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.
Having nothing
Epictetus's Cynic stands before the crowd with no house, no city, no slave, and asks what he lacks. Paul describes his apostles as having nothing and possessing everything.
2 Corinthians 6:10, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: when Paul says he has nothing and yet possesses everything, is that the Cynic's boast or a different claim? The man with one coat says he is the richest person in the room. He might mean he has learned to want nothing. He might mean he has been given something the room cannot see. Which is Paul saying?
"But how is it possible that a man destitute, naked, without house or home, squalid, unattended, an outcast, can lead a prosperous life? See; God hath sent us one, to show in practice that it is possible. Take notice of me, that I am without a country, without a house, without an estate, without a servant … And what need I?"
μηδὲν ἔχων (mēden echōn), having nothing. Epictetus's Greek at 3.22.45 asks how one can live well μηδὲν ἔχοντα (mēden echonta), having nothing. Paul's line at 2 Corinthians 6:10 is ὡς μηδὲν ἔχοντες καὶ πάντα κατέχοντες (hōs mēden echontes kai panta katechontes), as having nothing and possessing all things. The phrase is the same; the participle differs only in number.
The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says intellectuals could respect some of Paul's claims here: Cynic philosophers gave up all possessions but considered themselves spiritually rich, and Cynic and Stoic philosophers claimed that though they owned little or nothing, the world belonged to them because they were friends of the gods. Epictetus's Cynic even says God has sent him to show it can be done.
Paul does not say he lacks nothing. He lists beatings, prisons, sleepless nights and hunger (6:4-5) and says he is sorrowful yet always rejoicing (6:10). The Cynic of 3.22.48 claims to be without sorrow and without fear. Paul's poverty also makes others rich (6:10), which is not something the Cynic offers. Epictetus's freedom is the absence of need; Paul's riches come from the one he serves.
The phrase is shared and the study note names the Cynic and Stoic background. Wright calls Epictetus Paul's near contemporary, and no source in hand says either knew the other. The likeness belongs to a common way of talking about the philosopher's poverty.
Not a vow of poverty. Paul is describing what his ministry has cost, not prescribing a lifestyle for the Corinthians.
- Epictetus, Discourses 3.22.45-48, 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, 2 Corinthians 6:10, via MorphGNT
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Zondervan, 2016), note on 2 Corinthians 6:10
- N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography (HarperOne), ch. 8, Athens, calling Seneca and Epictetus Paul's near contemporaries
