Augustine and The Stoic Tradition

JOHN SELLARS

The philosophy of Stoicism was first articulated by Zeno of Citium, some

time around 300 BC in Athens, and developed by his immediate successors,
Cleanthes of Assos and Chrysippus of Soli. These early Stoics outlined a
materialist ontology in which God permeates Nature as a material force
(Sellars 91-5). They claimed that virtue alone is sufficient for happiness,
with the corollary that external goods and circumstances should have no
bearing on the happy life (ibid. 110-14). They held an intellectualist
account of the emotions, dismissing them as the by-product of mistaken
judgements (ibid. 114-20). These various elements they brought together
in an idealized image of the perfectly rational sage living in harmony with
Nature, completely free, autonomous, emotionless, and – infamously –
happy even when being tortured on the rack (ibid. 36-41).

The school flourished in Athens until the first century BC, when the focus
of philosophical attention shifted to Rome. Key Stoic ideas were presented
to the Latin-speaking world by Cicero, who had studied with the leading
Greek Stoics of the day Panaetius and Posidonius. The most famous Stoics
of the first two centuries AD were Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius,
whose works have proved to be the most influential Stoic texts to survive
from antiquity. Stoicism appears still to have been a vital element of
philosophical culture at the end of the second century AD but not much
later. It played its part in the development of the then rising star of
Neoplatonism, albeit often negatively. Via the readily available Latin works
of Cicero and Seneca, Stoicism continued to assert its influence in the
West, although it is difficult to refer to a clearly-defined post-antique Stoic
tradition analogous to the way in which one might more legitimately refer
to an Aristotelian tradition.

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Augustine and Stoicism

Aug.’s relationship with Stoicism was highly complex. A traditional view

suggests that Aug. was influenced by Stoic ethics in his early works but
later became increasingly hostile (cf. esp. s. 150 and retr. 1.1-2). A more
nuanced view holds that Aug. drew upon not only Stoic ethics but also on
Stoic logic and physics, and did so to varying degrees throughout his work.
Although it is impossible to capture Aug.’s debt to or attitude towards
Stoicism in a brief summary, it is possible to note those key doctrines
where the mature Aug. disagreed with the Stoa, disagreements that shaped
the interaction between the reception of Aug. and that of Stoicism in
subsequent centuries.

Three points of philosophical dispute stand out. The first concerned the
possibility of moral perfectionism. While the early Aug., following the
Stoa, thought perfect virtue possible in this life (cf. Acad. 1.2.5), the mature
Aug. came to doubt this. Only in the next life can we achieve perfect virtue
(retr. 1.2; 1.6.5).

The second centred on the autonomy of virtue. Again, the early Aug.
followed the Stoa in holding that virtue (and so happiness) is solely
dependent upon the state of our soul and consequently something
completely within our own power, but the mature Aug. later dismissed this
(retr. 1.2; 1.6.5; s. 150.8). Aug. continues to agree with the Stoics that virtue
is a necessary condition for happiness, but denies that it is a sufficient
condition. Happiness, for Aug., ultimately requires immortality (s. 150.10;
trin. 13.8.11).

The third concerned the nature and value of emotions. Aug. agreed with
the Stoa in holding an intellectualist account of the emotions, conceiving

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them as mistaken judgements of the mind rather than elements of the body
(imm. an. 5.7), but he rejected the Stoic notion of apatheia in favour of
Aristotelian (and Neoplatonic) metriopatheia or moderation of the emotions,
not only doubting the possibility of completely escaping emotions but also
coming to see some emotions (such as love) in a more positive light (civ.
14.9). The Stoic ideal of complete freedom from emotions would rule out
the love of God.

These three points are clearly interrelated and all point to the mature
Aug.’s rejection of Stoic moral autonomy. Aug. dismisses the Stoic claim
that through the power of individual reason alone one may become
completely virtuous, free, and happy. For the mature Aug. this is the
height of arrogance and in sharp contrast to his own emphasis on our
dependence on God for our virtue and happiness (retr. 1.1.2; 1.8.4; s. 150.8).
It is this Stoic-Augustinian division over autonomy that appears time and
again when the two philosophies were brought into dialogue by later
authors, although it was by no means the only topic to shape their
subsequent encounters.

