OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 46

XLVI. ON A NEW BOOK BY LUCILIUS
$^{1.}$ I received the book of yours which you promised me. I opened it hastily with the idea of glancing over it at leisure; for I meant only to taste the volume. But by its own charm the book coaxed me into traversing it more at length. You may understand from this fact how eloquent it was; for it seemed to be written in the smooth style, and yet did not resemble your handiwork or mine, but at first sight might have been ascribed to Titus Livius or to Epicurus. Moreover, I was so impressed and carried along by its charm that I finished it without ​any postponement. The sunlight called to me, hunger warned, and clouds were lowering; but I absorbed the book from beginning to end.
$^{2.}$ I was not merely pleased; I rejoiced. So full of wit and spirit it was! I should have added “force,” had the book contained moments of repose, or had it risen to energy only at intervals. But I found that there was no burst of force, but an even flow, a style that was vigorous and chaste. Nevertheless I noticed from time to time your sweetness, and here and there that mildness of yours. Your style is lofty and noble; I want you to keep to this manner and this direction. Your subject also contributed something; for this reason you should choose productive topics, which will lay hold of the mind and arouse it.
$^{3.}$ I shall discuss the book more fully after a second perusal; meantime, my judgment is somewhat unsettled, just as if I had heard it read aloud, and had not read it myself. You must allow me to examine it also. You need not be afraid; you shall hear the truth. Lucky fellow, to offer a man no opportunity to tell you lies at such long range! Unless perhaps, even now, when excuses for lying are taken away, custom serves as an excuse for our telling each other lies! Farewell.
# Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 96

XCVI. ON FACING HARDSHIPS
$^{1.}$ Spite of all do you still chafe and complain, not understanding that, in all the evils to which you refer, there is really only one—the fact that you do chafe and complain? If you ask me, I think that for a man there is no misery unless there be something in the universe which he thinks miserable. I shall not endure myself on that day when I find anything unendurable.
I am ill; but that is a part of my lot. My slaves have fallen sick, my income has gone off, my house is rickety, I have been assailed by losses, accidents, toil, and fear; this is a common thing. Nay, that was an understatement; it was an inevitable thing. $^{2.}$ Such affairs come by order, and not by accident. If you will believe me, it is my inmost emotions that I am just now disclosing to you: when everything seems to go hard and uphill, I have trained myself not merely to obey God, but to agree with His ​decisions. I follow Him because my soul wills it, and not because I must. Nothing will ever happen to me that I shall receive with ill humour or with a wry face. I shall pay up all my taxes willingly. Now all the things which cause us to groan or recoil, are part of the tax of life—things, my dear Lucilius, which you should never hope and never seek to escape.
$^{3.}$ It was disease of the bladder that made you apprehensive; downcast letters came from you; you were continually getting worse; I will touch the truth more closely, and say that you feared for your life. But come, did you not know, when you prayed for long life, that this was what you were praying for? A long life includes all these troubles, just as a long journey includes dust and mud and rain. $^{4.}$ “But,” you cry, “I wished to live, and at the same time to be immune from all ills.” Such a womanish cry does no credit to a man. Consider in what attitude you shall receive this prayer of mine (I offer it not only in a good, but in a noble spirit): “May gods and goddesses alike forbid that Fortune keep you in luxury!” $^{5.}$ Ask yourself voluntarily which you would choose if some god gave you the choice—life in a café or life in a camp.
And yet life, Lucilius, is really a battle. For this reason those who are tossed about at sea, who proceed uphill and downhill over toilsome crags and heights, who go on campaigns that bring the greatest danger, are heroes and front-rank fighters; but persons who live in rotten luxury and ease while others toil, are mere turtle-doves—safe only because men despise them. Farewell.
# Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 103

