e was Hatred, there was Crime. These last,
though several, were yet but one. Collectively, they were Nero.

If philosophy ever were needed it was in his monstrous day. To anyone,
at any moment, there might be brought the laconic message: Die. In
republican Rome, philosophy separated man from sin. At that period it
was perhaps a luxury. In the imperial epoch it was a necessity. It
separated man from life. The philosophy of the republic Cicero
expounded. That of the empire Seneca produced.

The neo-stoicism of the latter sustained the weak, consoled the just.
It was a support and a guide. It preached poverty. It condemned
wealth. It deprecated honours and pleasure. It inculcated chastity,
humility, and resignation. It detached man from earth. It inspired, or
attempted to inspire, a desire for the ideal which it represented as
the goal of the sage, who, true child of God,[48] prepared for any
torture, even for the cross,[49] yet, essentially meek,[50] sorrowed for
mankind,[51] happy if he might die for it.[52]

[Footnote 48: De Provid. i.]

[Footnote 49: _Cf._ Lactantius vi. 17.]

[Footnote 50: Epit. cxx. 13.]

[Footnote 51: Lucanus ii. 378.]

[Footnote 52: Ibidem.]

In iambics that caressed the ear like flutes, poets had told of
Jupiter clothed in purple and glory. They had told of his celestial
amours, of his human and of his inhuman vices. Seneca believed in
Jupiter. But not in the Jove of the poets. That god dwelled in ivory
and anapests. Seneca's deity, nowhere visible, was everywhere
present.[53] Creator of heaven and earth,[54] without whom there is
nothing,[55] from whom nothing is hidden,[56] and to whom all
belongs,[57] our Father,[58] whose will shall be done.[59]

[Footnote 53: Nemo novit Deum. Epit. xxxi. Ubique Deus. Epit. xli.]

[Footnote 54: Mundum hujus operis dominum et artificem. Quaest. nat. i.]

[Footnote 55: Sine quo nihil est. Quaest. nat. vii. 31.]

[Footnote 56: Nil Deo Clausam. Ep. lxxxx.]

[Footnote 57: Omnia habentem. Ep. xcv.]

[Footnote 58: Parens noster. Ep. cx.]

[Footnote 59: Placeat homini quidquid Deo placuit. Ep. lxxv.]

"Life," said Seneca, "is a tribulation, death a release. In order not
to fear death," he added, "think of it always. The day on which it
comes judges all others."[60] Meanwhile comfort those that sorrow.[61]
Share your bread with them that hunger.[62] Wherever there is a human
being there is place for a good deed.[63] Sin is an ulcer. Deliverance
from