ad aegritudinem, qui tristes
vel superciliosi, vulgo melancholici, dicuntur ... ."
19) Ibid., 5 6V: "Interdum, ut proclivitas e')£|i7CTíoaía, quae est eÚKaxowpopía eiç rc<x0oç,
facilitas ad omneš perturbationes recipiendas, qua alius ad aliam perturbationem ...
natura magis inclinât, ut anxietas est proclivitas et inclinatio ac propensio naturae ad
angorem, iracundia ad iram, meticulositas ... ad metum etc." See Diogenes Laertius,
"Life of Zeno," 115; and Cicero, Tusculan Disputations IV. 27.
20) Brad Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism (Oxford, 1985), 175-8 1 ;
Richard Sorabji, Emotions and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temp-
tation (Oxford, 2000), 66-75; Tad Brennan, "Stoic Moral Psychology," in The Cam-
bridge Companion to the Stoics , ed. Brad Inwood (Cambridge, 2003), 257-94, at 275;
Margaret R. Graver, Stoicism and Emotion (Chicago and London, 2007), 85-108.
21) Schoppe, Elementa , 75v-76r, quotes Seneca, De ira II. iv. 1-2 and EpistulaeYl. 1-6
and LVIL
22) H.F. von Arnim, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta , 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1903-1924), 3:
102-05 (§ 2. "De proclivitate, morbo, aegrotatione," 421-30); see also Graver, Stoicism ,
138-45, 245 n. 22.
23) Schoppe, Elementa , 56v: "Hae proclivitates sunt naturales, ñeque facile studio tol-
luntur, adeoque in sapiente remanent"; 76r: "Atque hoc est, quod supra diximus, cum
de perturbationum efficientibus loqueremur, proclivitates ad vitia et ad perturbationes
in sapiente quoque relinqui, ñeque studio tolli posse ... ."
over-eagerness to make the Stoic position on the passions appear less

extreme and more psychologically realistic. To his credit, however, he
did not attempt to deny or tone down the uncompromising rationalism
of Stoic ethics. So, when Muret repeated the standard argument that,
even if it were possible to eliminate the passions, a person who felt
neither pain, fear, hope, anger or pity would be more like a tree trunk
or a farm animal than a human being,24 Schoppe replied with a reduc-
tio ad absurdum , maintaining that if this were the case, then the more
a person was afflicted by the passions, the more he would attain to
human perfection; and, conversely, a person would become more like
a farm animal, not by distancing himself from reason, but rather by
obeying it in all matters.25
After his philosophical defence of the Stoic paradoxes, Schoppe went
on to fulfil the second half of his programme by showing that they were
also compatible with Christianity. According to him, Stoic doctrine was
superior to that of other ancient philosophical schools because it was
closer to the Christian truth. Both Stoics and Christians, he maintained,
placed the summum bonum in virtue, for Christs injunction to love
God and one s neighbour embraced all the virtues and was the source
of every virtuous action.26 Schoppe was aided in this deliberate blurring
24) Muret, Commentario ed. Ruhnken, 254: "Ac si hoc maxime fieri posset, tarnen
eum hominem qui nulla re doleret, nulla laetaretur, neque irasceretur improbis, neque
ullius misericordia caperetur, nihil umquam cuperet, nihil speraret, nihil metueret,
truncum potius aliquem ac stipitem, quam hominem putaremus. Talem prope tradi-
tum est fuisse Claudius Imperatorem, pecudis, quam hominis similiorem." For other
examples of this argument, see Jill Kraye, "Moral Philosophy," in The Cambridge His-
tory of Renaissance Philosophy , eds. Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Eckhard
Kessler and Jill Kraye (Cambridge, 1988), 303-86, at 364-67.
25) Schoppe, Elementa , 7 3r: "Ut enim de Claudio nihil hic dicam, cuius nám' seu
affectus multis magno nimis constitisse constat [e.g., Suetonius, De vitis Caesarum
("Vita Divi Claudi")]: quis non videt, si dolere, metuere, sperare, irasci, misereri et
quae sunt eiusdem generis, hominis esse existimanda sunt, consequens esse, ut tanto
quis inter homines perfectior et trunco dissimilior sit fiiturus, quanto plus doleat,
metuat, irascatur, ceterisque morbis et aegrotationibus perturbentur? Existimavi sem-
per, eo quemque pecudi similiorem fieri quo longius a ratione auferatur; at nunc disco
ex Mureto, eum pecudis quam hominis nomine digniorem esse qui per omnia rationi
parere, neque contra praescriptum ipsius quicquam vel appetere vel fugere consueverit."
26) Schoppe, Elementa , 92v~93r: "Stoici . . . finem . . . seu summum bonum, sive beati-
tudinem, . . . honestum vel virtutem vocant. . . . Apparet finem nostrum seu summum
of the differences between Stoicism and Christianity by his main source

