Dr Greg Bahnsen - Ancient & Medieval Philosophy: Roman Period (Part 13)

We have finished looking at Aristotle's philosophy. He's the second of the major systematic philosophers of the classical Greek period. We're going to move on now to the Roman period on our outline, which will be Roman numeral 11. Okay, I've put up on the blackboard an outline of what I'd like to cover under the Roman period. Roman numeral 11. A will be an evaluation of Plato and Aristotle. B, I'd like to look at the five major schools of philosophy. C, do some Christian commentary on where we are, the history of thought. D, we'll look at the rise of the Roman Empire. Then E, F, and G will be a review of Stoicism, Epicureanism and skepticism, which are the three major schools that developed between the death of Aristotle and the advent of Christ, which will become our next major entry in the history of thought. First, by way of evaluation of Plato and Aristotle, as I've indicated, they represent the high point of systematic philosophical reflection in the Greek period. There are many names in your timeline, many different philosophers that we've considered, but Plato and Aristotle stand head and shoulders above them all, not only in terms of the power of their insights, but also for the breadth and systematic development of their insights. Developing specific schools of thought. Plato and Aristotle are both creative, intelligent men, but they didn't agree with each other. And I think it'd be good for us to take a minute to contrast the two different ways in which they maintain the objectivity, rationality and morality of the world. Their goal was to maintain objectivity, rationality and morality in a systematic philosophical perspective. But they did it in different ways. Because Plato and Aristotle influenced so many future thinkers, and because these two schools of thought are so seminal, it'd be good for us to make a list of contrasting characteristics between the two. That's what I'm going to go through very quickly here, setting one over against the other. Plato emphasized transcendent form, but Aristotle taught eminent dynamic form. That is, for Plato, form was beyond time and space. For Aristotle, it is part of time and space. It is eminent, and it has a dynamic, formative power within it. In Plato's philosophy, the stress is placed upon the one or upon unity, whereas Aristotle emphasizes the many and diversity. Plato's epistemology is an example of rationalism, Aristotle's epistemology an example of empiricism. Plato advocated a dualistic understanding of the world. That is, there's the world, the changing world of time and space, and the transcendent world of unchanging forms or ideas. Aristotle wanted to Remove that dualism and concentrate on nature, or if you will, concentrate on the here and now, rather than something that lies beyond the cosmos. In Plato's thinking, you will notice that he favors the unchanging. Aristotle favors explanation of change. That is, he is interested in change. He thinks that's the most characteristic thing about reality, and that's what philosophers have to account for. Whereas a platform, Plato would tend to de, emphasize, subordinate, if not ignore change in favor of unchanging forms and ideas. For Plato, we find something of a mathematical model for his thinking. Whereas in Aristotle, the model, as I said before, would be biological, a model of natural change. Plato's philosophy moved in the direction of normative and absolute ethics. Aristotle, by contrast, favored a teleological, imprecise and mediating kind of ethic. Mediating in the sense of the golden mean. Plato's approach to the state was utopian. An intellectual elite were to rule. Aristotle's approach to the state favored the middle class, again a mediating, moderating position. Then, finally, for Plato, there is a better world beyond that of ordinary experience. That's why he's called an idealist. There are ideas and forms, absolutes that lie beyond this world. And that is a better world, a more beautiful world. But for Aristotle, his approach to philosophy was a matter of fact approach to the world of daily experience. So should our thoughts be on a better world beyond ordinary life? Or should we be trying to analyze and understand in a more pedestrian way the world of daily experience? That is, should we be Platonic in our orientation or Aristotelian in our orientation? Hopefully, if you've made two columns setting these things side by side, you'll have at least a sense for the difference in direction and general tenor in Plato and Aristotle. These are enduring philosophical perspectives. I have to emphasize that for over a thousand years these will be the enduring philosophical perspectives that men think they have to make their peace with. They have to incorporate or answer. Variations on these basic models will be repeatedly put forth. You'll have philosophies that emphasize rationalism, the one unity, a utopian mathematical approach. You'll have philosophies that emphasize the here and now. An empirical approach looking at diversity and seeking moderation. Although these are enduring philosophical perspectives, neither Platonism nor Aristotelianism are Christian viewpoints. To belabor the obvious, both of these are essentially secular in their character. Both of these are inadequate as an account of reality, of the natural world, as an attempt to show the adequacy of man's reason and to use it to understand how we know what we know, and as an attempt to give a manner of life that is adequate for the individual as well as for the political state. Both are secular, both are inadequate. Nevertheless, I say this with a heavy