Stoicism: The Religion of Educated Men

In Ancient Rome, Stoicism was seen as the religion of educated men. The stoics believed that though men were not perfect, like the gods, they had the potential to be perfected. In his Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), the Roman politician and stoic philosopher, Seneca writes, “But some say: ‘Only to the immortal gods is given virtue and the happy life; we can attain but the shadow, as it were, and semblance of such goods as theirs. We approach them, but we never reach them.’ Reason, however, is a common attribute of both gods and men; in the gods it is already perfected, in us it is capable of being perfected.” Stoicism is the world’s longest lasting philosophical movement—founded by Zeno of Citium in the third century BC, it continues to be a major force till this day.