Between Heathenism and Christianity Being a translation of Seneca's De Providentia, and Plutarch's De sera numinis vindicta, together with notes, additional extracts — Key Ideas to Explore

Seneca’s Stoic Theodicy

In De Providentia, Seneca argues that adversity is a divine tool for strengthening virtue. The wise person, he claims, is never truly harmed by misfortune, because external events cannot touch the inner self. Super’s translation captures Seneca’s rhetorical urgency: the text is less a systematic treatise than a consolatory address, urging the reader to see suffering as a form of divine training. The Stoic god is not a personal intervener but a rational principle that governs all things; thus, what appears evil is merely part of a larger, benevolent order. Seneca’s examples—drawn from Roman history and myth—reinforce his point that great men are tested by hardship. Yet the translation also reveals tensions: Seneca sometimes wavers between asserting providence and acknowledging the apparent randomness of fate, a contradiction Super notes in his introduction.

Plutarch’s Delayed Justice

Plutarch’s De Sera Numinis Vindicta tackles the same problem but from a different angle: why divine punishment often seems slow or absent. Writing as a priest of Apollo at Delphi, Plutarch defends the gods’ justice by arguing that delay serves pedagogical and cosmic purposes. The treatise takes the form of a dialogue, a nod to Plato, though Plutarch’s interlocutors rarely challenge him at length. Super observes that Plutarch is “the bitter enemy of atheism” yet equally opposed to superstition, a balancing act that leads to occasional inconsistency. The translation shows Plutarch drawing on myths, historical anecdotes, and philosophical reasoning to argue that punishment, when it comes, is fitting and sometimes extends to descendants. His willingness to cite contradictory authorities and then declare a preference without full justification marks his method as more homiletic than rigorously philosophical.

Super’s Bridging Essays

Charles W. Super, a classicist and former president of Ohio University, provides two essays on Graeco-Roman life in the first century after Christ. These essays situate the translated works within the broader cultural and religious landscape of the early Roman Empire. Super emphasizes the “remarkable fact” of Christianity’s rapid spread, which he links to the moral vacuum left by traditional paganism. He notes that both Seneca and Plutarch, despite their differences, represent a turn toward inwardness and ethical rigor that prepared the ground for Christian thought. The essays also discuss the role of the family, the prevalence of superstition even among intellectuals, and the tension between faith and credulity. Super’s own voice is measured; he avoids dogmatic claims, instead presenting the ancient authors as witnesses to a world in transition.

Readers approaching this volume should attend to the contrasts between Seneca’s terse, imperative style and Plutarch’s more discursive, anecdotal manner. Super’s notes, though occasionally dated, clarify references and highlight points of disagreement between the two authors. The book is best read as a primary source for understanding how educated pagans grappled with the problem of evil—a problem that Christian thinkers would soon recast in new terms.

Reading Seneca’s calm about providence, I remembered elderberry smoke curling from our hedgerow, an old ritual of blessing. Then I recalled how Balder the Beautiful, Volume I. A Study in Magic and Religion: the Golden Bough, Part VII., The Fire-Festivals of Europe and the Doctrine of the External Soul — Story, Setting & Ideas once gave words to that familiar ache—how fire, too, becomes a prayer against what we cannot control.