The History of Roman Literature Part 27

And he begs his wealthy friend Meliboeus (perhaps Seneca) to introduce his poems to the emperor (Ecl. iv. 157), and so fulfil for him the office that he who led t.i.tyrus to Rome did for the Mantuan bard. If his vanity is somewhat excessive we must allow him the merits of a correct and pretty versifier.

The didactic poem on Aetna is now generally attributed to LUCILIUS JUNIOR, the friend and correspondent of Seneca. Scaliger printed it with Virgil's works, and others have a.s.signed Cornelius Severus as the author, but several considerations tend to fix our choice on Lucilius. First, the poem is beyond doubt much later than the Augustan age; the constant reproduction, often unconscious, of Virgil's form of expression, implies an interval of at least a generation; allusions to Manilius [77] may be detected, and perhaps to Petronius Arbiter, [78] but at the same time it seems to have been written before the great eruption of Vesuvius (69 A.D.), in which Pliny lost his life, since no mention is made of that event. All these conditions are fulfilled by Lucilius. Moreover, he is described by Seneca as a man who by severe and conscientious study had raised his position in life (which is quite what we should imagine from reading the poem), and whose literary attainments were greatly due to Seneca's advice and care. "a.s.sero te mihi: meum opus es," he says in one of his epistles, [79] and in another he asks him for the long promised account of a voyage round Sicily which Lucilius had made. He goes on to say, "I hope you will describe Aetna, the theme of so many poets' song.

Ovid was not deterred from attempting it though Virgil had occupied the ground, nor did the success of both of these deter Cornel. Severus. If I know you Aetna excites in you the desire to write; you wish to try some great work which shall equal the fame of your predecessors." [80] As the poem further shows some resemblances to an essay on Aetna, published by Seneca himself, the conclusion is almost irresistible that Lucilius is its author.

Though by no means equal to the reputation it once had, the poem is not without merit. The diction is much less stilted than Seneca's or Persius's; the thoughts mostly correct, though rather tame; and the descriptions accurate even to tediousness. The arrangement of his subject betrays a somewhat weak hand, though in this he is superior to Gratius Faliscus; but he has an earnest desire to make truth known, and a warm interest in his theme. The opening invocation is addressed to Apollo and the Muses, asking their aid along an unwonted road.

He denies that eruptions are the work of G.o.ds or Cyclopes, and laments over the errors that the genius of poetry has spread (74-92)--

"Plurima pars scaenae fallacia."

The scenes that poets paint are rarely true, and often very hurtful, but he is moved only with the desire to discover and communicate truth. He then begins to discuss the power of confined air when striving to force a pa.s.sage, and the porous nature of the interior of the earth; and (after a fine digression on the thirst for knowledge), he examines the properties of fire, and specially its effect on the different minerals composing the soil of Aetna. A disproportionate amount (nearly 150 lines) is given to describing lava, after which his theory is thus concisely summarised--

"Haec operis forma est: sic n.o.bilis uritur Aetna: Terra foraminibus vires trahit, urget in artum, Spiritus incendit: vivit per maxima saxa."

The poem concludes with an account of a former eruption, signalised by the miraculous preservation of two pious youths who ventured into the burning shower to carry their parents into a place of safety. The poem is throughout a model of propriety, but deficient in poetic inspiration; the technical parts, elaborate as they are, impress the reader less favourably than the digressions, where subjects of human interest are treated, and the Roman character comes out. Lucilius called himself an Epicurean, and is so far consistent as to condemn the "fallacia vatum" and the superst.i.tion that will not recognise the sufficiency of physical causes; but he (v. 537) accepts Herac.l.i.tus's doctrine about the universality of fire, and in other places shows Stoic leanings. He imitates Lucretius's transitions, and his appeals to the reader, _e.g._ 160: _Falleris et nondum certo tibi lumine res est_, and inserts many archaisms as _ulli_ for _ullius_, _opus_ governing an accus., _cremant_ for _cremantur_, _auras_ (gen. sing.) _iubar_ (masc.) _aureus_. [81] His rhythm resembles Virgil, but even more that of Manilius.

