(Q) According to Seneca, what is man's unique good? How should a good man conduct himself?
The Silver age of Latin Literature is, of course, considered to be the second most important literary epoch of that ancient culture. The Moniker is perhaps related to a myth in Roman religion about the descent of man from almost perfect golden beings down into more and more ignoble metals. The era, though a historical construction, is recognized to have lasted from the reign of Nero until the end of the Flavian Dynasty. My subject, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, was perhaps the most prominent writer of his time, alongside the poet Lucan.
According to the Spenglerian idea, Seneca composed his work after the peak of literary growth in Rome. We remember him not for his exceptional use of language, nor stark originality, or even his polymath status. What make Seneca interesting, worth remembering and studying, was his work to not only make Stoic philosophy accessible to the roman public in a way never before seen, but also in seeding it in the highest echelons of society, even the imperial court and the Emperor Nero himself. But it was also this very success which makes it possible for us to measure the true shortfalls and tragedy of his thinking and his life.
In order to understand Seneca as a literary figure, we need to understand something about the man and his work. First and foremost, he is regarded as a Stoic philosopher, but he also served as a statesman, dramatist, and tutor to Emperor Nero. Due to his position, he eventually became quite wealthy, but lived a life of relative modesty. Born relatively well, he was always promising, but we should remember that for great men, life doesn't truly begin until middle age. Born around 4 BC, he was exiled to Corsica by Claudius on political grounds for engaging in an affair with Julia, the daughter of Germanicus, an important Julian general. Seneca would spend the 40s and his own forties away from Rome and the fellowship of like minds.
During this time, he consoles himself by writing tragedies, perhaps only to be read without performance. There are nine such works that survive, covering topics in Greek Mythology. Critics describe them as rather banal and trite, their wood-carved reliquary serves Stoic philosophy rather than the necessities of good storytelling. By all accounts, their influence on Elizabethan tragedy was far greater than their merits justified.
After eight years the wife of Claudius, Agrippina, succeeded in petitioning her husband to return Seneca as a mentor and adviser to her son Nero, the future emperor. This position and accompanying proximity to Roman higher society gave him considerable influence in his work. Two of the better remembered works are Apocolocyntosis and Naturales Quaestiones. The former was written about the same year as the death of Claudius, when he was being deified by the court and imperial dynasty. It is satire, an amusing but bitter skit aimed at the deification of Claudius, though it is not so sell known how Seneca's patrons reacted to its contents. Despite any scandal Seneca managed to survive, the second work is highly respected and was widely read. Composed of commentary on our relationship with natural phenomenon, it was written during his width drawl from the imperial court near the tragic end of his life and reflects a profound optimism about what reason can tell us of interest about nature and the world around us.
I suppose that same optimism from reason leads to his moral writings, the real heart of his thought so as we regard it. The key concept in his thought was that of Man's Unique Good, which he described as virtue. We discover virtue from what we observe about the rational order of the universe, or Logos. We do this through reason. This good, Virtue, is the first and only true good. All others such as wealth, health, social status are external, unnecessary for the man who truly is what he ought to be. This alone is sufficient to what we need to achieve Eudaimonia, the state of happiness, through internal stability and self-mastery. It is then the pursuit of wisdom, through reason, that allows us to cultivate such virtues as courage, justice, temperance, and practical wisdom. The conduct of a good man, then, involves living with moral integrity, self-discipline, and compassion. We ought to remain true to these moral principles despite adversity by vice or suffering; to cultivate apatheia (freedom from passions). His chief goal is to use this unique good of man, virtue, to work toward eudaimonia, human flourishing as we see it by reasoning. This is also a cosmopolitan philosophy, man whatever his station ought to contribute toward the common good and what is necessary for a harmonious society.
These works were all written either to instruct the young emperor Nero or designed as moral epistles to occupy his semi-retirement. Some were so respected and exalted that they developed a traditional connection with the apostle Paul. People thought his writing was so inspired that they believed he may have personally known St. Paul during his captivity in Rome, unlikely as it seems. All contain beautifully written and pragmatic Stoic philosophy, some of the best the school ever produced. False letters were forged to this end, and many thought they were plausible. In hindsight and with modern scholarship, it seems more likely there were some popular ideas in contemporary stoicism embraced by both men. Nevertheless, his moral works denounce materialism, superstition, the sanguinary Colosseum, tyranny, and the necessity of physical and psychological sensations (passions). Overall, he held many of the classical Stoic viewpoints, but he tries to make a humanly appealing case for an otherwise 'cold' philosophy.
