Tool Alpha
The Stoic Reader
Stoic texts read beside the New Testament passages that share their words or their argument, and where the New Testament turns.
Sent
Epictetus says the true Cynic must know he has been sent from Zeus as a messenger to show men where good and evil lie. Paul says Christ sent him to preach the gospel, not with clever words.
1 Corinthians 1:17, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: Epictetus's Cynic and Paul both say God sent them. Is it the same kind of sending? The man at the door says the company sent him. He might be selling the company's ideas or delivering its package. What is each messenger carrying?
"And even this preparation is by no means sufficient for a true Cynic. But it must further be known that he is a messenger sent from Zeus to men, concerning good and evil; to show them that they are mistaken, and seek the essence of good and evil where it is not, but do not observe it where it is."
ἀποστέλλω (apostellō), Strong's G649, to send on a mission. Epictetus 3.22.23: ἄγγελος ἀπὸ τοῦ Διὸς ἀπέσταλται, he has been sent as a messenger (ἄγγελος, angelos) from Zeus. At 3.22.46 the Cynic says God has sent (ἀπέσταλκεν) him to show by deed that a man with nothing can live well, and at 4.8.31 Epictetus imagines a man saying he has been sent by God as an example. 1 Corinthians 1:17: οὐ γὰρ ἀπέστειλέν με Χριστὸς βαπτίζειν ἀλλὰ εὐαγγελίζεσθαι, Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel.
Both men claim a divine commission to go among people and tell them they are looking for good in the wrong place. Both expect to be poor, mocked and misunderstood. Wright says one might almost think Paul had been a childhood friend of someone like Epictetus, a thinker determined to get philosophy out of the classroom and into the street.
The message. The Cynic shows by his own self-command where good lies: in the will, within reach. Paul is sent to preach not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ is not emptied of its power (1:17), and the cross is foolishness to Greeks (1:23). Epictetus's messenger is himself the proof. Paul's message points away from the messenger to a crucified Messiah.
The verb is shared, and the Cynic as sent from God is a striking parallel to the apostle, a word built on the same verb. Wright's line is a comparison of manner, not a claim of contact. No source in hand says Paul knew this discourse.
Not a claim that apostles were Cynics. Paul refuses the one thing the Cynic relies on, the wisdom of his own argument.
- Epictetus, Discourses 3.22.23-25, 3.22.46 and 4.8.31, Greek text ed. Heinrich Schenkl (Teubner, 1916), Perseus Digital Library (canonical-greekLit)
- Epictetus, Discourses, trans. Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1890), 3.22, Perseus Digital Library
- SBL Greek New Testament, 1 Corinthians 1:17, via MorphGNT
- Site word study data, word-study-alpha.json, G649
- N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography (HarperOne), Introduction