We cannot conclude this chapter without some notice of the tragedies of Seneca. There can be no reasonable doubt that they are the work of the philosopher, nor is the testimony of antiquity really ambiguous on the point. [82] When he wrote them is uncertain; but they bear every mark of being an early exercise of his pen. Perhaps they were begun during his exile in Corsica, when enforced idleness must have tasked the resources of his busy mind, and continued after his return to Rome, when he found that Nero was addicted to the same pursuit. There are eight complete tragedies and one praetexta, the _Octavia_, which is generally supposed to be by a later hand, as well as considerable fragments from the _Thebais_ and _Phoenissae_. The subjects are all from the well-worn repository of Greek legend, and are mostly drawn from Euripides. The t.i.tles of _Medea_, _Hercules furens_, _Hippolytus_ and _Troades_ at once proclaim their origin, but the _Hercules Oetaeus_, _Oedipus Thyestes_, and _Agamemnon_, are probably based on a comparison of the treatment by the several Attic masters. The tragedies of Seneca have as a rule been strongly censured for their rhetorical colouring, their false pa.s.sion, and their total want of dramatic interest. They are to the Greek plays as gaslight to sunlight.

But in estimating their poetic value it is fair to remember that the Roman ideas of art were neither so accurate nor so profound as ours. The deep a.n.a.lysis of Aristotle, which grouped all poets who wrote on a _theme_ under the t.i.tle _rhetorical_, and refused to Empedocles the name of poet at all, would not have been appreciated by the Romans. To them the _form_ was what const.i.tuted a work poetical, not the creative idea that underlay it. To utilise fict.i.tious situations as a vehicle for individual conviction or lofty declamation on ethical commonplace, was considered quite legitimate even in the Augustan age. And Seneca did but follow the example of Varius and Ovid in the tragedies now before us. It is to the genius of German criticism, so wonderfully similar in many ways to that of Greece, that we owe the re-establishment of the profound ideal canons of art over the artificial technical maxims which from Horace to Voltaire had been accepted in their stead. The present low estimate of Seneca is due to the reaction (a most healthy one it is true) that has replaced the extravagant admiration in which his poems were for more than two centuries held.

The worst technical fault in these tragedies is their violation of the decencies of the stage. Manto, the daughter of Tiresias and a great prophetess, investigates the entrails in public. Medea kills her children _coram populo_ in defiance of Horace's maxim. These are inexcusable blemishes in a composition which is made according to a prescribed _recipe_. His "tragic mixture," as it may be called, is compounded of equal proportions of description, declamation, and philosophical aphorisms. Thus taken at intervals it formed an excellent tonic to a.s.sist towards an oratorical training. It was not an end in itself, but was a means for producing a finished rhetor. This is a degradation of the loftiest kind of poetry known to art, no doubt; but Seneca is not to blame for having begun it. He merely used the material which lay before him; nevertheless, he deserves censure for not having brought into it some of the purer thoughts which philosophy had, or ought to have, taught him.

Instead of this, his moral conceptions fall far below those of his models.

In the _Phaedra_ of Greek tragedy we have that chastened and pathetic thought, which hangs like a burden on the Greek mind, a thought laden with sadness, but a sadness big with rich fruit of reflection; the thought of guilt unnatural, involuntary, imposed on the sufferer for some inscrutable reason by the mysterious dispensation of heaven. Helen, the queen of ancient song, is the offspring of this thought; Phaedra in another way is its offspring too. But as Virgil had degraded Helen, so Seneca degrades Phaedra. Her love for Hippolytus is the coa.r.s.e sensual craving of a common-place adulteress. The language in which it is painted, stripped of its ornament, is revolting. As Dido dwells on the broad chest and shoulders of Aeneas, [83] so Phaedra dwells on the healthy glow of Hippolytus's cheek, his ma.s.sive neck, his sinewy arms. The Roman ladies who bestowed their caresses on gladiators and slaves are here speaking through their courtly mouthpiece. The gross, the animal--it is scarcely even sensuous--predominates all through these tragedies. Truly the Greeks in teaching Rome to desire beauty had little conception of the fierceness of that robust pa.s.sion for self-indulgence which they had taught to speak the language of aesthetic love!

A feature worth noticing in these dramas is the descriptive power and brilliant philosophy of the choruses. They are quite unconnected with the plot, and generally either celebrate the praises of some G.o.d, _e.g._, Bacchus in the _Oedipus_, or descant on some moral theme, as the advantage of an obscure lot, in the same play. The _eclat_ of their style, and the pungency of their epigrams is startling. In sentiment and language they are the very counterpart of his other works. The doctrine of fate, preached by Lucan as well as by Seneca in other places, is here inculcated with every variety of point. [84] We quote a few lines from the _Oedipus_:

Fatis agimur: cedite fatis.