heart. Nevertheless, later Christians will attempt over and over and over again to tie Christian philosophy to one or to the other perspective. What we'll get throughout the next millennium and beyond are Christian versions of Platonism and Christian versions of Aristotelianism. Plato and Aristotle were intellectually opposed to the prevalent philosophies of their day. The philosophies that were on the stage, as it were, that they had to take account of. They were opposed to these. And Christians will likewise wish to oppose those views. And because Christians want to want to oppose those views that Plato and Aristotle were trying to undermine and supplant, I guess it's understandable that later Christians would see in Plato or Aristotle maybe something of a kinship. They would see them as philosophical cousins. And some early church fathers will even suggest that Plato and Aristotle are right inside or maybe right outside the gate, gate of heaven. I mean, because their opposition to what Plato and Aristotle were opposing made it appear that they were brothers. This happens often enough, doesn't it? People have a common enemy, and so they think they have something that positively or constructively binds them together. I see this in the history, for instance, of churches. You take Presbyterians who are fed up with a liberal denomination. They pull out of the liberal denomination where they had a lot of cohesiveness because they had a common enemy. The liberals and the compromisers in that denomination. When they get into their own denomination, they find they aren't able to get along very well, and they're not really sure if they positively have a platform that they stand on together. Likewise, Christians can look at Plato and Aristotle as opposing the prevalent philosophies of their day and think, we have a common enemy. So Plato and Aristotle are on our side. They are not on our side. They both are imbued with the spirit of autonomy. They both are seeking an essentially secular, not a religious God glorifying answer to the problems of reality, knowledge and ethics. And they are both inadequate in their attempts to set forth a systematic philosophy of life and reality. Well, I keep mentioning these opponents that are on the stage that we would oppose and they opposed as well. I did that only to explain, I think, why there is an attraction to, to Plato and Aristotle and later Christian thinkers. What are those views that were on stage in their generation? Well, one would be materialism, the atomistic view of Democritus, all of reality is matter falling through space. His Data flourishing is 425. Hedonism was being advanced. Aristippus flourished around 400. Relativistic thinking as we find it in the sophist, beginning with Protagoras 450, roughly 450, and Gorgias 425. And then the Cynics with their view that we have to get rid of the artificiality of civilization and these mere conventions that rule men and get back to nature. Antisthenes flourished about 400, if I remember our timeline properly. So here we have all grouped around 450, 425, 450, 400 B.C. the philosophies of materialism, hedonism, relativism, that's the sophist and cynicism, the back to nature school. As an aside, you may want to note that Malachi, the last prophet of the Old Testament, prophesied in roughly this same generation about 450 or maybe a little later than that. So you have the closing of the Hebrew canon in this generation and in the Greek world, the presentation of materialistic, hedonistic, relativistic and cynical viewpoints. Plato and Aristotle established alternative philosophies to these. They tried to oppose them, but notice what I'm saying is they established alternatives. They did not eliminate these other options from the field. They put two more options out there, but they didn't drive out the ones that had preceded. Let's remember our dates again. Plato died in 347. Aristotle died in 322. Now that's of interest because around 325 and 300 we have the development of three new schools of philosophy which turn out to be just part and parcel of what we've already heard before. We've already heard of the materialist atomism. That's Democritus. We've already run into a hedonistic approach. Now what we get is Epicureanism, which is atomistic hedonism. The Epicureans advanced an atomistic view of the universe in a hedonistic lifestyle. Of course, it's a higher hedonism, a qualitative hedonism. But my point is Epicureanism shows that materialism and hedonism live on. We gave a date of flourishing for Zeno, the founder of the, excuse me, of Epicurus, the founder of the epicurean schools, about 300. Then we also have around 325 in the writings of Pyro P Y R R H O. We have in the presentation of Pyro, a skeptical point of view. You have to suspend all judgment. No one can know for sure. That shows that the general relativism and skepticism of the sophist lives on. And then again around 300, we have Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, writing that men should live in accordance with nature and nature is identical with reason, which in itself is identical with virtue. The point is, Stoicism says, get back to nature, and the Cynics had said, get back to nature. So the generation preceding Plato and Aristotle had its distinctive philosophical views, and the generation following Plato and Aristotle sees a resurgence, or a continuation anyway, of those same general points of view in new schools of thought. Move on to point B on the outline then. Five major schools of philosophy between the advent of Christ and the end of the classical period, Plato and Aristotle, there really are no radically new views, but simply a modification of previous