The Fruit of the Spirit and Stoicism
Many are well aware of Galatians 5:22–23, where Paul speaks of the fruit of the Spirit. Yet, very rarely do we make connections between that passage and a popular philosophy that reigned in Paul’s day, namely, Stoicism. While Stoicism was a school of philosophy that included several perspectives, a popular consensus among these Stoic philosophers was the notion of the unity of virtues . Within Stoicism, it was widely accepted that if one did not possess all the virtues, one did not possess any of them. This sounds odd to modern ears since it seems to imply the necessity of perfection in order to be truly virtuous, but even the Stoics acknowledged that such perfection was nearly unattainable in this life. Yet while in the pursuit of the virtuous life, the Stoics believed that if one claimed to have possessed some virtues but did not possess others, then it would be questionable as to whether the Stoic sage possessed any of them. I believe that a similar notion could be part