CIII. ON THE DANGERS OF ASSOCIATION WITH OUR FELLOW-MEN
$^{1.}$ Why are you looking about for troubles which may perhaps come your way, but which may indeed not come your way at all? I mean fires, falling buildings, and other accidents of the sort that are mere events rather than plots against us. Rather beware and shun those troubles which dog our steps and reach out their hands against us. Accidents, though they may be serious, are few—such as being shipwrecked or thrown from one’s carriage; but it is from his fellow-man that a man’s everyday danger comes. Equip yourself against that; watch that with an attentive eye. There is no evil more frequent, no evil more persistent, no evil more insinuating. $^{2.}$ Even the storm, before it gathers, gives a warning; houses crack before they crash; and smoke is the forerunner ​of fire. But damage from man is instantaneous, and the nearer it comes the more carefully it is concealed.
You are wrong to trust the countenances of those you meet. They have the aspect of men, but the souls of brutes; the difference is that only beasts damage you at the first encounter; those whom they have passed by they do not pursue. For nothing ever goads them to do harm except when need compels them: it is hunger or fear that forces them into a fight. But man delights to ruin man.
$^{3.}$ You must, however, reflect thus what danger you run at the hands of man, in order that you may deduce what is the duty of man. Try, in your dealings with others, to harm not, in order that you be not harmed. You should rejoice with all in their joys and sympathize with them in their troubles, remembering what you should offer and what you should withhold. $^{4.}$ And what may you attain by living such a life? Not necessarily freedom from harm at their hands, but at least freedom from deceit. In so far, however, as you are able, take refuge with philosophy: she will cherish you in her bosom, and in her sanctuary you shall be safe, or, at any rate, safer than before. People collide only when they are travelling the same path. $^{5.}$ But this very philosophy must never be vaunted by you; for philosophy when employed with insolence and arrogance has been perilous to many. Let her strip off your faults, rather than assist you to decry the faults of others. Let her not hold aloof from the customs of mankind, nor make it her business to condemn whatever she herself does not do. A man may be wise without parade and without arousing enmity. Farewell.
# Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 111

CXI. ON THE VANITY OF MENTAL GYMNASTICS
$^{1.}$ You have asked me to give you a Latin word for the Greek sophismata. Many have tried to define the term, but no name has stuck. This is natural, inasmuch as the thing itself has not been admitted to general use by us; the name, too, has met with opposition. But the word which Cicero used seems to me most suitable: he calls them cavillationes. $^{2.}$ If a man has surrendered himself to them, he weaves many a tricky subtlety, but makes no progress toward real living; he does not thereby become braver, or more restrained, or loftier of spirit.
​He, however, who has practised philosophy to effect his own cure, becomes high-souled, full of confidence, invincible, and greater as you draw near him. $^{3.}$ This phenomenon is seen in the case of high mountains, which appear less lofty when beheld from afar, but which prove clearly how high the peaks are when you come near them; such, my dear Lucilius, is our true philosopher, true by his acts and not by his tricks. He stands in a high place, worthy of admiration, lofty, and really great. He does not stretch himself or walk on tiptoe like those who seek to improve their height by deceit, wishing to seem taller than they really are; he is content with his own greatness. $^{4.}$ And why should he not be content with having grown to such a height that Fortune cannot reach her hands to it? He is therefore above earthly things, equal to himself under all conditions,—whether the current of life runs free, or whether he is tossed and travels on troubled and desperate seas; but this steadfastness cannot be gained through such hair-splittings as I have just mentioned. The mind plays with them, but profits not a whit; the mind in such cases is simply dragging philosophy down from her heights to the level ground.
$^{5.}$ I would not forbid you to practise such exercises occasionally; but let it be at a time when you wish to do nothing. The worst feature, however, that these indulgences present is that they acquire a sort of self-made charm, occupying and holding the soul by a show of subtlety; although such weighty matters claim our attention, and a whole life seems scarcely sufficient to learn the single principle of despising life. “What? Did you not mean ‘control’ instead of ‘despise’”? No; “controlling” ​is the second task; for no one has controlled his life aright unless he has first learned to despise it. Farewell.
# Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 112

