Many people who were introduced to Stoicism by popular books that were written in the twenty-first century are surprised by the religious nature of Stoic philosophy when they first encounter it in the surviving Stoic texts and scholarship on those texts. That is because none of these popular authors address the deeply religious nature of Stoicism positively. Instead, they either ignore it or attempt to discredit it as the unwarranted beliefs of ancient philosophers who lacked our modern scientific understanding of the universe. For some, like Lawrence Becker, Stoic ethics cannot be “credible” if it remains attached to Stoic cosmology (a providential cosmos).[1] Likewise, William Irvine considers this aspect of Stoicism “off-putting to modern individuals, almost none of whom believe in the existence of Zeus, and many of whom don’t believe we were created by a divine being who wanted what was best for us.”[2] Ryan Holiday takes a different approach and justifies ignoring Stoic physics (which includes Stoic theology) by making the unsubstantiated claim that as Stoicism progressed, the later Stoics “focused primarily on two of these topics—logic and ethics”[3] to the exclusion of physics. In a unique approach, Donald Robertson attempts to obscure the modern divergence from Stoicism by making the unsupportable claim that some of the ancient Stoics “may have adopted a more agnostic stance”[4] or may have “believed that agnosticism or even atheism may have been consistent with the Stoic way of life.”[5] Claims like these may satisfy those who are unfamiliar with the Stoic texts and have not read any credible scholarship on Stoicism. Likewise, they will please those atheists and agnostics who wish those claims to be true. However, these claims do not stand up to the textual evidence or credible Stoic scholarship.
A more brazen example of a predisposition against the religious nature of Stoicism is offered by Massimo Pigliucci, who combines literary fiction with a bit of scientific hubris to justify the abandonment of the Stoic worldview and its deeply religious nature. In his 2017 book How to Be a Stoic, which should have been more appropriately titled How to Be a Secular Stoic, Pigliucci engages Epictetus in an imaginary conversation. He sits Epictetus down for a friendly chat and educates him about the “powerful double punch” that David Hume and Charles Darwin delivered to the Stoic conception of a providential cosmos.[6] Of course, in Pigliucci’s version of this story, Epictetus does not provide a defense of Stoic providence against the claims of modern philosophy and science. Instead, Epictetus remains silent while the Stoic worldview is laid waste. However, for those who have any familiarity with the Discourses of Epictetus, it is hard to imagine this conversation would be so one-sided if the real Epictetus were engaged with Pigliucci. It is easy to imagine Epictetus countering with something like, my dear philosopher, “The [Stoics] say that the first thing that needs to be learned is the following, that there is a God, and a God who exercises providential care for the universe” (Discourses 2.14.11). Then, Epictetus, in his typically protreptic style, might have asked Pigliucci, “What is the universe, then, and who governs it?” (Discourses 2.14.25).
Finally, it’s fair to assume a modern version of Epictetus would be familiar enough with the writings of Hume and Darwin to know that Pigliucci’s “powerful double punch” may be quite effective against the New Atheist strawman version of God paraded into most modern debates. However, a modern, well-informed Epictetus would be able to point out that neither Hume nor Darwin can land a blow on the immanent God of Stoicism that providentially orders the cosmos from within. Unfortunately, Pigliucci is so beholden to the reductionist materialist belief system of nineteenth-century science that he is compelled to declare, as he recently did, that the metaphysical beliefs of the ancient Stoics are “unsustainable in the light of modern science.”[7] Of course, what Pigliucci and other reductionist materialists fail to tell their audience is that their nineteenth-century conception of reality is itself unsustainable in light of twentieth-century quantum discoveries and modern theories of consciousness. More importantly, Pigliucci’s appeal to modern science to refute Stoic metaphysics is adequately undercut by the existence of many brilliant modern scientists and philosophers, from a variety of fields, who believe that some form of preexisting consciousness or mind-like background provides the best explanation for our ordered cosmos and human consciousness.
