A god doth dwell, but what god know we not [quis deus incertum est] habitat deus].--Seneca, Letter 41. Translated by Richard Mott Gummere
To achieve a sound mind [ad bonam mentem] prayer [optare could also be mere wishing] won't do; there are not just opportunity costs involved, but our attention is misdirected outward. For, Seneca, as is familiar by now, self-cultivation is, simultaneously, a withdrawal from the world of the crowd and popular approval. He comes very close to suggesting here that public displays of religion is a participation in the worship of false idols (such as characterize the market-place, the political crowds, and the amphitheater).
Part of self-cultivation is the development of what we may call conscience, the observer and custodian [observator et custos] of the good and bad we perform. Interestingly Seneca presents the operation of conscience as a reciprocal, relationship between the agent and this hidden faculty. When we nurture conscience, we are, in turn, nurtured by it. This form of boot-strapping is the path toward overcoming the rule of chance [recall, inter alia, also letter 39 here], and to participate (as we have seen) in a life rule by necessity (recall the start of the Letters) and, thereby, become godlike (recall this post on self-reliance in letter 31). A good person is precisely the one that has justly come to rely on conscience.*
I don't mean to ignore how the people that exemplify such self-controlled god-likeness, exemplify a species of (almost Nietzschean) magnanimity, laughing at our fears and at our prayers and willing them over and over again, (Vis isto divina descendit; animum excellentem, moderatum, omnia tamquam minora transeuntem, quidquid timemus optamusque ridentem, caelestis potentia agitat.)
Now, Gummere helpfully notes that the last line of the quoted passage is itself a quote from Vergil's Aenid 8.352. Seneca here proves true to his principle that the origin of a truth is less important than the fact that (recall) there is no exclusive property right in wisdom and that it can be made available to all of mankind. Even so it is notable that he quotes a poet here and not (as he had done before) a member of a competing philosophical school. (In the previous letter (40), he made a similar point with Homer.)
There is a lot to be said about the context of 8.352 and how it relates to the political self-conception of Rome and its founding. But, at this point, and in virtue of a recent lecture by Steven Nadler that I attended, I am reminded of the epigram to Spinoza's Theological Political Treatise (hereafter TTP): Per hoc cognoscimus quod in Deo manemus,/et Deus manet in nobis/quod de Spiritu suo dedit nobis (1 John 4:13; in the King James, Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.) What's clever about this is that the first two parts of the verse, just express the Spinozism of the Ethics (we are in God and he in us). Later, in chapter 14 of the TTP, when he comments on the very verse, Spinoza explains that to have possession of the (holy) spirit just means exhibiting faith in works, that is obedience to God, that is showing one's charity (or 'lovingkindness' in Curley's translation).+
Now, Spinoza and Seneca agree that a holy spirit dwells within us and that being attentive to it guides our good behavior. They also agree on a structural feature: that to behave in accord with it, is to be guided by (an eternal property, that is,) reason, that is, necessity, that is, (one's second) nature. And that to do so is the path of salvation (see the rest of letter 41). I don't mean to suggest that they agree, exactly, on the contents of conscience or what the holy spirit demands from us. That's for another time.
Rather, I want to close with a final observation prompted by one of the most striking passages in the TTP (from Chapter 5):
There is a lot to say about this passage (recall), but the key point is that one has the Spirit of Christ if one exhibits the right kind of behavior and that one does not need exposure to Scripture nor philosophy to attain it. More subtly, and controversially, perhaps, any text, if read attentively, can be made to yield the salutary opinions needed to instruct others -- as Seneca instructs Lucillius -- in the art of living...if, and perhaps only if, one has a well-prepared mind, as Seneca shows with his use of Vergil.
*There is something circular here; but this is why I used the boot-strapping trope.
+The really important point, for Spinoza, is the subsequent definition of the antichrist, which is he who persecutes honest men who love justice, but who may disagree about matters of faith.
** It is notable that Spinoza couples the right sort of opinions with a life of truth and reason (veramque vivendi rationem). Quare si historias Sacrae Scripturae legerit, eique in omnibus fidem habuerit, nec tamen ad doctrinam, quam ipsa iisdem docere intendit, attenderit, nec vitam emendaverit, perinde ipsi est, ac si Alcoranum, aut poëtarum fabulas scenicas, aut saltem communia chronica ea attentione, qua vulgus solet, legisset ; et contra, uti diximus, is, qui eas plane ignorat, et nihilominus salutares habet opiniones, veramque vivendi rationem, is absolute beatus est, et revera Christi Spiritum in se habet.
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