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Seneca
Before leaving Alvarez’s discussion on the acceptance and ease of suicide in ancient society, I will grab his quote from Seneca exhorting the same.
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Foolish man, what do you bemoan, and what do you fear? Wherever you look there is an end of evils. You see that yawning precipice? It leads to liberty. You see that flood, that river, that well? Liberty houses within them. You see that stunted, parched, and sorry tree? From each branch liberty hangs. Your neck, your throat, your heart are all so many ways of escape from slavery... Do you enquire the road to freedom? You shall find it in every vein of your body.
-- Seneca
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Closing the chapter, Alvarez reminds us that St. Augustine and Christendom succeeded in reversing these easygoing attitudes on suicide, going so far as to make it a mortal sin, with suicides even being called martyrs for Satan. He also notes that in modern times, these negative attitudes have themselves been walked back appreciably, though certainly not going back to the times of Libanius and Seneca. Suicide is now more of an amoral proposition and an intellectual curiosity.
_ _ _
Foolish man, what do you bemoan, and what do you fear? Wherever you look there is an end of evils. You see that yawning precipice? It leads to liberty. You see that flood, that river, that well? Liberty houses within them. You see that stunted, parched, and sorry tree? From each branch liberty hangs. Your neck, your throat, your heart are all so many ways of escape from slavery... Do you enquire the road to freedom? You shall find it in every vein of your body.
-- Seneca
_ _ _
Closing the chapter, Alvarez reminds us that St. Augustine and Christendom succeeded in reversing these easygoing attitudes on suicide, going so far as to make it a mortal sin, with suicides even being called martyrs for Satan. He also notes that in modern times, these negative attitudes have themselves been walked back appreciably, though certainly not going back to the times of Libanius and Seneca. Suicide is now more of an amoral proposition and an intellectual curiosity.