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Updated: May 24, 2025
And when his fellow-disciple, Cleanthes, asked him why he had changed his opinion, he answered, "That the case of any man who had applied so much time to philosophy, and yet was unable to bear pain, might be a sufficient proof that pain is an evil; that he himself had spent many years at philosophy, and yet could not bear pain: it followed, therefore, that pain was an evil."
Cleanthes held the opinion that it is. The objection is raised that it is necessary ex hypothesi for the future to happen, as it is necessary ex hypothesi for the past to have happened. But there is this difference, that it is not possible to act on the past state, that would be a contradiction; but it is possible to produce some effect on the future.
Observe that the most eminent Stoics had written on this matter without following the same path. That is shown by the passages immediately before and after it. Take note that Chrysippus recognized that past things were necessarily true, which Cleanthes had not been willing to admit.
"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, 'Peace be within thee." Substituting Hellas for Jerusalem, this is the prayer of a Greek of the age of Isocrates, of Cleanthes, and of Alexander.
Plutarch in his treatise on the contradictions of the Stoics and M. Bayle are both surprised that Chrysippus was not of the same opinion as Diodorus, since he favours fatality. But Chrysippus and even his master Cleanthes were on that point more reasonable than is supposed. That will be seen as we proceed. It is open to question whether the past is more necessary than the future.
There he taught for nearly sixty years, and voluntarily ended his life when close on a century old. His life, as Antigonus, King of Macedon, recorded on his tomb, was consistent with his doctrine abstemious, frugal, laborious, dutiful. He was succeeded by Cleanthes, a native of Assos in Asia Minor.
The only point in dispute among us is, what they are. V. Their existence no one denies. Cleanthes, one of our sect, imputes the way in which the idea of the Gods is implanted in the minds of men to four causes. The first is that which I just now mentioned the foreknowledge of future things.
Let us grant that Caesar was evolved from the currents in the air about the Roman Capitol, that Marcus Aurelius was a blend of Plato and Cleanthes, Charlemagne a graft of Frankish blood on Gallic soil, William I. a rill from Rollo filtered in Neustrian fields, Hildebrand a flame from the altar of the mediaeval church, Barbarossa a plant grown to masterdom in German woods, or later not to heap up figures whose memories still possess the world that Columbus was a Genoan breeze, Bacon a rechauffe of Elizabethan thought, Orange the Silent a Dutch dyke, Chatham the frontispiece of eighteenth-century England, or Corsican Buonaparte the "armed soldier of Democracy."
Cleanthes, whose sublime "Prayer" is, to our thinking, the highest strain left of early piety, was a boxer likewise. Plato was a famous wrestler, and Socrates was unequalled for his military endurance. Nor was one of these, like their puny follower Plotinus, too weak-sighted to revise his own manuscripts. It would be tedious to analyze the causes of this modern deterioration of the saints.
And thou shalt know how true the saying of Cleanthes, that though the words of philosophers may run counter to the opinions of the world, yet have they reason on their side. Asked how a man should best grieve his enemy, Epictetus replied, "By setting himself to live the noblest life himself." I am free, I am a friend of God, ready to render Him willing obedience.
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