Seneca
Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) translated by Peter J. Anderson
I would appreciate a “clap” on Medium: https://medium.com/@peterseanbradle/seneca-selected-dialogues-and-consolations-hackett-classics-translated-by-peter-j-anderson-4a9995f98844
A friend of yours comes to you with her troubles. She tells you that her son has died. Do you:
A. Tell her that your share her sorrow?
B. Give her a silent hug?
C. Review various anecdotes about great men who were forced to commit suicide with her, dwelling particularly on the nobility of Cato the Younger?
If you doubt that “C” is the only appropriate action, then clearly, you haven't read your Seneca.
After all, it is fated that everyone will die when the Gods so will. Our inordinate sorrow does nothing useful for the dead. All inordinate sorrow does is take away our reason and freedom, making us slaves to ill fortune. A wise man should act in a way that maximizes his freedom by showing indifference to fortune and calamity, which are illusions compared to the wise man's will.
This is a book - actually, a collection of essays by Seneca on various topics - that can change the way a reader thinks. An immersion in this text, and in Seneca's pithy, aphoristic style can't help but change the patterns and cadence of the reader's thoughts.
This collection includes; On Providence, Consolation to Marcia, On the Happy Life, On Retirement, On Serenity of the Spirit, on the Shortness of Life, Consolation to Polybius, and Consolation to his mother Helvia. Although this book is viewed mostly as a primer to Stoicism - it is often described as the greatest work of Stoicism - we should not overlook its historical value. Seneca was born in 4 BC and died in 64 AD when he was ordered to commit suicide by his former protege, Nero. His epoch, therefore, overlaps that of Christ, Paul, Peter, and the early Christian Church. Seneca inhabited the top tier of Roman society. He was a mentor and advisor to Nero. He had been exiled by Claudius. He tells anecdotes about the insane Caligula and describes “his pale coloration (testament to his insanity) was repulsive,” thereby perhaps starting the “soulless day walker” meme that has plagued “gingers” ever since.
There is a lot of ground that could be covered by this review. So, I will select a few that interest me.
One is Seneca's theodicy. Seneca acknowledges that bad things happen even to the wise who have fully adopted a Stoic lifestyle. He also acknowledges the existence of gods and providence, which certainly appear to be divine. So, why do bad things happen to good people (and why be good if bad things are going to happen to good people?)
Seneca unwraps a “testing” theodicy:
God has a father's spirit toward good people - that is, he loves them with a powerful love and says, “Let them be harassed by work, suffering, and loss, so that they can acquire true strength. They are growing soft, fattened through inactivity, and are not only tired out by hard work, but even by moving their own weight.” Prosperity that has never seen trouble can't endure any attack. But for a man who constantly battles his misfortunes, toughness carries him through his injuries and he doesn't yield to any badness. No, even if he has fallen, he fights from his knees. 2.7. Are you surprised that god, who loves good people very much and who wants them to be as good and noble as possible, puts them in situations that can train them? I at least am not surprised that the gods seize the opportunity to see great men struggling with some disaster.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 3). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Thus, misfortune is actually a good thing since it is the condition that allows for virtue to be developed and exhibited:
Without an adversary, virtue withers; how great virtue is, and how potent, is clear at the moment it shows what it can do through endurance.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 3). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
In any event, misfortune is illusory or a superficial matter:
“Why do many difficult situations happen to good men?” Nothing bad can happen to a good man: opposites don't mix. Many rivers, the great quantity of fallen precipitation, and the great potency of medicinal springs do not change the taste of the ocean - they don't even dilute it. In the same way, the attacks of adverse circumstances don't change a brave man's spirit. He stands his ground and colors whatever happens with his own perspective, because he has power over every external circumstance. 2.2. I'm not saying that he doesn't feel these things, but that he rises up to meet their attack and conquers them, although in every other respect he is peaceful and calm. The good person thinks that difficult circumstances are tests.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 2). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Although modern people may not see it initially, if we take a step back, we can see how much of this makes its way into Christianity. A Christian might say that what happens in this world is ultimately insignificant; what matters is one's eternal destination. A good person - a saved person - might suffer in this life, but such suffering pales in contrast to the glory that waits for him if he passes the tests of this world. Likewise, as Christians have asked in their own theodicy, how can we know good if we do not know evil?