CXII. ON REFORMING HARDENED SINNERS
$^{1.}$ I am indeed anxious that your friend be moulded and trained, according to your desire. But he has been taken in a very hardened state, or rather (and this is a more difficult problem), in a very soft state, broken down by bad and inveterate habits.
I should like to give you an illustration from my own handicraft. $^{2.}$ It is not every vine that admits the grafting process; if it be old and decayed, or if it be weak and slender, the vine either will not receive the cutting, or will not nourish it and make it a part of itself, nor will it accommodate itself to the qualities and nature of the grafted part. Hence we usually cut off the vine above ground, so that if we do not get results at first, we may try a second venture, and on a second trial graft it below the ground.
$^{3.}$ Now this person, concerning whom you have sent me your message in writing, has no strength; for he has pampered his vices. He has at one and the same time become flabby and hardened. He cannot receive reason, nor can he nourish it. “But,” you say, “he desires reason of his own free will.” Don’t believe him. Of course I do not mean that he is lying to you; for he really thinks that he desires it. Luxury has merely upset his stomach; he will soon become reconciled to it again. $^{4.}$ “But he says that he is put out with his former way of living.” Very likely. Who is not? Men love and hate their vices at the same time. It will be the proper season to pass judgment on him when he has given us a ​guarantee that he really hates luxury; as it is now, luxury and he are merely not on speaking terms. Farewell.
# Moral letters to Lucilius/Appendix

Appendices from volumes 2 and 3
Volume II.
APPENDIX
containing some new readings found in the Codex Quirinianus (Q), a MS. of the ninth or tenth century, published at Brescia by Achilles Beltrami in 1916. The MS. includes Epp. I–LXXXVIII.
Volume III.
APPENDIX A
Ep. xciv. deals, on the whole, with the question whether doctrines without precepts are enough for the student and the philosopher; Ep. xcv. whether precepts without doctrines will suffice. Seneca concludes that they are both necessary and are complementary to one another, especially in view of the complicated life which one is called upon to live, with its many duties and choices. The terms discussed, with some of the Greek original definitions, may be summed up as follows:—
(1) The outward expressions of ἐπιστήμη (scientia, knowledge) and of the κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι (notiones communes, προλήψεις, innate ideas) are found in the form of ἀξιώματα (pronuntiata, incontrovertible statements), δόγματα (placita, decreta, scita, doctrines, tenets, dogmas, principles). Determined by ὅροι (definitiones, definitions), they are tested by their ἀξία (honestum, moral value), by the κριτήριον (norma iudicii, standard of judgement) or κανών (lex, regula, etc.), and by the ὀρθὸς λόγος (recta ratio, universal law, etc.). By such means the doctrines of philosophy are contrasted with δόξα (opinio) and with a κατάληψις (cognitio or comprehensio) which falls short of completeness and perfection. Conduct which results from a thorough understanding and performance of such doctrines is κατόρθωμα (τέλειον καθῆκον, perfectum officium, “absolute duty”).
​(2) The pars praeceptiva (παραινετική) of philosophy, which deals with “average duty” (καθῆκον, commune or medium officium), is approved, among others, by Posidonius, Cicero (see the De Officiis), and Seneca. It is related to active living and to the ἀδιάφορα (media or indifferentia) (see Subject Index) which play so large a rôle in the individual’s daily existence. This department of “counsel,” “admonition,” or “advice” has many forms. For παραίνεσις (monitio) are needed: the λόγος προτρεπτικός (exhortatio), τόπος ὑποθετικός (suasio), ἀποτροπή (dissuasio), ἐπιτίμησις (obiurgatio), λόγος παραμυθητικός (consolatio), αἰτιολογία (causarum inquisitio), ἠθολογία (descriptio), and all the gamut of precepts which run from blame to praise. These are reinforced by ἀπόδειξις (probatio, argumentum, proof) and by such helps as χρεῖαι, ἀπομνημονεύματα (sententiae, proverbs, maxims).
By such stages of advancement, προκοπή (progressio), and relying upon παραδείγματα (exempla), one rises, through practical precepts and the observance of duties, to an appreciation of the virtues, the contemplative mastery of the Universe, and to the Supreme Good, conformity with Nature (ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει ζῆν, vivere convenienter naturae).
APPENDIX B
The following publications may profitably be consulted by one who wishes to investigate Seneca’s prose further:
With special reference to Ep. xc. and other passages, one may consult:—
# Moral letters to Lucilius/Index of proper names

