Soul – Consolation of Antiquity

Crowds – Seneca

Synopsis:

In letter #7, Seneca grapples with the nature of crowds. He catechizes the influence crowds have on the human soul, and traces the remedies for its negative effects.

Excerpts:

“Contact with the crowd is deleterious; inevitably vice will be made attractive or imprinted on us or smeared upon us without our being aware of it. In every case, the larger the crowd with which we mingle the greater the danger.

“A single example of luxury or avarice works great mischief. A comrade who is squeamish gradually enervates us and makes us soft; a neighbor who is rich pricks up our covetousness; a companion who is malicious rubs some of his rust off upon us, however frank and ingenuous we may be.

“Retire into yourself, so far as you can. Associate with people who may improve you, admit people whom you can improve. The process is mutual; men learn as they teach.

“There is no reason why ambition to advertise your talents should lure you to the public platform to give popular readings or discourses. I should agree to your doing so if your wares suited such customers, but none of them can understand you. A solitary individual or two may come your way, but even him you will have to educate and train to understand you. ‘Then why did I learn all this?’ Never fear that you have wasted your effort; you learned for yourself.

“When asked the object of applying himself so assiduously to an art which would reach so very few people, he said: ‘For me a few are enough, one is enough, none is enough.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters, W.W. Norton.

World and Soul – Origen

Synopsis:

Origen’s exposition on the material world – and its relation to the human soul – examines the complexion of evil, the genesis of virtue, as well as the internal frictions of the middle-ground vis-à-vis human action. Origen affirms the mono-causality of wisdom, righteousness, and truth in synthesis with God.

Excerpts:

“The never-ending thirst for wisdom must be chosen by souls as their first object. This necessarily means first of all a strong orientation inward involving the closing of one’s eyes to the outer world.

“To ask about the soul means to cast one’s gaze into the abyss of eternal eons and immeasurable waves of fate.

“Just as when our eyes rest upon something made by an artist, our mind burns to know how and in what way and to what purpose it was made, far more and beyond all comparison with such things does our spirit burn with an unspeakable longing to know the why and wherefore of the works of God which we see.

“You must understand that you are another world in miniature, and that there is in you sun and moon and also stars.

“For the body to grow and to become great lies not within our power. For the body takes its material size, whether large or small, from its genetic origin; but our soul has its own causes and its free will to make it large or small.

*All excerpts have been taken from Origen: Spirit & Fire, The Catholic University of America Press.

Against Fear of Death – Cicero

Synopsis:

In the first book of his Tusculan Disputations Cicero examines the idea of death, the quality of the human soul, the pursuit of virtue as an end, as well as the mood of human nature. The essay is conveyed in dialogue form among a teacher and his pupil.

Excerpts:

“And yet a responsible farmer will plant trees, even though he’ll never see them bear a single olive. Won’t a great man plant laws, practices, a commonwealth?

“But somehow there remains in our minds a vision, as it were, of generations to come: a vision that appears most readily and blazes forth most intensely in those with the greatest talent and the deepest soul.

“We naturally believe that gods exist, but we discern their qualities through the exercise of reason. Just so, we share a universal feeling that souls live on, but we must use reason to determine where and in what condition.

“The soul senses its own motion; when it does, it senses that it has been moved by its own power, not by anything else, and that it can never be deprived of itself. Which means it is eternal.

“Although glory is not to be sought for its own sake, it follows virtue like a shadow.

*All excerpts have been taken from Cicero: On Living and Dying Well, Penguin Classics.

On Free Will – Augustine

Synopsis:

In Book One of his composition on free will and human action, Augustine defines authority, and wisdom. According to Augustine, wisdom arises from an ordered soul operating in synthesis with the pursuit of virtue. Alternatively, authority he splits between temporal and eternal jurisdictions.

Excerpts:

“The law of the people merely institutes penalties sufficient for keeping the peace among ignorant human beings, and only to the extent that their actions can be regulated by human government. But those other faults deserve other penalties that I think Wisdom alone can repeal.

“If a people is well-ordered and serious minded, and carefully watches over the common good, and everyone in it values private affairs less than the public interests, is it not right to enact a law that allows this people to choose their own magistrates to look after their interests – that is, the public interest?

“When reason, mind, or spirit controls the irrational impulses of the soul, a human being is ruled by the very thing that ought to rule according to the law that we have found to be eternal.

“For I reserve the term ‘wise’ for those whom truth demands should be called wise, those who have achieved peace by placing all inordinate desire under the control of the mind.

“What is a good will? It is a will by which we desire to live upright and honorable lives and to attain the highest wisdom.

*All excerpts have been taken from On Free Choice of the Will, Hackett Publishing Company.

World and Soul – Origen

Synopsis:

Origen’s exposition on the material world – and its relation to the human soul – examines the complexion of evil, the genesis of virtue, as well as the internal frictions of the middle-ground vis-à-vis human action. Origen affirms the mono-causality of wisdom, righteousness, and truth in synthesis with God.

Excerpts:

“The never-ending thirst for wisdom must be chosen by souls as their first object. This necessarily means first of all a strong orientation inward involving the closing of one’s eyes to the outer world.

“To ask about the soul means to cast one’s gaze into the abyss of eternal eons and immeasurable waves of fate.

“Just as when our eyes rest upon something made by an artist, our mind burns to know how and in what way and to what purpose it was made, far more and beyond all comparison with such things does our spirit burn with an unspeakable longing to know the why and wherefore of the works of God which we see.

“You must understand that you are another world in miniature, and that there is in you sun and moon and also stars.

“For the body to grow and to become great lies not within our power. For the body takes its material size, whether large or small, from its genetic origin; but our soul has its own causes and its free will to make it large or small.

*All excerpts have been taken from Origen: Spirit & Fire, The Catholic University of America Press.

Against Fear of Death – Cicero

Synopsis:

Excerpts:

“And yet a responsible farmer will plant trees, even though he’ll never see them bear a single olive. Won’t a great man plant laws, practices, a commonwealth?

“The soul senses its own motion; when it does, it senses that it has been moved by its own power, not by anything else, and that it can never be deprived of itself. Which means it is eternal.

“Although glory is not to be sought for its own sake, it follows virtue like a shadow.

*All excerpts have been taken from Cicero: On Living and Dying Well, Penguin Classics.