Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

l66STOICISM.CHAPTER XLSENECA AND ST. PAUL, OR THE RELATION OFSTOICISM TO CHRISTIANITY.There are some letters which professedly belong toa correspondence between St. Paul and Seneca, inwhich the latter writes like one who is a Christian atheart, and seems tobe acquainted with the style anddoctrines of the former. They are, indeed, a clumsyforgery, for their literary form and thought, and thereferences which they contain, are such as could notpossibly proceed from either writer. But they pointto a prevalent belief among the Fathers of the LatinChurch that Seneca had felt the influence of St. Paul,and they grew probably out of the attempt to clothein circumstantial shape the wide-spread fancy.Men could not but be struck with the echoes ofChristian thought and feeling, which occur morefrequently in Seneca than in any heathen writer.They remembered that St. Paul lived in the samepart of the century, and was brought before Gallio,the statesman's brother, who was then provincialgovernor at Corinth that he was;lodged at Rome inthe custody of Burrus, the general of the praetoriansoldiers, who shared so long with Seneca the cares ofactual government, and that he stood at last for