SVF I.224
- Stoic
- Zeno of Citium
- Ancient source
- Diogenes Laërtius, Vitae philosophorum, Book VII — 7.120 (with Sextus, M 7.422)
- Source language
- Ancient Greek
- Source status
- Testimonium
Original — Ancient Greek
ἀρέσκει τε αὐτοῖς ἴσα ἡγεῖσθαι τὰ ἁμαρτήματα, καθά φησι … Ζήνων. — Sextus, adv. math. VII 422: κἀντεῦθεν ὁρμώμενοι οἱ περὶ τὸν Ζήνωνα ἐδίδασκον ὅτι ἴσα ἐστὶ τὰ ἁμαρτήματα.StoicOs Translation
It is their doctrine to hold that all errors (hamartēmata) are equal, as … Zeno says. — Sextus: Setting out from this, Zeno and his school taught that all errors are equal.
Context
Diogenes Laërtius reports the doctrine within his survey of Stoic ethics, naming Zeno among its authorities; Sextus Empiricus, arguing from the Stoics' own epistemology, confirms that “Zeno and his school” taught it. Cicero, defending Murena in court, ridicules it as Zeno's.
Source notes:Text verified against von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 224, p. 54 (OCR of the scanned edition). Von Arnim's ellipsis in the Diogenes sentence stands for the other authorities Diogenes lists alongside Zeno (Chrysippus and Persaeus). He adds Latin parallels: Cicero, Pro Murena 61 (“all sins are equal”) and Lactantius, Inst. div. III 28 (“who approves Zeno's equal sins?”).
What the source actually tells us
Multiple independent witnesses — a doxographer, a sceptical philosopher and a hostile Roman orator — agree in attaching the equality of errors to Zeno by name. Few Zenonian doctrines are so broadly attested; none of the witnesses, however, quotes his wording.
Philosophical meaning
Every wrong action equally misses rightness, as every arrow that misses the target equally misses it — whether by a hand's breadth or a mile. The doctrine follows strictly from the two-kinds dichotomy of SVF I.216: if right action requires virtue, every act without it fails entirely. Rome found this the most scandalous of the Stoic paradoxes; the Stoics kept it because it makes moral seriousness indivisible.
Scholarly uncertainty
No witness preserves Zeno's own formulation; Diogenes names him in a list with Chrysippus and Persaeus (marked by von Arnim's ellipsis), so the doctrine's precise Zenonian shape cannot be isolated. Later Stoics softened the paradox by grading errors' circumstances while keeping their formal equality.
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About this edition
StoicOs Ancient Library is a developing multilingual digital study edition of surviving early Stoic material. The Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta assembled by Hans von Arnim provides the traditional reference framework. StoicOs distinguishes carefully between fragments, testimonia, later reports and interpretation. StoicOs translations are prepared from the surviving ancient-language sources where available.