Seneca's theology in its philosophical context

This study aims at a better understanding of the theological views of the Roman Stoic Seneca and the status of these views in relation to those of the earlier Stoics, and in the context of various other factors, such as the views of other philosophical schools and the purpose of Seneca's work.This attempt at a better understanding is motivated by the growing scholarly recognition that Seneca is a thinker who should be judged by giving a fair estimation of his philosophical work, not by assuming him to be either an uncritical follower of Stoic doctrine or a representative of the eclectic tendencies associated with philosophy in his day. The rationale for the focus on theology in this study is twofold. First, this alleged eclecticism is often associated with the emergence of Middle Platonism which manifests itself in the increasing prominence of the transcendence of god and the substitution of a contemplative telos for an ethical one. Second, there is as yet no systematic study of Seneca’s theological views that explicitly considers his doctrinal relation to the earlier Stoics, despite the obvious relevance of theology in Stoicism and Seneca’s self-identification as a Stoic. To come to the most impartial and straightforward interpretation possible, the many relevant passages in Seneca are inventoried according to certain standard topical categories, and are discussed both in their own context and within a larger synthesis of his views on the particular topic they belong to: these different syntheses each make out one of the chapters 2 to 8. In the first chapter, the necessary backgrounds for the study of the Senecan material are given. The most important conclusion of this study is that the assumptions of Middle Platonic influence on Seneca’s ideas on god were made too rashly. A close examination of the relevant material shows that we need not, and indeed should not, assume that Seneca alternated between Stoic and Platonist views on, e.g., the status of theology, the nature of god, or the human epistemological capabilities concerning the divine. The Stoic view on these topics is shown to be actually more complex and subtle than is often acknowledged, and to allow for different perspectives and emphases, and as already sharing much common ground with Platonism. This means that any interpretation of Seneca’s views on a particular topic must take this wide range of perspectives and emphases and the affinity with Platonism into account, too, and accordingly must take all the relevant evidence in his works into consideration before passing judgment on individual passages. By establishing this, it is shown that in the passages under consideration Seneca is simply moving within the doctrinal leeway granted by this complexity, rather than going beyond Stoic parameters. Seneca is not, however, a slavish adherent to Stoic doctrine: he reserves the right for himself to disagree with those aspects of Stoic theological doctrine that he thinks do not contribute to a better understanding of the divine and thus do not make us morally better. What is most important, however, is that for Seneca the basic Stoic conception of god as the corporeal, immanent and provident principle in the cosmos is never in doub