ABSTRACT
We have already discussed in passing passages in Galatians and the Corinthian letters where others have sometimes discerned Stoic (but not Cynic) ideas, and have mostly but not always argued to the contrary, both for Paul and for those whose ideas he gives the impression of addressing. Thus we urged (chapter 1) that Galatians 3.28, 'Neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, no male and female' taken as a programme for action, would have sounded quite clearly Cynic, not Stoic, as would Paul's disparagement of 'the law' (chapter 3). It must certainly be agreed that for Stoics as well as for Cynics, only the wise man is rich, is king, and so forth ( 1 Cor 4.8); but it is also clear that the 'already' is a claim a Cynic could make seriously, whereas for Stoics this was an 'impossible possibility'. And the kinds of freedom Paul believes some
in Corinth are claiming are maintained at this date by Cynics; in Stoicism such anarchic ideals have long been abandoned.