Three indexes of proper names from the three volumes
# Moral letters to Lucilius

A Loeb Classical Library edition; volume 1 published 1917; volume 2 published 1920; volume 3 published 1925
Layout 2
THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY
EDITED BY E. CAPPS, PH.D., LL.D.T. E. PAGE, LITT.D. W. H. D. ROUSE, LITT.D.
SENECA AD LUCILIUM EPISTULAE MORALES
SENECA AD LUCILIUM EPISTULAE MORALES
WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY RICHARD M. GUMMERE, PH.D. OF HAVERFORD COLLEGE
IN THREE VOLUMES
LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
First Printed 1918.
Reprinted 1925.
Printed in Great Britain.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1969, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 55 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Buckholdt, Johann

See also John of Leiden on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BUCKHOLDT [properly Beukelsz, or Bockelszoon], JOHANN (c. 1508–1535), Dutch Anabaptist fanatic, better known as John of Leiden, from his place of birth, was the illegitimate son of Bockel, burgomaster of Soevenhagen, who afterwards married his mother. He was born about 1508, apprenticed to a tailor, became infected with the opinions of Thomas Münzer, travelled in pursuit of his trade (being four years in London), married a widow, became bankrupt, and in September 1533 joined the Anabaptist movement under Johann Matthysz (Matthyszoon), baker of Haarlem. He had little education, but some literary faculty, and had written plays. On the 13th of January 1534 he appeared in Münster as an apostle of Matthysz. Good-looking and fluent, he fascinated women, and won the confidence of Bernard Knipperdollinck, a revolutionary cloth merchant, who gave him his daughter in marriage. The Münster Anabaptists took up arms on the 9th of February 1534 (see Anabaptists). On the death of Matthysz (1534), Buckholdt succeeded him as prophet, added his widow to the number of his wives, and organized a new constitution for Münster, with twelve elders (suggested by the tribes of Israel) and other officers of a theocracy, but soon superseded these, making himself king of the new Zion. His arbitrary rule was marked by pomp and severity. Münster was retaken (June 25, 1535) by its prince-bishop, Franz von Waldeck. Buckholdt, after many indignities, was cruelly executed on the 22nd of January 1536; his body, and those of his companions, were hung in cages to the tower of the Lamberti church. His portrait is in Grouwelen der Hooftketteren (Leiden, 1607; an English edition is appended to Alexander Ross’s Pansebeia, 2nd ed., 1655); a better example of the same is given by Arend.
See Arend, Algemeene Geschiedenis des Vaderlands (1846), ii., iii., 629; Van der Aa, Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden (1853); E. Belfort Bax, Rise and Fail of the Anabaptists (1903).  (A. Go.*)
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Johnson, John (fl.1641)

​JOHNSON, JOHN (fl. 1641), romantic writer, who describes himself as ‘Gent.,’ was the author of a thin quarto, with engraved title-page, entitled ‘The Academy of Love, describing ye Folly of younge Men and ye Fallacy of Women,’ 1641. The work is dedicated to Richard Compton. It is a dreary attempt at a humorous treatment of the venality ​of women, and possesses no literary merit; but has acquired a factitious importance from a reference made in it to the popularity of Shakespeare with ‘young sparkish girles,’ in the description of ‘Love's Library’ (p. 99). Wood mentions the book, but had not ascertained whether its author was of either university; he adds that John, son of John Johnson of Oddington, Gloucestershire, was entered of New Inn, Oxford, in 1639.
[Johnson's Academy, 1641; Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 162.]
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mayo, Richard