Seneca is aware of something profoundly human in his “testing” theodicy:
3.3. Among the many magnificent sayings of our Demetrius2 is this one, which I just read (I can even still hear it in my head): “Nothing seems less fortunate to me than a man to whom no adversity ever happened.” Such a man, you see, wasn't allowed to test his strength.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 5). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Young men - young people - want to be tested. They want to put their strength against others or the environment to show what they can accomplish. That's why there is a tradition of going into the military and moving away from home. This tendency can continue throughout one's life, as shown by the many who challenge themselves by climbing Mt. Everest, many of whom die on that mountain.
In Christianity, this same testing was found in the martyrs and, subsequently, in those who became religious hermits or joined ascetic monasteries. Ascetism seems to be coordinated with religious life for a reason and is often called “white martyrdom.”
Likewise, a Christian cannot read Seneca and not map the character of Christ onto Seneca's “wise man.” Seneca's characterization of the ideal man as indifferent to insult and injustice because he carries everything of value within him could be drawn from a Gospel Passion narrative.
8.1. To continue: justice can't suffer an injustice, because contraries cannot coincide, and injury isn't able to happen except through injustice. Therefore, injury isn't able to happen to a wise man. There's no reason to be surprised that no one can do the wise man an injury: no one can do him a favor either.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 25). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
As for people, he doesn't form so high an opinion of anyone that he thinks that a person has acted with the judgment only a wise man possesses. The thoughts of all others are not sound judgments, but tricks and traps and uncontrolled passions of the spirit, which he treats the same way he treats chance events. You know, chance rages all around us, especially against what is commonplace.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 26). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Compare that with Luke 22:
70 They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?”
He replied, “You say that I am.”
Likewise, consider Jesus' dictum to “turn the other cheek” and to give the wrongdoer your shirt when he demands your coat. We have often presented these passages as a teaching of pacifism when they are probably intended to express a Stoic contempt for the uncouth:
14.3. “But what will a wise man do if he's struck by a hand?” Just what Cato did when he was struck in the mouth. He didn't blow up, or avenge the injury. He didn't even forgive it. Instead, he denied that any injury was done. With a greater spirit than if he had just ignored it, he simply did not acknowledge the injury happened.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 32). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
The passage before that is one that all “Karens” should keep in mind:
14.2. “What then, doesn't a wise man arrive at doors that a bully of a doorkeeper is guarding?” If some essential business calls him there, he'll of course endure it. And he'll soothe the bully - whoever he is - just like he would soothe a vicious dog, by throwing scraps. He won't consider it below his dignity to spend some money to enter the house, since he also expects to pay a toll to cross certain bridges. So, he'll pay the man who's doing the toll-collecting for the morning salutatio, since he understands very well that when something is for sale it gets bought with money. A man has a puny spirit if he is pleased with himself because he spoke his mind to a slave doorkeeper, or because he broke his stick on the doorkeeper's back, or because he pushed his way to the doorkeeper's master and asked for the slave to be beaten! When you put up a fuss, you make yourself into an opponent. And in order to win the fight, you have to have brought yourself to the same level as your opponent.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (pp. 31–32). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Isn't that great advice? So many people would be so happier if they followed it. Incidentally, this book has numerous examples of Seneca giving good advice like that. It is worth the effort just to collect those pearls.
