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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
In chapters 30–1 of the de Stoicorum repugnantiis, Plutarch sets out to show that the Stoics involve themselves in self-contradiction if they claim that their philosophy allows them an intelligible notion of providence. In the first place, he says, this is so because the traditional boons which men expect to receive from the gods (health, wealth etc.) do not benefit them at all if they do not have wisdom. Indeed, the fool uses all things badly, so that to give him anything at all without giving him virtue should be positively harmful to him. Yet the gods never give virtue to anyone so, on this score, they benefit no one either.
1 This is not to say that the text presupposed by Amyot and Holzmann is very much like Cherniss's. Holzmann actually prints the text of Stephanus, which is as follows:
. However, he wisely ignores the interpolated 
in his translation. As Wyttenbach later commented (loc. cit. note 2): ‘Locum jam antea corruptum magis etiam corrupit Steph[anus]’!
2 Wyttenbach, D., Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia (Oxford, 1800), vol. V, pp.273–4, with note to 1048E1 on p. 273.Google Scholar
3 Bernadakis, G. (Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia ]Leipzig, 1895],Google Scholarad loc):
Pohlenz, M. (Plutarchi Moralia [Leipzig, 1952]ad loc):
Google Scholar
4 It cannot be stressed enough how complete this inevitability is: one virtuous agent can never benefit another more than he is benefited himself (in fact, he is benefited by the very act of benefitting: see Stobaeus, eel. II p. 101, 21–4 Wachsmuth); and every one of his actions benefits every other virtuous agent (de comm. not. 22, 1068F). So it is not just a contingent fact of Stoicism that lines of benefit between virtuous agents run both ways; it is literally impossible that anyone should ever succeed in causing more benefit to one virtuous agent than to all others (himself included).
5 There is, of course, an ambiguity in 
this could mean ‘neither… nor’ (and, as we saw, Wyttenbach certainly takes it that neither do the gods benefit men, nor do men benefit the gods). However, depending on the context, it can also mean ‘both… and to the same extent’. Cf., for example, Plutarch, q. conviv. 3.5, 727D (chattering is no more characteristic of swallows than of jays or partridges—but both chatter);de prim. frig. 13, 950C (there is no more darkness in air than water—but water is certainly dark); also D. L. 1.66 (Solon has no more quarrel with Pisistratus than any opponent of tyranny—but there is that much quarrel). Since we have just been told unambiguously at least that men benefit the gods (i.e. ‘affect and sustain them by virtue’), this must be the correct way of taking the construction here.
6 In fact the Stoics think that providence consists in the simple fact that god has created the best possible universe (cf. esp. Cicero, de nat. de. 2.57–8). It is worth noting that 1048DE is not the only place in the de Stoic, rep. where Plutarch adopts the strategy of considering a defence that his readers might think could be made of Stoicism, despite the fact that no Stoics would have endorsed it. This also happens at chapter 47, 1056B 
AS P. Donini rightly argues, Plutarch is not considering a position that Chrysippus could have held: see ‘Plutarco e il Determinismo di Crisippo’, in Aspetti dello Stoicismo e dell' Epicureismo in Plutarco; Quaderni del Giornale Filologico Ferrarese 9 (Ferrara, 1988), pp. 21–32.
7 For a concise summary of Plutarch's views on these issues, see the introduction to the de hide et Osiride, 35ID. The gods do not, he agrees, give men wisdom or virtue (but then part of the virtue in being virtuous is just that one has attained it on one's own merits); but according to Plutarch they can still give men—the wise and the non-wise alike—material boons that really are boons.
