Seneca and Paul on the Future of Humanity and of the Cosmos
The Salvation of Creation: Seneca and Paul on the Future of Humanity and of the Cosmos James P. Ware Modern scholarship confirms what Seneca says about himself: that he was a convinced Stoic, who was nonetheless not averse to criticism of his Stoic predecessors, who drew eclectically upon a variety of thinkers regardless of school, and also sought to make original contributions to philosophical thought.1 The starting point for our examination, in Part One, of Seneca’s un- derstanding of the future of human beings and of the cosmos will therefore be the ancient Stoic conception of cosmic conflagration and renewal. In con- trast with Seneca, there is widespread disagreement (and, I will argue, misun- derstanding) in Pauline scholarship regarding the proper contextualization of Paul’s eschatology within its ancient philosophical and cultural milieu. In Part Two, therefore, our examination of Paul’s future expectation, I will address this debate regarding Paul’s eschatological hope. The aim will be to gain an au- thentic grasp of the content of Paul’s hope of resurrection and new creation, in order to set Paul and Seneca in fruitful dialogue regarding the cosmos, human beings, and their future. 1 Part One: Seneca and the Expectation of Eternal Recurrence The mainstream Stoic teaching postulated the cyclical or periodic destruc- tion by fire (ἐκπύρωσις) and subsequent renewal (παλιγγενεσία), in its identical form, of the entire created order.2 According to the Stoics, says Origen, “after the conflagration of the universe, which has taken place from infinity and will take place to infinity, the same order of all things, from beginning to end, has 1 See, e.g., Ep.
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