in this section of the Elementa , Clement of Alexandria, whom he called
"the most outstanding of Christian philosophers/'27 and who had said
that the paradoxes of the Stoics derived ultimately from Moses.28 With
regard to the wise mans arccxGeia, Schoppe cited Book VI of the Stro-
mata, in which Clement rejected the Peripatetic doctrine of (leipumáGeia
in relation to the wise man, even denying him caution, one of the good
emotions permitted by the Stoics.29 He also adduced an array of bibli-
cal passages in support of the Stoic position on each of the passions,
quoting, for instance, both Philippians and Proverbs on sadness:
"Rejoice in the Lord always" and "Whatsoever shall befall the just man,
it shall not make him sad";30 and the First Epistle of St John on fear:
"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear
has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in
love."31 Nowhere in his discussion of this paradox did Schoppe give the
bonum esse in virtute positum. Dilectio enim Dei et proximi [Matthew 22: 37-40],
omnes in se virtutes et quae ab iis proficiscuntur actiones complectitur."
27) Ibid., 95v-96r: 'Clemens Alexandrinus, praestantissimus utique inter Christianos
philosophos'. See Ekkehard Mühlenberg, Altchristliche Lebensführung zwischen Bibel
und Tugendlehre: Ethik bei den griechischen Philosophen und den frühen Christen (Göt-
tingen, 2006), 40-63; and Jan Papy, "Sanctifying Stoic Virtues? Justus Lipsiuss Use
of Clement of Alexandria in the Manuductio ad Stoicam Philosophiam (1604)," in
Virtutis imago: Studies on the Conceptualisation and Transformation of an Ancient Ideal,
eds. Gert Partoens, Geert Roskam and Toon Houdt (Louvain, 2004), 507-27.
28) Schoppe, Elementa , 100v: "De hoc ... sapiente varia sunt apud nos Christianos
Paradoxa, Stoicis illis similia, quod non mirabitur, qui meminerit Graecos Philosophos,
Hebraicae veritatis fures a Clemente Alexandrino appellari, qui et Stoicos dogmata
ilia, quibus regnum, sacerdotium, . . . divitias, pulchritudinem, nobilitatem, libertatem,
soli sapienti tribuunt, a magno ilio Moyse accepisse credere se testatur [Stromata II.
4-5]."
29) Ibid., 10P: "Maxime autem insignis hac de re locus est in sexto eiusdem [sc. Stro-
mata VI. 9], ubi nugatorium et frivolum esse ait iram, confidentiam et cupiditatem,
tamquam ad res gerendas non inutiles, in sapiente relinquere, adeo denique Peripa-
teticorum fxexpiOTcáôeiav, seu moderationem affectuum impugnat, ut ne cautioni
quidem, quam Stoici probant, in sapientis animo locum relinquat."
30) Schoppe, Elementa , 102r: "Tristitia ... vacare sapientem debere illa Apostoli
cohortatio [Philippians 4. 4] advincit [sic: admonet?]: 'Gaudete in Domino semper,
iterum dico gaudete' .... Et hoc Salomonis [Proverbs 12. 21]: 'Non contristabit iustum,
quicquid ei acciderit.'"
31) Ibid., 101v: "Ac de metu quidem, quod is in sapientem non cadat, facile ex
240 / Kraye / Early Science and Medicine 1 7 (2012) 230-253
slightest hint that there might be any Christian objection to Stoic

amOeia.
The overall aim of Justus Lipsius (1 547-1606) in writing the Manu -
ductio , like that of Schoppe in the Elementa , was to raise the profile of
Stoic philosophy, making it more comprehensible and therefore more
appealing to early modern readers. It was, however, an altogether more
scholarly work, as Lipsius indicated in the introduction to his monu-
mental 1605 Opera omnia of Seneca, explaining that, in order to avoid
cluttering the notes of his edition with philosophical matter, he had
provided an in-depth history of the Stoic sect and its doctrines in the
Manuductio ,32 Though not by training or profession a philosopher, he
had devoted some thirty years to the study of Stoicism and, in particu-
lar, to its greatest Roman exponent, Seneca. Lipsius' discussion of Stoic
ethics was, therefore, far more detailed and accurate than Schoppe s and
drew on a much wider range of Greek and Latin sources.33
Nevertheless, there was considerable common ground between the
Manuductio and the Elementa. Like Schoppe, Lipsius dedicated several
chapters to the Stoic paradoxes,34 singling out the amOeia of the wise
man as the one which had provoked the most opposition, antagonism
definitione eius intelligitur. Rationem porro reddit S. Ioannes [I John 4. 17-18]:

Timor non est in charitate, sed perfecta Charitas foras mittit timorem, quoniam
timor poenam habet; qui autem timet, non est perfectus in charitate.'"
32) Seneca, Opera quae extant omnia , ed. Justus Lipsius (Antwerp, 1605), iiii: "Atqui
Philosophica etiam, inquies, parce et stillicidium de situla donas. In Notis, agnosco;
sed alibi nonne affatim et pleno sinu, a me factum? Profiidi quidquid eius opus erat
in tribus Manuductionis ... libris ..." See also Jan Papy, "Erasmus' and Lipsius' Editions
of Seneca: A 'Complementary Project?," Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook , 22
(2002), 10-36, at 22; Jill Kraye, "From Medieval to Early Modern Stoicism," in Con-
tinuities and Disruptions between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance , eds. Charles
Burnett, José Meirinhos and Jacqueline Hamesse (Louvain-la-Neuve, 2008), 1-23, at
15.
33) Jason Lewis Saunders, Justus Lipsius: The Philosophy of Renaissance Stoicism (New
York, 1955); Mark Morford, Stoics and Neostoics: Rubens and the Circle of Lipsius (Prin-
ceton, 1991); Jacqueline Lagr it, Juste Lipse et la restauration du stoïcisme (Paris, 1994);
Jan Papy, "Neostoizismus und Humanismus: Lipsius' neue Lektüre von Seneca in der
Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam (1604)," in Der Einfluss des Hellenismus auf die
Philosophie der frühen Neuzeit , ed. Gábor Boros (Wiesbaden, 2005), 53-80.
34) Jan Papy, "The First Christian Defender of Stoic Virtue?: Justus Lipsius and Cicero s
Paradoxa Stoicorum," in Christian Humanism: Essays in Honour ofArjo Vanderjagt ,
J. Kraye / Early Science and Medicine 17 (2012) 230-253 24 1
and ridicule.35 And he, too, presented Peripatetic |i6TpiO7iá0eia, the

