Attitudes toward Diogenes

Already in the third century, Origen had cited the Cynics with favor to justify the Christian practice of preaching in public and the life of voluntary poverty.^[23] The fourth century brought changes in the status of Christianity in aristocratic and hence in intellectual circles. As the relationship between Christianity and traditions of pagan learning was renegotiated, the figure of Diogenes was revalued. Basil of Caesarea, it seems, was quite fond of Diogenes the Cynic. In a casual note to a wealthy friend written around 358, Basil thanks his friend for gifts, joking that his beloved Poverty has been driven away. He muses that Poverty would object, since she had decided to live with Basil in the first place because he praised Zeno and Cleanthes and had donned the philosopher’s cloak. “As for Diogenes,” protests Poverty,

[Basil] has never ceased to admire him, who, endeavoring to be satisfied by the things derived from nature alone threw away even his drinking cup, after he learned from a boy how to bend over and drink from the hollow of his hands.^[24]

As he appears here, Diogenes might be taken for just one of many elements of the literary culture which Late Roman gentlemen shared and to which they might make witty reference. Basil’s commitment to the traditions which transmitted this literary culture, articulated in his Letter to Young Men on How They Might Benefit from Pagan Literature, is evidence for a balance struck between Christianity and Greek paideia in Christian intellectual circles. Basil’s formulation of the balance between Christian values and pagan culture had crucial consequences for the whole of Christian intellectual history in the East. With Basil, Diogenes became firmly rooted in a Christian intellectual tradition. Basil’s Letter to Young Men had tremendous influence in Late Antiquity and in Byzantine times, shaping a Christian philosophy of education that accommodated prevailing Late Antique pagan curricula.^[25]

Basil felt that the example of Diogenes which was presented in the educational curriculum was instructive and worthy of inclusion in the canon of information to be passed on to Christian students. In Basil’s letter on pagan literature, among references to Homer and Hesiod, Plato and Plutarch, are passages based on chreiai attributed to Diogenes of Sinope. Diogenes exemplified a form of behavior which Basil felt was desirable for Christian youths. Basil writes,

[T]o spend one’s time, beyond what is necessary, on the care of the hair or on dress, is, according to the saying of Diogenes, the mark of men who are either unfortunate or doing wrong.^[26] Hence, to be a dandy and get the name of being one ought, I maintain, to be considered by persons so inclined just as disgraceful as to keep company with harlots or to seduce other men’s wives. For what difference should it make, at least to a man of sense, whether he is clothed in a costly robe or wears a cheap workman’s cloak, so long as what he has on gives adequate protection against the cold of winter and the heat of summer?^[27]

And later,

I admire also the scorn of Diogenes for all human good without exception, who declared himself richer than the Great King [Alexander the Great] by reason of the fact that he needed less for living than the King.^[28]

Thus, Diogenes’ simple comportment—rather than his shameless acts—received Basil’s praise.

Not only was Diogenes a moral exemplar, he was also an instrument of polemic. The pagan tradition, of course, was not static in this era, and the meaning of the figure of Diogenes was debated by pagans as well as Christians. There is no better evidence of the pagan concern to revalue the legacy of the Cynic tradition in this era than the writings of the Emperor Julian. Julian’s oration directed against “uneducated Cynics” was probably composed in Constantinople, late in the spring of 362.^[29] In this speech Julian defended Diogenes from criticisms which had been directed against him by contemporary Cynics, especially that Diogenes was foolish when he ingested raw octopus. Julian defended this deed, as well as many of Diogenes’ acts of shamelessness, by arguing that Diogenes’ intent was to determine which activities humans engaged in on account of nature, and which they engaged in merely to conform to social convention (δόξα).^[30] Julian presents Diogenes as a model against which to judge contemporary Cynics, and in fact all philosophers. For Julian, Diogenes is the ideal pagan philosophical type, and Diogenes’ shameless acts are an essential and even laudable aspect of his character. Although Julian states he is responding to Cynic allegations against Diogenes in this oration, criticism was also leveled at Diogenes by Christians, and Julian seems to have taken on the defense of a pagan philosophical type in order to present Diogenes as an alternative to Christian asceticism.

Shortly after he composed this oration against the “uneducated Cynics,” Julian spent time in residence at Antioch. When Julian’s remarks about Diogenes are read against the comments of John Chrysostom, a monk and later presbyter at Antioch, we can see that the value of Diogenes as a model for moral behavior was part of the larger debate between pagans and Christians in the second half of the fourth century over which community was the legitimate heir of Greco-Roman educational and philosophical traditions.

Although his writings have led one modern critic to suggest that he “retained little admiration” for the poets and philosophers he had read in the pagan curriculum, Chrysostom had been widely educated in classical authors and would refer to them in his own writings to make a point.^[31] Certainly Chrysostom was not indifferent to all aspects of Greek philosophy, for while he was concerned to show that Greek philosophers compared badly with Christian thinkers, he was quick to cite the achievements of individual philosophers who had led lives which, at least in part, could be regarded as exemplary. Diogenes the Cynic received both Chrysostom’s criticism and his praise.

