Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

SENECA AND ST. PAUL. 169may be perfect like our Father of the ; guardian angelswho watch over us ;of the immortality beyond thegrave, and the decrees of Divine retribution ;of theextension of the guilt of vice from the act to the intention;the picture of the just man calmly confrontingpersecution and forgiving his worst enemies ;—be found in Plato cen-these and many others mayturies before they gained a place, but not always aharmonious setting, in the letters and dialogues ofSeneca. In the school of Pythagoras, which hefollowed in his youth,he may have learnt to examinehimself, as was his later practice, to listen to the voiceof conscience, and to confess the wrong which he haddone. From Epicurus, as we have seen, he borrowedmuch, and among other sentiments that one, " theconsciousness of sin is the first step towards salvation,"^ on which so much stress has been laid as anevidence of Scriptural doctrine. Of manyother ofhis highest thoughts traces could be found in earlierwritingsdetail.if it were worth while to discuss them inYet after all these reserves it must be owned thatthe parallels between the language of Seneca andScripture are often very close and striking. Thesubject is examined fully in a special work by a Frenchwriter ^ ;but the most carefully selected list isgivenby Bishop Lightfoot, in an essay in his treatise on the"Epistle to the Philippians," which has leftnothing' " Initium salutus est notitia peccati " (Ep. 28).^Aubertin," Seneque et St. Paul."