The Middle Ages

Before the translation of Aristotelian texts into Latin in the twelfth

century, both Augustinianism and Stoicism coexisted as important
influences on early medieval thought, although the influence of Stoicism
was far more diffuse. The interaction of the two can be seen most clearly in
the work of → Peter Abelard (1079-1142) and especially in his ethical
works Scito te ipsum (or Ethica) and Collationes (or Dialogus inter
Philosophum, Iudaeum, et Christianum).

In the first of these works Abelard argues that moral wrongdoing resides
not in actions but rather in the intentions that stand behind actions. These

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intentions should be identified not with desires that may afflict us but
rather with our consent or acceptance (consensus). It is neither a lustful
action nor the mental experience of lust that is sinful; it is with our consent
to a lust that we morally go wrong (cf. Luscombe 12-14). Here Abelard
echoes the Stoic theory of assent (sunkatathesis) although it has been
suggested that Abelard’s source of this idea may have been Aug. (ibid. 12 n.
1). Indeed, Abelard himself cites Aug.’s view that action adds nothing to
the sin of intention (cf. lib. arb. 1.3). Here, then, Abelard embraces a Stoic
idea supporting it with the authority of Aug.

In the Collationes we also find themes from Aug. and Stoicism in contact
with one another. This work takes the form of a pair of dialogues, one
between a Philosopher and a Jew and then another between the same
Philosopher and a Christian. Abelard’s Philosopher argues for a number of
Stoic-inspired ethical claims and is explicit about his debt to the Stoa,
calling Seneca the greatest of all moralists (Marenbon and Orlandi 102).
He is presented as someone who believes in a single God, though not the
same God as either the Jew or the Christian, and as one who is content
with natural law rather than the laws recorded in sacred texts (ibid. 2,
144). He also takes up the Stoic doctrines of the unity of virtue, that virtue
is the highest good, and the claim that there are no degrees in virtue,
drawing on Cicero’s accounts of Stoic ethics in De Officiis and Paradoxa
Stoicorum (ibid. 116).

At the same time Abelard draws on Aug.’s civ., both as an authority

(second only to the Bible) and as a source for ancient philosophy, and it has
been suggested that the same work’s contrast between pagan and Christian
views may well have formed the inspiration for Abelard’s project in the
Collationes, even if his conclusions are more equivocal (see ibid. xliii).
Abelard’s Philosopher has little sympathy for his two opponents and no
desire to effect a reconciliation with either of them. On the contrary, he

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dismisses the Jew as stupid and the Christian as mad (ibid. 4). But by
selectively quoting from Aug., including those early works more
sympathetic to pagan philosophy and later repudiated, Abelard is able to
present his own version of Stoic-inspired ethics in the best possible light
for his contemporary audience.

The Renaissance

Probably the most important admirer of Aug. during the Renaissance was
→ Francesco Petrarca (1304-74), widely known under the name Petrarch,
whose works are said to contain over a thousand references to the Church
Father. Petrarch was also a great admirer of Stoicism and this is most
evident in his De remediis utriusque fortunae, a work that borrows both its
title and central themes from works attributed to Seneca. These two
influences come together most strikingly in his Secretum, written in 1347.
This work takes the form of a dialogue between a young Petrarch,
depressed and unhappy, and Aug. himself, in the role of older and wiser
teacher. Aug. is made to offer Petrarch advice on how to overcome his
depression and that advice takes the form of a heavy dose of Stoic
psychotherapy. Aug. becomes the mouthpiece for Petrarch’s own brand of
Christianized Stoicism, in which Augustinian and Stoic themes are
carefully interwoven.