belief that it was only necessary to temper the passions, not expel them,
as the main challenge to the Stoic position.36 The conflict boiled down,
in Lipsius' view, to the question of whether the passions were natural:
if they were, as Aristotle and his teacher Plato thought, then they could
not be exterminated; if, however, they were not natural, as the Stoics
held, then they could be removed.37 In defending the Stoic doctrine of
amGeia, Lipsius argued that it was not the 7uá0r| which were natural,
but rather the 7CpO7ra0eiai. So, while these initial movements or agita-
tions were involuntary and beyond rational control, the passions them-
selves, which depended on wrong opinions and depraved judgements,
were voluntary and within our power. Among the texts he cited to sup-
port this exposition were the same Senecan passages quoted by Schoppe,
who, however, had incorrectly interpreted them as applying to prodi-
vitates .38 While this mistake led Schoppe to exaggerate the extent to
which the Stoics allowed the wise man to feel passions, Lipsius' more
measured and judicious account, correctly focusing on the 7cpO7tá0eiai,
was intended to make a similar point: that arccxGeia did not turn the
wise man into the hardened and monstrous figure, numb to all sensa-
tion, which the sects opponents had portrayed.39 The Stoje wise man
was not insensible to and devoid of pain, fear, desire and pleasure, but
ed s. Alaisdair A. Macdonald, Zweder R.W.M. von Martels and Jan R. Veenstra (Leiden,
2009), 139-53.
35) Lipsius, Manuductio , 151-60 (III. vii): "V. Parad. Sapientem apathem et impertur-
babilem esse. Pluscula hic de affectibus."
36) Ibid., 152: "Stoici tollunt affectus, atque ita Seneca [Epistula CXVI. 1]: 'Utrum
satius sit modicos habere affectus an nullos, saepe quaesitum est. Nostri illos expellunt,
Peripatetici temperam'; et epistola ea tota hos refellit."
37) Ibid.: "Disputano longa est, et non hic retexenda; status tamen fere caussae in eo,
an affectus sint a natura? Esse Plato et Aristoteles volunt, ideoque non exseindi; non
esse, nostri, eoque tolli."
38) Ibid., 156-57, quoting Seneca, De ira II and Epistula LVII; for Schoppe, see
n. 21 above. Lipsius also quoted Aulus Gellius, Nodes Atticae XIX. 1.
39) Lipsius, Manuductio , 158: "Carere [affectibus] et sapientem dicimus; sed quo sensu?
Non ilio quem vulgus exaudit et exagitat, ut sapiens nullas vellicationes aut morsus
habeat .... Alibi Seneca [Epistula LXXI. 27]: 'Non educo sapientem ex hominum
numero, nec dolores ab ilio, sicut ab aliqua rupe nullum sensum admitiente, sub-
moveo....' ... En sententia nostra, non ea duritie aut immanitate qua censent."
rather experienced only the first and initial stages of these passions. He
began to be aware of them and was also moved; but then he rejected
them and was not agitated or swayed. Was this, in reality, any different
from the belief that the passions should be moderated and controlled
and should have no influence on reason? He backs up this observation
by quoting from St. Augustine: "there is no difference, or virtually none,
between the opinion of the Stoics and that of other philosophers with
regard to the passions and mental perturbations; for both exempt the
mind and reason of the wise man from their control." So, there is a
difference, Lipsius concludes, but it is of no real consequence.40
Lipsius' account of the Stoic theory of the passions was not only more
scholarly and philosophically sophisticated than that of Schoppe, it was
also more sensitive to theological issues. Both authors stressed the fun-
damental compatibility of Stoicism and Christianity; but while Schoppe
ignored any potential disagreements which might disrupt the harmony
between Stoic philosophy and Christian, Lipsius confronted them head
on. Philo Judaeus, Lipsius noted, had written in his Allegorical Inter-
pretation of the Laws , that for Moses "it was necessary to use the knife
on the seat of anger in its entirety and to cut it out of the soul, for no
moderation of passion (iiexpiorcáGeia) can satisfy him; he is content
with nothing but complete absence of passion (ócrcáBeia)."41 This was
clear testimony in favour of the Stoic position; nonetheless, Lipsius
admitted that it should perhaps be overthrown by Christians. Lactan-
tius, after all, had called the Stoics mad because they did not regulate
the passions but cut them out and wanted by some means or other to
deprive humans of powers implanted in them by nature.42 Yet although
40) Ibid., 159: "Nempe sapientem non esse rigidum, durum, exsensum exsortemque
a dolore, metu, cupidine, laetitia; sed primis dumtaxat incipientibusque. Sentiscere ea
et moveri quoque iis; sed reiicere, nec permoveri. ... Augustinus [De civitate Dei IX.
4] hoc vidit: ťAut nihil, aut paene nihil/ inquit, 'distat inter Stoicorum aliorumque
philosophorum opinionem de passionibus et perturbationibus animorum. Utrique
enim mentem rationemque sapientis ab earum dominatione defendunt. Igitur leve
discrimen."
41) Ibid.: "Philo Judaeus ... Moysis sapientiam hue advocat: qui, ut inquit [Allegoriae
legum III. 129] ... universam iram exsecari et exscindi oportere censet ab animo, non
mediocritatem affectuum, sed vacuitatem sive carentiam approbans."
42) Ibid., 159-60: "Ciarum et pulchrum nobis testimonium; tarnen Christianis fortasse
subvertendum. Lactantius quidem declamatorie in isto s: ťFuriosi ergo Stoici, qui ea
the Church Fathers loosened the reins on the passions, it was only on
the good ones and for good reason; in doing so, moreover, they dis-
agreed with the Peripatetics as well as the Stoics, since they did not
always consider the passions to be vices, nor did they always allow them
to be moderated. "Passions only become vices," wrote Lactantius, "if
we use them badly; if we use them well, they become virtues/'43 For
Christians, Lipsius insisted, it was the cause and purpose of the passions
which mattered, not their degree; and he confirmed this view with a
quotation from Augustine: "In our ethics, we do not so much inquire
whether a pious soul is angry, as why he is angry; not whether he is sad,
but what is the cause of his sadness; not whether he fears, but what he
fears."44
In 1605, the year between the publication of the Manuductio and

