Paul, or was likely to have
stooped from his superfluity of wealth, and pride of power, to take
lessons from obscure and despised slaves in the purlieus inhabited by
the crowded households of Caesar or Narcissus.
CHAPTER XV.
SENECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE.
And yet in a very high sense of the word Seneca may be called, as he is
called in the title of this book, a Seeker after God; and the
resemblances to the sacred writings which may be found in the pages of
his works are numerous and striking. A few of these will probably
interest our readers, and will put them in a better position for
understanding how large a measure of truth and enlightenment had
rewarded the honest search of the ancient philosophers. We will place a
few such passages side by side with the texts of Scripture which they
resemble or recall.
1. _God's Indwelling Presence_.
"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you?" asks St. Paul (1 Cor. iii. 16).
"_God is near you, is with you, is within you_," writes Seneca to his
friend Lucilius, in the 41st of those _Letters_ which abound in his most
valuable moral reflections; "_a sacred Spirit dwells within us, the
observer and guardian of all our evil and our good .
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