I've been reading Seneca's Letters from a Stoic lately. In another book, Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss, Tim interviews 100 "successful" people, including success in the arts, finding inner peace, business, wealth, fitness, etc. One of the questions he asks is, "What is the book (or books) you've given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?" Letters of a Stoic was one that I had heard about already, right up there with Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Letters of a Stoic was on Thomas Jefferson's night stand the night he died, as an example.
Letters of a Stoic is about Seneca's philosophy, Stoicism, as shown through mentoring the letters' recipient, Lucilius. I don't agree with all of it, but some of it truly resonates. He also talks a fair amount about God's importance in the world, how you can only ever be happy by trying to follow the path that God set out for you, etc. He sometimes mentions "the gods" as well, but interestingly never capitalizes those.
Seneca was the main advisor to Emperor Nero for 15 years in Ancient Rome. Purportedly, Seneca was the one truly governing the empire and Nero was his voice. So remember at that time, Christianity was not exactly encouraged, and everyone was to bow to the emperor and the various gods. So I believe he was merely being careful in his communication by throwing in "gods" here an there to avoid suspicion. Not that he was necessarily Christian. That being said, he was alive at the same time as Jesus and wrote these letters at the same time that Paul (just 10 years younger than Seneca) was writing his. It is speculated that they wrote to each other. It's also worth pointing out that he suffered his entire life from a series of health issues, first and foremost, asthma. They didn't have inhalers back then. He talks in another letter about always gasping for breath unsure if it will be his last.
This passage struck me today on several fronts. Please read it when you have time and it will likely be obvious if you know me or have read any of my blog.
Excerpt from Letter LXV:
"Am I not to inquire the identity of the artist who created that universe? Or the process which this huge mass became subject to law and order? Or the nature of the one who collected the things that were scattered apart, sorted apart the things that were commingled, and when all things lay in formless chaos allotted them their individual shapes? Or the source of the light that is shed on us in abundance? Am I not supposed to inquire into this sort of thing? Am I not to know where I descended from...what my destination is to be after my stay here, what abode will await my soul on its release from the terms of its serfdom on earth? Are you forbidding me to associate with heaven, in other words ordering me to go through life with my eyes bent on the ground? I am too great, was born to too great a destiny to be my body's slave. So far as I am concerned that body is nothing more or less than a fetter on my freedom. I place it squarely in the path of fortune, letting her expend her onslaught on it, not allowing any blow to get through it to my actual self. For that body is all that is vulnerable about me: within this dwelling so liable to injury there lives a spirit that is free. Never shall that flesh compel me to feel fear, never shall it drive me to any pretense unworthy of a good man; never shall I I tell a lie out of consideration for this petty body. I shall dissolve our partnership when this seems the proper course, and even now while we are bound one to the other the partnership will not be on equal terms: the soul will assume undivided authority. Refusal to be influenced by one's body assures one's freedom.
...We know that everything in the universe is composed of matter and of God. God, encompassed within them, controls them all, they following his leadership and guidance. Greater power and greater value reside in that which creates (in this case, God) than in matter on which God works. Well, the place which in this universe is occupied by God is in man the place of the spirit. What matter is in the universe the body is in us. Let the worse, then, serve the better. Let us meet with bravery whatever may befall us. Let us never feel a shudder at the thought of being wounded or of being made a prisoner, or of poverty or persecution. What is death?...for I shall never be in confinement quite so cramped anywhere else as I am here."If it's not clear, he is saying that the spirit is God within us, guiding us, and that our flesh and bones are merely a means to accomplish the spirit's tasks. In the last sentence, he is saying that he feels the power of the spirit imprisoned by the body itself. He's also older so sometimes he talks about death and passing on like this. But I love the way he states that the body means nothing compared to the spirit. Good stuff.
Cheers -
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