Such examples might be culled in great numbers from his writings. He seems at times to have been an earnest seeker after God. He declared that God did not dwell in temples made of wood and stone; that He did not delight in the blood of victims; that He is near to all His creatures; that men must believe in Him before they can approach Him, and that the truest service for Him is to be like unto Him. Some of his sayings approach the lofty precepts of Christ and His apostles. He is frequently quoted with approbation by early Christian writers. Yet his precepts differ from the Scriptural teachings in the fact that some of them are merely rhetorical and superficial. Others are fragmentary and inadequate. They are not winnowed from all chaff. At their highest level also they simply emphasize the demands of the moral law without offering to man any help for attaining to holiness other than what his own heroic decision may furnish. In their searching quality some of them are of a type so Pauline that many have thought that he and Paul, his contemporary, must have been well acquainted. There is said to have been a tradition to that effect as early as the fourth century. Indeed, some early Christian thought he was doing a good service to write a book that he called “Conversations between Seneca and Paul.” Its spuriousness is now generally admitted. But we naturally ask: Is it likely that Seneca knew anything of Paul? On one hand, we may answer on general principles that a man in the high position of Seneca would not be likely to come into contact with despised and persecuted people, such as the Jews (and especially the Christians) then were. Most stoics would rather repel such company superciliously. On the other hand, we know that Paul had been tried in Corinth by Marcus Annæus Gallio, Seneca’s brother, and that at Paul’s arrival at Rome he was put under the charge of Burrus, the prefect of the Prætorian Guard, who was Seneca’s friend. It is possible that through one of these, especially the latter, the philosopher may have heard of the apostle and in the course of his philosophic inquiries may have gone to hear him in disguise or listened to reports of his preaching, which was causing a stir among the Jews. He may thus have used ideas the source of which he would not deign to acknowledge. Whether this was true or not, it is probable that Paul and Peter were before long much respected by some members of the Annæan family to which Seneca belonged. Lanciani tells us that in 1867 an inscription was found in a tomb at Ostia such as is here reproduced. While it is clearly a pagan inscription, shown by the invocation letters D . M (Diis Manibus,--to the gods of the lower regions,--) Marcus Annæus, the father, who placed the inscription, seems to have been named for Paul, and the Marcus Annæus, the “dearest son,” whom it commemorates, to have been named for both Paul and Peter. The occurrence of the two names together