the Elementa , Bacon s Advancement of Learning appeared. Drawing an
analogy between "medicining" of the body and of the mind, he com-
pares knowledge of bodily diseases to that of "diseases and infirmities
of the mind, which are no other than the perturbations and distempers
of the affections," his term for the passions. After expressing surprise
that Aristotle had not dealt with the affections in his Ethics , relegating
them to treatment "in a second degree," as by-products of speech, in
his Rhetoric , Bacon writes: "Better travailes I suppose had the Stoicks
taken in this argument"; "but yet," he continues, "it was after their
manner rather in subtiltye of definitions (which in a subject of this
nature are but curiosities) then in active and ample descriptions and
observations." Dissatisfied also with treatises on particular "affections,
as of Anger? he states that "the poets and writers of Histories are the
best Doctors of this knowledge, where we may find painted fourth with
non temperanti, sed abscindunt, rebusque a natura insitis castrare hominem quodam-
modovolunť [Divinae institutiones VI. 15]."
43) Ibid., 160: "Et vero laxant adfectibus fraena, sed bonis et a bona caussa, nostri
Doctores; in hoc etiam a Peripateticis dissoni, quod nec vitia semper censent et tem-
peran vêtant. 'Vitia dumtaxat fieri, si male utamur; virtutes, si bene' [Lactantius,
Divinae institutiones VI. 16]."
44) Ibid.: "Caussam ... affectuum finemque, non modum, considérant. Quod ita
Augustinus [De civitate Dei IX. 5]: 'In disciplina nostra non tam quaeritur utrum pius
animus irascatur, sed quare irascatur; nec utrum sit tristi s, sed unde sit tristis; nec
utrum timeat, sed quid timeat.'"
greate life, How affections are kindled and incyted: and how pacified
and refrained," for instance, "howe ... to sett affection againste affection,
and to Master one by another" (OFB IV 149-150). Bacon indicates
here that a useful account of the passions would need to include the
kind of "active and ample descriptions and observations" which were
lacking both in Aristotle and the Stoics, but which could be found in
poets and historians, who were "the best doctors," not only explaining
the causes of the passions but also prescribing remedies.
Two decades later, in "Of Anger," which first appeared in the 1625
third edition of The Essayes , Bacon gave his own account of an indi-
vidual passion. He begins with a firm rejection of Stoic a7C(X08ia: "To
seeke to extinguish Anger utterly, is but a Bravery of the Stoickes ," and
advocates instead the "better Oracles" found in the Bible: "Be Angry,
but Sinne not . Let not the Sunne goe down upon your Anger [Ephesians
4: 26]." Describing anger as a "Natural Inclination, and Habit," he
proceeds to explain how it "may be attempered, and calmed," "How
the Particular Motions oí Anger, may be repressed," and "How to raise
Anger , or appease Anger , in another" (OFB XV 170-71). The essay
format does not permit Bacon to include "ample descriptions and obser-
vations," but he does attempt to investigate briefly the causes and rem-
edies of anger, in ourselves and in others, adducing one line from an
ancient poet (Virgil, Georgics IV. 238), together with another biblical
quotation (Luke 21: 19) and a sentence from Seneca {De ira I. 1) -
despite Bacons dismissive attitude towards the Stoic position on the
passions - as well as an aphorism credited to a notable figure from
recent history ("The Great Captain," Gonzalo Fernández de Cordoba).
The programme which Bacon put forward in the Advancement of
Learning and, to a limited extent, carried out in "Of Anger" reflects the
approach adopted in the accounts of the passions written by two con-
temporary English authors, Thomas Wright and Edward Reynolds.45
In line with Bacon, these authors, firstly, regarded the ànáQem of the
Stoic wise as impossible to achieve and contrary to the Christian faith;
and, secondly, explored the passions not solely on the basis of ancient
philosophical texts but also from a natural history perspective, in which
45) For a general treatment of early modern treatises on the passions, see Susan James,
Passion and Action: The Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy (Oxford, 1997).
an important role was assigned to experience and observation, both

