Semitic admixture—Closed fist and open hand—‘Tabula rasa’—Necessity of
evil—Hymn of Cleanthes—Things indifferent—Ideal and real—Philosophy and
humanity
Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy (born
circa 340 B.C.), was a
native of Citium in Cyprus. The city was Greek, but with a large Phoenician
admixture. And it is curious that in this last and sternest phase of Greek
thought, not the founder only, but a large proportion of the successive
leaders of the school, came from this and other places having Semitic
elements in them. Among these places notable as nurseries of Stoicism was
Tarsus in Cilicia, the birthplace of St. Paul. The times of preparation were
drawing to a close; and through these men, with their Eastern intensity and
capacities of self-searching and self-abasement, the philosophy of Greece
was linking itself on to the wisdom of the Hebrews.
A History of Greek Philosophy /
THE STOICS
