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Cleanthēs (c.331–c.232 BC), of Assos in the Troad, successor of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, as head of that school of philosophy from c.261 to his death. He was said to have defined Zeno's instruction to ‘live consistently’ as meaning ‘to live consistently with nature’. In his ethical teaching he stressed disinterestedness, saying that to do good to others with a view to one's own benefit was no different from feeding cattle in order to eat them. His Stoicism was pervaded by a religious fervour expressed in the thirty-eight surviving hexameter lines of a hymn to Zeus, in which Zeus is envisaged as the spirit that permeates and rules the universe, and human beings as the only living things that have a semblance to him. Parts of the poem express the Stoic view that all events are the will of a perfect God, and that men's acceptance of this fact will bring them peace of mind. Other small fragments of Cleanthes' works survive.

 
 

(c. 331-232 BC) Stoic philosopher, and second head of the Stoic school. Coming between Zeno of Citium, the founder, and Chrysippus, the ‘second founder’ of the Stoic school, Cleanthes has usually been accorded a relatively minor position. However, his Hymn to Zeus contains an elaboration of Stoic physics, explaining the flux in terms of a principle of ‘tension’ (tonos) in the underlying substance of the world. He represents the pantheism of Stoicism, and the conception of ideal life as one lived in accordance with nature. He is himself recorded as a patient and gentle person, undeserving of his nickname ‘the ass’.

 
(klēăn'thēz) , 3d cent. B.C., Greek philosopher, head of the Stoic school following Zeno.
 
Dictionary: Cle·an·thes  (klē-ăn'thēz) pronunciation, 331?–232? B.C..

Greek philosopher who succeeded Zeno as head of the Stoic school. His most famous work is a hymn to Zeus.


 
Wikipedia: Cleanthes

Cleanthes (c. 301-232 or 252 BC) was a Stoic philosopher and scholarch or head of the Stoic school.

Life

Cleanthes was born in Assos in the Troad and before his conversion to philosophy was a boxer. With but four drachmae in his possession he came to Athens, where he listened first to the lectures of Crates the Cynic, and then to those of Zeno, the Stoic, supporting himself meanwhile by working all night as water-carrier to a gardener. His power of patient endurance, or perhaps his slowness, earned him the title of "the Ass"; but such was the esteem awakened by his high moral qualities that, on the death of Zeno in 263, he became the leader of the school. He continued, however, to support himself by the labour of his own hands.

Among his pupils were his successor, Chrysippus, and Antigonus Monophthalmus, from whom he accepted 2000 minae. The manner of his death was characteristic. A dangerous ulcer had compelled him to fast for a time. Subsequently he continued his abstinence, saying that, as he was already half-way on the road to death, he would not trouble to retrace his steps [1].

Works and doctrines

Cleanthes produced very little that was original, though he wrote some fifty works, of which fragments have come down to us. The principal is the large portion of the Hymn to Zeus, which has been preserved in Stobaeus. He regarded the sun as the abode of God, the intelligent providence, or (in accordance with Stoical materialism) the vivifying fire or aether of the universe. Virtue, he taught, is life according to nature; but pleasure is not according to nature.

He originated a new theory as to the individual existence of the human soul; he held that the degree of its vitality after death depends upon the degree of its vitality in this life. The principal fragments of Cleanthes's works are contained in Diogenes Laertius and Stobaeus; some may be found in Cicero and Seneca.

David Hume

"Cleanthes" is also a character in David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

References

  1. ^ Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers ISBN 0-674-99204-0

Bibliography

  • GC Mohinke, Kleanthes der Stoiker (Greifswald, 1814)
  • C Wachsmuth, Commentationes de Zenone Citiensi et Cleanthe Assio (Göttingen, 1874-1875)
  • AC Pearson, Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes (Camb., 1891)
  • Article by E Wellmann in Ersch and Gruber's Allgemeine Encyklopädie
  • R Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu Ciceros philosophischen Schriften, ii. (1882), containing a vindication of the originality of Cleanthes
  • AB Krische, Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der alten Philosophie (1840).
  • Johan C. Thom, Cleanthes' Hymn to Zeus. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005. ISBN 3-16-148660-9.

See also

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.


 
 

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Classical Literature Companion. The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. Copyright © 1993, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Philosophy Dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Copyright © 1994, 1996, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Cleanthes" Read more

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