theory that have differences and somewhat unique modifications because of the socio political circumstances of the day. But from an ideological or philosophical standpoint, we have nothing really new to consider, it's just previous theories. And so. So we can now identify five major schools of philosophy in the Roman period. Five major schools of philosophy, and I think it's valuable to do this because they are not simply the five major schools of the Roman period. They tend to be the enduring recurring options that are out there for men. The enduring, enduring and recurring options philosophically. So we're summarizing the Roman period, but we're also getting a tidy little outline for the way men are going to do philosophy. This may not exhaust all of the options, but it comes close. So what are these five schools? First of all, skepticism, and then I would put in parentheses sophism along with it skepticism, which is in essence the affirmation of a relativistic approach to life. No one knows for sure. There are no absolutes, there are no universal norms. Everything is relative. Of course, the skeptic can go another direction as well. The skeptic can move in the direction of an eclectic approach. Rather than saying nobody knows for sure, you can say, well, there are bits of truth in everything. So I'll just make a fruit salad philosophy, if you will. So the first school in the Roman period to summarize would be skepticism. The second would be Epicureanism, Epicureanism, which we can summarize as materialistic hedonism. You have the atomism of Democritus on the one hand, and the qualitative hedonism of Epicurus on the other. The idea that we should seek the refined, higher pleasures and thus live a life of moderation. Interestingly, moderation meaning conversation and cheese and a glass of wine. Just take it easy, don't be a party animal. Epicureanism was advanced in Athens at the garden because Epicurus chose a garden setting in which to teach his followers. So you might call the second school of thought the Garden in which, if we're thinking of the socio political setting of that day, the cultural setting of that day, the third major school of thought would be Platonism. You remember what Plato named his school that he established in Athens? He called it the Academy. So Epicurus has the garden, Plato has the academy. Plato's philosophy, if I can summarize it in three words, is that of dualism, rationalism and idealism. Dualism, rationalism and idealism were taught at the Academy. Fourthly, we have Aristotelianism. Aristotle also founded a school in Athens and named it the Lyceum. The Lyceum. The students at the Lyceum were often called peripatetics, from the Greek word to walk or to stroll about, because apparently Aristotle liked to teach by walking in having his students follow him. So they were known as the peripatetics. Is that a style of lecturing that we should take up? Here we go out and let me just walk around and muse on the ultimate realities and have you take notes. The peripatetics are the lyceum. Aristotelianism, to give my summary expression, offers a teleology of nature. Nature and empiricism. A teleology of nature, the study of the natural world seen as goal oriented or moving from potentiality to actuality. The actualization of form, teleology of nature and empiricism. And then five, Stoicism. And in parentheses you might put. And cynicism. In terms of the underlying agreement that they have on this point. Stoicism and Cynicism represent harmony with nature. Harmony with nature. And for the Stoics, nature was the same as reason and reason was the same as virtue. Now if you stand back and look at those five schools that we have mentioned, I think you can see how they tend to exhaust the possibilities for your approach to philosophy. You have relativism, materialism, dualism, teleologism and naturism, if you will, the harmony, wisdom with nature approach. Okay, moving on. In our outline, we come to see, and I'd like to make a few comments here. Kind of a Christian commentary on where we are in the history of thought. And I'll try to be Brief four remarks. First of all, the Bible tells us there's nothing new under the sun. And as we consider these five major schools of philosophy in the Roman period, and how they pretty much cover the options that are available to men, consider their recurring appearance throughout the history of thought and preceding Plato and Aristotle as well, then we see that there's only a finite number of worldviews that people can come up with. Second remark. The underlying issue in these philosophies seems to be how to view nature and its relation to morality, or the relation of morality to nature. How do you look upon nature or the cosmos? And then what is the relationship of value or morality to your view of nature? The skeptics don't think there is a cosmos that we can know anything for sure. There is no nature. And correspondingly, there is no absolute morality. The Epicureans have a specific view of the cosmos. It's materialistic, atomistic bits of matter falling through space. And their morality is related to it in that we should live in accordance with pleasure. This is a material world. We should be material people, live for pleasure, of course, the better pleasures, if we can. Plato had a dualistic approach to nature. The natural world was. Was always changing and therefore not good or not as good and not fully knowable. And consequently morality goes beyond nature. It's a transcendent morality, an ideal morality. Aristotle obviously had a teleology of nature. He saw the natural world is moving in the direction of form or actualization of form, and that there was a