Before I proceed any further, I want to make two points. First, the idea that Stoicism is somehow compatible with atheism without being substantially modified, and the speculation that the ancient Stoics “may have adopted a more agnostic stance”[8] or themselves “believed that agnosticism or even atheism may have been consistent with the Stoic way of life”[9] are recent inventions of the modern Stoic movement. These assertions are unsupportable by reasonable interpretations of the Stoic texts and are contradicted by a large body of scholarship. Lawrence Becker, in his 1998 book A New Stoicism, was the first person to propose a secular version of Stoic ethics. However, he acknowledged the dilemma he faced with his attempt to extract Stoic ethics from the “purposive system with an end or goal that practical reason directs us to follow.” He declared, “It seems that the book cannot be a work of stoic ethics without the cosmic teleology but that it cannot be a credible work of ethics with such a cosmology.”[10] In other words, Becker realizes that Stoic teleology—the idea that the cosmos has a purpose with which we humans should align ourselves—is not credible in academia. That will not be a surprise to anyone who is familiar with modern academic philosophy. The important point here is that Becker, who was at the leading edge of what would later develop into the modern Stoic movement, is open and honest about the fact that Stoic physics and ethics were considered inseparable. Prior to Becker, no one seriously considered such a separation feasible. Even today, twenty years after Becker wrote A New Stoicism, no credible scholar of Stoicism claims that Stoic ethics can be separated from the Stoic conception of a providential cosmos without making substantial changes to the system as a whole.
The second point is this: As I have repeatedly stated, I fully support the creation of a secularized version of Stoicism that can appeal to agnostics and atheists. I believe that furthering what Becker started in 1998 is both reasonable and commendable. However, reinterpreting Stoic texts and giving undue weight to ambiguous fragments in an attempt to anachronistically paint the ancients as agnostics or speculate that they may have been open to agnosticism or even atheism is neither reasonable nor commendable. These practices may serve to further expand the modern Stoic movement and sell more books and courses to the masses; nevertheless, they also open the door to a myriad of interpretive practices that allow Stoicism to be twisted and distorted beyond all recognition. In 1998, Lawrence Becker made his divergence from ancient Stoicism quite clear. Unfortunately, the opposite is true of some modern popularizers who attempt to justify their predisposition to secularism and their aversion to the religious nature of Stoicism by rewriting the history of the Stoa and attributing beliefs to the ancient Stoics that are contradicted by the surviving texts.
What the Scholars Say about the Religious Nature of Stoicism
Now that we have some idea of how the modern Stoic popularizers feel about the religious nature of Stoicism, let’s see what the recognized scholars have to say on this topic. Interestingly, early Christian thinkers, medieval scholastics, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century neo-Stoics, and the nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars of Stoicism all recognized the deeply religious nature of Stoicism. As an example, the distinguished classicist Edith Hamilton claimed,
[Stoicism] was a religion first, a philosophy only second.[11]
Additionally, she wrote,
This is the voice not of philosophy, but of religion. Stoicism from its earliest beginnings was religious… It must not however be concluded that Stoicism was a religion only and not a philosophy.[12]
Likewise, the classical scholar Gilbert Murray wrote,
Stoicism may be called either a philosophy or a religion. It was a religion in its exalted passion; it was a philosophy inasmuch as it made no pretence to magical powers or supernatural knowledge.[13]
Scottish philosopher Edward Caird called Stoicism a religious philosophy,
From the first, Stoicism was a religious philosophy, as is shown by the great hymn of Cleanthes, the successor of Zeno as head of the school—a hymn which is inspired by the consciousness that it is one spiritual power which penetrates and controls the universe and is the source of every work done under the sun, “except what evil men endeavour in their folly.”[14]
Finally, German philosopher Eduard Zeller points out the impossibility of understanding Stoicism apart from its theology,
It would be impossible to give a full account of the philosophy of the Stoics without, at the same time, treating of their theology; for no early system is so closely connected with religion as that of the Stoics. Founded, as the whole view of the world is, upon the theory of one Divine Being… There is hardly a single prominent feature in the Stoic system which is not, more or less, connected with theology.[15]
Is Stoicism a Religion?
Are these scholars wrong to suggest that Stoicism is a religion? At first glance, it appears Pierre Hadot thought so. He suggests we must be careful to make a distinction between philosophy and religion.[16] Of course,
