Diogenes vs Saint Francis

[AmericanFighter]

I have been reading a great deal about christian theology and philosophy I ran across an interesting philosopher and have been reading a little on him. his name is Diogenes the dog.

He was a man who saw the sinful nature of man and had a distaste for the consumerism society of that day. One of his most notable acts was when he ran around in broad daylight with a lantern searching for an honest man and he never found one. He renounced possessions and lived in poverty. He also loved nature and living in nature instead of preaching to everyone he always tried to live by example.

My patron saint is saint Francis and I have to say when I was reading about Diogenes he almost struck me as a very rude BC. Saint Francis.

They both;
embraced poverty
Loved nature
lived simply
had the philosophy that he who is content with the least is the happiest
they renounced possessions
they didn’t fear that anyone could take anything from them as they had nothing
led by example more than they did by words

the main difference in them is Jesus.

sure their personalities were a little different as Diogenes would do things like **** on people who insulted but their philosophies seem to be very similar with the exception of Saint Francis having Jesus to be his inspiration. I cant help but feel like Diogenes would have been a follower of Jesus had he been alive.

I was wondering if perhaps someone a little more knowledgeable than I could shed some more light on this.

Thanks

 

[Rhubarb]

Diogenes is by far one of my favorite philosophers. Unfortunately he never wrote anything down so all we have to go on by him is the anecdotes that contemporaries wrote about him.

Diogenes and the Cynic school of philosophy saw themselves as the intellectual heir to Socrates and his gadfly ways. Diogenes himself seemed to be mostly concerned with virtue, taking Socrates to the logical extreme. Aristotle wrote that Diogenes was “a Socrates gone mad.” He taught by example, choosing to eschew social norms. He ate in the marketplace, it was recorded, which was highly taboo. His reason: I was hungry, a man eats when he’s hungry. He was recorded as back-talking Alexander the Great, who was one of Diogenes’ fans, daring to compare Alexander’s father to a slave. (Because the bones of one was unrecognizable from the bones of the other) Yes, Diogenes was very rude to people. To those who he thought deserved it: the same people Socrates made to look foolish in Athens. He spat on a rich man who invites Diogenes to his home, because it was the only place Diogenes felt the house was too rich to spit on and only the host was worthy of it. The point being made was that the rich man (for whatever reason) was considered base and foul by Diogenes. Diogenes also was recorded to interrupt Plato teaching at the Academy when he felt Plato was teaching error. It was recorded that, in response to Plato teaching that the definition of “man” as “a featherless biped”, Diogenes burst in and flung a plucked chicken on the stage and shouted “behold Plato’s man!” to demonstrate a counter-example.

Certainly a lot of what Jesus taught would have went over well with Diogenes. A lot, maybe not so much. Self-denial didn’t seem to be a part of Diogenes’ philosophy, in some ways. He did what he wanted so long as it conformed to his idea of virtue. There’s also an incident of him denying the need for proper funeral rites, which to me indicated he had little use for religion, or at least ritual that didn’t stand uo to his logic. (When asked what should they do when he dies, as Diogenes couldn’t afford the rites, Diogenes responded that they should throw his body beyond the walls. Horrified, his friends said the wolves would eat his corpse. Diogenes replied they should leave a stick with him, and he’d beat the wolves off. His friends protested that he would be utterly unaware as he was dead. To which Diogenes asked if he was utterly unaware, why should he care?)