first-hand and from written sources, and to reason and classification,
that is, the search for and ordered presentation of explanations and
remedies. Because Wright and Reynolds both provided comprehensive
and detailed discussions of the passions, they were able to cover a much
wider range of topics than Bacon, including the Stoic notion of Ttpo-
mÖeiai, to which they gave a new slant.
Thomas Wright (c. 1561-1623), like Schoppe, was a Catholic con-
troversialist, though in the early phase of his career, he belonged to the
Society of Jesus so loathed by the German; in the mid- 1590s, however,
Wrights association with the Earl of Essex, arranged through the medi-
ation of Bacon s brother Anthony, resulted in his dismissal from the
order. His unerring instinct for stirring up trouble ensured that he led
a very colourful life: he did time in both the Tower of London and the
Clink, and spent many years in exile on the Continent, teaching in
Italy, Spain and Flanders; all this provided him with a wealth of experi-
ence which he exploited in The Passions of the Mind , first published in
1601 but completed in 1598.46 In Chapter 1, Wright identifies his
intended readership: "the Divine, the Philosopher, the curers both of
the body and the soule, I meane the Preacher and the Physitian, ... the
good Christian ... and the prudent civil gentleman," all of whom will
benefit from "an universali knowledge of mens inclinations in common
... the which knowledge is delivered in this Treatise."47 The purpose of
this knowledge, as he makes clear from the start and repeats throughout
the book, is to enable readers to achieve "a great quietnesse of minde"
by "brideling" and "restraining" the "inordinate motions of the pas-
sions,"48 which are the residual legacy of "original sinne."49
While insisting that "vehement," "headlong and obstinate" pas-
sions - or, as he sometimes calls them, "hairebraine affections"50 - must
46) See the entry on Wright by Peter Milward, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biog-
raphy [hereafter, ODNB', ed s. H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, 61 vols. (Oxford,
2004), LX, 492-93.
47) Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Mind (London, 1601), 2, 11.
48) Ibid., 3.
49) Ibid., 9; see also 123: "pride and such like [passions], whereunto our corrupt nature
is much inclined."
50) Ibid., 103, 107, 113, 143.
246 /. Kraye / Early Science and Medicine 17 (2012) 230-253
be moderated and tempered, Wright is equally adamant that, when

controlled by reason and subordinated to its authority, the passions are
beneficial. He begins Chapter IV, entitled "How the Passions may be
well directed and made profitable," by declaring that although
most men inordinately followe the unbrideled appetite of their sensuali passions,
yet no doubt but they may by vertue be guided and many good men so moder-
ate and mortifie them, that they rather serve them for instruments of vertue then
foments of vice.51
The passions promote virtue by acting as "spurres that stirre up sluggish

and idle soules, from slouthfulnesse to diligence, from carelesnesse to
consideration." Giving as an example the passion for "glorie and hon-
our," Wright maintains that:
If many rare wits had not beene pressed with the same affections, we shuld not
have seene, neither Homers Poetrie, not Platoes Divinitie, nor Aristotles Philoso-
phie, nor Plinies Historie, nor Tullies Eloquence.52
While he does not mention the Peripatetic doctrine of (lexpiorcáGeia

or cite Aristotle s association of anger with the virtue of courage {Nico-
machean Ethics II. VIII. 10), Wrights position on the passions is in line
with these views.
He is, however, explicit and forthright about his rejection of the Stoic
belief in the wise mans àrcáGeia (though he does not use the term):
"wee may conclude, that Passions well used, may consist with wisedome
against the Stoickes."53 In addition to his philosophical arguments
against the Stoic doctrine, he also attacks it from a religious angle: "the
Scriptures exhort us to these passions, .... cBe angry and sinne noť
[Psalm 4.4] ... with feare and trembling worke your salvation [Philip-
pians 2. 12]." These biblical quotations demonstrate that "it were blas-
phemous to say, that absolutely all passions were ill, for so the Scriptures
51) Ibid., 27.

52) Ibid., 32-33.
53) Ibid., 34; see also 30-31: "By this Discourse may be gathered, that Passions, are
not only, not wholy to be extinguished (as the Stoiks seemed to affirme) but somtimes
to be moved and stirred up for the service of virtue."
should exhort us to ill." Even more compellingly, Wright declares that

"Christ our Saviour ... , no doubt, was subject to these passions, ... 'My
soule is sad even untili death', and ... cHe begänne to bee afraide and
heavy' [Matthew 26: 37-38; Mark 14: 33-34] ,"54 Although the same
case had previously been made by Renaissance opponents of Stoic
arcaOeia, such as the Italian humanist Coluccio Salutati (133 1-1406), 55
Wright gave it a new twist by noting that "Divines" referred to Christs
emotional outbursts as "propassions" rather than "passions," because in
him "they were prevented with reason, and guided by vertue."
"Propassion" bears an obvious resemblance to the Stoic term
7tpO7ta0eia, which is, indeed, its ultimate source. The meaning, how-
ever, had gone through a long and complex evolution, which started
with the Church Fathers, especially Jerome and Augustine, and was
further developed by medieval scholastic theologians, from Peter Lom-
bard to Thomas Aquinas, in order to explain why Christ, despite his
human perfection, was vulnerable to the passions, which appeared to
be a sign of weakness.56 Wright, in fact, provides a reference to Jerome
(though he cites the wrong work), adding that the scholastics followed
him on this issue.57 The difference between Stoic 7CpO7ia0eiai and
Christian "propassions" was that the former were reflex reactions -
54) Ibid., 27-28; see also 57: "to God the Scriptures ascribe love, hate, ire, zeale."
55) Jill Kraye, "Stoicism from Petrarch to Lipsius," Grotiana , n.s. 22-23 (2001-2002),
23-46, at 29.
56) Odon Lottin, Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles , II: Problèmes de morale ,
1 (Louvain and Gembloux, 1948), 493-589; Kevin Madigan, "Ancient and High-
Medieval Interpretations of Jesus in Gethsemane: Some Reflections on Tradition and
Continuity in Christian Thought," Harvard Theological Review , 88 (1995), 157-73;
Sorabji, Emotions , 343-56; Sarah C. Byers, "Augustine and the Cognitive Cause of
Stoic 'Preliminary Passions' (Propatheiai)? Journal of the History of Philosophy, 41
(2003), 433-48.
57) Wright, Passions , 28 (in margin): "Hieron. Ep. 22. Ad Eustoch. quem sequuntur
scholastici." Jerome does not mention the "propassions" in Epistula 22, though he does
refer to them in Epistula 79. 9, where he calls them "antepassiones"; the important
passage, however, which is cited in almost all scholastic discussions (e.g., Peter Lom-
bard, Sententiae Liber II, Dist. XV. Cap. ii 3, and Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae
III, q. 15 a. 4 co) is his commentary on Matthew 26. 37 (one of the biblical passages
quoted by Wright): Jerome, Commentariorum in Matheum libri IV, eds. David Hurst
and Marc Adriaen (Turnhout, 1969), 253-54.
248 J- Kraye / Early Science and Medicine 17 (2012) 230-253
initial responses of an involuntary and instinctive nature to situations