Non sollicitae possunt curae Mutare rati stamina fusi Quicquid patimur, mortale genus, Quicquid facimus venit ex alto; Servatque suae decreta colus Lachesis, dura revoluta manu.

Omnia certo tramite vadunt, Primusque dies dedit extremum.

Non illa deo vertisse licet Quae nexa suis currunt causis.

It cuique ratus, prece non ulla Mobilis, ordo.

Here we have in all its naked repulsiveness the Stoic theory of predestination. Prayer is useless; G.o.d is unable to influence events; Lachesis the wrinkled beldame, or fate, her blind symbol, has once for all settled the inevitable nexus of cause and effect.

The rhythm of these plays is extremely monotonous. The greater part of each is in the iambic trimeter; the choruses generally in anapaests, of which, however, he does not understand the structure. The _synaphea_ peculiar to this metre is neglected by him, and the rule that each system should close with a _paroemiac_ or _dimeter catalectic_ is constantly violated.

With regard to the _Octavia_, it has been thought to be a product of some mediaeval imitator; but this is hardly likely. It cannot be Seneca's, since it alludes to the death of Nero. Besides its style is simpler and less bombastic and shows a much tenderer feeling; it is also infinitely less clever. Altogether it seems best to a.s.sign it to the conclusion of the first century.

The only other work of Seneca's which shows a poetical form is the _Apokolokyntosis_ or "Pumpkinification" of the emperor Claudius, a bitter satire on the apotheosis of that heavy prince. Seneca had been compelled, much against the grain, to offer him the incense of flattery while he lived. He therefore revenged himself after Claudius's death by this sorry would-be satire. The only thing witty in it is the t.i.tle; it is a mixture of prose and verse, and possesses just this interest for us, that it is the only example we possess of the Menippean satire, unless we refer the work of Petronius to this head.

CHAPTER III.

THE REIGNS OF CALIGULA, CLAUDIUS, AND NERO.

2. PROSE WRITERS--SENECA.

Of all the imperial writers except Tacitus, Seneca is beyond comparison the most important. His position, talents, and influence make him a perfect representative of the age in which he lived. His career was long and chequered: his experience brought him into contact with nearly every phase of life. He was born at Cordova 3 A.D. and brought by his indulgent father as a boy to Rome. His early studies were devoted to rhetoric, of which he tells us he was an ardent learner. Every day he was the first at school, and generally the last to leave it. While still a young man he made so brilliant a name at the bar as to awaken Caligula's jealousy. By his father's advice he retired for a time, and, having nothing better to do, spent his days in philosophy. Seneca was one of those ardent natures the virgin soil of whose talent shows a luxurious richness unknown to the hara.s.sed brains of an old civilisation. His enthusiasm for philosophy exceeded all bounds. He first became a Stoic. But stoicism was not severe enough for his taste. He therefore turned Pythagorean, and abstained for several years from everything but herbs. His father, an old man of the world, saw that self-denial like this was no less perilous than his former triumphs. "Why do you not, my son," he said, "why do you not live as others live? There is a provocation in success, but there is a worse provocation in ostentatious abstinence. You might be taken for a Jew (he meant a Christian). Do not draw down the wrath of Jove." The young enthusiast was wise enough to take the hint. He at once dressed himself _en mode_, resumed a moderate diet, only indulging in the luxury of abstinence from wine, perfumes, warm baths, and made dishes! He was now 35 years of age; in due time Caligula died, and he resumed his pleadings at the bar. He was appointed Quaestor by Claudius, and soon opened a school for youths of quality, which was very numerously attended. His social successes were striking, and brought him into trouble. He was suspected of improper intimacy with Julia, the daughter of Germanicus, and in 41 A.D.

