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The Stoic Reader
Stoic texts read beside the New Testament passages that share their words or their argument, and where the New Testament turns.
The athlete's training
Epictetus tells the man who wants to win at Olympia to count the cost of the diet, the training and the beatings first. Paul says every athlete exercises self-control in all things for a wreath that perishes.
1 Corinthians 9:25, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: Epictetus and Paul both use the Olympic athlete to teach discipline. Are they training for the same prize? Two runners get up at five every morning. One is chasing a medal; the other is chasing a promise somebody made her. Does it change the training?
"I would conquer at the Olympic Games. But consider what precedes and follows, and then, if it be for your advantage, engage in the affair. You must conform to rules, submit to a diet, refrain from dainties; exercise your body, whether you choose it or not, at a stated hour, in heat and cold."
No shared key word. Epictetus lists the athlete's duties with εὐτακτεῖν (to keep good order), ἀναγκοφαγεῖν (to eat by rule) and γυμνάζεσθαι (to exercise). Paul's word is ἐγκρατεύομαι (enkrateuomai), Strong's G1467: πᾶς δὲ ὁ ἀγωνιζόμενος πάντα ἐγκρατεύεται, every competitor exercises self-control in all things. The site's lexicon gives two New Testament uses, 1 Corinthians 7:9 and 9:25.
Both make the athlete's regime the model for a disciplined life, and both are blunt about the cost. Epictetus's next sentence has the athlete thrown into a ditch, his arm dislocated, his ankle turned, and still losing. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says athletes in the Greek games competed for their cities under strict rules of training. Epictetus elsewhere says God, like a trainer, has matched you with a rough young opponent so that you may be an Olympic victor (1.24.1-2).
The prize. Epictetus's athlete must first ask whether the contest is to his advantage, and the lesson is to count the cost before you start. Paul's athlete runs for an imperishable wreath against their perishable one (9:25), and his fear is not losing the race but being disqualified after preaching to others (9:27). The study note says the victor's garland would decompose over time. Epictetus trains to be a philosopher. Paul trains so as not to lose what he has preached.
Athletic imagery was common in the moral writing of the time; the NIV note on Philippians 1:30 says ancient thinkers often used such images for their own labors for truth. The pairing is drawn here, and no source in hand says Paul knew Epictetus's version.
Not a call to sport. Both writers use the games as a picture of the inner life.
- Epictetus, Discourses 3.15.1-5 and 1.24.1-2, Greek text ed. Heinrich Schenkl (Teubner, 1916), Perseus Digital Library (canonical-greekLit)
- Epictetus, Discourses, trans. Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1890), 3.15 and 1.24, Perseus Digital Library
- Epictetus, Enchiridion 29, Greek text ed. Schenkl, Perseus Digital Library
- SBL Greek New Testament, 1 Corinthians 9:25, via MorphGNT
- Site Greek lexicon (Abbott-Smith), word-study-lexicon.json, G1467
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Zondervan, 2016), notes on 1 Corinthians 9:24, Galatians 5:7 and Philippians 1:30