In the dialogue Aug.’s aim is to show the young Petrarch that his
unhappiness is ultimately his own fault, with the corollary that it is within
his own control to escape it. In order to do this he draws heavily on Seneca
and Cicero (especially the Tusculanae Disputationes), as well as a wide
variety of Latin authors including Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Terence. It is
‘virtue alone that can make us happy’ Aug. says (Secr. 1.3.1), and so we
should not be disturbed by external events and objects, echoing standard
Stoic doctrine. He goes on to castigate Petrarch for having dismissed Stoic

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doctrine too quickly in the past, simply for conflicting with popular
opinion. Aug. proposes that only a Stoic life according to reason will cure
Petrarch and, like the Stoics, he says that only those who manage to follow
such a life deserve to be called men (Secr. 1.10.6; see also Secr. 2.8.4, where
the virtuous are called kings, another Stoic trope). In order to achieve this,
the pair embark upon a Stoic analysis of the emotions, the principal
impediment to the rational life, drawing on Cicero’s account in Tusculanae
Disputationes 3.24-5. There are, however, a number of un-Stoic remarks
along the way where Petrarch Christianizes Stoicism: the soul, for
instance, is contaminated by the body (Secr. 1.15.1), and must escape its
grossness in order to rise to heaven (Secr. 1.8.3).

At the beginning of the second dialogue, there is a nod towards Aug.’s own
doctrine of grace, when the young Petrarch says that he can hope for
nothing from himself, only from God. While Aug. is made to agree, the
discussion nevertheless continues in a thoroughly Stoic fashion, restating
the opening claim that Petrarch’s troubles are entirely within his own
control (Secr. 2.1.1), although the importance of God’s grace remains in the
background (see Secr. 2.11.7).

The culmination of the work, in the third dialogue, is Aug.’s attempt to

show Petrarch that his obsessional love for Laura is central to his present
unhappiness. The diagnosis follows typical Stoic lines but the cure owes
more to Augustinianism. The way in which Petrarch might overcome his
love for this woman is not through rational psychotherapy but rather by
replacing that passion with a healthier one, namely the love of God (Secr.
3.5.2).

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Early Modern

The late sixteenth century saw a marked revival of interest in Stoicism

(often labelled Neostoicism) and the most prominent figure associated with
this was → Justus Lipsius (1547-1606). Lipsius attempted to revive
Stoicism in a form that would be palatable to his Christian audience. There
were, however, two central points of conflict: determinism and pantheism.

In his early work De Constantia (1584), Lipsius argued that there were four
points where the Stoic theory of determinism must be modified in order to
rescue it from heresy. These are the claims that God is submitted to fate,
that there is a natural order of causes (and thus no miracles), that there is
no contingency, and that there is no free will (Const. 1.20). However, in his
later work Physiologia Stoicorum (1604), Lipsius suggests that the Stoic
theory of fate can in fact be reconciled with Christian doctrine without
modification (Phys. Stoic. 1.12). In order to do this, he draws upon Aug.’s
discussion of Stoic definitions of fate in civ. 5.8 where it is argued that fate
does not impinge upon the power of God but rather is the expression of the
will of God.

Lipsius also draws upon arguments in Aug. in order to reconcile Stoic

materialist pantheism with Christianity (Phys. Stoic. 1.8, citing civ. 7.6).
God cannot be identified with the world; rather He is the soul of the world,
immanent to matter, which constitutes His body. He is, for Lipsius, the
reason within matter, but not material Himself. However, the Stoics call
the world ‘God’, just as one might identify a person with the whole human
being even though their identity and character resides only in their soul
and not in the matter that constitutes their body. Lipsius quotes Aug.’s
solution: ‘But just as a wise man, although he consists of body and soul, is
called “wise” in virtue of his soul; so the world is called “God” in virtue of
its soul, although consisting both of soul and body’ (civ. 7.6). Lipsius thus

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uses the authority of Aug. to underwrite his reconciliation of Stoicism with

Christianity.

