"Many words have been spoken by Plato, Zeno, Chrysippus, Posidonius, and by a whole host of equally excellent Stoics. I'll tell you how people can prove their words to be their own-by putting into practice what they've been preaching."-SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 108.35; 38
("플라톤, 제논, 크리시푸스, 포시도니우스 그리고 그에 못지않게 훌륭한 스토아 학파의 수많은 철학자들이 많은 말을 남겼습니다. 그들이 자신의 말이 진정한 것임을 증명할 수 있는 방법은 바로 자신이 설파한 것을 실천에 옮기는 것입니다." - 세네카, 도덕적 서신, 108.35; 38)
One of the criticisms of Stoicism by modern translators and teachers is the amount of repetition. Marcus Aurelius, for example, has been dismissed by academics as not being original because his writing resembles that of other, earlier Stoics. This criticism misses the point.
Even before Marcus's time, Seneca was well aware that there was a lot of borrowing and overlap among the philosophers. That's because real philosophers weren't concerned with authorship, only what worked. More important, they believed that what was said mattered less than what was done.
And this is as true now as it was then. You're welcome to take all of the words of the great philosophers and use them to your own liking (they're dead; they don't mind). Feel free to tweak and edit and improve as you like....
저도 종교들의 역사를 공부하고 한 종교 내에서도 교리의 실질적 변천이 드라마틱할 정도로 크다는 사실을 알게되면서 깨닫게 된 바가 비슷합니다. 결국 본질적인 차이가 있는가? 의심의 단계에서 지금은 사실 의미있는 차이가 아닐 것이라는 점, 그리고 그렇게 바라보는 것이 나 자신을 포함해서 종교가 있는 사람들이 신앙을 유지할 진짜 근거가 될 것이라는 확신 단계까지 왔습니다. 즐거운 글 읽기였습니다. 고맙습니다.
