Saint Luke, with his eye for detail, is patron saint of
historians and artists. It is ironic that he was martyred, according to
tradition, in Boeotia—a humid and swampy part of Greece whose people
were not interested in much of anything beyond their uneventful daily
lives. Homer mocked them, and they became the butt of jokes, especially
among the Athenians who disdained their lack of interest in philosophy
and the great questions of life, rather like the hapless people today
who spend their time “tweeting” and ignoring what is going on around
them.
If Luke died in Boeotia, he certainly was not Boeotian in outlook.
His vibrant Acts of the Apostles record how some of the people of
Thessalonika objected to what Paul and Silas had been preaching: they
“have turned the world upside down” by “acting against the decrees of
Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus” (Acts 17:7). This is
exactly what is said in our own culture as Christianity is proscribed as
politically incorrect.
In the next chapter, Luke describes Paul on trial before Lucius
Junius Gallio Annaeus, proconsul of Achaia. Gallio, representing the
best in Roman jurisprudence, threw out the case brought against Paul
because it had nothing to do with Roman civil law. Gallio was the
brother of the most revered Stoic philosopher, Lucius Annaeus Seneca.
Like Paul, the two brothers would die under Nero, but in their cases by
forced suicide.
Stoicism was a grin-and-bear it philosophy: there is no point in
expecting happiness in a future life, and therefore the only
satisfaction to be had consists in a stiff-upper-lip attitude to
suffering. Stoics did not perfectly practice what they preached,
however, and Seneca himself indulged in a luxurious life. They did pride
themselves on inner discipline. Seneca taught that if you fear losing
something, you should practice doing without it while you have it. For
instance, if you fear losing comforts, “set aside a certain number of
days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest
fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: ‘This
is the condition that I feared.’” They called this “the premeditation of
evils.”
Some mistakenly have thought that St. Paul exchanged letters with
Seneca and was something of a Stoic himself. He does say: “We rejoice in
our suffering because suffering produces perseverance” (Romans 5:3).
But unlike the Stoics, Paul believed that hardships and spiritual
disciplines serve to prepare the soul for the joys of heaven.
So on Gaudete Sunday in penitential Advent, a little unearthly
light seeps into earthly darkness, and the Church chants: “Rejoice in
the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to
all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but
in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your
requests be known to God” (Philippians 4:4-6).
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