Chapter Two

SELF-DEFINITION AMONG THE CYNICS*

The Cynics and the Cynicism of the first century ad are known to us for the most part through Stoic interpreters, and the temptation is great, on the basis of Seneca’s account of Demetrius, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, and Dio Chrysostom, to draw a picture of Cynicism that obscures the differ- ences between Stoicism and Cynicism and among the Cynics themselves. In the second century, the diversity among the Cynics emerges more clearly as such personalities as Oenomaus of Gadara, Demonax, and Peregrinus Proteus appear on the scene. Unfortunately, only fragments of Oenomaus’s writings have been preserved, and only a few comments, mostly negative, are made about him by Julian. We are largely but not wholly dependent on Lucian’s interpretations of Demonax and Peregrinus for information about them. It is therefore fortunate that in the Cynic epistles we do have primary sources for the sect in the Empire. These neglected writings are more than the school exercises they have been thought to be, and enable us to determine the points at issue among the Cynics themselves.1

The Definition of Cynicism

Diogenes Laertius already experienced difficulty in describing common Cynic doctrine, and records that some considered it, not a philosophical school (αἵρεσις), but a way of life (Diogenes Laertius 6.103).2 He seems | to 12

* This article, which appeared in Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 11–24, is an abbreviated version of an earlier essay titled “Self-Definition among Epicureans and Cynics,” which appeared in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition: Volume 3: Self-Definition in the Greco-Roman World (ed. Ben F. Meyer and Edward P. Sanders; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 46–59, 192–197. The 1989 version of the article omits the discussion of Epicurean self-definition in the earlier essay. The context for the 1982 article was a symposium on self-definition in the Graeco-Roman world held in June, 1980, at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. 1 The texts are readily available in Rudolf Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci (SGB 47; Paris: A.F. Didot, 1873; repr., Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert, 1965). For introduction, text, and trans- lation of the most important letters, see Abraham J. Malherbe, ed., The Cynic Epistles: Study Edition (SBLSBS 12; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1977). 2 See also Diogenes Laertius 1.19–20 for Hippobotus’s refusal to list the Cynics as a philosophical school. For αἵρεσις as a school of thought, see John Glucker, Antiochus 636 chapter two incline to the view that it is a philosophical school, but notes that Cynics dispensed with logic and physics, and confined themselves to ethics. Cynics have generally been perceived as having an aversion to encyclopedic learn- ing and placing no premium on education in the pursuit of virtue. As a distinctively antisocial sect, they attached greatest importance to a way of life that gives chief emphasis to personal decision.3 Yet this generalization holds only partly. While it is true that in the Hellenistic period Cynicism did not require adherence to an organized system of doctrine, the major figures known to us, in contrast to the charlatans Lucian describes, were by no means anti-intellectual. Oenomaus reflects a knowledge of philosophical arguments about free will and providence,4 Demonax is said to have been eclectic although in dress he was a Cynic,5 Peregrinus is thought to have been influenced by Neopythagoreanism,6 and the Socratic epistles betray at least an openness to philosophy and its possible contribution to one’s progress toward virtue.7 Cynics differed among themselves in their philosophical eclecticism as they did in other matters, but a personal preference for or use in debate of one system does not appear to have been a major issue in determin- ing who was a Cynic. What made a Cynic was his dress and conduct, self-sufficiency, harsh behavior toward what appeared as excesses, and a practical ethical idealism, but not a detailed arrangement of a system resting on Socratic-Antisthenic principles. The result was that Cynicism and the Late Academy (Hyp 56; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), 166–192. On Diogenes’s passion for classification, see Jørgen Mejer, Diogenes Laertius and His Hellenistic Background (HermesE 40; Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1978), 52. Julian, who also describes it as a way of life (Or. 6.181D, 201A), nevertheless insists that it is a form of philosophy, a gift of the gods, but that it should be studied from the Cynics’ deeds rather than their writings (Or. 6.182C–189B). 3 See, e.g., Ragnar Höistad, Cynic Hero and Cynic King: Studies in the Cynic Conception of Man (Lund: C. Bloms, 1948), 34 and passim. 4 See Donald R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism: From Diogenes to the Sixth Century A.D. (London: Methuen, 1937; repr., Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1967; 2d ed., London: Bristol Classical Press, 1998), 169. David Amand, Fatalisme et liberté dans l’antiquité grecque. Recherches sur la survivance de l’argumentation morale antifataliste de Carnéade chez les philosophes grecs et les théologiens chrétiens des quatre premiers siècles (RTHP 3/19; Louvain: Bibliothèque de l’Université, 1945), 127–134. 5 Lucian, Demon. 5, 62; but cf. Demon. 14. 6 See Friedrich Überweg and Karl Praechter, Die Philosophie des Altertums (12th ed.; Berlin: E.S. Mittler, 1926), 512; Dudley, History of Cynicism, 180. Hazel M. Hornsby, “The Cynicism of Peregrinus Proteus,” Herm 23.48 (1933): 65–84, discusses the evidence and is skeptical of Neopythagorean influence on Peregrinus. 7 Ps.-Socrates, Ep. 25. In Ep. 18.2 and Ep. 20 there is a positive evaluation of Socrates’s λόγοι, in contrast to Lucian, Vit. auct. 11, where education and doctrine are regarded as superfluous. Cf. Julian, Or. 6.189AB: “For Diogenes deeds sufficed.”