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Kenneth Humphreys

In antiquity it was not the formalistic Roman religion, with its capricious gods and part-time priests, that offered answers to the perennial questions of existence – How shall I live? How shall I face death? etc. – but the schools of philosophy.

Adepts were practitioners of "the philosophical life", their maxims "medicine for the soul", their own lives exemplars of "right living". They offered moral guidance and a path of "personal growth", as well as speculations on creation, fate, and the gods.

The world was not on hold, waiting for a Christian godman to teach it ethics and morality. To ancient wisdom the fabricated "Jesus" added only an insufferable egocentricity.

"Christian ethics" without a Christ

" If a man lies with his wife as if she were another man's wife, he will be an adulterer, though she will not be an adulteress." – Seneca (On Firmness, vii)

" Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." – Matthew 5.28.

For five centuries, Stoicism was the dominant philosophy of the Romano-Hellenic world. Rome's educated elite found this import much to its taste. Stoicism was admirably suited to the builders of empire. It urged a dutiful self-discipline, detachment from the feckless passions, steadfastness in friendship and fortitude in adversity. It reasoned that all men were the offspring of God and therefore brothers, each deserving of compassion and justice. Stoicism made no vain promises of a life beyond the grave, though some Stoics thought it a possibility. Happiness was to be found within, in this life. Stoicism was manly, rational, and temperate. Its reward was virtue – "the highest good" – and perhaps the honour of a noble house.

Stoicism originated on the island of Cyprus with Zeno of Citium at the zenith of Greek expansion in the late 4th century BC, when the old gods were already in decay and rational thought in the ascendant. It took its name from the 'Stoa', or colonnade, at Athens where Zeno taught. Though pantheistic – conjecturing God as present in all things and not transcendent – Stoicism provided many of the building blocks out of which the early Christians built their religion.

Indeed, the first "pagan" Christians had trained in the Stoic tradition (Pantaenus, Clement, et al) and carried into the new faith the asceticism, seclusion, coarse dress and hirsute appearance which were all the marks of the Stoic sage on his way to "Perfection".

Stoicism furnished the Christians with theory as well as practice. Zeno's primary agent of creation, a material "Mind" in the guise of an ethereal yet vivifying "fire", had by the age of Cleanthes (mid-3rd century BC), become "pneuma" or "spirit" – and would show up as the "fiery Holy Spirit" of Pentecost.

"And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them." – Acts 2.3

 

Seneca: a "Great moral teacher"

"God is near you, he is with you, he is within you. This is what I mean, Lucilius: a holy spirit indwells within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian. As we treat this spirit, so are we treated by it. Indeed, no man can be good without the help of God. Can one rise superior to fortune unless God helps him to rise? "

– Seneca, Epistle 41.

At the same time Philo was laying the foundations of Christian theology in Alexandria, in Rome, another educated aristocrat, Seneca, was articulating the highly developed morality and ethics of Stoicism. The two philosophers may even have met: Seneca took a long sojourn in Alexandria in 31 AD.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) was a prodigious writer. His legacy includes satires, tragedies, several books on natural phenomena, and at least 124 insightful letters (Epistulae morales). A dozen essays on philosophy include edifying tracts on the brevity of life, human destiny, clemency and virtue. In On Clemency, Seneca describes the prince who safeguards the lives of his subjects as "god like". In On Tranquility of Mind, he urges a contentment gained from thrift rather than a ceaseless passion for wealth. A lost work De superstitione ridiculed popular conceptions of the gods.

As it happens, the life of Seneca, like that of Philo, was contemporaneous with the "Jesus" of legend. Yet though Seneca wrote extensively on many subjects and people, nothing relating to "Jesus" ever caught his attention, nor does he show any awareness of a "vast multitude" of Christians, supposedly, punished for the fire that ravaged Rome in 64 AD.

Seneca had a privileged upbringing. Born in Cordoba, he was the son of a famous father, Marcus Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Elder, 54 BC-39 AD), himself a prolific writer of legal commentary, history and philosophy. Both father and son were of the Stoic school.

The younger Seneca was sent to Rome as a youth, where he studied philosophy and law. He became a successful politician, but fell into disfavour when Messalina, wife of Claudius, persuaded the emperor to have him banished to Corsica. The charge was adultery with Julia Livilla, a sister of Caligula, and a rival Messalina wanted out of the way. After eight years in exile, Seneca was recalled by Claudius's second wife Agrippina and over the next several years he attained great influence as the tutor of the future emperor Nero.