was exiled to Corsica. This was the second blow to his career. But it was a most fortunate one for his genius. In the lonely solitudes of a barbarous island he meditated deeply over the truth of that philosophy to which his first devotion had been given, and no doubt struck out the germs of that mild and catholic form of it which has made his teaching, with all its imperfections, the purest and n.o.blest of antiquity. While there he wrote many of the treatises that have come down to us, besides others that are lost. The earliest in all probability is the _Consolatio ad Marciam_, addressed to the daughter of Cremutius Cordus, which seems to have been written even before his exile. Next come two other _Consolationes_. The first is addressed to Polybius, the powerful freedman of Claudius. It is full of the most abject flattery, uttered in the hope of procuring his recall from banishment. That Seneca did not object to write to order is unhappily manifest from his panegyric on Claudius, delivered by Nero, which was so fulsome that, even while the emperor recited it, those who heard could not control their laughter. The second _Consolation_ is to his mother Helvia, whom he tenderly loved; and this is one of the most pleasing of his works. Already he is beginning to a.s.sume the tone of a philosopher. His work _De Ira_ must be referred to the commencement of this period, shortly after Caligula's death. It bears all the marks of inexperience, though its eloquence and brilliancy are remarkable. He enforces the Stoic thesis that anger is not an emotion, just in itself and often righteously indulged, but an evil pa.s.sion which must be eradicated.

This view which, if supported on grounds of mere expediency, has much to recommend it, is here defended on _a priori_ principles without much real reflection, and was quite outgrown by him when taught by the experience of riper years. In the _Constantio Sapientis_ he praises and holds up to imitation the absurd apathy recommended by Stilpo. In the _De Animi Tranquillitate_, addressed to Annaeus Serenus, the captain of Nero's body- guard, [1] he adopts the same line of thought, but shows signs of limiting its application by the necessities of circ.u.mstances. The person to whom this dialogue is addressed, though praised by Seneca, seems to have been but a poor philosopher. In complaisance to the emperor he went so far as to attract to himself the infamy which Nero incurred by his amours with a courtesan named Acte; and his end was that of a glutton rather than a sage. At a large banquet he and many of his guests were poisoned by eating toadstools! [2]

It was Messalina who had procured Seneca's exile. When Agrippina succeeded to her influence he was recalled. This ambitious woman, aware of his talents and pliant disposition, and perhaps, as Dio insinuates, captivated by his engaging person, contrived to get him appointed tutor to her son, the young Nero, now heir-apparent to the throne. This was a post of which he was not slow to appropriate the advantages. He rose to the praetors.h.i.+p (50 A.D.) and soon after to the consuls.h.i.+p, and in the short s.p.a.ce of four years ama.s.sed an enormous fortune. [3] This damaging circ.u.mstance gave occasion to his numerous enemies to accuse him before Nero; and though Seneca in his defence [4] attributed all his wealth to the unsought bounty of his prince, yet it is difficult to believe it was honestly come by, especially as he must have been well paid for the numerous violations of his conscience to which out of regard to Nero he submitted. Seneca is a lamentable instance of variance between precept and example. [5] The authentic bust which is preserved of him bears in its hara.s.sed expression unmistakable evidence of a mind ill at ease. And those who study his works cannot fail to find many indications of the same thing, though the very energy which results from such unhappiness gives his writings a deeper power.

The works written after his recall show a marked advance in his conceptions of life. He is no longer the abstract dogmatist, but the supple thinker who finds that there is room for the philosopher in the world, at court, even in the inner chamber of the palace. To this period are to be referred his three books _De Clementia_, which are addressed to Nero, and contain many beautiful and wholesome precepts; his _De Vita Beata_, addressed to his brother Novatus (the Gallio of the Acts of the Apostles), and perhaps the admirable essay _De Beneficiis_. This, however, more probably dates a few years later (60-62 A.D.). It is full of digressions and repet.i.tions, a common fault of his style, but contains some very powerful thought. The animus that dictates it is thought by Charpentier to be the desire to release himself from all sense of obligation to Nero. It breathes protest throughout; it proves that a tyrant's benefits are not kindnesses. It gives what we may call _a casuistry of grat.i.tude_. Other philosophical works now lost are the _Exhortationes_, the _De Officiis_, an essay on premature death, one on superst.i.tion, in which he derided the popular faith, one on friends.h.i.+p, some books on moral philosophy, on remedies for chance casualties, on poverty and compa.s.sion. He wrote also a biography of his father, many political speeches delivered by Nero, a panegyric on Messalina, and a collection of letters to Novatus.

The Stoics affected to despise physical studies, or at any rate to postpone them to morals. Seneca shared this edifying but far from scientific persuasion. But after his final withdrawal from court, as the wonders of nature forced themselves on his notice, he reconsidered his old prejudice, and entered with ardour on the contemplation of physical phenomena. Besides the _Naturales Quaestiones_, a great part of which still remain, he wrote a treatise _De Motu Terrarum_, begun in his youth but revised in his old age, and essays on the properties of stones and fishes, besides monographs on India and Egypt, and a short fragment on "the form of the universe." These, however, only occupied a portion of his time, the chief part was given to self-improvement and those beautiful letters to Lucilius which are the most important remains of his works.

