The Stoic sage would be as impassible as God is impassible. But here's something to think about: Jesus on the cross died in agony like a man, even though, if he was God, he could have realized the Stoic ideal.
What is the lesson? Perhaps that to be impassible is for us impossible, and so no ideal at all.
Addendum 8/26: Leo Mollica supplies this appropriate quotation from Malebranche's The Search after Truth (Bk. II, Pt. iii, Ch. 4; tr. Lennon and Olscamp):
Epicurus was right in saying that offenses were bearable by a wise man. But Seneca was wrong in saying that wise men cannot even be offended.... Rather, let Christians learn from their Master that the impious are capable of hurting them, and that good men are sometimes subjected to these impious ones by the order of Providence. When one of the officers of the High Priest struck Jesus Christ, this wise man of the Christians, infinitely wise, and even as powerful as He is wise, confessed that this servant was capable of wounding him. He is not angered, He is not vengeful like Cato, He pardons, as having been truly wronged. He could have been vengeful and destroyed His enemies, but He suffered with a humble and modest patience injurious to no one, not even to this servant who had wronged Him.
Recent Comments