"I am particularly sensitive to your evocation of Seneca. My memories of the seven years of Latin study (seven hours a week at Hoche!) remain vague, the fatal destiny of the high school student of my adolescence, who inevitably did his "humanities": Latin, Greek. Paragraphs of "De la constance du sage" were studied, indeed. The sage of stoicism, of which Seneca was one of the great, was particularly scrutinized during the German occupation, a difficult period which required a lot of patience, even heroic restraint sometimes. Wisdom was then above all a way of life that allowed us to forget hunger, cold, censorship, in short, to bear the hazards of life. "On the constancy of the wise man" by Seneca was a stoic vision of this way of life of the time. Seneca said that it was a difficult path. Wisdom required height of vision, not easy to reach. "How do you get to the top by a flat route," he asked, "if not by great effort?"
But the wise man is invincible, he clarified. Not that he is immune to hard knocks, but when something bad happens to him, he does not suffer. One must even receive blows to become a wise man. "The soul of the wise man is strong."
The wise man, in particular, is not vulnerable to the attacks of the wicked. The wise man shows, guards, composure and passivity in the midst of attacks. Seneca especially wants to protect us from injustice and insult. The Pilgrim of Ares must be a wise man and not feel the injustice. One does not have anything of one's own! Why be moved by the loss of what is not one's own? If the wise man loses what he has publicly, including his good name, he loses nothing of what he is intimately, whereas if the non-wise man loses what he has, he loses all that he is. "The wise man is of the species of those who, by long and patient exercise, have the strength to endure the violence of their enemies and to wear them down." As for insult, it is much less serious than injustice. One does not sue a rude, devious or mocking person. The wise man is never a mediocre person who thinks he is belittled by an insult that demeans him.
The wise man, according to The Revelation of Ares, but also according to Seneca, remains human. He can overcome everything. He repels attacks with wisdom... . To castigate the attacker is to give him consideration. It is necessary to dispense with answering, if the answer does not have all its chances to succeed. In short, we should not give consideration to people who commit injustices and insults. We do not accomplish anything good, nothing great, nothing that can change our lives (Rev of Ares 30/11) and change the world (28/7), if we are anxious or simply worried by what others say about us. Seneca says, "Freedom is placing our minds above insults, it is making ourselves such that the reasons for rejoicing come from ourselves alone, it is turning away from ourselves everything that can only lead the anxious life of a man who fears the laughter and tongues of others."
In other words, there was stoicism in both Jesus and Seneca. Let us be stoics ourselves ... "
Réponse : 29nov22 246C24
https://michelpotayblog.net/246.html/246-comments-french.html
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
edited by djd
Original blog entry in English: https://michelpotayblog.net/246.html/246-comments-english.html
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