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'Epictetus (AD 55-135) was a Stoic and a Cynic, but most of the Golden Sayings sound as if they could have been spoken by a Christian. His themes are abandonment to God's Will (Fate/Destiny), contentment and acceptance of one's circumstances in life, fearlessness in the face of death (which for the good man is just a portal to the banquet of the gods), living virtuously, avoiding bad company, and so forth. He made no mention in here of any contact with Christianity, although he must have had some as a Greek at that time, in which the faith was spreading like wildfire through Greece and the Mediterranean.  There is a lot of good wisdom in this for the Christian, as Epictetus testifies to the unanimous Natural Law of pre-modernity, and ordering one's life around it. I am reminded here of a heresy I once heard (I think from the Jesus Seminar, that brood of vipers) that Jesus was "just" a wandering Jewish cynic philosopher. Of course, that is not true, but it points out how much in common the Cynics, the Stoics, and the Christians had, at least in the case of Epictetus. Fate and Providence are radically different, separated by a chasm. Fate is chaotic, random, capricious; Providence is ordered and loving. Epictetus believes in the second but not in any revealed religion.'

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