Since the death of Burrus, who had helped him to influence Nero for good, or at least to mitigate the atrocious tendencies of his disposition, Seneca had known that his position was insecure. A prince who had killed first his cousin and then his mother, would not be likely to spare his preceptor. Seneca determined to forestall the danger. He presented himself at the palace, and entreated Nero to receive back the wealth he had so generously bestowed. Instead of complying, Nero, in a speech full of specious respect, but instinct with latent malignity, refused to accept the proffered gift. The ex-minister knew that his doom was sealed. He at once relinquished all the state in which he had lived, gave no more banquets, held no more levees, but abandoned himself to a voluntary poverty, writing and reading, and practising the asceticism of his school.

But this submission did not at all satisfy Nero's vengeance. He made an insidious attempt to poison his old friend. This was revealed to Seneca, who henceforth ate nothing but herbs which he gathered with his own hand, and drank only from a spring that rose in his garden. Soon afterwards occurred the conspiracy of Piso, and this gave his enemies a convenient excuse for accusing him. It is impossible to believe that he was guilty.

Nero's thirst for his blood is a sufficient motive for his condemnation.

He was bidden to prepare for death, which he accordingly did with alacrity and firmness. In the fifteenth book of the Annals of Tacitus is related with that wondrous power which is peculiar to its author, the dramatic scene which closed the sage's life. The best testimony to his domestic virtue is the deep affection of his young wife Paulina. Refusing all entreaty, she resolutely determined to die with her husband. They opened their veins together; she fainted away, and was removed by her friends and with difficulty restored to life; he, after suffering excruciating agony, which he endured with cheerfulness, discoursing to his friends on the glorious realities to which he was about to pa.s.s, was at length suffocated by the vapour of a stove. Thus perished one of the weakest and one of the most amiable of men; one who, had he had the courage to abjure public life, would have been reverenced by posterity in the same degree that his talent has been admired. As it is, he has always found severe judges. Dio Ca.s.sius soon after his death wrote a biography, in which all his acts received a malignant interpretation. Quintilian disliked him, and harshly criticised his literary defects. The pedant Fronto did the same. Tacitus, with a larger heart, made allowance for his temptations, and while never glossing over his unworthy actions, has yet shown his love for the man in spite of all by the splendid tribute he pays to the constancy of his death.

The position of Seneca, both as a philosopher and as a man of letters, is extremely important, and claims attentive consideration in both these relations. As a philosopher he is usually called a Stoic. In one sense this appellation is correct. When he places himself under any banner it is always that of Zeno. Nevertheless it would be a great error to regard him as a Stoic in the sense in which Brutus, Cato, and Thrasea, were Stoics.

Like all the greatest Roman thinkers he was an Eclectic; he belonged in reality to no school. He was the successor of such men as Scipio, Ennius, and Cicero, far more than of the rigid thinkers of the Porch. He himself says, "Nullius nomen fero." [6] The systematic teachers of the Roman school, as distinct from those who were rather patriots than philosophers, had become more and more liberal in their speculative tenets, more and more at one upon the great questions of practice. Since the time of Cicero philosophic thought had been flowing steadily in one direction. It had learnt the necessity of appealing to men's hearts rather than convincing their intellects. It had become a system of persuasion. Fabia.n.u.s was the first who clearly proposed to himself, as an end, to gain over the affections or to arouse the conscience. He was succeeded, under Tiberius, by Sotion the Pythagorean and Attalus the Stoic, [7] of both of whom Seneca had been an ardent pupil. Demetrius the Cynic, in a ruder way, had worked for the same object. [8] In this gradual convergence of diverse schools metaphysics were necessarily put aside, and ethics occupied the first and only place. Each school claimed for itself the best men of all schools. "He is a Stoic," [9] says Seneca, "even though he denies it." The great conclusions of abstract thought brought to light in Greece were now to be tested in their application to life. "The remedies of the soul have been discovered long ago; it is for us to learn how to apply them." Such is the grand text on which the system of Seneca is a comment. This system demands, above all things, a knowledge of the human heart. And it is astonis.h.i.+ng how penetrating is the knowledge that Seneca displays. His varied experience opened to him many avenues of observation closed to the majority. His very position, as at once a great statesman and a great moralist, naturally attracted men to him. And he used his opportunities with signal adroitness. But his ability was not the only reason of this peculiar insight. Cicero was as able; but Cicero had it not. His thoughts were occupied with other questions, and do not penetrate into the recesses of the soul. The reason is to be found in the circ.u.mstances of the time.