Seneca - Writer of the Passion?

As a leading politician (Praetor in 48, Consul in 57), Seneca was himself a witness to the intrigue and violence of the imperial court during the reigns of Caligula, Claudius and Nero. It eventually cost him his life. Though arguably compromised by his own accumulation of great wealth, Seneca remained ever the philosopher. His adaptations of Greek classics were infused with the humane and moral message of the Stoics. A favourite theme of Seneca's work was the contradiction inherent in kingship, the conflict of power with moral purpose.

In Hercules Furens ("The Madness of Hercules"), one character laments crime masquerading as virtue and the triumph of might over right; another warns bloodied tyrants that they will one day face judgement. In Thyestes, the protagonists mirror the behaviour of Rome's own leaders, scheming for power and destroying each other's children in the process. Kingship is linked to a sacrificial lamb and human flesh is eaten ("Thyestian Feast").

Seneca's dramas (like the Gospels, in fact) were written to be read privately or recited at small gatherings rather than be performed. It is more than possible that the high drama of "Passion week" owes its theatrical form to the hand of Seneca. In De Ira (1.2) (about 41 AD) he writes:

"Behold all the leaders who have been handed down to posterity as instances of an evil fate. Anger stabbed this one in his bed, struck down this one amid the sanctities of the feast, tore this one to pieces in the very home of the law and in full view of the crowded forum, forced this one to have his blood spilled by the murderous act of his son, another to have his royal throat cut by the hand of a slave, another to have his limbs stretched upon the cross."

One might speculate endlessly on the identity of the six "leaders" to whom Seneca alludes (Julius Caesar must surely be one of them). But a drama in which the hero/king becomes a sacrificial victim yet is born again as God and Immortal (the fate, indeed, of Caesar) did come from the pen of Seneca. Shortly after the death of Claudius, Seneca wrote Apocolocyntosis divi Claudii ("The Pumpkinification of Claudius") a satire which ridiculed the deification of the stammering, limping Claudius, and mocked the whole notion of the emperor cult.

Seneca has the deified Claudius wandering a comic netherworld, travelling first to "Heaven" (Mount Olympus) and from there to Hell (Hades). Dio Cassius, commenting on the "Pumpkinification", adds detail which finds a curious echo in the Gospels (the "torn curtain" of Matthew 27.50, which opened the Holy of Holies of the Temple; the swarm of "many dead that went into the city" of Matthew 27.53).

"In such a manner did Claudius meet his end. It seemed as if this event had been indicated by the comet, which was seen for a very long time, by the shower of blood, by the thunder-bolt that fell upon the standards of the Praetorians, by the opening of its own accord of the temple of Jupiter Victor, by the swarming of bees in the camp, and by the fact that one incumbent of each political office died."

– Dio Cassius. Book 61.35

Seneca's longest play, Hercules on Oeta, portrays the death and deification of Hercules. The hero is betrayed by those close to him, but, free from his mortal body, his celestial spirit conquers death – in essence, a resurrection. Given the distrust held by Stoics for those who grasp for power, it is more than possible that Seneca wrote a drama in which a low-born, counter-hero – a Stoic no less – suffers the same Noble Death. It could then have been plagiarised for the "Passion Week" of the Jesus saga.

Certainly, when the tragedies of Seneca were rediscovered in the 16th and 17th century, they were immensely influential on dramatists such as Shakespeare. That a lost drama could have inspired the gospel writers should surprise no one (and here you will find a reconstruction of the "Lost Gospel of Seneca").

In 65 AD, Seneca was accused of being a part of the Calpurnius Piso conspiracy to assassinate Nero, and was forced to commit suicide.

Bringing Seneca on Message

The lack of any reference to Jesus Christ or Christians by Seneca was an embarrassment rectified during the 4th century by a forger familiar with Seneca's letters to his life-long friend Lucilius. What emerged was a correspondence purporting to be friendly exchanges between the eminent Roman philosopher – at the height of his fame and political influence – and an unknown itinerant preacher we now call St Paul.

The catalyst for the fabrications appear to have been remarks by Tertullian, in the early 3rd century. Tertullian, aware that Seneca had articulated sentiments suited to a "great moral teacher" referred to Seneca as "often our own." By the time of Constantius II (337-361), Seneca had been taken captive by the Christians, his fidelity to the cause vouched for by a lively exchange of letters (in Latin!) with the Jewish Christian apostle. We are asked to believe that Seneca wrote eight letters to Paul and received six replies. As if.