In the seventeenth century, in the wake of Lipsius, fascination with

Stoicism reached its highest point since antiquity. Stoic and Augustianian
ideas were brought into contact by a variety of authors. One of these, Jean-
François Senault (1601-72), author of De l’usage des Passions (1641), is a
particularly complex example. Scholarly opinion is divided as to whether
Senault should be read as attempting to reconcile Stoic and Augustinian
accounts of the emotions or whether he should be seen as the first of a
number of authors to mount an Augustinian attack on Stoicism for its
intellectual arrogance and pride (cf. Levi 214 and Lagrée 166).

Senault’s own view is made fairly plain at the outset of the work, in the
Preface, where he sets up the Stoics as opponents of Aug. In an
Augustinian vein, Senault affirms the necessity of grace for all things, for
without it all our actions are at fault. Quoting Aug. directly (s. 150.8),
Senault insists that the key difference between Stoicism and Christianity is
that while the Stoic thinks virtue alone can bring happiness, the Christian
knows that only through grace may this come about. Moreover the Stoic
suffers from arrogance and pride, while only the Christian is humble
enough to acknowledge the necessity of human weakness. For Senault,
then, Aug. stands clearly opposed to Stoicism. Having said that, Senault is
also prepared to engage in some syncretism, once more following Aug.,
suggesting that in some respects the Stoics differ from other philosophers
more in words than in ideas. He is also prepared to acknowledge the role of
reason in the development of virtue alongside grace. However, his general
attitude towards Stoicism is one of suspicion, a suspicion nourished by both
his reading of Aug.’s own comments about the Stoics and his commitment
to Augustinian ideas about grace.

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Senault was not alone in this view. A similar attitude towards Stoicism can
be found in the work of → Blaise Pascal (1623-62). Pascal, an associate of
the → Jansenists, developed his own neo-Augustinian theory of grace via
an encounter with Stoic ideas as he found them in the works of Epictetus.
While there are a number of brief discussions of Stoicism in his Pensées,
Pascal’s most sustained engagement with Stoicism is to be found in the
Entretien de Pascal avec M. de Sacy. This short text is the record of a
discussion between Pascal and the confessor at Port-Royal, Isaac de Sacy
(1613-84), probably dating to 1655, but reported by Sacy’s secretary
Nicolas Fontaine long after the death of both participants. Pascal’s aim is
to examine critically both the ideas of Epictetus and Montaigne, presented
as two extremes, using one to attack the other, thereby clearing both away
in order to make way for Pascal’s own neo-Augustinian view.

During the course of the discussion Sacy calls into question the orthodoxy
of Pascal’s engagement with Epictetus, reminding him of Aug.’s rejection
of his own youthful fascination with pagan philosophy (cf. conf. 4.16.28;
7.20.26). However, Pascal continues and goes on to acknowledge that
Epictetus is in fact a pious thinker who wants sincerely to be obedient to
his God who governs the cosmos. Where Epictetus falls short is in his
refusal to accept the powerlessness of the individual. His commitment to
Stoic autonomy and in particular his claim that we may become free and
happy through our own rational powers alone make him, for Pascal,
‘wickedly proud’, just as he would have been for Aug. (cf. s. 150.10). If
Epictetus is too proud, Montaigne is too despondent; for Pascal we must
follow a middle path in which we embrace the use of reason alongside
Christian faith. Pascal’s project shares something in common with Aug.’s
own attempt to try to reconcile pagan philosophy with faith. For Sacy,
however, Pascal’s refusal simply to submit to the authority of Aug. betrays
his own intellectual pride.

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The confrontational interaction between Augustinian and Stoic ideas in the

seventeenth century continued in the work of → Nicolas Malebranche
(1638-1715). In his Recherche de la vérité, Malebrance mounted an
Augustinian-inspired attack on the Stoic Seneca (Recherche 2.3.4). Seneca’s
image of the Stoic sage is both pompous and vain, while the sage’s
supposed invulnerability to fortune is simply a myth. We are, Malebranche
claims, destined to be miserable and wretched in this life, even if we do
manage to attain virtue. In this, our fate is no different than St Paul’s. In
opposition to Stoic rational autonomy, Malebranche claims that if we do
possess virtue it is only through God’s grace and likewise happiness can
only be granted by God, which He chooses to withhold from all in this life
(cf. retr. 1.2; trin. 13.8.11). Although Malebranche does not cite Aug.
explicitly in his polemic against Seneca, he deploys broadly Augustinian
arguments against Stoic autonomy and, alongside Senault and Pascal,
illustrates the ways in which Stoicism and Augustinianism came into
conflict in the early modern period.

