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Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database



10243
Seneca The Younger, Letters, 102.23-102.25


nanThese delays of mortal existence are a prelude to the longer and better life. As the mother's womb holds us for ten months, making us ready, not for the womb itself, but for the existence into which we seem to be sent forth when at last we are fitted to draw breath and live in the open; just so, throughout the years extending between infancy and old age, we are making ourselves ready for another birth. A different beginning, a different condition, await us.


nanWe cannot yet, except at rare intervals, endure the light of heaven; therefore, look forward without fearing to that appointed hour, – the last hour of the body but not of the soul. Survey everything that lies about you, as if it were luggage in a guest-chamber: you must travel on. Nature strips you as bare at your departure as at your entrance.


nanWe cannot yet, except at rare intervals, endure the light of heaven; therefore, look forward without fearing to that appointed hour,[9]– the last hour of the body but not of the soul. Survey everything that lies about you, as if it were luggage in a guest-chamber: you must travel on. Nature strips you as bare at your departure as at your entrance.


nanYou may take away no more than you brought in; what is more, you must throw away the major portion of that which you brought with you into life: you will be stripped of the very skin which covers you – that which has been your last protection; you will be stripped of the flesh, and lose the blood which is suffuses and circulated through your body; you will be stripped of bones and sinews, the framework of these transitory and feeble parts.


nanYou may take away no more than you brought in; what is more, you must throw away the major portion of that which you brought with you into life: you will be stripped of the very skin which covers you – that which has been your last protection; you will be stripped of the flesh, and lose the blood which is suffused and circulated through your body; you will be stripped of bones and sinews, the framework of these transitory and feeble parts.


Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

9 results
1. Septuagint, Wisdom of Solomon, 7.6 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)

7.6. there is for all mankind one entrance into life, and a common departure.
2. Horace, Sermones, 1.1 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)

1.1. 1. I suppose that, by my books of the Antiquities of the Jews, most excellent Epaphroditus, I have made it evident to those who peruse them, that our Jewish nation is of very great antiquity, and had a distinct subsistence of its own originally; as also I have therein declared how we came to inhabit this country wherein we now live. Those Antiquities contain the history of five thousand years, and are taken out of our sacred books; but are translated by me into the Greek tongue. 1.1. but as for the place where the Grecians inhabit, ten thousand destructions have overtaken it, and blotted out the memory of former actions; so that they were ever beginning a new way of living, and supposed that every one of them was the origin of their new state. It was also late, and with difficulty, that they came to know the letters they now use; for those who would advance their use of these letters to the greatest antiquity pretend that they learned them from the Phoenicians and from Cadmus; 1.1. but after some considerable time, Armais, who was left in Egypt, did all those very things, by way of opposition, which his brother had forbidden him to do, without fear; for he used violence to the queen, and continued to make use of the rest of the concubines, without sparing any of them; nay, at the persuasion of his friends he put on the diadem, and set up to oppose his brother;
3. Dio Chrysostom, Orations, 17 (1st cent. CE

4. New Testament, 1 Timothy, 4.7-4.8, 6.3-6.19 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

4.7. But refuse profane and old wives' fables. Exercise yourself toward godliness. 4.8. For bodily exercise has some value, but godliness has value for all things, having the promise of the life which is now, and of that which is to come. 6.3. If anyone teaches a different doctrine, and doesn't consent to sound words, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness 6.4. he is conceited, knowing nothing, but obsessed with arguments, disputes, and word battles, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions 6.5. constant friction of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. Withdraw yourself from such. 6.6. But godliness with contentment is great gain. 6.7. For we brought nothing into the world, and we certainly can't carry anything out. 6.8. But having food and clothing, we will be content with that. 6.9. But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction. 6.10. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 6.11. But you, man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness. 6.12. Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you confessed the good confession in the sight of many witnesses. 6.13. I charge you before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate testified the good confession 6.14. that you keep the commandment without spot, blameless, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; 6.15. which in its own times he will show, who is the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; 6.16. who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and eternal power. Amen. 6.17. Charge those who are rich in this present world that they not be haughty, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on the living God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy; 6.18. that they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to communicate; 6.19. laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold of eternal life.
5. New Testament, Mark, 6.9 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

6.9. but to wear sandals, and not put on two tunics.
6. Plutarch, On Love of Wealth, 523e (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

7. Seneca The Younger, Letters, 20.13, 102.2, 102.21-102.22, 102.24-102.25, 102.27-102.28 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

8. Arnobius, Against The Gentiles, 5.17 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)

9. Pseudo-Phocylides, The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides, 110



Subjects of this text:

subject book bibliographic info
avarice, and wealth Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
dio chrysostom Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
epistle, pastorals Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
eschatology Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
greed Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
marcus aurelius Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (2010) 100
metaphor Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
middle platonism Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (2010) 100
pastoral epistles Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
pastorals Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
philosopher Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
plato Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (2010) 101
platonic phraseology in paul, a pessimistic world-view? Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (2010) 100, 101
plutarch Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
proverb Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
satan Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (2010) 101
seneca Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (2010) 100, 101; Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
stoicism, an optimistic world-view? Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (2010) 100, 101
stoicism Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
teacher, false Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527
verbeke, g., view from above Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (2010) 100
wealth' Malherbe et al., Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity: Collected Essays of Abraham J (2014) 527