For a man to succeed in life under a _regime_ of mutual distrust, which he himself bitterly compares to the forced friends.h.i.+p of the gladiatorial school, a deep study of character was indispensable. Wealth could no longer be imported: [10] it could only be redistributed. To gain wealth was to despoil one's neighbour. And the secret of despoiling one's neighbour was to understand his weakness: if possible, to detect his hidden guilt. Not Seneca only but all the great writers of the Empire show a marked familiarity with the _pathology_ of mind.

Seneca tells us that he loves teaching above all things else; that if he loves knowledge it is that he may impart it. [11] For teaching there is one indispensable prerequisite, and two possible domains. The prerequisite is certainty of one's self, the domains are those of popular instruction and of private direction. Seneca tries first of all to ensure his own conviction. "Not only," he says, "do I believe all I say, but I love it."

[12] He tries to make his published teachings as real as possible by a.s.suming a conversational tone. [13] They have the piquancy, the discursiveness, the brilliant flavour of the salon. They recall the converse of those gifted men who pa.s.s from theme to theme, throwing light on all, but not exhausting any. But Seneca is the last man to a.s.sume the sage. Except pedantry, nothing is so alien from him as the a.s.sumption of goodness. "When I praise virtue do not suppose I am praising myself, but when I blame vice, then believe that it is myself I blame." [14]

Thus confident but una.s.suming, he proceeds to the communication of wisdom.

And of the two domains, while he acknowledges both to be legitimate, [15]

he himself prefers the second. He is no writer for the crowd; his chosen audience is a few selected spirits. To such as these he wished to be director of conscience, guide, and adviser in all matters, bodily as well as spiritual. This was the calling for which, like Fenelon, he felt the keenest desire, the fullest apt.i.tude. We see his power in it when we read his _Consolations_; we see the intimate sympathy which dives into the heart of his friend. In the letters to Lucilius, and in the _Tranquillity of the Soul_, this is most conspicuous. Serenus had written complaining of a secret unhappiness or malady, he knew not which, that preyed upon his mind and frame, and would not let him enjoy a moment's peace. Seneca a.n.a.lyses his complaint, and expounds it with a vivid clearness which betrays a first-hand acquaintance with its symptoms. If to that anguish of a spirit that preys on itself could be added the pains of a yearning unknown to antiquity, we might say that Seneca was enlightening or comforting a Werther or a Rene. [16]

Seneca's object, therefore, was remedial; to discover the malady and apply the restorative. The good teacher is _artifex vivendi_. [17] He does not state principles, he gives minute precepts for every circ.u.mstance of life.

Here we see casuistry entering into morals, but it is casuistry of a n.o.ble sort. To be effective precepts must be repeated, and with every variety of statement. "To knock once at the door when you come at night is never enough; the blow must be hard, and it must be seconded. [18] Repet.i.tion is not a fault, it is a necessity." Here we see the lecturer emphasising by reiteration what he has to say.

And what has he to say? His system taken in its main outlines is rigid enough; the quenching of all emotion, the indifference to all things external, the prosecution of virtue alone, the mortification of the body and its desires, the adoption of voluntary poverty. These are views not only severe in themselves, but views which we are surprised to see a man like Seneca inculcate. The truth is he does not really inculcate them. In theory rigid, his system _practises_ easily. It is more full of concessions than any other system that was ever broached. It is the inevitable result of an ambitious creed that when applied to life it should teem with inconsistencies. Seneca deserves praise for the conspicuous cleverness with which he steers over such dangerous shoals.