Summary

Throughout his works, Aug. says so many things about Stoicism, both
positive and negative, that it is impossible to summarize neatly his own
attitude towards Stoicism. This also means that it has been possible for
subsequent thinkers to draw selectively from those comments in their own
attempts either to reconcile or to counterpoise Stoicism and Christianity.
Aug.’s preeminent authority among Christian writers has meant that his
views have constantly been sought out by those wishing to seek support
for their own interpretative agendas. The more we come to appreciate the
complexity of Aug.’s own relationship with Stoicism, the more we shall
come to see the inevitable limitations in any attempt to use his texts to
adjudicate between Christian doctrine and Stoicism.

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Bibliography

PRIMARY LITERATURE

Peter Abelard, Ethics, ed. & trans. D. E. Luscombe (Oxford, 1971).

—, Collationes, ed. & trans. J. Marenbon & G. Orlandi (Oxford, 2001).
Francesco Petrarca, Secretum, ed. & Ital. trl. U. Dotti (Rome, 1993).
Justus Lipsius, De Constantia (Leiden, 1584).
—, Physiologia Stoicorum (Antwerp, 1604).
Jean-François Senault, De l’usage des Passions (Paris, 1641).
Blaise Pascal, ‘Entretien avec M. de Saci’, in Oeuvres complètes, ed. J. Chevalier (Paris, 1954)
560-574.
Nicolas Malebranche, Recherche de la vérité, ed. G. Rodis-Lewis, 2 vols, Oeuvres complètes I-
II (Paris, 1962-63).

SECONDARY LITERATURE

Cole, John R., Pascal: The Man and his Two Loves (New York, 1995).
Colish, Marcia, L., The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages: II. Stoicism in
Christian Latin Thought through the Sixth Century (Leiden, 1990).
Courcelle, Pierre, L’Entretien de Pascal et Sacy, ses sources et ses engimes (Paris, 1960).
Gill, Meredith J., Augustine in the Italian Renaissance: Art and Philosophy from Petrarch to
Montaigne (Cambridge, 2005).
Lagrée, Jacqueline, ‘Constancy and Coherence’, in S. K. Strange & J. Kupko, eds, Stoicism:
Traditions and Transformations (Cambridge, 2004) 148-76.
Lapidge, Michael, ‘The Stoic Inheritance’, in P. Dronke, ed., A History of Twelfth-Century
Western Philosophy (Cambridge, 1988) 81-112.
Levi, Anthony, French Moralists: The Theory of the Passions 1585 to 1649 (Oxford, 1964).
Normore, Calvin, ‘Abelard’s Stoicism and its Consequences’, in S. K. Strange & J. Kupko,
eds, Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations (Cambridge, 2004) 132-47.
Panizza, Letizia A., ‘Stoic Psychotherapy in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: Petrarch’s
De remediis’, in M. J. Osler, ed., Atoms, Pneuma, and Tranquillity: Epicurean and Stoic
Themes in European Thought (Cambridge, 1991) 39-65.
Saunders, Jason Lewis, Justus Lipsius: The Philosophy of Renaissance Stoicism (New York,
1955).

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Sellars, John, Stoicism (Chesham / Berkeley, 2006).

Sellier, Philippe, Pascal et Saint Augustin (Paris, 1970).
Spanneut, Michel, Le Stoïcisme des Pères de l’Église: De Clément de Rome à Clément
d’Alexandrie (Paris, 1957).
Spanneut, Michel, Permanence du Stoïcisme: De Zénon à Malraux (Gembloux, 1973).
Verbeke, Gerard, The Presence of Stoicism in Medieval Thought (Washington DC, 1983).