On Providence
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~8,210 words · 39 passages
Cite this work
- APALucius Annaeus Seneca. (n.d.). On Providence. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/of-providence
- MLALucius Annaeus Seneca. "On Providence." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/of-providence.
- ChicagoLucius Annaeus Seneca. On Providence. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/of-providence.
What it is about
Why do bad things happen to good people if the world is governed by providence? The Stoic answer: adversity is the training, and the wise man is not the one who does not suffer but the one suffering does not bend.
Context and history
English translation of De providentia, written around AD 64 under Nero. This entry is the English translation; the Latin original is in the catalogue separately and is what should be cited.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
OU have asked me, Lucilius, why, if the world be ruled by providence, so many evils befall good men? The answer to this would be more conveniently given in the course of this work, after we have proved that providence governs the universe, and that God is amongst us: but, since you wish me to deal with one point apart from the whole, and to answer one replication before the main action has been decided, I will do what is not difficult, and plead the cause of the gods. At the present time it is superfluous to point out that it is not without some guardian that so great a work maintains its position, that the assemblage and movements of the stars do not depend upon accidental impulses, or that objects whose motion is regulated by chance often fall into confusion and soon stumble, whereas this swift and safe movement goes on, governed by eternal law, bearing with it so many things both on sea and land, so many most brilliant lights shining in order in the skies; that this regularity does not belong to matter moving at random, and that particles brought together by chance could not arrange themselves with such art as to make the heaviest weight, that of the earth, remain unmoved, and behold the flight of the heavens as they hasten round it, to make the seas pour into the valleys and so temper the climate of the land, without any sensible increase from the rivers which flow into them, or to cause huge growths to proceed from minute seeds. Even those phenomena which appear to be← Back to Lucius Annaeus Seneca