Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers
Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers
Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Seneca:<br />
His Character <strong>and</strong> Environment<br />
to neither extreme. The theater on<br />
jority belong<br />
which he saw the game <strong>of</strong> life played probably never<br />
had its counterpart in the world. He st<strong>and</strong>s at one<br />
extreme <strong>and</strong> Plutarch at the other, just as the social<br />
circle in which each moved <strong>and</strong> knew best is theantipode<br />
<strong>of</strong> the other. Both looked too intently <strong>and</strong> ex<br />
clusively upon the merely external. Though Plu<br />
tarch judges the average man more correctly, neither<br />
possessed sufficient penetration <strong>of</strong> intellect to fathom<br />
all the passions that dominate or agitate the soul.<br />
Plutarch was most familiar with the man who is con<br />
cerned with the ordinary affairs <strong>of</strong> life; Seneca knew<br />
best the corrupt crowd that sought to ingratiate itself<br />
into the favor <strong>of</strong> those who controlled the destinies<br />
<strong>of</strong> all about them, <strong>and</strong>, in a measure, <strong>of</strong> the entire<br />
world. Both were much in the public eye, but the<br />
public was a widely different one. Plutarch sought<br />
to make an impression by the arts <strong>of</strong> persuasion alone:<br />
Seneca, by all the arts that are within the power <strong>of</strong> a<br />
resourceful intellect. How much he was in the pub<br />
lic eye<br />
is evident from the statement <strong>of</strong> Tacitus that<br />
his last words were written down <strong>and</strong> at once made pub<br />
lic.<br />
His friends no less than his enemies desired this:<br />
his enemies, because they were eagerly watching for a<br />
final opportunity to prove that this famous preacher<br />
<strong>of</strong> an exalted philosophy would, after all, prove to be<br />
nothing more than a maker <strong>of</strong> fine phrases when the<br />
crucial test came; his friends, in order to furnish in<br />
dubitable evidence that he had been true to his teach<br />
ings to the end.