dynamic force that form represented in the material world. So he does have a view of nature, and his morality grows right out of that. Man should seek to actualize his form, or if you will, realize himself as a rational and political animal. And then the Stoics and the Cynics, of course, found their whole philosophy on the idea of harmony with nature. To get in tune with nature is to live a reasonable and a virtuous life, if you're a Stoic. So again, the underlying issue has to do with your view of the cosmos, how to view nature, and then the relation of morality or value to nature. A third remark can begin with the question, why do people adopt the particular worldview that they choose to follow? We see that we have essentially five options here, or even if someone else wanted to expand the list and make it more adequate. The point is, not everybody sees the world the same way. Not everyone approaches nature and the cosmos in the same way. Not everyone sees man's place in the universe or the meaning of life in the same way, not everyone has the same values and ethics. What leads people to adopt one worldview or another? In answer to that question, I would hope that my students would notice the place, place of ethics in a person's worldview, particularly the place of one's view of values, one's lifestyle, and that would include one's personal temperament. Ethics, lifestyle, and temperament, it seems to me, are the key to explaining why people adopt one worldview, one perspective or another. Now, as rationally reconstructed, if we were to go back and try to give, to explain in a rational way or intelligent way, a person's worldview as rationally reconstructed, the worldview will show ethics as an application of a person's metaphysical and epistemological foundations. Because when we explain our worldview, we begin with what we think ultimate reality is and how we know what we know, and then ethics becomes an application of those convictions. But that's only the rational reconstruction, the kind of like after the fact. Looking back and trying to give an intelligent account of your worldview from a genetic or psychological standpoint, that is, in terms of the actual development and origin of a person's worldview, it seems to me that it's a person's lifestyle, a person's values and personality that incline him or her toward a particular view of metaphysics and epistemology. That is, you take the kind of life that you have, and then you seek a view of reality and knowledge in terms of which that lifestyle makes sense, or in terms of which that lifestyle could be justified intellectually. So that if you want to live a life of sensual pleasure, you're not going to be inclined toward a worldview that says that there's a holy, absolute God that will judge you one day. If you want to be free and not have peace, have authority over you, you're not going to be inclined toward a utopian and statist view of corporate life in this world. How do you live socially? Well, you're not going to want a view that gives a lot of authority to the state if you tend to be anarchistic and libertarian. Now, I'm not trying to values. It doesn't have to work. You know that explicitly. But I do think that this is the direct. This is the dynamism within every person's life. And as Christians, we would apply this observation by noting that unless a person is born again, unless they are internally changed, unless they are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, they are not temperamentally disposed to believe in a personal, absolute, sovereign Creator who is holy in all his ways, upon whom they depend for everything. One has to have a change of heart. Or what we might say broadly is a change of lifestyle, a change of values, a change of personality and temperament. One must be born again in order to affirm the Christian philosophy of life, the Christian philosophy of reality and knowledge. But even among those who are not born again, there are differences of temperament. Plato was more of a perfectionist, Aristotle more a realist. A person who wanted to say, let's get along with the world in which we actually live and not worry about some ideals that go beyond this world. Those are temperamental differences as well as philosophical differences. So to summarize this third remark, why do people adopt the worldview that they particularly choose? Because I think ethics, lifestyle and temperament lead them in the direction to think of reality knowledge as they do. That's the genesis. That's the psychological account of where it comes from. But then when we go back and we rationally reconstruct and explain our worldview, we tend to see ethics as the last thing, the application, the end of the line of what reality. After we have our views of reality and how we know what we know, does this make sense? Then, fourthly, another remark about the competing tendencies that we see in the history of philosophy as we've examined it up to this point, and also hereafter. Competing tendencies, especially in an expanding Roman Empire, where the individual is more and more conscious that he doesn't control his own destiny. Under these circumstances, with the rise of Roman power and its expansion around the Mediterranean world, where people realize they are not the masters of their fate and so much depends upon external circumstances and political conditions, we see two competing tendencies. One is a this worldly tendency in philosophy to emphasize explaining this world and living in this world. And the this worldly tendency in philosophy seems to me has one of two outcomes. People are led either to a life of passive acceptance. The idea is to get along, fit