The contradictions of the Stoics (1-5)

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg136.perseus-eng2:1-5

Refs	`{'start': {'reference': '1', 'human_reference': 'Section 1'}, 'end': {'reference': '5', 'human_reference': 'Section 5'}}`
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I first lay this down for an axiom, that there ought to be seen in men’s lives an agreement with their doctrines. For it is not so necessary that the pleader (as Aeschines has it) and the law speak one and the same thing, as that the life of a philosopher be consonant to his speech. For the speech of a philosopher is a law of his own and voluntarily imposed on himself, unless they esteem philosophy to be a game, or an acuteness in disputing invented for the gaining of applause, and not—what it really is—a thing deserving our greatest study.

Since then there are in their discourses many things written by Zeno himself, many by Cleanthes, and most of all by Chrysippus, concerning policy, governing, and being governed, concerning judging and pleading, and yet there is not to be found in any of their lives either leading of armies, making of laws, going to parliament, pleading before the judges, fighting for their country, travelling on embassies, or bestowing of public gifts, but they have all, feeding (if I may so say) on rest as on the lotus, led their whole lives, and those not short but very long ones, in foreign countries, amongst disputations, books, and walkings; it is manifest that they have lived rather according to the writings and sayings of others than their own professions, having spent all their days in that repose which Epicurus and Hieronymus so much commend.

Chrysippus indeed himself, in his Fourth Book of Lives, thinks there is no difference between a scholastic life and a voluptuous one. I will set down here his very words: They who are of opinion that a scholastic life is from the very beginning most suitable to philosophers seem to me to be in an error, thinking that men ought to follow this for the sake of some recreation or some other thing like to it, and in that manner to spin out the whole course of their life; that is, if it may be explained, to live at ease. For this opinion of theirs is not to be concealed, many of them delivering it clearly, and not a few more obscurely. Who therefore did more grow old in this scholastic life than Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Diogenes, Zeno, and Antipater, who left their countries not out of any discontent, but that they might quietly enjoy their delight, studying, and disputing at their leisure. To verify which, Aristocreon, the disciple and intimate friend of Chrysippus, having erected his statue of brass upon a pillar, engraved on it these verses:

This brazen statue Aristocreon

To’s friend Chrysippus newly here has put,

Whose sharp-edged wit, like sword of champion,

Did Academic knots in sunder cut.

Such a one then was Chrysippus, an old man, a philosopher, one who praised the regal and civil life, and thought there was no difference between a scholastic and voluptuous one.

But those others of them who intermeddle in state affairs act yet more contradictorily to their own doctrines. For they govern, judge, consult, make laws, punish, and honor, as if those were indeed cities in the government of which they concern themselves, those truly counsellors and judges who are at any time allotted to such offices, those generals who are chosen by suffrages, and those laws which were made by Clisthenes, Lycurgus, and Solon, whom they

affirm to have been vicious men and fools. Thus even in the management of state affairs are they at war with themselves.

Indeed Antipater, in his writings concerning the difference between Cleanthes and Chrysippus, has related that Zeno and Cleanthes would not be made citizens of Athens, lest they might seem to injure their own countries. I shall not much insist upon it, that, if they did well, Chrysippus acted amiss in suffering himself to be enrolled as a member of that city. But this is very contradictory and absurd, that, removing their persons and their lives so far off amongst strangers, they reserved their names for their countries; which is the same thing as if a man, leaving his wife, and cohabiting and bedding with another, and getting children on her, should yet refuse to contract marriage with the second, lest he might seem to wrong the former.

Again, Chrysippus, writing in his treatise of Rhetoric, that a wise man will so plead and so act in the management of a commonwealth, as if riches, glory, and health were really good, confesses that his speeches are inextricable and impolitic, and his doctrines unsuitable for the uses and actions of human life.

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to	25	w	3335
contract	1	w	3343
marriage	1	w	3351
with	4	w	3355
the	73	w	3358
second	1	w	3364
lest	2	w	3369
he	82	w	3371
might	3	w	3376
seem	3	w	3380
to	26	w	3382
wrong	1	w	3387
the	74	w	3390
former	1	w	3396
Again	1	w	3402
Chrysippus	9	w	3413
writing	3	w	3421
in	79	w	3423
his	14	w	3426
treatise	1	w	3434
of	29	w	3436
Rhetoric	1	w	3444
that	15	w	3449
a	216	w	3450
wise	1	w	3454
man	9	w	3457
will	2	w	3461
so	14	w	3463
plead	4	w	3468
and	34	w	3471
so	15	w	3473
act	4	w	3476
in	80	w	3478
the	75	w	3481
management	2	w	3491
of	30	w	3493
a	223	w	3494
commonwealth	1	w	3506
as	19	w	3509
if	19	w	3511
riches	1	w	3517
glory	1	w	3523
and	35	w	3527
health	1	w	3533
were	3	w	3537
really	2	w	3543
good	1	w	3547
confesses	1	w	3557
that	16	w	3561
his	15	w	3564
speeches	1	w	3572
are	6	w	3575
inextricable	1	w	3587
and	36	w	3590
impolitic	1	w	3599
and	37	w	3603
his	16	w	3606
doctrines	3	w	3615
unsuitable	1	w	3625
for	10	w	3628
the	76	w	3631
uses	1	w	3635
and	38	w	3638
actions	1	w	3645
of	31	w	3647
human	1	w	3652
life	7	w	3656