86 SCOTT HAFEMANN the attributes of perfect human rationality were not merely metaphor- ical, since they rejected the mechanistic view of nature held by the Epi- cureans 21. “Nature in fact is animate and rational in a way that is at least comparable to the way in which a human being is this”; nature is a divine being in that it is perfectly rational, so that “god” is “the active principle of the world” 22. Accordingly, when speaking of nature as god, the Stoics mean “consciousness and inflexible lawlikeness” 23. Since it was the determining source of all things, Stoics could also equate this active “nature” (φύσις) with the “law of nature” (νόµος fusewj), according to which all things and people (ought to) live 24. , Even among the “scientific” perspective of the Epicureans, “na- ture”, as that which “is”, consisted of a visible, physical reality incor- porating the tangible bodies, the invisible atoms, and the intangible void in which the atoms exist and “fall” to form visible reality (Epi- curus, Fr. 75, 76; and Plutarch, Mor. 1112DE) 25. There was, more- over, an inextricable, often mechanistically deterministic link between the inner nature of the atoms, with their movement in the void, and the external nature or character of what is seen. Of special relevance for our study is the fact that this link between “nature” and its corresponding actions led in the popular philosophy of the day, fueled above all by Stoicism, to the moral dictum of “liv- ing according to nature” (kata. fu,sin zh/n; Lat. secundum naturam vivere) 26. “Damit reduziert sich Tugendhaftigkeit (avreth,, Lat. virtus) TROELS ENGBERG-PEDERSEN, The Stoic Theory of Oikeiosis. Moral De- 21 velopment and Social Interaction in Early Stoic Philosophy (Studies in Hel- lenistic Civilization; Aarhus 1990) 59. ENGBERG-PEDERSEN, Stoic Theory, 59. 22 ENGBERG-PEDERSEN, Stoic Theory, 60. 23 MARTENS, One God, 18-21. He points to Cicero, Leg. 1.18-19, 34; 2.13; 24 3.2-3; Rep. 3.33; Parad. 14; N.D. 34, 82, 86; Off. 1.98-100. Martens argues that the concept of the “law of nature” came to include the other concepts of φύσις as the power of life and growth and the particular characteristics of any thing or being (68, n. 1). LENZ, “Deification”, 56, 66 n.65, emphasizes that the Epicurean view 25 of living like a god among men (cf. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 135) was more than a metaphor, but implied a philosophical-religious view of the world in which reason applied to philosophy created a corresponding life of ethics and peace of mind. See, e.g., Epictetus, Diatr. 1.21.2, who argued that contentment is found 26 only if one exercises desire and aversion kata. fu,sin, i.e., exercising choice and refusal w`j pe,fuka, since this is the only thing with its own moral purpose and power (cf. Diatr. 2.13.11; 3.3.1; 3.16.15; 3.23.12; 4.4.14, 28; etc.). © Gregorian Biblical Press 2012 - Tutti i diritti riservati