Some Stoic Ideas

SOME STOIC IDEAS • "The Stoics make god out to be intelligent, a designing fire which methodically proceeds towards creation of the world, and encompasses all the seminal principles ..." Aetius 1.7.33 • "God, Intelligence, Fate, and Zeus are all one, and many other names are applied to him. In the beginning, all by himself, he turned the entire substance through air into water. Just as the sperm is enveloped in the seminal fluid, so god, who is the seminal principle of the world, stays behind as such in the moisture, making matter serviceable to himself for the successive stages of creation. he then creates first of all the Four Elements: fire, water, air, earth." Diogenes Laertius 7. 135-6 • "Zeno says that the sun and the moon and each of the other stars are intelligent and prudent and have the fieriness of designing fire. For there are two kinds of fire: one is undesigning and converts fuel into itself; the other is designing, causing growth and preservation, as is the case in plants and animals where it is physique and soul respectively. Such is the fire which constitutes the substance of the stars." Stobaeus 1.213. 15-21 • "In Chrysippus' On Providence Book I, he says that Zeus continues to grow until he has used up everything on himself: `For since death is the separation of the soul from the body, and the soul of the world is not separated but grows continuously until it has completely used up its matter on itself, the world must be said to die..." Plutarch, On Stoic self-contradictions 1052 c-d • "At certain fated times the entire world is subject to conflagration, and then is reconstituted afresh. But the primary fire is as it were a sperm which possesses the principles (logoi) of all things and the causes of past, present, and future events. The nexus and succession of these is Fate, Knowledge, Truth, and an inevitable and inescapable Law of what exists. In this way, everything in the world is excellently organized as in a perfectly ordered society." Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 15.14.2 quoting Aristocles • "Some of the Stoics say that the soul has two meanings: that which sustains the whole compound; and in particular the commanding faculty. For when we say that man is a compound of soul and body, or that death is separation of soul and body, we are referring particularly to the commanding-faculty." Sextus Empiricus Against the Professors 7.234 • "The Stoics say that the commanding-faculty is the soul's highest part, which produces impressions, assents, perceptions and impulses. They also call it the REASONING FACULTY. From the commanding-faculty there are seven parts of the soul which grow out and stretch out into the body, like the tentacles of an octopus. Five of these are the senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. ... Of the remainder, one is called SEED, and this is breath extending from the commanding-faculty to the genitals. The other ... which they call UTTERANCE, is breath extending from the commanding-faculty to the pharynx, tongue, and appropriate organs...." Aetius 4.21.1-4 • "What is the subject most argued about by Chrysippus himself and Antipater in their disputes with the Academics? The doctrine that without ASSENT there is neither action nor impulsion, and that they are talking nonsense and empty assumptions who claim that, when an appropriate impulsion occurs, impulsion ensues at once without people first having yielded or given their assent." Plutarch, On Stoic self-contradictions 1057a. • "The Stoics say that the SOUL is subject to generation and destruction. When separated from the body, however, it does not perish at once, but survives on its own for certain times, the soul of the virtuous up to the dissolution of everything into fire, that of fools only for certain definite times. By the survival of souls they mean that we ourselves survive as souls separated from bodies and changed into the lesser substance of the soul, while the should of nonrational animals perish along with their bodies..." Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 15.20.6.