Nature again. Seneca, Epistulae 1.5.4-5

Seneca continues to explore his unique outlook on the familiar ancient idea that philosophy means living in accordance with nature. Some expressed this idea in extreme ways, foregoing money, haircuts, good food, and even good manners in search of authentic philosophy. Seneca thinks this is too much, and offers reasons justifying his more moderate approach. Similar dynamics play out elsewhere in history. Christianity also produces wild saints, like Simeon Stylites (c. 390-459 CE), who lived atop a pillar for more than thirty years, and more moderate ones, like Thomas Becket (1119-1170), who used to wear a hair-shirt full of lice underneath his clerical robes, where nobody could see it. While Seneca would not approve the shirt per se, he would surely prefer the Englishman's privacy to the Syrian's public display. You can hear me read the Latin <here>.

Hoc primum philosophia promittit, sensum communem, humanitatem et congregationem; a qua professione dissimilitudo nos separabit. Videamus ne ista per quae admirationem parare volumus ridicula et odiosa sint. Nempe propositum nostrum est secundum naturam vivere: hoc contra naturam est, torquere corpus suum et faciles odisse munditias et squalorem appetere et cibis non tantum vilibus uti sed taetris et horridis. Quemadmodum desiderare delicatas res luxuriae est, ita usitatas et non magno parabiles fugere dementiae. Frugalitatem exigit philosophia, non poenam; potest autem esse non incompta frugalitas. Hic mihi modus placet: temperetur vita inter bonos mores et publicos; suspiciant omnes vitam nostram sed agnoscant.

Philosophy promises this first: a capacity for shared feeling, humanity, and society. Mutual unlikeness will keep us from professing it. Let us look carefully then at what it is we propose to admire, lest it prove absurd and offensive to us. Our intention is to live according to nature. It goes against nature to torture the body, to hate simple elegance, to seek out squalor and take food that is not just vile, but foul and rank. If the mark of excess is to desire pleasant things, still 'tis a sign of lunacy to flee from them when they are common and easily procured. Philosophy demands frugality, not punishment. Frugality does not have to go unkempt. Here is the measure that pleases me: life should be divided between good habits and public ones; all should look at our life with some suspicion of its difference, but no sure knowledge of it.