in, go with the flow. Or this worldly philosophy must lead to the search for political solutions to man's problems. If your focus is this worldly, then you get involved in politics and you look to the state to solve problems. The other tendon in the history of thought at this point would be an otherworldly tendency direction to focus on that beautiful, better world that lies beyond our ordinary experience. And the otherworldly, more Platonic philosophies move in the direction of mysticism, Searching for a mystical insight and solution to life's riddle and or a concentration on the inner life. Not concentration on the outward political order, but concentration on the Inner life, the nature of man, personal values, and peace of mind. My fourth remark then has to do with the general competing tendencies that we'll now see of this worldly tendency in an otherworldly tendency. Do you have any questions about these comments that I've made on Plato, Aristotle, and the five major schools of philosophy of their day? All make sense to you? Okay, let's move on in our outline to D then, the rise of the Roman Empire. Some people might think, well, what does this have to do. Why is this in the outline? Dr. Bonston, we're not studying political history here. This is the history of philosophy. Well, I suppose it's a recognition that philosophy doesn't develop in a vacuum. The way people see the world and respond to it, their understanding of human life and its meaning and significance is inevitably influenced by the conditions under which people have to live. So the rise of the Roman Empire is important to us in general, but it's important specifically to Christians because to understand the significance of the claims of Christ when he comes into this world, the Son of God and the Messiah, I think you have to understand the Roman Empire as well as the schools of thought that were available in that day, because they are both going to be a matter for Christian confrontation. Christians are going to have a different outlook on life, a different message, but they're also going to have a different way of life, which includes a different view of community and authority and those sorts of things. So anyway, a few comments about the rise of the Roman Empire. It begins with the Greek Empire, though Alexander the Great's. Accomplishments and outlook offer us something of a preparation for the imperial perspective of Rome. The imperial perspective of Rome. I've chosen those words purposely. Once Rome rises to power and exercises its influence across the Mediterranean world, I think we can speak correctly of people now seeing things in an imperial perspective. No longer do we see things in a localist, city state perspective. We see things in terms of a worldwide empire. And we shouldn't underestimate the significance of that for the way people do philosophy and live their lives. Anyway, Alexander prepared for this imperial perspective. His geographical expansion, his rule as a Greek emperor, called for a much stronger bond than those which originally held together the Greek city states. Originally, there was a sense of ethnic superiority among the Greeks as well as loose confederation between the independent city states. But Alexander realized he couldn't hold his empire together with Greek superiority, ethnic superiority, or with just the notion of loose confederation of individual independent cities. And so Alexander promoted ethnic homogeneity, encouraged his soldiers to intermarry across the empire, which in time very naturally brings with it a leveling of that ethnic superiority that the Greeks felt. Alexander realized that. I want to put it in words that he might not have used, but he realized he had to create a brotherhood of some sort across the empire. And so he promoted ethnic homogeneity. But he also needed a sense of order. And that order across the empire was promoted by having Alexander having himself worshipped as a God. That is, the deification of the emperor begins with Alexander the Great as a political need to reinforce and stabilize the unity of the empire. But as you know, the emperor God died at age 33. Isn't that ironic? Here's a man who has himself worshipped as God and he dies at an early age. Well, of course, if he dies at all, that too is ironic. But here he dies at age 33 in the year 323 BC. The next major power to appear on the world scene, as you know, is Rome. So let's go back and talk about Rome for a bit. Backing up a century or so from the death of Alexander in the year 452 BC the unwritten Roman laws, the laws that were oral and a matter of memory and precedent. The unwritten Roman laws were set down on what came to be called the 12 tablets. Rome had been a small city state originally, very much like Athens or Sparta or what have you, obviously didn't begin as an empire. And Rome as a small city state experienced a gradual expansion of the franchise under pressure to eliminate political privileges for the patricians. The patricians were the. The overlords who would rule, but the plebeians, the common people, were not happy with that arrangement. And I can't rehearse the political development. It's not all that important for our purposes, but there is a gradual development of the franchise being extended to the plebeians. You know what I mean by the franchise? Full rights of citizenship. So you see in Roman history, the desire to have law codified. So there's something objective to appeal to under which we live. And secondly, an equalizing tendency among men that didn't happen overnight, didn't happen for an election. It's over a hundred or so years. But it's interesting that by the time of 367 B.C. within a generation of the death of Alexander in 367 B.C. a Plemian is elected as one of the two consuls in Rome. At that time, Rome was ruled by two consuls. And amazingly, a man from the lower class, a plebeian, had now elected to that. So the direction of Roman culture from these two illustrations I've given you is toward legal codification, living life under law. And secondly, equalizing men under the law. Rome went through more than a century of conflict with Carthage. From the year 264 BC to 146. There was continuing warfare between Rome and Carthage. Rome, of course, won eventually in the year 146, subjugated Carthage. And from that point on Rome sought further territorial expansion. In the same year that it established its dominance over Carthage. 