부산대학교 도서관

In this thesis Dr. Richards analyses Seneca's utterances on prayer (ch. III) and relates them to his views on God and man (ch. IV). The basic question is whether the Stoic system, with its monistic materialism, admits of prayer at all. The author rightly sees a 'dualistic tendency' as inherent in Stoicism from the start, and concludes that Seneca, in spite of certain contradictory statements, accepts the validity of prayer as a reality: the sapiens, who is the equal of God, may not need it, but the proficiens does and, further, prayer is included in the fatum, which waits for human prayer before working. Yet Seneca does not reach a clear-cut integrated standpoint.