Stoicism

<p>Stoicism, one of the three leading schools of philosophy in first century Greek culture; the other two being epicureanism and cynicism.</p>

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The philosophy that held self-mastery as the greatest virtue. Self-mastery comes from being indifferent to both pleasure and pain, reaching the place where one feels nothing. In contrast to the practical atheism of the Epicureans, the Stoics were pantheists.

MacArthur New Testament Commentary, The - MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Acts 13-28.</p>

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F. F. Bruce. "Stoicism and Epicureanism represent alternative attempts in pre-Christian paganism to come to terms with life, especially in times of uncertainty and hardship, and post-Christian paganism down to our own day has not been able to devise anything appreciably better." (<i>The Book of the Acts</i>, The New International Commentary on the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971], 351)</p>