Yet despite these platitudes, many simply find him to be a pleasant hypocrite. He always spoke of the need for stalwart moral virtue, while his own life (as evidenced by his exile) was not always so upstanding. Furthermore, he is charged with apologizing for Nero's matricide of Agrippina, his patron. How, therefore, do we reconcile these supposed moral virtues with his own failures in life? It might help us to better understand His tragedy.
As Nero's tutor, he hoped to make him a virtuous ruler, perhaps a philosopher king, but we got a fiddler instead. During his time as an adviser and tutor to Nero (54-68 AD) he was highly influential, especially during those first five years. For during that time the emperor was more reasonable and humane than at any other period during his reign. Afterward, the infamous tyrant became bloodthirsty and insane, whether as a consequence of his own sick wickedness, or more doubtfully because he had previously rejected Seneca and his unique good. The old tutor would stick around for a while, looking the other way and gradually retreating from public affairs. Wanting to retire, the paranoid, lonely and likely schizophrenic emperor accused him of treason, ultimate betrayal, and supposedly ordered him to comitt suicide in a famous scene of that civilization.
As hopeless as it must have seemed, the work De Clementia urged Nero to limit his powers and prosecutions voluntarily for the sake of this virtue and unique good. As mentioned above, Seneca lost his influence on the emperor. He is sometimes called a hypocrite for his toleration, even apology for the mad tyrant, but is that really the proper characterization? True, he did stay with Nero long into His insanity, continuing to apologize for his master's increasing depravity. But is hypocrisy really what we see? Seneca was a tutor to a philosophy only for good men, those who already want to do rightfully for the sake of its own unique appeal. Critics of stoicism say an inherent flaw is its very disposition to accept one's circumstances dispassionately. In his position, one might estimate the most temperate and prudential thing he could do was to continue advising the emperor, hoping his sanity and justice would return. Indeed, if Seneca is to be criticized, it is for other reasons.
In Stoic philosophy, there were many other important figures, but Seneca stands out in a particular respect. Though Epictetus suffered more and Marcus Aurelius was directly a "man in the ring," Seneca shows us the influence of his philosophy on a bad man. It teaches us that even the best ideas cannot make man good and cannot make him choose to be good. it does not change circumstances but copes with them. These ideas are truly for a silver man, someone identified with the good and fundementally tied to it. In short, it cannot alone deal with the sin-nature of man, his total depravity in separation from God.
Despite his convincing arguments for the unique good, man's capacity for virtue, it is unrealistic to expect this from mankind marred by sin. What man does determines what he is, but since man chooses his own knowledge of good and evil, he cannot identify with true goodness, which is only found in God, with whom he so severs himself. For the Holy God-man, such virtue is intrinsic, According to the Word of God (Christ is this Logos (John 1)) by His Grace through Faith in Him (Christ) alone, we can crucify our sins and inherit righteousness, Holiness solely for the Glory of God alone. Apathy is itself pathetic, if the problem is our sin which keeps us from virtue, and only God can save us, he doth command us to have passion for the works of virtue that proceed from faith, this true faith alone saves.
Stoicism stalwartly protests an ignorant vision of the human condition (total depravity) and fails to address this sin. Fortunately, the lives and works of men like Seneca, through the Word of God, can reveal to us general revelations about the nature of man which can then find their complete truth in what scripture calls the unique good of man, the one that produces all worthy virtue in righteousness, Faith. If a Marcus Aurelius or a Seneca sometimes does a good deed, it is counted for naught because of the hipocrisy of sin, rather a witness that he knew God's righteousness as even demons do, and rejected it or otherwise failed to do what was required of him, what his nature was wrought to produce. This Tragedy of Seneca and Nero is the same, that of the blackness of sin. But most assuredly, by Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit can dwell within us to produce and furnish all external goods in the fruit of the spirit.
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