146. By that time Greece had been made effectively a Roman province. Rome had extended its power over the Greek city states. If we were to leave our little story about the rise of Rome at the this point, we would see an empire that is growing. Carthage, Greece and so forth is going to eventually encompass the Mediterranean world. An empire where there's an equalizing political effect. All men are to be ruled by a common law. But that equalizing or leveling effect in politics was offset by the growth of the empire. Because that growth brought with it the amassing of wealth. Not just wealth as minor variation within the economic world, but massive amounts of wealth. We're talking about palatial living for some people. The expansion of of the empire also brings with it the importation of foreign slaves. And with the great importation of slaves we see the middle class driven out because of the place the slaves can take in doing farming and doing menial tasks and so forth. There is a greater economic stratification now between the wealthy and those who are not wealthy. Or another way of putting it is we see a reduction of the middle class in Rome. And with that stratification, that economic stratification and knowing the selfishness and sinfulness of men, we're not supposed to that the proconsuls of Rome readily were given to bribing the urban poor with promises of bread and promises of circuses. And Rome slid into greater and greater social degradation and social chaos. Things got so bad there was such a. A sense of tension in class warfare. And there was such a breakdown of morality and social consciousness, to use a modern way of putting it. The populace began to long for stability and security and peace instead of all these warring parties and tension. And because of this desire for stability and for security and peace, the Roman populace was willing to allow the Caesars to concentrate political power in the hands of one man. If you stop and think about it, the conditions necessary for affluence, for economic affluence and so forth are stability and security. And peace within the society. It's very hard in these days for you to get ahead financially in Lebanon. You never know who's going to come and take your money, if the government's going to intervene. If you don't have a sense of peace and stability in your society, you can't get ahead economically because there's no predictability, there's no security of private property and so forth. So because the populace longed for stability and security, that would be the necessary conditions of affluence. They were willing to let Julius Caesar and then Octavian Caesar concentrate political power, the power of the state, into the hands of one man, the emperor. And how would this one man rule? By an extensive system of civil servants that we would today call a bureaucracy. We have the centralization of power in the emperor and the rule by means of a bureaucracy of. Of civil servants. This offers a unified administration for the empire. I hope this little vignette helps you explain. Helps explain the growth of Rome and the structure, the general order of Roman society. What comes with this, though? With the concentration of power in the hands of an emperor and an extensive bureaucratic administration, you have unity, but there's a corresponding loss of personal freedoms and independence. Right. People are now, for the sake of law and order, the conditions of affluence are willing to give up their personal freedoms and a great deal of their own independence. And this loss of personal freedom and independence itself complements the securing of a widespread unity in the empire through military might. Rome is not only imperial, it's not only widespread and unified under the emperor, but it's an imperial administration enforced by military threat. So we have the loss of personal freedom and independence complementing widespread law and order under military might. This brings the pax roana, the peace of Rome, which is supposed to be the glory of the Roman Empire. Gradually, the absolutistic authority of fathers was mitigated in Rome by legal rights being granted to sons and wives. And even slaves were allowed to be emancipated under certain circumstances. Earlier, under the Republic, a father had such absolute authority that he could execute his own children. His wife had no claims to inheritance against him. Whatever his will dictated was right, and slaves had no rights whatsoever. But under the Pax Romana, there is an easing of this absolutism of the father and the family. Moreover, the distinction that originally held between a law for Roman citizens and a law for other nations came to be superseded by a law which was valid for all men. That is, Rome had one law for its citizens. There in Rome and then another kind of law that all of its territories had to observe. But over time there developed the idea as a moral ideal that there was