3 Deference is to be paid to all men, and so much the more, as they are more likely to take occasions of quarrelling.
4 And if we show a submissive temper, we shall overcome effectually in all points, if so be they are, who are capable of seeing and acknowledging themselves to have been in the wrong. Farewell.
CHAPTER VII.
ANNAEUS SENECA to PAUL Greeting.
I PROFESS myself extremely pleased with the reading your letters to the Galatians, Corinthians, and people of Achaia.
2 For the Holy Ghost has in them by you delivered those sentiments which are very lofty, sublime, deserving of all respect, and beyond your own invention.
3 I could wish therefore, that when you are writing things so extraordinary, there might not be wanting an elegancy of speech agreeable to their majesty.
4 And I must own, my brother, that I may not at once dishonestly conceal anything from you, and be unfaithful to my own conscience, that the emperor is extremely pleased with the sentiments of your Epistles;
5 For when he heard the beginning of them read, he declared, that he was surprised to find such notions in a person, who had not had a regular education.
6 To which I replied, That the Gods sometimes made use of mean (innocent) persons to speak by, and gave him an instance of this in a mean countryman named Vatienus, who, when he was in the country of Reate, had two men appeared to him, called Castor and Pollux, and received a revelation from the gods. Farewell.