The earliest of the Latin fathers, Tertullian, writing about a century and a half after the death of Seneca, speaks of this philosopher as 'often our own.' Some two hundred years later St Jerome, having occasion to quote him, omits the qualifying adverb and calls him broadly 'our own Seneca'. Living midway between these two writers, Lactantius points out several coincidences with the teaching of the Gospel in the writings of Senca, whom nevertheless he styles 'the most determined of the Roman Stoics.' From the age of St Jerome, Seneca was commonly regarded as standing on the very threshold of the Christian Church, even if he had not actually passed within its portals. In one Ecclesiastical Council at least, held at Tours in the year 567, his authority is quoted with a deference generally accorded only to fathers of the Church.....When St Jerome wrote, the Christianity of Seneca seemed to be established on a sounder basis than mere critical inference. A correspondence, purporting to have passed between the heathen philosopher and the Apostle of the Gentiles, was then in general circulation; and, without either affirming or denying its genuineness, this father was therby induced to give a place to Seneca in his catalogue of Christian writers. If the letters of Paul and Seneca, which have come down to us, are the same with those read by him (and there is no sufficient reason for doubting the identity), it is strange that he could for a moment have entertained the question of their authenticity. The poverty of thought and style, the errors in chronology and history, and the whole conception of the relative positions of the Stoic philosopher and the Christian Apostle, betray clearly the hand of a forger....
Stoicism was in fact the earliest offspring of the union between the religious consciousness of the East and the intellectual culture of the West........the Stoic was...essentially a philosopher of intuitions. Here again the Oriental spirit manifested itself. The Greek moralist was a reasoner: the Oriental for the most part, whether inspired or uninspired, a prophet.
...when naturalised in its Latin home Stoicism became a motive power in the world, and exhibited those practical results to which its renown is chiefly due...And of this stage in its history Seneca is without doubt the most striking representative.
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