a law for all men that unifies Roman citizens and people living in other nations, the other territories, a higher law, if you will, as an ideal that governs all men. Obviously, a universal law of this nature helps give unity and stability and predictability to the empire. It likewise promoted a widening of privileges of citizenship to all the free inhabitants of the empire, not just the privilege of citizenship for those who live in the province of Rome. So we can see some advantages in the Pax Roman, a universal law giving stability and predictability a widening of citizenship to all the free inhabitants. Sadly, the Pax Romana was purchased at the cost of deifying the early emperors, though you see you have the peace of Rome granted by the messianic deified emperor. Having described the rise of Rome, I hope that you can see that the needs of imperial Rome, the needs of an empire, were especially attuned to the emphasis of Stoic philosophy. Stoic philosophy was at the right place at the right time. We can say as wrong, right rises to power and needs to unify the empire. The idea of the citizenship of all men, now that's not early Rome, but that's the gradual development, the idea of a universal law as an ideal over all men and so forth. Stoic philosophy offered that. And so this, I think, is one of those cases where it's pretty easy to see the popularity of Stoicism as being as a rising. In fact, it just met the needs of its day. However, the empire broadly imbibed the scholarship and attitudes of the Greeks, not just Stoicism. Stoicism was especially popular, but the empire absorbed Athens and the reputation for scholarship and the outlook of the Greek philosophers, so that the empire passed on to posterity and preserved for a long period of time, not only a political order or a judicial structure, but it also passed on across the empire a Hellenized worldview, the worldview and outlook and interest of the ancient Greeks. Okay, in our discussion of the Roman period then, I've reviewed for you the five major schools that arise and given some commentary on it. We've talked about the socio political conditions and the rise of the Roman Empire and how that affects the way men see the world and the popularity of Stoic philosophy and so forth. Let me see if I can't take a few minutes now and review for you the developments in Stoicism, Epicureanism and skepticism. These are the three major schools that are on the rise between the death of Aristotle and the advent of Christ. All right, let's move ahead in our outline then to a review of Stoicism. Now, Stoicism, Epicureanism and skepticism are the three dominant schools that have developed between Aristotle and Christ. Stoics begin, or the school of Stoicism begins with Zeno, who was a native of Cyprus and about the year 320, apparently went to Athens to study, and thus appears in Athens right about the time of Aristotle's death. Having studied the philosophers that were in Athens at the time, about the year 300, he founded his own school. And the name of the school comes from the area where he held his classes or discussions, the stoa or the porch. So his followers were known as the Stoics. Zeno was especially impressed with the man, Socrates. Socrates obviously was influential. Plato had been captivated by him. Zeno had learned about Socrates and was was very impressed with this man. However, where Plato developed Socrates interest in dialectic and a rational answer to the problems of men, seeking universal and absolute forms for morality, where Plato was interested, if you will, in the epistemological and thus metaphysical aspect of Socrates teaching, it was the lifestyle and the ethical opinions of Socrates that Zeno was particularly interested in. Let's remember, stepping outside of Stoicism for a second, we discussed the Cynics. The Cynics were likewise disciples of Socrates. And what impressed the Cynics about Socrates was his independence of character and his ability to be indifferent to circumstance. I mean, after all, here's a man who's been condemned to die unjustly and he's willing to drink the hemlock with an inner calm and resolve. They were impressed that Socrates could live such a life. They followed him in the belief that no harm could come to a truly good man. Now, it does seem that bad things happen to good people, though. And so the Cynics drew the conclusion that these bad things were not real bad after all, and they should be accepted with passive indifference. If pain comes to you, if poverty comes to you, accept it with passive indifference and death as well, even as Socrates did. Men who are truly virtuous, according to the Cynics, will be indifferent to everything that happens to them. Now, Zeno agreed with that, this part of Cynic teaching. He agreed that men should live indifferently to their circumstances, that they should just have a passive resignation. But the Cynics were led to antisocial behavior. They were led to throw off the restraints of civilization and in fact, to endorse power politics and revolution and all sorts of things. Because of their cynicism, Zeno couldn't follow them in that direction, the anarchistic direction they took their views. However, he did develop in great detail the attitude of passive indifference or passive resignation in the face of outward circumstances. As for his epistemology, Zeno believed that everything we know is based on perception. He held that when we enter this world our minds are blank and what happens is sensations impress themselves on our blank mind and leave something there we remember our sensations. However, he did not agree with Aristotle that what sensations leave on the mind is a form.