It would be a needless task to continue these parallels, because by reading any treatise of Seneca a student might add to them by scores; and they prove incontestably that, as far as moral illumination was concerned, Seneca “was not far from the kingdom of heaven.”  They have been collected by several writers; and all of these here adduced, together with many others, may be found in the pages of Fleury, Troplong, Aubertin, and others.  Some authors, like M. Fleury, have endeavoured to show that they can only be accounted for by the supposition that Seneca had some acquaintance with the sacred writings.  M. Aubertin, on the other hand, has conclusively demonstrated that this could not have been the case.  Many words and expressions detached from their context have been forced into a resemblance with the words of Scripture, when the context wholly militates against its spirit; many belong to that great common stock of moral truths which had been elaborated by the conscientious labours of ancient philosophers; and there is hardly one of the thoughts so eloquently enunciated which may not be found even more nobly and more distinctly expressed in the writings of Plato and of Cicero.  In a subsequent chapter we shall show that, in spite of them all, the divergences of Seneca from the spirit of Christianity are at least as remarkable as the closest of his resemblances; but it will be more convenient to do this when we have also examined the doctrines of those two other great representatives of spiritual enlightenment in Pagan souls, Epictetus the slave and Marcus Aurelius the emperor.

Meanwhile, it is a matter for rejoicing that writings such as these give us a clear proof that in all ages the Spirit of the Lord has entered into holy men, and made them sons of God and prophets.  God “left not Himself without witness” among them.  The language of St. Thomas Aquinas, that many a heathen has had an “implicit faith,” is but another way of expressing St. Paul’s statement that “not having the law they were a law unto themselves, and showed the work of the law written in their hearts.” [49] To them the Eternal Power and Godhead were known from the things that do appear, and alike from the voice of conscience and the voice of nature they derived a true, although a partial and inadequate, knowledge.  To them “the voice of nature was the voice of God.”  Their revelation was the law of nature, which was confirmed, strengthened, and extended, but not suspended, by the written law of God.[50]

[Footnote 49:  Rom. i. 2.]

[Footnote 50:  Hooker, Eccl.  Pol. iii. 8.]