​MAYO, RICHARD (1631?–1695), ejected divine, was born about 1631. His family seems to have belonged to Hertfordshire. In early life he was at school in London under John Singleton, a puritan divine, and he entered the ministry when very young. During the Commonwealth period he obtained the vicarage of Kingston-on-Thames, Surrey, probably succeeding Edmund Staunton, D.D., in 1648. For several years he also conducted a weekly lecture at St. Mary's, Whitechapel, London. By the uniformity act he was ejected (1662) from his living, but continued to preach in conventicles. He was one of the few who, in 1666, took the oath which exempted from the operation of the Five Miles Act. Towards the end of the reign of Charles II he settled as minister of a presbyterian congregation meeting at Buckingham House, College Hill, Upper Thames Street. After the Toleration Act (1689) his congregation removed to a newly built meeting-house in Salters' Hall Court, Cannon Street. Here in 1694, after the exclusion of Daniel Williams, D.D., from the merchants' lectureship, a new lectureship was established [see Howe, John]. Mayo was one of the lecturers. He died, after six weeks' illness, on Sunday, 8 Sept. 1695, in his sixty-fifth year. Nathaniel Taylor, his assistant, preached his funeral sermon. He left two sons, Richard Mayo, D.D., who in 1708 was minister of St. Thomas's Hospital, Southwark, and afterwards rector of St. Michael's, Crooked Lane (Watt confuses him with his father); and Daniel Mayo [q. v.]
He published: 1. 'The Life ... of ... Edmund Staunton,' 1673, 8vo. 2. 'A Plain Answer to this Question ... of Secret Prayer,' &c., 1679, 8vo ; 1687, 12mo. 3. 'A Present for Servants,' &c., 1693, 8vo. 4. 'The Cause and Cure of Strife and Divisions,' &c., 1695, 4to. Also the notes on the Epistle to the Romans in 'Annotations upon the Holy Bible,' vol. ii. 1685, fol., by Matthew Poole, &c., and sermons in the 'Morning Exercise against Popery,' 1675, 4to: in the 'Continuation,' 1683, 4to, of the practical ' Morning Exercise;' and in the 'Casuistical Morning Exercises,' 1690, 4to.
A. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pagit, Ephraim

​PAGIT or PAGITT, EPHRAIM (1575–1647), heresiographer, son of Eusebius Pagit [q. v.], was born in Northamptonshire, probably at Lamport, about 1575. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 25 May 1593, being eighteen years old. There is no evidence of his graduation, but he is said to have been a great linguist, writing fifteen or sixteen languages. On 19 Aug. 1601 he was admitted to the rectory of St. Edmund the King, Lombard Street. In May 1638 he wrote a series of letters addressed to Cyril Lucaris, patriarch of Constantinople, and other patriarchs of the Greek church, commending to their notice his own ‘Christianographie,’ the translation of the English prayer-book into Greek by Elias Petley, and Laud's conference with Fisher.
On the outbreak of the civil war Pagit was silenced, and retired to Deptford, Kent. He was always a strong royalist, and in favour of the prayer-book; yet he took the covenant, and in 1645 he joined in a petition to parliament for the establishment of presbyterianism, probably as a preferable alternative to independency. His standard of doctrine he finds in the articles of ‘our mother,’ the church of England. He died at Deptford in April 1647, and was buried in the churchyard. He married the widow of Sir Stephen Bord of Sussex.
His accounts of sectaries are valuable, as he makes it a rule to give authorities; and they take a wide range, since he treats every deflection from Calvinism as heresy, and every approach to independency as faction.
He published:
* ‘Christianographie; or, a Description of the sundrie Sorts of Christians in the World,’ &c., 1635, 4to; many reprints; best edition, 1640, fol.
* ‘Heresiography; or a description of the Hereticks and Sectaries of these latter times,’ &c., 1645, 4to; two editions same year; many reprints; sixth and best edition, 1662, 8vo.
* ‘The Mystical Wolf,’ &c., 1645, 4to (sermon on Matt. vii. 15; reissued with new title-page, ‘The Tryall of Trueth,’ &c.). His nine letters to the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Moscow, and of the Maronites, also to Prince Radziwil of Poland and John Tolnai of Transylvania, are in Harl. MS. 825.
All are duplicated in Greek and Latin; two are also in English, and one in Syriac.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 210 sq.; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, 1714, ii. 174; Brook's Lives of the Puritans, 1813, iii. 62 sq.; the Lamport registers do not begin till 1587, those of Oundle in 1625; Pagitt's works.]
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