In actuality, the current of influence between Pauline Christianity and Roman Stoicism ran in the other direction. Paul was deeply influenced by Stoic philosophy, if not directly by Seneca. He borrowed the notions of indifferent things, of what is properly one’s own (oikeiosis), the ideal of freedom from passion, and the paradoxical notion of freedom through slavery, fairly directly from the Stoics. 4
Stoic influence on St. Paul...
