De Gulden Passer. Jaargang 84

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Jan Papy
Lipsius as ‘Master of Order’.
The True Face of Lipsius's Stoicism in the Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam (1604) and Leiden, U.B., ms. Lips. 6^*

If recent scholarship on Lipsius's ‘philosophical oeuvre’ is still mainly and arguably focused on his widely read and successful De constantia of 1583/4 or his Politica of 1589, anyone intending to consider the whole of his so-called Neostoic programme cannot escape to direct equal attention to the Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam and Physiologia Stoicorum, both published with Johannes Moretus in the Antwerp Officina Plantiniana in 1604 as a sort of introductory manual to the annotated edition of Seneca's philosophical works which Lipsius had been preparing for years.¹ Fearing that his poor health would prevent him from completing this planned edition and commentary on Seneca - it would finally appear, yet without a complete commentary in 1605² -, he decided to publish first this introduction to Stoic moral doctrines and this exposition of Stoic physical theory so as to ‘illustrate’ his Seneca.³

Lipsius's treatises introducing a new reading of Seneca did not pass unnoticed in the seventeenth and eighteenth century because, for the very first time, they offered a clear histor-

* I am most grateful to the Scaliger Institute at Leiden University Library for generously offering me a Scaliger Research Fellowship enabling me to finish the central part of this study dealing with Lipsius's autograph manuscript of the Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam. The other parts have been presented as a paper at the Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in San Francisco (23-25 March 2006). I would like to express my gratitude to my colleagues J. De Landtsheer, M. Janssens, E. De Bom and T. Deneire for various corrections and helpful suggestions.

1 A general analysis of Lipsius's Stoic manuals is offered in: L. Zanta, La Renaissance du stoïcisme au xvi^e siècle, Bibliothèque littéraire de la Renaissance, 5, Paris 1914 (= Genève 1975); J.L. Saunders, Justus Lipsius: The Philosophy of Renaissance Stoicism, New York 1955; M. Isnardi Parente, ‘La storia della filosofia antica nella Manuductio in stoicam philosophiam di Giusto Lipsio’, in Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, s. iii, 16 (1986), 45-64; and J. Lagrée, Juste Lipse et la restauration du stoïcisme. Etude et traduction des traités stoïciens De la Constance, Manuel de philosophie stoïcienne, Physique des stoïciens (extraits), Philologie et Mercure, Paris 1994. Recently Lipsius's Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam in particular received new attention; see J. Papy, ‘Lipsius's (Neo-)Stoicism: Constancy between Christian Faith and Stoic Virtue’, in H.W. Blom and L.C. Winkel (eds.), Hugo Grotius and the Stoa, Grotiana, N.S. 22-23 [2001-2002], Assen 2004 47-72; Id., ‘Neostoizismus und Humanismus: Lipsius' neue Lektüre von Seneca in der Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam (1604)’, in G. Bóros (ed.), Der Einfluss des Hellenismus auf die Philosophie der frühen Neuzeit, Wolfenbütteler Forschungen, 108, Wiesbaden 2005, 53-80; and Id., ‘O Manuductio ad Stoicam Philosophiam (1604) de Lipsius e a Recepção do Estoicismo e da Tradição Estóica no Início da Europa Moderna’, in Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, 58 (2002), 859-872.

2 On Lipsius's 1605 edition of Seneca, see the article by M. Morford in this volume, and Id., Stoics and Neostoics, 171-179. See also J. De Landtsheer, ‘Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) and Lucius Annaeus Seneca’, in Annales Societatis Litterarum Humaniorum Regiae Upsaliensis - Kungliga Humanistiska Vetenskaps-Samfundets i Uppsala Årsbok 1998, Uppsala 1999, 217-238, and J. Papy, ‘Erasmus's and Lipsius's Editions of Seneca: A “Complementary” Project?’, in Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook, 22 (2002), 10-36.

3 L. Annaei Senecae Philosophi Opera, quae exstant omnia: a Iusto Lipsio emendata, et Scholiis illustrata (Antwerp: J. Moretus, 1605): Introductio lectoris, p. iiii: ‘Atqui Philosophica etiam, inquies, parce et stillicidium de situla donas. In Notis, agnosco, sed alibi nonne affatim et pleno sinu a me factum? Profudi quidquid eius opus erat in tribus Manuductionis, totidem Physiologiae libris [...] Atque eos libros sic institui, ut quamquam a capite sectam sensusque Stoicos ordine exsequar, nihil tamen inseram, quod proprie non sit Senecae illustrando.’ Compare also with Lipsius's sub-title of his Manuductio: Manuductionis ad Stoicam Philosophiam Libri Tres, L. Annaeo Senecae aliisque scriptoribus illustrandis.

