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357 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Seneca
favored by the nobility. The nobles, indeed, tacitly assumed that the conference was a Reformed synod, and they had plainly come prepared to declare the Second Helvetic Confession the national creed of Poland. The Bohemian Brethren, while regarding the Helvetic Confession as in agreement with their own, saw no reason to surrender the creed of their own communion; and the Lutherans, declining to abandon the Augsburg Confession, and at the same time far from insisting that it be made the formal creed of the synod, proposed the joint formulation of a new and distinctly Polish confession. It was accordingly resolved that the preparation of such a creed should be taken up by the next synod, scheduled to meet at Warsaw at Whitsuntide. Since, however, some expression of the unanimity already attained was desired, two ministers were delegated to draw up an agreement. This was submitted to the synod on Apr. 13, whereupon a Lutheran representative requested the addition of a statement on the Eucharist, as well as the adoption of an entire article from the Saxon Confession of 1551. This request was granted, but the Eucharistic doctrine was so modified as to represent essentially the position of Melanchthon, so that those Lutherans who, in the Formula of Concord, proscribed Philippism, rejected the Consensus of Sendomir.
The Consensus sought to provide a defense against Roman Catholics, sectarians, and foes of the Gospel, and also to obviate all strife and enmity. Each of the sects represented might conduct the worship and administer the sacraments of the other; each Church concerned might retain its liturgy and usages, except when these should interfere with purity of doctrine; and all weighty matters of religion in Poland, Lithuania, and Samogitia were to be considered in joint council. The proposed preparation of a distinct Polish confession was never realized, but, on May 20, 1570, a conference of Lutherans and Bohemian Brethren was held at Posen, where a number of resolutions were adopted which may be regarded as supplementing the Consensus of Sendomir. After considerable debate, it was decided that the Eucharistic teaching should be in accord with the Consensus of Sendomir and the Saxon Confession; each sect should retain its own usages, and where the same place had a congregation of each, the minister of either might, in case of necessity, represent the other; all polemics must be avoided, and proselyting was forbidden; mutual conferences for the furtherance of the union were to be held when necessary; no pastor should admit to the Lord's Supper the adherents of the other sect without the consent of the pastor of the persons concerned, except on the occasion of diets, general synods, and journeys; those excommunicated in one sect should not be admitted to the Lord's Supper in the other, and a similar rule should apply to the clergy in case of deposition; all rites of the Roman Catholic Church were gradually to be abolished; and in case it should prove impossible peaceably to correct any eventual error in teaching or liturgy in either sect, the matter was to be brought for final adjudication before the general synod of Great and Little Poland.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: The Consensus was first printed 1583, and reprinted Thorn, 1592, 1596, Heidelberg, 1805, Geneva, 1612, 1654, Frankfort, 1704; in D. E. Jablonski's Hiatoria consensus Sendomirienais, Berlin, 1731; in H. A. Niemeyer's Collectio confeasionum, pp. 551-591, Leipsic, 1840; and in German in C. J. Nitzsch, Urkundenbuch der evangeliachen Union, pp. 72 eqq., Bonn, 1853. Consult the pertinent literature under POLAND; the work of Jablonski named above; Schaff, Creeds, i. 586-588; J. G. Waleh, Hiatoriaehe . . Einleitung in die Religionadredtigkeiten, iii. 1043, 10 vols., Jena, 1733-39, and Nitzsch, ut sup., p. 1X8.
SENECA, sen'e-ca, LUCIUS ANN.EUS: Roman philosopher and author; b. in Corduba (Cordova), Spain, c. 8 B.C.; d. near Rome 65 A.D., being forced to commit suicide. As a prodigy in versification and rhetoric he soon rose to eminence, and entered the senate. Exiled to Corsica at the accession of Claudius, 41 A.D., he returned in 49 to become the educator and counselor of young Nero. His great talents were undoubtedly used to commend or screen the criminal ambition of Agrippina and the parricide committed by Nero. Seneca was early attracted by Pythagoreanism, and, while he became a devotee of this cult, his erudition for his time was almost universal. In the bitter analysis of the non-spiritual strivings of actual mankind Seneca has outstripped all his predecessors. Stoic pride as well as a curious aspiration after spiritual rest, submission to fatal mechanism, as well as a striving after personal immortality, may be observed in his brilliant essays, among which the epastulte morales are the last and greatest. There is in him also an unmistakable drift and trend away from the pantheism of his school toward a theistic concep tion of soul-happiness and soul-obligations. The motto " know thyself " as applied to conscience and motive has been more vigorously put into play by Seneca than by any former philosophical writer of classical antiquity (" Perchance, if you search dili gently, you will find within your own bosom the vice of which you ask "; De beneftciis, VIL, xxviii. 3). In the frank admission of essential moral weak ness coupled with the assertion of the highest ob ligation of moral conduct, Seneca not rarely reminds his readers of the New Testament. Still, in his phi losophy of freedom he emphasizes everywhere the right and privilege of suicide. The historian who was most like him, Tacitus, treats him with striking coolness and reserve. The "correspondence" of Seneca and St. Paul (their death was close together) is a transparent fiction. E. G. SIHLER.BIBLIOGRAPHY: Recent Eng. transls. of some of Seneca's works are: Morals: a Selection, by W. Clods, London, 1888; Minor Diatoguea, by A. Stewart, ib. 1889; On Bene fits, by T. Lodge, ib. 1899; Tranquillity of Mind and Providence, by W. B. Langsdorf, New York, 1900; Ten Tragedies . . . , by W. Bradshaw, London, 1902, and Tragedies .... by F. J. Miller, Chicago, 1907; Morals, New York, 1904; Select Essays and Satire on the DeOtcation of claudius, by A. P. Ball, ib. 1908; Tragedies, in English Verse, by F. J. Miller, London, 1908; Three Tragedies: Hercules Fureua, Troades, Medea .... by H. M. Kingery, London and New York, 1908; Qualationea Maturates, by J. Clarke, New York. 1910; Select Letters, by W. C. Summers, ib. 1910. On Seneca's life and activities consult: E. G. Sih1er, Testimonium anima, chap. 18, New York, 1908; A. Fleury, S. Paul et S&Wque, 2 vole., Paris, 1853; C. Aubertin, Etude critique our lea raPPorts aupposbs entre S_nhque et Paul, Paris. 1857; F. C. Baur, Drei Abhandlungen zur Geachichte der alien Philosophic, pp. 377-430, Leipsic, 1876; J. B. Lightfoot, Essay on