or events - which even the wise man was unable to control, though
after experiencing them, he would prevent their transformation into
genuine passions by refusing to give them his rational assent; the latter,
on the other hand, were perceived as arising from Christ s sensitive
appetite, but "in accordance with the disposition of reason,"58 that is,
they were already reasonable and virtuous in themselves, rather than,
as in the Stoic wise man, morally neutral motions which were prelimi-
nary to a rational judgement of withholding assent.
Wright shows no awareness of the Stoic 7CpO7ia08iai and their con-
nection to Christs "propassions." Moreover, he treats blushing, pallor,
trembling and other visible agitations of the body as physical manifes-
tations, not of 7üpO7iá0£iai, in the manner of the Stoics, but rather of
actual passions such as anger, fear and shame,59 providing physiological
explanations of these corporeal occurrences, in terms of the movement
of blood, humours and spirits in the body.60 Wright, who was surely
unfamiliar as well with the Stoic notion of proclivitates , which Schoppe
confused with TCporcaöeiai,61 explains the inclination of some people
to one passion and others to another by drawing on humoural theory.62
58) See especially Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 15, a. 6, ad 2; see also
Craig Steven Titus, "Passions in Christ: Spontaneity, Development, and Virtue," The
Thomist , 73 (2009), 53-87; Robert Miner, Thomas Aquinas on the Passions: A Study of
Summa Theologiae la2ae 22 48 (Cambridge, 2009), 106.
59) Wright, Passions , 49-50: "in anger and feare we see men, either extreame pale or
high colored"; 62: "in feare and anger, men become so pale and wanne"; 63, on trem-
bling and shivering as signs of fear; and 55, on blushing as an indication of shame.
60) Ibid., 6-7, fear and anger "moove the humors from one place to another (as for
example, recall most of the blood in the face, or other parts to the heart"; 103: "the
heart beeing continually environed with great aboundance of spirites, becommeth too
hote and inflamed, and consequendy engendereth much cholericke and burned blood";
105: "The cause why sadnesse doth so moove the forces of the bodie, I take to be the
gathering together of much melancholy blood about the heart, which collection extin-
guished! the good spirits or at least dulleth them."
61) Seenn. 18-19 above.
62) Wright, Passions , 1 1 1-12: "if much hote blood abound in the bodie, that subject
by the force of that humour shal easily, and often be mooved to anger ... And for this
cause we may resolve another difficulty, why some men are ... for the most part mel-
ancholy, others ever angry: this diversity must come from the naturall constitution of
the body, wherein one or other humor dooth predominate"; 114: "cholericke men be
Wright s Passions of the Mind , published four years before Bacon set
out his programme for studying the affections in The Advancement of
Learning , already adopts an approach which focuses on seeking causes
and finding remedies and which does so in a way that emphasizes the
close links between the "medicining of the body" and "of the mind,"
particularly by explaining the passions in physiological and humoural
terms. Wrights contemptuous dismissal of Stoic ànáQeia likewise
anticipates the negative view expressed by Bacon in his 1625 essay "Of
Anger." The need for "ample descriptions and observations," voiced by
Bacon in The Advancement , also resonates with Wrights method: the
treatise is crammed with observational data, partly derived from his
own experiences, especially in foreign lands,63 partly from everyday
knowledge,64 and partly from written sources, many of them historical,
both ancient and contemporary.65 To be sure, this material is largely
anecdotal and entirely unsystematic; but it nonetheless represents an
attempt to give his account a factual basis. Wright often confirms infor-
mation gained through observation and experience by demonstrations
grounded in reason: "experience teacheth," he writes, "and reason
prooveth."66 Classification, another characteristic feature of natural his-
tory in this period, likewise figures prominently in the book: many
chapters are structured as numbered lists of causes, remedies or rules;
and his penchant for setting "downe certayne generali rules" can perhaps
subject to anger, melancholy men to sadnesse, sanguine to pleasure, flegmatike to

