St. George Stock (modern guide) · 1850–1922
A Guide to Stoicism 5 ¶26 — St. George Stock (modern guide)
From “Physic”
Original English text (1908)
St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 5 ¶26
Thus all the deities except Zeus were mortal, or at all events, perishable. Gods, like men, were destined to have an end some day. They would melt in the great furnace of being as though they were made of wax or tin. Zeus then would be left alone with his own thoughts, or as the Stoics sometimes put it, Zeus would fall back upon Providence. For by Providence they meant the leading principle or mind of the whole, and by Zeus, as distinguished from Providence, this mind together with the cosmos, which was to it as body. In the efflagration the two would be fused into one in the single substance of aether. And then in the fulness of time there would be a restitution of all things. Everything would come round regularly again exactly as it had been before.
Cite this passage
St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 5 ¶26 (1908)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/a-guide-to-stoicism/5.26
St. George Stock, Stoicism (1908), text of the Haldeman-Julius reprint “A Guide to Stoicism”. Text: Project Gutenberg #7514. Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesAll the gods except Zeus would eventually melt in the universal fire, leaving Zeus alone with Providence, the mind of the whole. Afterwards all things would be restored and everything would recur exactly as before.
Older wording
- “Providence”
- — the divine reason that guides the universe
- “efflagration”
- — the periodic burning-up of the cosmos
- “restitution”
- — restoration
Themes and situations
- Nature and the cosmos
- Change and impermanence
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