The rigours of "virtue unenc.u.mbered" might be preached to a patrician whose honoured name made obscurity impossible; but as for the freedmen, capitalists, and _nouveaux riches_ [19] of all kinds, who were Seneca's friends, if poverty was necessary for virtue, where would they be? Their greatness was owing solely to their wealth. Thus he wisely offered them a more accommodating doctrine, viz., that riches being indifferent need not be given up, that the good rich man differs from the bad in spirit, not in externals, &c., palliatives with which we are all familiar. To take another instance. The Stoic system forbade all emotion. Yet we find the philosopher weeping for his wife, for his child, for his slave. But he was far too sensible not to recognise the n.o.bleness of such expressions of feeling; so he contents himself with saying "_indulgeantur non imperentur_." [20]

In reading the letters we are struck by the continual reference to the insecurity of riches, the folly of fearing death, torture, or infamy, and are tempted to regard these as mere commonplaces of the schools. They had, however, a melancholy fitness at the time they were uttered, which we, fortunately, cannot realise. A French gentleman, quoted by Boissier, [21]

declared that he found the moral letters tedious until the reign of terror came; that then, being in daily peril of his life, he understood their searching power. At the same time this power is not consistent; the vacillation of the author's mind communicates itself to the person addressed, and the clear grasp of a definite principle which lent such strength to Zeno and the early Stoics is indefinitely diluted in the far more eloquent and persuasive reflections of his Roman representative.

Connected with the name of Seneca is a question of surpa.s.sing interest, which it would be unjust to our readers to pa.s.s entirely by. We allude to the belief universal in the Church from the time of Jerome until the sixteenth century, and in spite of strong disproof, not yet by any means altogether given up, that Seneca was personally acquainted with St. Paul, [22] and borrowed some of his n.o.blest thoughts from the Apostle's teaching. The first testimony to this belief is given by Jerome, [23] who a.s.signs, as his sole and convincing reason for naming Seneca among the worthies of the Church that his correspondence with Paul was extant. This correspondence, which will be found in Haase's edition of the philosopher, is now admitted on all hands to be a forgery. But we might naturally ask; Does it not point to an actual correspondence which is lost, the traditional remembrance of which gave rise to its later fict.i.tious reproduction? To this the answer must be: Jerome knew of no such early tradition. All he knew was that the letters existed, and on their existence, which he did not critically investigate, he founded his claim to admit Seneca within the Church's pale.

The problem is by no means so simple as it appears. It involves two separate questions: first, a historical one which has only an antiquarian interest, Did the philosopher know the Apostle? secondly, a more important one for the history of religious thought, Do Seneca's writings contain matter which could have come from no source but the teaching of the first Christians.

As regards the first question, the arguments on both sides are as follows:--On the one hand, Gallio, who saw Paul at Corinth, was Seneca's brother, and Burrus, the captain of the praetorian cohort, before whom he was brought at Rome, was Seneca's most intimate friend. What so likely as that these men should have introduced their prisoner to one whose chief object was to find out truth? Again, there is a well authenticated tradition that Acte, once the concubine of Nero, [24] and the only person who was found to bury him, was a convert to the Christian faith; and if converted, who so likely to have been her converter as the great Apostle?

Moreover, in the Epistle to the Philippians, St. Paul salutes "them that are of Caesar's household," and it is thought that Seneca may here be specially intended. On the other side it is argued that the phrase, "Caesar's household," can only refer to slaves and freedmen: to apply it to a great magistrate at a time when as yet n.o.blemen had not become body- servants or grooms of the chamber to the monarch, would have been nothing short of an insult; that Seneca, if he had heard of Paul or of Paul's Master, would naturally have mentioned the fact, communicative as he always is; that fear of persecution certainly need not have restrained him, especially since he rather liked shocking people's ideas than otherwise; that everywhere he shows contempt and nothing but contempt for the Jews, among whom as yet the Christians were reckoned; in short, that he appears to know nothing whatever of Christians or their doctrines.

As to this latter point there is room for difference of opinion. It is by no means clear that Christianity was unknown to the court in Nero's reign.

We find in Suetonius [25] a notice to the effect that Claudius banished the Jews from Rome for a sedition headed by _Chrestus_. How Suetonius knew well enough that Christus, not Chrestus, was the name of the Founder of the new religion; it is therefore reasonable to suppose that in this pa.s.sage he is quoting from a police-magistrate's report dating from the time of Claudius. Again, it is certain that under Nero the Christians were known as an unpopular sect, on whom he might safely wreak his mock vengeance for the burning of the city; and it is equally certain that his abominable cruelty excited a warm sympathy among the people for the persecuted. [26] The Jews were well known; hundreds practised their ceremonies in secret; even as early as Horace [27] we know that Sabbaths were kept, and the Mosaic doctrines taught to n.o.ble men and women. The penalties inflicted on these innocent victims must have been at least talked of in Rome, and it is more than probable that Seneca must have been familiar with the name of the despised sect. [28] So far, therefore, we must leave the question open, only stating that while the balance of probability is decidedly against Seneca's having had any personal knowledge of the Apostle, it is in favour of his having at least heard of the religion he represented.