A forger's sycophantic drivel

"The tradition that Gallio sent some of St. Paul's writings to his brother Seneca is utterly absurd; and indeed at this time (A.D. 54), St. Paul had written nothing except the two Epistles to the Thessalonians."

– Rev. F. W. Farrar.

The pen of a 4th century fraudster has one of the richest, most powerful men in Rome wishing he could swap places with the unknown Jewish apostle from Tarsus!

Extant copies of the bogus correspondence date from the 9th century, though both Jerome (de Viris Illustribus 12), and Augustine (Epistle 153.4 ad Macedonium) in the late 4th- early 5th century refer to an earlier edition. Jerome had the temerity to list Seneca among the Church "Fathers" and couples the compelled suicide of Seneca with the fabled martyrdom of Peter and Paul about the same time!

Yet no one before the time of Constantius II knew of any such letters. Eusebius of Caesarea (c.263-339) – a liar for God, if ever there was one – makes reference to Paul, his "brief epistles" and Nero but says nothing of Nero's tutor and "chief minister", Seneca.

"Paul, for instance, who surpassed them all in vigor of expression and in richness of thought, committed to writing no more than the briefest epistles, although he had innumerable mysterious matters to communicate"  – Church History, 3.24

"Paul spent two whole years at Rome as a prisoner at large, and preached the word of God without restraint. In this imprisonment he wrote his second epistle to Timothy ...

But hear his testimony on these matters: "... I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion" referring, in this expression, to Nero, as is probable on account of the latter's cruelty. "
– Church History, 2.22

The only reference to a Seneca in all the works of Eusebius (Book 4, chapter 5) is to a supposed 1st century Bishop of Jerusalem – a curious name for a Jew, to be sure!

Family Connection

Another dubious link to the illustrious Seneca family was made using Seneca's older brother Novatus. It seems that Novatus, who took the name of his patron Junius Gallio, served briefly as proconsul at Achaia (Greece). The 2nd century author of Acts - gleaning the name Gallio from a secular source which mentioned the proconsulship – used this tidbit of circumstantial detail for a supposed trial in Corinth of the apostle Paul before governor Gallio.

The medieval Golden Legend tidied the fantasizing up nicely, with Nero witnessing Seneca's suicide after his conversion to Christianity by Saint Paul!

Seneca's brother Gallio in Delphi – but was Paul in Corinth?

The "Gallio Inscription" – a letter set in stone from Emperor Claudius (41-54) to the citizens of Delphi. (École Francaise d'archéologie, Athens). Claudius re-assigned the province of Achaia (Greece) to the Senate in 44 AD.

Assembled from nine fragments found piecemeal at Delphi during the late 19th century, the "Gallio inscription" was unrecognised until 1905-7. During the 1890s French excavators had dug up the pieces of literally several thousand inscriptions.

If the arrangement of the pieces is correct, and they really are from a single inscription, Junius Annaeus Gallio – elder brother of Seneca  – served as proconsul in Achaia in 51/52 AD.

Because Acts 18.11,12 records Paul's 18-month stay in Corinth and a "trial" instigated by local Jews before a governor called Gallio, the "Gallio inscription" is the bedrock for dating a historical Paul, indeed the entire corpus of the New Testament.

There's no doubt that Seneca had an elder brother Lucius Annaeus Novatus,  who adopted the name of his patron Junius Gallio. Seneca writes a flattering portrait of his brother in Natural Questions, IV and dedicates to him three books on anger management ("De Ira").

Gallio is mentioned by Tacitus (Annals, xv 73) as a "public enemy" in the wake of the abortive plot against Nero. Gallio is also mentioned by the historian Dio Cassius (155-235 AD):

"Lucius Junius Gallius, the brother of Seneca, ... remarked that Claudius had been raised to heaven with a hook." – 61.35.

But was Gallio proconsul in Achaia, and if so when?

Seneca himself confirms that his brother spent time in Achaia:

"I remembered master Gallio's words, when he began to develop a fever in Achaia and took ship at once, insisting that the disease was not of the body but of the place."  (Epistulae Morales 104).

Pliny the Elder (Natural History, 31.33) also confirms Gallio took a voyage for the good of his health, placing it "at the close of his consulship", though Gallio's name does not appear in the consular lists.