Here is another example of Seneca's practical advice on how to deal with mockery, i.e., mock yourself first:
17.2. What about how we're offended if someone imitates our voice or how we walk, or if someone apes some defect of our body or language? As if more people are going to notice these things because someone imitates them than because we do them ourselves! Some people don't want to hear about how old and gray they are, but other people pray to stay alive that long. The taunt “Poor-boy!” really gets to some people, although anyone who hides his poverty is really just insulting himself. You take away material for jokes from insolent and rude people if you take the initiative and move on it first. No one becomes a joke if he laughs at himself.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 34). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
You can at least warm your heart with this thought:
17.4. And anyway, it is revenge of a sort to take away the pleasure of an insult from the ones who made it. They usually say, I think, “Poor me! He just doesn't get it!” That's how much enjoying an insult depends on the feelings and indignation of the target. In the end, someone like that will one day meet his equal - someone will pop up who'll get revenge for both of you.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 34). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Turning back to affinity of Seneca's stoicism with Christian morality, Seneca's attitude toward wealth seems ambivalent. On the one hand, Seneca thinks being wealthy is not a bad thing. Wealth and poverty are matters of general indifference to the wise man, but all things being equal it is easier to be wealthy. Seneca writes:
21.4. You see, a wise man doesn't think he's unworthy of whatever gifts come to him by chance: he doesn't love riches, but he does prefer them. He receives them into his house, not into his spirit, and doesn't refuse possessions but controls them - what I mean is he wants his wealth to help by giving more practice for his virtue.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 88). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
However, Seneca condemns wealth to the extent that it traps a person into inordinate concern with protecting wealth or addicts the wealthy to pleasure:
How will a man who's busy taking pleasure be able to withstand hard work, physical danger, abject poverty, or the threats that make human life difficult? How will he endure the sight of death, the feeling of pain, the blows the world gives - and those our fiercest enemies give - if he's defeated by such a tender adversary? “He will do whatever pleasure convinces him to do.” Come on, don't you see how many things pleasure can convince him to do? 11.2. “Pleasure won't advise anything corrupt, because it is joined to virtue.” Again, don't you see what sort of “greatest” good something is when it needs a guardian to actually be good? How will virtue govern pleasure, which it follows, if following is the quality of someone who obeys and leading of someone who commands?
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 78). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Seneca offers the example of Apicius, who killed himself when he found out he was down to his las ten million sesterces:
10.9. After he had thrown a hundred million sesterces at his kitchen and had sucked back many imperial handouts, and the Emperor's earnings, with one wild party after another, he for the first time took a look at his accounts because he was heavily in debt. He calculated that he had ten million sesterces left, and fatally poisoned himself. It was as if he would have been living at the edge of starvation if he had lived on ten million. 10.10. What luxury he was living in if ten million was abject poverty for him!
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 195). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
In the Gospels, we find the example of the Rich Young Ruler, who claimed to be very good but was not able to throw away his wealth in order to follow Jesus and become perfect.
So, there appears to be a lot of resonance between Christianity and Stoicism. Was there something in the air at the time? Was Paul acquainted with Stoicism? These seem to be good questions to ponder.
I read this for the Online Great Books program. At the age of 63, I am completing the reading list of Books I Should Have Read In College. On which point, since retirement is beginning to glimmer in the horizon, I must say that I felt more than a little guilty in reading Seneca's condemnation of squandering time.
Old age crushes the still childish spirits of these men when they reach it unprepared and defenseless. You see, they didn't really think ahead: they fell into old age suddenly, totally unaware - they didn't realize that it was approaching them every day.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 147). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
3.5. You'll hear many say, “I'm going to take it easy after I'm fifty, and I'm going to retire fully when I'm sixty.” Tell me, what guarantee of a long life are you getting? Who's going to allow these plans of yours to go the way you're arranging them? Aren't you embarrassed to be leaving the leftovers of your life for yourself, for your good mind, and to buy on layaway only the time that can't be devoted to any other activity?
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 140). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Some aren't happy with any path they can take through life. Instead, their deaths overtake them while they're yawning languidly, so much so that I'm sure what the greatest of poets said, as if he was a prophet of the gods, is true: “The part of life we actually live is short.”4 Every other moment is not life, just time spent.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 138). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
And finally:
1.4. This is how it is: we aren't given a short life but we make life short, and we aren't deprived of it but throw it away.
Seneca. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations (Hackett Classics) (p. 137). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Once you get past a certain age, you do begin to think that you did not live your life; you merely spent time getting there.
Be warned.
But that is a topic for another day.