With regard to the second question, whether Seneca's teaching owes anything to Christianity, we must first observe, that philosophy to him was altogether a question of practice. Like all the other thinkers of the time he cared nothing for consistency of opinion, everything for impressiveness of application. He was Stoic, Platonist, Epicurean, as often as it suited him to employ their principles to enforce a moral lesson. Thus in his _Naturales Quaestiones_, [29] where he has no moral object in view, he speaks of the Deity as _Mens Universi_, or _Natura ipsa_, quite in accordance with Stoic pantheism. But in the letters to Lucilius, which are wholly moral, he uses the language of religion: "The great soul is that which yields itself up to G.o.d;" [30] "All that pleases Him is good;" [31] "He is a friend never far off;" [32] "He is our Father;" [33] "It is from Him that great and good resolutions come;" [34]

"He is wors.h.i.+pped and loved;" [35] "Prayer is a witness to His care for us." [36] There is no doubt in these pa.s.sages a strong resemblance to the teaching of the New Testament. There are other points of contact hardly less striking. The Stoic doctrine of the soul affirms the cessation of existence after death. So Zeno taught; but Chrysippus allowed the souls of the good an existence until the end of the world, and Cleanthes extended this privilege to all souls alike. Seneca sometimes speaks as a Stoic, [37] and denies immortality: sometimes he admits it as an enn.o.bling belief; [38] sometimes he declares it to be his own conviction, [39] and uses the beautiful expression, so common in Christian literature, that the day of death is the birth-day of eternity. [40] The coincidence, if it is nothing more than a coincidence, is marvellous. But before a.s.suming any closer connection we must take these pa.s.sages with their respective contexts, and with the principles which, whether consistently maintained or not, undoubtedly underlie his whole teaching. We must remember that if Seneca had known the Gospel, the day he first heard of it must have been an epoch in his life. [41] And yet we meet with no allusion which could be construed into an admission of such a debt. And besides, the expressions in question do not all belong to one period of the philosopher's life; they occur in his earliest as well as in his latest compositions, though doubtless far more frequently in the latter. Hence we may explain them partly by the natural progress in enlightenment and gentleness during the century from Cicero to Seneca, and partly also by the moral development of the philosopher himself. [42] Resemblances of terms, however striking, must not count for more than they are worth. It is more important to ask whether the _spirit_ of Seneca's teaching is at all like that of the Gospel. Are his ideas Christian? We meet with strong recommendations to charity, kindness, benevolence. To a splenetic acquaintance, out of humour with the world, he cries out, _ecquando amabis_? "When will you learn to love?" [43] But with him charity is not an end; it is but a means to fortify the sage, to render him absolutely self-sufficient. _Egoism_ is at the bottom of this high precept; [44] and this at once removes it from the Christian category. And the same is true of his account of the wise man's relations to G.o.d. They are based on _pride_, not humility; they make him an equal, not a servant, of the Deity: _Sapiem c.u.m dis ex pari trivit_; [45] and again, _Deo socius non supplex_. [46] Nothing could be further from the New Testament than this. If therefore Seneca borrowed anything from Christianity, it was the morality, not the doctrines, that he borrowed. But this is no sooner stated than it is seen to be altogether inconceivable. To suppose that he took from it precepts of life and neglected the higher truths it announced, is to regard him as foolish or blind. With his intense yearning to penetrate to the mysteries of our being, it is impossible that the only solution of them offered as certain to the world should have been neglected by him as not worth a thought.

[47]

We therefore conclude that Seneca received no a.s.sistance from the preachers of the new religion, that his philosophy was the natural development of the thoughts of his predecessors in a mind at once capacious and smitten with the love of virtue. He cannot be regarded as an isolated phenomenon; he was made by the ages, as he in his turn helped to make the ages that followed; and if we possessed the writings of those intermediate thinkers who busily wrought among the citizens of Rome, striving by persuasion, precept, and example, to wean them from their sensuality and violence, we should probably see in Seneca's thoughts a less astounding individuality than we do.