St. George Stock (modern guide) · 1850–1922
A Guide to Stoicism 4 ¶41 — St. George Stock (modern guide)
From “Ethic”
Original English text (1908)
St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 4 ¶41
It is out of keeping with common sense to draw a hard and fast distinction between good and bad. Yet this was what the Stoics did. They insisted on effecting here and now that separation between the sheep and the goats, which Christ postponed to the Day of Judgment. Unfortunately, when it came to practice, all were found to be goats, so that the division was a merely formal one.
Cite this passage
St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 4 ¶41 (1908)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/a-guide-to-stoicism/4.41
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 notesThe author objects that a hard line between good and bad people defies common sense, since the Stoics made the separation that religion postpones to a final judgement. In practice every person turned out to fall on the wrong side, so the division was only a formal one.
Older wording
- “sheep and the goats”
- — the biblical picture of separating the righteous from the wicked
Themes and situations
- Virtue and character
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