regarded them as mainly composed of the very meanest slaves out of the gross and abject multitude; their proselytism they considered as the clandestine initiation into some strange and revolting mystery, which involved as its direct teachings contempt of the gods, and the negation of all patriotism and all family affection; they firmly believed that they worshipped the head of an ass; they thought it natural that none but the vilest slaves and the silliest woman should adopt so misanthropic and degraded a superstition; they characterized their customs as "absurd, sordid, foul, and depraved," and their nation as "prone to superstition, opposed to religion." [48] And as far as they made _any_ distinction between Jews and Christians, it was for the latter that they reserved their choicest and most concentrated epithets of hatred and abuse. A "new," "pernicious," "detestable," "execrable," superstition is the only language with which Suetonius and Tacitus vouchsafe to notice it. Seneca,--though he must have heard the name of Christian during the reign of Claudius (when both they and the Jews were expelled from Rome, "because of their perpetual turbulence, at the instigation of Chrestus," as Suetonius ignorantly observed), and during the Neronian persecution--never once alludes to them, and only mentions the Jews to apply a few contemptuous remarks to the idleness of their sabbaths, and to call them "a most abandoned race." [Footnote 46: 2 Cor. viii. 2.] [Footnote 47: [Greek: _Echleuazon_], Acts xvii. 32. The word expresses the most profound and unconcealed contempt.] [Footnote 48: Tac. _Hist_. i. 13: ib. v. 5: JUV. xiv. 85: Pers. v. 190, &c.] The reader will now judge whether there is the slightest probability that Seneca had any intercourse with St. Paul, or was likely to have stooped from his superfluity of wealth, and pride of power, to take lessons from obscure and despised slaves in the purlieus inhabited by the crowded households of Caesar or Narcissus. CHAPTER XV. SENECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE. And yet in a very high sense of the word Seneca may be called, as he is called in the title of this book, a Seeker after God; and the resemblances to the sacred writings which may be found in the pages of his works are numerous and striking. A few of these will probably interest our readers, and will put them in a better position for understanding how large a measure of truth and enlightenment had rewarded the honest search of the ancient philosophers. We will place a few such passages side by side with the texts of Scripture which they resemble or recall. 1. _God's Indwelling Presence_. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" asks St. Paul (1 Cor. iii. 16).