In his treatise Against the Enemies of the Monastic Life, John Chrysostom praises the ascetic virtues of Diogenes as well as Socrates and Plato. He writes,

Do you know how much money Alexander [the Great] would have given to Diogenes, if he wanted to accept it? But he did not want it. And Alexander tried hard and did everything so that he might some day come to Diogenes’s riches.^[32]

He concludes, “That other philosopher, the one from Sinope, was richer by far than these and countless other such kings.”^[33] Ironically, Chrysostom invokes Diogenes as an exemplar of the ascetic life in his defense of Christian monasticism. Chrysostom assumes that his audience is familiar with the story of Diogenes and Alexander, and that it was already inclined to think well of Diogenes.^[34] Chrysostom argues that if Diogenes was respected by educated Christians for his way of life, despite the fact that he was a pagan, how much more should the Christian ascetic be worthy of respect.^[35]

While Diogenes’ legendary impurity and shamelessness seem to have been overlooked by Basil, Chrysostom voiced his disapproval. In his Discourse on the Blessed Babylas, composed in Antioch around 378, Chrysostom compares the murdered bishop of Antioch to ancient philosophers. Of course, Babylas is superior to these men. Chrysostom accuses the pagan philosophers of “vain-glory, impudence, and puerility” and praises Babylas because “he did not shut himself up in a large wine cask, nor did he go round the market place clothed in rags.” The reference, of course, is to Diogenes.^[36] Chrysostom chides Diogenes for his audacity in asking Alexander the Great to step out of his light. When Chrysostom’s imaginary interlocutor protests that “ ‘the man from Sinope was also temperate and lived abstinently, even refusing to contract a legitimate marriage,’ ” Chrysostom responds, “But add how and in what way! You will not add it, but prefer to deprive him of praise for temperance than tell the mode of his temperance, so foul and full of so much shame.”^[37] The reference here is most likely to stories about Diogenes’ tendency to masturbate in public.^[38] After condemning the approving attitudes of Aristotle, Chrysippus, Socrates, and Plato toward various sex acts, Chrysostom accuses Diogenes of being indifferent to cannibalism. Chrysostom presents Diogenes as licentious and morally irresponsible, hardly worthy of comparison with a Christian saint. What is most intriguing is that Chrysostom’s argument proceeds by countering a position which he assumes to be commonplace: that Diogenes’ way of life—his poverty, freedom, and temperance—was laudable.

The speech in praise of the martyr Babylas is directed “against Julian and against the pagans.” It is probable that Chrysostom was familiar with Julian’s oration against the “uneducated Cynics.” Julian argued that Diogenes had rejected common opinion in favor of a life according to the principles of nature, a standard interpretation of Diogenes’ behavior found already in the pseudepigraphic epistles.^[39] But the Greek word doxa (δόξα), which Julian and the epistles use to mean “social convention” or “opinion,” also means “glory” or “honor,” a concept related to renown or repute.^[40] For Chrysostom, glory was for God alone and was to be rejected by the saints. Chrysostom’s letter to a young widow argues that a number of ancient philosophers rejected wealth in pursuit of “glory from everyone [τῆς δόξης τῆς παρὰ τῶν πολλῶν],” that is, public recognition or common good opinion. It is precisely this virtue of the rejection of doxa which Chrysostom wishes to instill in the widow.^[41] In arguing here that Diogenes sought doxa, Chrysostom contradicts the commonplace assertion found in Julian that he did not. For Chrysostom, the notion that Diogenes had been motivated by doxa was sufficient grounds to condemn him. In a homily on First Corinthians, Chrysostom says that the apostles did not seek glory,

Not like him of Sinope, who clothed in rags and living in a cask to no good end, astonished many, but profited none: whereas Paul did none of these things; (for neither had he an eye to ostentation;) but was both clothed in ordinary apparel with all decency, and lived in a house continually, and displayed all exactness in the practice of all other virtue; which the Cynic despised, living impurely and publicly disgracing himself, and dragged away by his mad passion for glory [δόξα]. For if any one ask the reason of his living in a cask, he will find no other but vain-glory alone.^[42]

Here and elsewhere, when John Chrysostom compared Cynics and Christians, the Cynics were to be faulted for their failure to achieve the virtues of early Christians. Chrysostom is thus refuting a contemporary pagan evaluation of Diogenes and the meaning of the Cynic tradition in order to prove the superiority of Christianity. In fact, Chrysostom is specifically interested in discrediting this pagan exemplar who most seems to embody Christian ideals.

John Chrysostom’s rejection of Diogenes as unworthy of a Christian’s praise stands in great contrast to the opinions of his predecessor as patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory of Nazianzus. In a letter composed after he had been removed from the patriarchate and returned to his home town, Gregory addressed the civic administrators of Nazianzus, seeking to obtain a tax exemption for a local priest.

