From Dan Robinson, to his friend Robin Homer.(lol) I am only 19 but I have become obsessed with your readings of Seneca. Thank you so much for undertaking such a tedious task for our benefit! Also I am very curious if you know what Seneca is talking about when you say "god", "heaven", "soul" was Christianity influencing him? Maybe he's referencing Roman religion? I'm not particularly educated on the subject. Farewell.
Hey Dan, a very interesting question so apologies for the long reply! The Stoics believed in a universal world divinity, and Seneca seems to have equated God to the universe and nature. "All this universe which encompasses us is one, and it is God; we are associates of God; we are his members" I don't believe he quite means God in the Christian sense as he also refers to him as Zeus at times and frequently refers to the pantheon of gods which a Christian would not do, however the concept of a universal God is very similar (most religions being pantheistic at the time). When he refers to the soul he usually means it as a divine part of God/Nature that is within us. I think he views it as the universe being made up of each one of us collectively and that we contain a sliver of divine nature, as opposed to the Christian conception of individual souls for each person. But it's really hard to know for sure, and you could argue the difference is semantic. Regarding his connection to Christianity, it's always interested me too. Many of his teachings overlap very closely, in itself that is not surprising as most good philosophies do, but just how closely is interesting: “You look at the pimples of others when you yourselves are covered with a mass of sores.” Seneca “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?” Jesus His brother, Gallio is even mentioned in the bible www.esv.org/Acts+18/ But Seneca was born a few years before Christ so Christianity would not have had any impact on him in his formative years, and St Paul was only going around preaching it in the latter half of his life. I think most likely the influence actually went the other way. The New Testament was written after Seneca's writings, Emperor Constantine (and therefore Rome) converted to Christianity some 300 years later and the Nicene creed was established after that. I expect Christianity subsumed a lot of Roman traditions (Saturnalia) and teachings into itself to make the transition smoother. Seneca was also well known to the early Christians and they wrote of him favourably. Some (apocryphal) letters between him and St Paul even started to appear around the 4th century, so I think it likely that he and the Stoics in general left some small impression on the development of Christianity. None of us believe only what we have conceived of ourselves; we're always impacted by those who came before us, so any new philosophy or religion picks up things in the zeitgeist of the period, and Stoicism was very much in the zeitgeist of ancient Rome.
Is there any record or more detail of what types of topics Seneca considered a waste of time/quibbling? The example is the difference in meaning between man and friend? What was being discussed at that time which he was referring to? What would be a modern day example? Any more information would be appreciated. Thank you so much for this channel. Farewell.
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Such is the utility of modern, analytic philosophy.
From Dan Robinson, to his friend Robin Homer.(lol) I am only 19 but I have become obsessed with your readings of Seneca. Thank you so much for undertaking such a tedious task for our benefit!
Also I am very curious if you know what Seneca is talking about when you say "god", "heaven", "soul" was Christianity influencing him? Maybe he's referencing Roman religion? I'm not particularly educated on the subject.
Farewell.
Hey Dan, a very interesting question so apologies for the long reply!
The Stoics believed in a universal world divinity, and Seneca seems to have equated God to the universe and nature.
"All this universe which encompasses us is one, and it is God; we are associates of God; we are his members"
I don't believe he quite means God in the Christian sense as he also refers to him as Zeus at times and frequently refers to the pantheon of gods which a Christian would not do, however the concept of a universal God is very similar (most religions being pantheistic at the time).
When he refers to the soul he usually means it as a divine part of God/Nature that is within us. I think he views it as the universe being made up of each one of us collectively and that we contain a sliver of divine nature, as opposed to the Christian conception of individual souls for each person. But it's really hard to know for sure, and you could argue the difference is semantic.
Regarding his connection to Christianity, it's always interested me too. Many of his teachings overlap very closely, in itself that is not surprising as most good philosophies do, but just how closely is interesting:
“You look at the pimples of others when you yourselves are covered with a mass of sores.” Seneca
“And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?” Jesus
His brother, Gallio is even mentioned in the bible www.esv.org/Acts+18/
But Seneca was born a few years before Christ so Christianity would not have had any impact on him in his formative years, and St Paul was only going around preaching it in the latter half of his life. I think most likely the influence actually went the other way. The New Testament was written after Seneca's writings, Emperor Constantine (and therefore Rome) converted to Christianity some 300 years later and the Nicene creed was established after that. I expect Christianity subsumed a lot of Roman traditions (Saturnalia) and teachings into itself to make the transition smoother. Seneca was also well known to the early Christians and they wrote of him favourably. Some (apocryphal) letters between him and St Paul even started to appear around the 4th century, so I think it likely that he and the Stoics in general left some small impression on the development of Christianity.
None of us believe only what we have conceived of ourselves; we're always impacted by those who came before us, so any new philosophy or religion picks up things in the zeitgeist of the period, and Stoicism was very much in the zeitgeist of ancient Rome.
Philosophy is medicine for the psyche.
Is there any record or more detail of what types of topics Seneca considered a waste of time/quibbling? The example is the difference in meaning between man and friend? What was being discussed at that time which he was referring to? What would be a modern day example? Any more information would be appreciated. Thank you so much for this channel. Farewell.
Prehaps the earliest criticism of syllogism and its futilities