slouth and drunkennesse."
63) Ibid., 5: "I remember a Preacher in Italy ..."; 62: "I saw once in Genoa a Bandite
..."; 110: "And I myselfe in Italy have heard 1 14-15: "For this cause I have divers
times heard ..."; 134: "for some I have seene so vehement ..."; 138: "as a Spanish
souldier and a Dutchman ... ."
64) Ibid., 6 1 : "the verie common experience men trie daily and hourely in themselves";
134-35: "All the worlde can witnesse ... ."
65) Among his favourite sources for ancient history are Plutarch and Quintus Curtius;
among contemporary authors, he cites Erasmus and Girolamo Fracastoro and once
draws on, without acknowledgement, Antonio Beccadellis De dictis et factis Alphonsi
Regis I. 43: Wright, Passions , 108-09.
66) Ibid., 147; see also 155: "The ground of this rule dependeth of long experience,
and reason"; 156: "a hundred such examples I coulde bring you: reason also prooveth
the same most manifestly ... ."
be seen as pursuing, avant la lettre , one of the stated goals of Bacons

natural history project.67
A Treatise of the Passions , by Edward Reynolds (1599-1676), bishop
of Norwich, was first published in 1647. Longer, more detailed and
more erudite than Wrights book, Reynold s treatise nonetheless takes
much the same approach to the passions. He, too, believes that while
we must demolish "inordinate passions," which are due to the "fall of
"68
man,
we must take heed, that we offer not violence to so much of them, as is contigu-
ous unto Right Reason ; whereunto so long as they are conformable, they are the
most vigorous instruments, both for the expression, and improvement, and der-
ivation of Vertue on others, of any in Mans nature.69
He thus shares Wrights support for the Peripatetic ideal of jiexpio-

TcáOeia (though, like him, he does not use the term), as well as his
Aristotelian view that passions such as "Anger, Zeal, Shame, Grief, Love
... are the Whetstones whereon true Fortitude sharpneth its Sword."70
Reynolds was as disdainful of "Stoicall Apathie" as Wright and Bacon
had been,71 maintaining that "there is more honour, in the having Affec-
tions subdued, than in having none at all."72 Yet he argued, as Lipsius
had done, that the controversy between the Stoic and Peripatetic over
67) Ibid., 146; see also Chapter 15: "Certayne generali means to moderate Passions."
For Bacons insistence that natural history must involve the "elaboration of axioms"
(OFB XI 454-56), see Guido Giglioni, " Historia and Materia : The Philosophical
Implications of Francis Bacon s Natural History," in this volume.
68) Edward Reynolds, A Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man (London,
1647), B3r (since the pages in this edition are frequently misnumbered, I shall refer
instead to quire signatures).
69) Ibid., Hlv.
70) Ibid., Ilv; see also I2V. Reynolds often points out that Aristotle s views are in agree-
ment with the Bible: e.g., K3r: "as Aristotle hath observed [Nicomachean Ethics III. 1],
directly agreeable to the phrase of Saint Peter [II Peter 3. 5]"j K4r, after citing Aristo-
des account of "Incontinencie" in Nicomachean Ethics VII. 7: "whereunto exactly
agreeth that of the Prophet [Ezekiel 16. 30] ... ."
71) Ibid., I2r: "Those imputations ... which Tully and Seneca , and other Stoical Phi-
losophers make against Passions, are but light and empty, where they call them diseases
and perturbations of the Minde ... ."
72) Ibid., G4V.
/. Kraye / Early Science and Medicine 17 (2012) 230-253 251
the passions "was rather a strife of Words, then a difference of Judge-

ments."73 He also shared Lipsius' view as to the crux of the dispute: "the
one [i.e., the Peripatetics], making Passions to be Naturalk the other
[i.e., the Stoics], Preternaturali , and disorderly motions."74
Although the Anglican Reynolds and the Catholic Wright were on
opposite sides of a bitter denominational divide, they both endorsed
the belief that while "our Saviour himselfe sometimes loved, sometimes
rejoiced, sometimes wept, sometimes desired, sometimes mourned and
grieved," these "were not Passions ," but what "Divines called rather
Propassions, that is to say, Beginnings of Passions," which had "both
their rising and originali from Reason." Reynolds cites the correct pas-
sage from Jerome, as well as giving precise references to the most impor-
tant scholastic discussions of the "propassions."75 He also recognizes
that the Stoics held a similar view, since they "themselves confessed,
that wise men might be affected with sudden perturbations of Fear or
Sorrow, but did not like weak men yeeld unto them." Although he
provides citations of ancient and patristic accounts of the rcporcaGeiai
to support this claim,76 he seems not to have realized that the Stoic
doctrine was the source of the Christian belief, nor was he apparently
aware of the difference between them: that Christs "propassions" were
rational in themselves, having their "rising and originali in Reason,"
while the Stoic TCpOTcaGeiai were spontaneous reactions, beyond the
control of reason, which the wise man could only exert after the initial
shock, inhibiting it from turning into a passion. That Reynolds also
failed to grasp the essential difference, for the Stoics, between 7tp07cá-
Geiai and 7ta0r| is shown by his citation of a passage in Senecas De ira
which concerns the pre-passions in order to illustrate how " Feare ,"
73) Ibid., HT. Instead of Augustine, De civitate Dei IX. 4, cited by Lipisus (see n. 40
above), Reynolds refers to Book IV of Ciceros Tusculan Disputations and Thomas
Aquinas, Summa Theoloeiae 1.2, q. 24, art. 2, 3.
74) Reynolds, Treatise , Hlr; for Lipsius, see n. 37 above.
75) Ibid, (in margin): "Hieron. In Math. 26. Magist. Sent. Lib. 3 dist. 15. Aquin. par.
3. q. 15. art. 4"; see n. 57 above.
76) Ibid. In the margin, Reynolds cites Lactantius, Divinae institutiones VI. 14;
Augustine, De civitate Dei IX. 4 and XIV. 9; Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae XIX. 1;
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations IV. 14; Seneca, Epistula LXXXV. 24-29 and De ira
II. 3.
unquestionably a passion, "doth usually attend the beginnings of great

