Stockdale on Stoicism 32

Stoicism is a noble philosophy that has proven to be more practicable than a modem cynic would expect. The Stoic viewpoint is often misunderstood because the casual reader misses the point—that all talk is in reference to the "inner life." 

Stoics belittle physical harm, but this is not braggadocio. They are speaking of it in comparison to the devastating agony of shame they fancied good men generating when they knew in their hearts that they had failed to do their duty vis-a-vis their fellow men or God. 

Though pagan, the Stoics had a monotheistic natural religion and were great contributors to Christian thought. The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man were Stoic concepts prior to Christianity. 

In fact, Chrysippus, one of their early theoreticians, made the analogy of what might be called the Soul of the Universe to the breath of a human (pneuma, in Greek). 

Saint Paul, a Hellenized Jew brought up in Tarsus, a Stoic town in Asia Minor, always used the Greek work pneuma, or breath, for soul. 

—from James B. Stockdale, Master of My Fate: A Stoic Philosopher in a Hanoi Prison 

IMAGES: Chrysippus and Saint Paul