Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

Selections from the Writings of Seneca
so, believe me, because they were so willed by the
creator of the universe, whether it is that God who
controls everything, or incorporeal reason, the artifi
cer of great works, or the divine spirit that pervades
equally the greatest and the smallest things.
If the dead have any feeling, the soul of my
brother, now set free from a long imprisonment,
length in the full enjoyment
majority; he beholds with delight
is at
of his freedom and his
the nature of
things and looks down upon human affairs from his
high abode; but things divine, the causes of which
he so long sought out in vain, he now beholds at
close range. Why then do I pine away in sorrow for
him who is either blessed or not all? To mourn for
one who is in bliss is envy; for one who is not, folly.
Borne on high, he soars among beatified spirits,
and a sanctified company
Scipios, the Catos, released by
welcomes him the
the beneficence of
death. There thy father devotes himself to his
grandson, resplendent in the new light
even though
in that place all are known to each. He explains to
him the motions of the stars around him; not from
conjectures, but, versed in the knowledge of all things,
he gladly inducts him into the arcana of nature.
If you
will believe those who have looked more
deeply into the truth, our whole life is a punish
ment.
For those who sail this sea so stormy, so exposed to
every tempest, there is no harbor except death.
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