enterprizes, even in the worthiest men."77 Like Wright, moreover, Reyn-
olds treats the corporeal counterparts of the rcporcaOeiai as physical
manifestations of the passions, listing "those many ill Effects of Feare
upon the Body, whitenesse of Haire, Trembling, Silence, Thirst, Pale-
nesse, Horrour, Gnashing of Teeth, Emission of Excrements"; and he,
too, provides physiological explanations for these effects: "The Outward
parts being overcooled, and the Inward melted by the strength of the
Spirits retyring thither."78 As Wright had done, Reynolds describes the
different inclinations which some people have to one passion or another,
not in terms of the Stoic proclivitates , but rather of "the varietie, tem-
pers, and dispositions in the instrumentall faculties of the Body" and
"the sundry constitutions of mens bodies."79
While Wright seems to have anticipated certain elements of the Baco-
nian programme for natural history before they were formulated and
expressly articulated by Bacon, Reynolds was writing in the wake of his
achievements and pronouncements, as he was well aware: quoting the
statement that "wonder" is "broken learning," from The Advancement
of Learning (OFB IV 8), he refers to Bacon as "the Honour of this ages
Learning."80 Reynolds provides the "ample descriptions and observa-
tions" recommended by Bacon; but since he led a less interesting and
exciting life than Wright, he did not have a store of personal anecdotes
on which to draw. He was, however, much more learned than Wright,
especially in classical literature,81 and therefore was able to stuff his book
with a far greater number of apposite passages from "the poets and
writers of Histories," whom Bacon regarded as "the best Doctors of this
knowledge" (OFB IV 150). And when it came to classifying the pas-
sions, Reynolds was even more compulsive than Wright about compil-
ing numbered lists - of types, causes, effects and remedies.
77) Reynolds, Treatise , Qq3v; in margin: "Vid. Sen. De ira 1. 2. c. 3."

78) Ibid., Qq3r; see Xx2v, where he describes the effects on the body of anger: "Tumour
and Inflammation in the Heart, Fire in the Eyes, and Fiercenesse and Palenesse in the
Countenance ... ."
79) Ibid., B3V.
80) Ibid., Pplr.
81) See the entry on Reynolds by Ian Atherton in ODNB , XLVI, 529-31.
J. Kraye / Early Science and Medicine 1 7 (2012) 230-253 253
When Stoic notions about the passions crossed the Channel from
the Continent, they entered a hostile environment. The doctrine of
àrcáÔeia did not take root at all in English soil; and while the rcpo-
mOeiai were transplanted somewhat more successfully, the particular
strain which was cultivated had been transformed by being grafted onto
Christian theology. More importantly, Bacon, Wright and Reynolds,
unlike Schoppe and Lipsius, had no interest in defending Stoic theories,
but sought instead to develop a natural history of the passions.

Απάθεια and Προπάθειαι in Early Modern Discussions of the Passions Stoicism,Christianity and Natural History

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Απάθεια and Προπάθειαι in Early Modern Discussions of the Passions Stoicism,Christianity and Natural History

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'Απάθεια and Προπάθειαι in Early Modern Discussions of the Passions: Stoicism,

Christianity and Natural History

BRILL Early Science and Med

Â7tá6sia and ÏIpoî

The revival of Stoicism, initiated in the 1580s,1 received a boost in the

* The Warburg Institute, University of London, School of Advanced Study; Woburn

© Koninklijke Brill NY, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/157338212X631855

3) Seneca, De ira II. 2. 6: "principia proludentia affectibus."

5) Kaspar Schoppe, Elementa philosophiae Stoicae moralis, quae in Senecamy Ciceronem,

6) Schoppe, Elementa , title-page: "Licet insectemur Stoicos, metuo ne soli philosophi

His strategy entailed going through each of the passions - from

commentary, Muret consistently defended the Peripatetic line, enjoin-

In rebutting Murets arguments, Schoppe displayed his impressive

inclined to anger, others to fear and still others to sadness.18 Here,

over-eagerness to make the Stoic position on the passions appear less

of the differences between Stoicism and Christianity by his main source

slightest hint that there might be any Christian objection to Stoic

definitione eius intelligitur. Rationem porro reddit S. Ioannes [I John 4. 17-18]:

and ridicule.35 And he, too, presented Peripatetic |i6TpiO7iá0eia, the

In 1605, the year between the publication of the Manuductio and

an important role was assigned to experience and observation, both

be moderated and tempered, Wright is equally adamant that, when

The passions promote virtue by acting as "spurres that stirre up sluggish

While he does not mention the Peripatetic doctrine of (lexpiorcáGeia

51) Ibid., 27.

should exhort us to ill." Even more compellingly, Wright declares that

initial responses of an involuntary and instinctive nature to situations

subject to anger, melancholy men to sadnesse, sanguine to pleasure, flegmatike to

be seen as pursuing, avant la lettre , one of the stated goals of Bacons

He thus shares Wrights support for the Peripatetic ideal of jiexpio-

the passions "was rather a strife of Words, then a difference of Judge-

unquestionably a passion, "doth usually attend the beginnings of great

77) Reynolds, Treatise , Qq3v; in margin: "Vid. Sen. De ira 1. 2. c. 3."

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