It seems to me that you would not spare Diogenes of Sinope’s wallet, if it were up to you; rather if [only] you could lay your hand on it also, and regard his cloak, staff, and his lack of all possessions on account of his philosophy as a profession, his habit of going from door to door, living life however it comes . . . [thus you would also tax this poor priest who serves the community.]^[43]

Diogenes here, as we have seen elsewhere, is a paradigm for a person living in voluntary poverty for the sake of others. Such a person is worthy of regard by civil officials and therefore by the town in general. Gregory’s reference to Diogenes has much in common with that in the personal letter of Basil’s quoted above. Diogenes was part of these gentlemen’s culture, and Gregory’s opinion of Diogenes was not unlike that of his friend and fellow Cappadocian.

This similarity is all the more remarkable given Gregory’s previous experiences with a flesh and blood Cynic. In 380 a certain Maximus arrived in Constantinople from Alexandria. Before his conversion to Christianity, Gregory explains, Maximus had practiced Cynicism. When he arrived in Constantinople he still had long hair and carried a staff.^[44] It is clear from his garb as well as from Gregory’s description that, although Maximus had become a Christian, he remained in some sense a Cynic. The Nicene bishop of Constantinople, soon to be patriarch, Gregory of Nazianzus preached two panegyrics in his honor referring to him as a “philosopher.”^[45] These two orations in honor of Maximus are, in fact, a defense and praise of philosophy, albeit a conditional one. These neglected speeches are exceptionally good evidence for a late-fourth-century synthesis of pagan learning and Christian culture, a synthesis which the Cappadocians played a leading role in creating. Gregory’s treatment of philosophy was far more positive than anything that would be found in John Chrysostom. Gregory refers to philosophers in general as “witnesses [μαρτύρες] to the truth.”^[46] He continues, “Their splendid robes are angelic as is the radiance which they express in outward form in their bodies.”^[47] The language here recalls that used of Christian monastics (and late Neoplatonist pagan philosophers). This speech was given when, of all philosophical types, a Cynic was on hand. Gregory was not just referring to the martyred Socrates. In Gregory’s eyes the aims of Maximus’s philosophy and his Christianity were compatible. For Gregory, this Cynic Christian was a “defender of the truth and a champion of the Trinity,”^[48] worthy of comparison with the martyrs. Gregory refers to Maximus many times as a “dog,” punning on the commonly accepted etymology for the word “Cynic” (κυνικός, which can also mean “doglike”),^[49] and says that he is a

dog [κύων], not by shamelessness, but by courage [παρρησία], nor by gluttony, but by living day by day, nor by barking [ὑλακή], but by guarding [φυλακή] the good and keeping watch over souls, and by wagging your tail at whatever belongs to the family of virtue and barking at whatever does not.^[50]

The connection between Cynics and dogs is exploited most fully in praising the philosopher. Even in this high praise, however, we can see another vision of the Cynics, one characterized by accusations of shamelessness and gluttony. Maximus had, Gregory tells us, risen above the peculiar practices of his pagan predecessors—Antisthenes’ arrogance, Diogenes’ vegetarianism, and Crates’ fondness for group marriage—and was quite different from them in his prudence, continence, modesty, affability, sense of community, and love of humanity.^[51]

Gregory’s affection for Maximus did not last long. A few months after Maximus arrived in Constantinople, he attempted to unseat the bishop and have himself installed in Gregory’s place. He bribed a priest who was a member of Gregory’s staff to help him and gained the support of a mob of sailors from the Alexandrian fleet, recently moored at Constantinople. His plan failed, thanks to loyal citizens who interrupted Maximus’s sham consecration ceremony. Gregory was understandably furious, and not long after, when he had resigned his post and retired to his native Cappadocia, he expressed his wrath in his autobiographical poem De vita sua, devoting a quarter of the work to this incident.^[52] Explaining his error in praising Maximus earlier, Gregory writes, “It was a great thing for me when a dog trod in my courtyard and worshipped Christ instead of Herakles.”^[53] But Gregory only condemned the man, not his philosophy. Concluding his narration of this episode he says, “Such is the philosophy of our modern dogs: barking dogs, and dogs in this alone. In what way are they like Diogenes or Antisthenes? What has Crates to do with you?”^[54] Gregory echoes Julian in rejecting the Cynics of his own day because they did not live up to the examples of the great Cynics of the past.

In his later years, when he spent much of his time composing poetry, Gregory continued to hold that Christians could learn from virtuous nonbelievers, “like gathering roses from among the thorns.”^[55] In this way, he continued to make reference to the example of Diogenes.

Who has not heard of the Sinopean dog? What else needs be said but that he was someone thus, simple and moderate in life, and giving these laws to himself, not observing laws from God, and not on account of any hope, so that he had one possession, his staff, an open-air house in the middle of the town, a round barrel, an escape from the force of the wind, which for him was better than dwellings laden with gold, and food nearby, not prepared with toil.^[56]

For the retired patriarch, Diogenes’ life remained a romanticized ideal. Despite Gregory’s troubles with his Cynic contemporary, Diogenes continued to be proverbial for his virtuous poverty.^[57] His obvious shortcoming was that he was not motivated by the love or laws of God.