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COLLOQUIUM 2 GOD and HUMAN KNOWLEDGE in SENECA's NATURAL QUESTIONS BRAD INWOOD1 1 a Longer Version of This Paper Is Forthcoming

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COLLOQUIUM 2 GOD and HUMAN KNOWLEDGE in SENECA's NATURAL QUESTIONS BRAD INWOOD1 1 a Longer Version of This Paper Is Forthcoming COLLOQUIUM 2 GOD AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE IN SENECA'S NATURAL QUESTIONS BRAD INWOOD1 In his Hymn to Zeus, Cleanthes celebrates the supreme deity, whom the whole cosmos obeys (11. 7-8), and the power of his thunderbolt (9-11). With his thunderbolt Zeus makes straight the KOLV6S' \6yos which penetrates everything (12-13). As a result, the world is a coordinated whole (18-21). The moral implications of this order are not neglected (14-17, 22-31). And as convention dictates, the hymn ends with a direct prayer for divine assistance (32-38): But Zeus, giver of all, you of the dark clouds, of the blazing thunderbolt, save men from their baneful inexperience and disperse it, Father, far from their souls; grant that they may achieve the insight relying on which you guide everything with justice so that we may requite you with honor for the honor you give us praising your works continually, as is fitting for one who is mortal; for there is no greater prize, neither for mortals nor for gods, than to praise with justice the common law for ever. Seneca, of course, knew Cleanthes' work well. He followed the example of Cicero and translated Greek philosophical poetry into Latin verse (Epistulae Morales 107.10-11), choosing another hymn by Cleanthes to underscore his own argument for the cheerful acceptance of fate. The themes of Cleanthes' hymns lie at the heart of Stoicism and flesh out the doctrine of Chrysippus that theology is the culmination of physics. For Stoic physics is by no means the bloodless study of a merely physical world. Physics is intimately concerned with the place of human beings in the coordinated whole which is run by Zeus. Indeed, Stoic doctrine even identifies the cosmos with god (SVF 2.528). 1 A longer version of this paper is forthcoming in the proceedings of the eighth Symposium Hellenisticum, to be edited by Andr6 Laks. The present version is printed very much as read at Boston College, but I am very grateful to my commentator Margaret Graver for a number of suggestions, exegetical and bibliographical, from which the longer version will benefit, and to an anonymous BACAP reader for several helpful observations. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my hosts in the Philosophy Department at Boston College, and especially Gary Gurtler, S.J., for his warm hospitality and stimulating discussion. When we turn to the Stoic Seneca's work on physics, the Natural Questions, we should not be expecting him to be detached from lofty questions of god and man.2 And indeed he is not. For the NQ is permeated by a vigorous interest in god, man, their relationship to each other, and the way in which the puzzling phenomena of the natural world relate to human life. As one begins grappling with a work which is often dry and impenetrable, it is worth reflecting on the first thing Cleanthes actually prayed for at the end of his hymn to Zeus: "save men from their baneful inexperience/ and disperse it, Father, far from their souls." 'A7Tf.LPOcrVvr¡, the failure to have and use experience of the natural world,3 is the evil most to be deprecated. Throughout the NQ Seneca works to bring together the themes of human and divine relations, the relationship of human beings to the natural world, and human inexperience or ignorance. The cure Seneca proposes for this baneful condition of man is the application of a critically rational approach to the understanding of the cosmos. Seneca's bold decision to focus on meteorology, the least promising aspect of natural philosophy,4 presents readers with a challenge. To be sure, the study of specific physical phenomena close to human experience is motivated by moral and ethical concerns-Stoics like Seneca need to give rational explanations of the earthquakes, comets and portents which ordinary people find so disturbing just as much as Epicureans like Lucretius do. But the moral applications are well hidden behind a mass of aetiological detail which led one perceptive scholar to describe the NQ as "the least read and least valued of any work by its author."5 It is impossible to comprehend the effort which Seneca-a man of letters as much as a moral therapist—poured into this imposing work6 without recognizing the nature of his central concerns in the book. The attempt to bring such central issues of Stoicism to 2 For what it is worth, Diogenes Laertius' brief summary of meteorological and astronomical topics at 7.151-5 is sandwiched between his account of 8ai'jnoi/es who watch over human affairs and a treatment of the human soul. 3 We should recall that Chrysippus defined the T€\o? as living in accordance with experience (ÈP.7T£!pía) of things which happen by nature (D.L. 7.87, Stobaeus Eclogae. 2.76). 4 Contrast the rather easier themes chosen by Cicero in De natura deorum 2. 5 In the introduction to his Munich dissertation (Waiblinger 1977, 1), Franz Peter Waiblinger quotes Axelson's assessment: the NQ is "das am wenigsten gelesene und geschatzte Werk ihres Autors" (Axelson 1933, 1). 6 Even in its incomplete form, it is his longest unified work surviving, if one recognizes that the Letters are a kind of serial collection. The De Beneficiis too was at first a work in four books, with the last three added after the provisional completion of the work (see Ben. 5.1.1 and Ep. 81.3). .
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