Appointment as proconsul and a command abroad might follow (not precede) a year as consul. It remains possible Gallio became governor in Achaia after Seneca himself returned to favour – about the year 50-52 AD.

Of course, the "Gallio inscription" says nothing about Paul. The 2nd century forger of Acts need only have gleaned from one or other source the snippet of information that at some point in the past a Gallio had been consul in Greece, to construct his brief verse:

" And when Gallio was the deputy of Achaia, the Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul ..."

Making a connection between Paul and Gallio reflects a characteristic Lukan literary device. In the idealized Christian history, its heroes are associated with famous events and figures from the real world.

In the yarn called Acts it is really the Jews who are on trial in Corinth, not Paul, and it is the chief rabbi who gets beaten up by Greeks. "And Gallio cared for none of those things."  – Acts 18.17.

Ironically, Gallio's supposed refusal to punish Paul rather undermines the apologist's other argument that the early Christians were "persecuted".

Last Days of Stoicism

Over the course of centuries, as Stoicism developed, it became less elitist and less "indifferent" to the caprice of fate. Its concern with human issues and morality gave it new life as a popular "religion".

The Stoics often found themselves at odds with imperial despots. Stoics of republican persuasion, notably Helvidius Priscus, were banished from Rome in 73 by Vespasian; and Domitian ejected all the philosophers from Italy in 89 (a "persecution" the Christian's would claim as their own).

In contrast, the enlightened monarchs of the 2nd century – Hadrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius – counted themselves among the philosophers and by the time of Aurelius, the gods had assumed a more positive role as helpers and assistants. Antinous, Isis, Serapis, Jupiter and Asclepius, would all habitually appear to devotees in dreams. St Paul's apparition on the road to Damascus was nothing out of the ordinary.

Yet Stoicism remained too fatalistic and too reliant upon self-discipline for a mass audience. Its ethical system was to be vulgarised by the Christians, who developed the mystical element of unseen spirits, "the Word" attendant on believers, assisting and guiding. The distinction between truth and falsehood – so vital to the Stoics – was dispensed with in order to focus more on what was perceived as "good" and "evil."

Stoicism began to lose its hold on the intelligentsia with the rise of neo-Platonism and Plotinus, yet within a century neo-Platonism itself succumbed to Christian totalitarianism. The Stoic "ideal man" now became a vision ascribed to Jewish prophesy and frozen into a bogus historicism: Jesus of Nazareth, the Stoic who never lived.

Witness to Jesus? – 1 Philo of Alexandria

Home Page   MAJOR SECTIONS Still holding to the idea that some sort of holy man lies behind the legend? Better check out... Godman – Gestation of a Superhero A closer look at the glib assertion that the Jesus story "got off the ground quickly and spread rapidly." What DID the Early Christians Believe? Many currents fed the Jesus myth, like streams and tributaries joining to form a major river. Sourcing the legend – The Syncretic Heritage of Christianity Much of the mythology of Christianity is a rehash of an older and even more transparent fabrication – Judaism. Jew Story – The Way of the Rabbi Human ingenuity and cunning is matched by mankind's equally monumental credulity and wishful thinking. Christianity's Fabrication Factory Church organisation, authority and membership preceded rather than followed the justifying doctrine. As the organisation and its needs changed so has the ‘Testament of God’ adapted accordingly. Dogma – The Word in all its Savage Glory Orchestrated by ambitious Christian clerics, a cancer of superstition, fear and brutality was imposed across Europe. Heart of Darkness – The Criminal History of the Christian Church The Christian Heaven may have been a vain folly but the Christian Hell has been real enough. Hell on Earth – A Brutal Superstition Spreads Across the World Raised to the status of State religion the Christian Church reigned over the destruction of civilization. As the centuries passed religious barbarism grew ever more vicious. Winter of the World – The Terrible Cost of "Christendom" With a Jewish father (stern patriarch) and a Christian mother (obsession with guilt and heaven) it is not surprising that Islam grew up a bit of a tartar. Islam's Desert Storm – 'Christendom' Reaps a Whirlwind Heaven help us. The richest, most powerful nation in history has a psychotic infatuation with Jay-a-sus the Lawd! The Christianizing of the Americas

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Copyright © 2006 by Kenneth Humphreys.
Copying is freely permitted, provided credit is given to the author and no material herein is sold for profit.