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ical and philosophical interpretation of the Stoa.⁴ Moreover, Lipsius's penetrant defense of Senecan style in the first book of the Manuductio - the classic Stoic schoolbook for more than one and a half century - directly influenced intellectuals and literators from France, England, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Yet, however important these treatises appear to be for a proper and nuanced answer to the question which ‘Stoicism’ Lipsius actually propagated in his Guide to Stoic Philosophy and why he did so,⁵ Anthony Long, criticizing Lipsius's Stoic studies, recently argued that the humanist had distorted the original Stoic doctrines by neglecting the evidence of Galen, Sextus Empiricus, the Aristotelian commentators, and Marcus Aurelius.⁶ True it may be, it is our conviction that Long misread Lipsius's Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam as if Lipsius's only purpose was to offer a sort of modern ‘Cambridge History of Stoic Philosophy’. In order to demonstrate that Lipsius's Manuductio calls for a different reading, I will both look into Lipsius's ‘Stoic construction’ in the Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam which he published in 1604, and into the autograph manuscript of it, part of which is preserved in the Leiden University Library as ms. Lips 6(5).

4 See my forthcoming article ‘Lipsius as Historiographer of Philosophy: a First Investigation into the Reception of Lipsius's Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam (1604)’, in D. Sacré - J. De Landtsheer (eds.), Lipsius and his Heritage, [forthcomming].

5 A first attempt has been made in J. Papy, ‘Sanctifying Stoic Virtues? Justus Lipsius's Use of Clement of Alexandria in the Manuductio ad Stoicam Philosophiam (1604)’, in G. Partoens - G. Roskam - T. Van Houdt (eds.), Virtutis Imago: The Conceptualization and Transformation of an Ancient Ideal, Collection d'Etudes Classiques, 19, Leuven 2004, 507-527.

6 A.A. Long, ‘Stoicism in the Philosophical Tradition: Spinoza, Lipsius, Butler’, in B. Inwood (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, Cambridge 2003, 365-392 (esp. 379).

Entering Lipsius's Stoic House

Introducing Seneca, Cicero, Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius?

A first important preliminary observation concerns our modern reading activity. How do we enter Lipsius's introductory treatise dealing with the history of the Stoic school and its representatives? Or, to rephrase this question, did Lipsius actually want us to read his book on Stoic philosophy, filled up with carefully selected and ordered ideas and arguments, in a specific way or a precise order? Is there just one correct way to walk through the different rooms of the author's building? Is his architectural planning imperative or, on the contrary, inviting to individual tours? And if so, how did Lipsius operate to direct or even misdirect our reading and consequent interpretation, thus showing or hiding his true Stoic face? Or did Lipsius actually prefer to leave all this open to the reader and to make his book into a house full of erudite discoveries?

These questions, general and overemphasized they may (seem to) be, may open our eyes for our own reading activity and our own approach of erudite dialogues or monographs written by an author who envisaged readers who shared his education and cultural background, and who grasped his strategies and intentions much easier than we ever can. For, how should one read Lipsius's history of the Stoic school, its representatives and its respective views, a history which was compiled by an author who claimed to be the ‘Master of Order’? How do we read such a ‘Manual to Stoic philosophy’ intended to be, as already indicated on the title page, a torch (fax) guiding and illustrating the reading itself of Seneca as

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well as Cicero, Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius and the best of ancient writers?⁷ Is this reading of ours thus not compromised front its very beginning by our expectations or specific scholarly needs, changing true reading into consulting and extracting in order to arrive at that final conclusion which seems satisfactory?

Let us return to Lipsius himself, for in his Letter to the Reader he first wanted his readers to be well aware of the philological and philosophical achievement made in the Manuductio, but he also felt the need to explain the structure of his two manuals, the Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam and the Physiologia Stoicorum:

From the start you will have the divisions and beginnings of the sects, also from the Stoic one; then the latter's principal doctrines and those most enchanted Paradoxes. The remaining things have been delayed for the Physiologia, so that no confusion would arise. To unearth and arrange this material was arduous, I confess (no one, up to this time, had done it), and I do not know whether it will appear worthwhile. Only this: I did these things not only to illustrate Seneca, but also Cicero, Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius and the best of ancient writers. Do love or esteem my work for this reason, and do also excuse me if I have erred somewhere or faltered. I have gone through dark and rugged places, on a road hitherto impassable. The old saying may be held out as an excuse that ‘no man's ability has ever been approved without something being pardoned’.⁸

In a letter to Petrus Scriverius, written on 7 May 1603, Lipsius explains that all his (planned or completed) introductory manuals devoted to Stoic philosophy will have a tripartite division:

Sum, aut eram potius in Stoica Philosophia totus, sine qua operam ludat qui Senecam interpretatur. Tres libros ei rei scripseram aut conceperam, Manuductionis, Physicorum, Ethicorum, et singuli iterum tripertiti erant.⁹

The intriguing question that occupies us here is, most obviously, how Lipsius arranged his material, how he presented it to his readers, and why he did so?

7 See note 3. A similar phrasing can be read in ile [xvi], 03 01 17 p (= Cent misc. iv, 54) to Erycius Puteanus): ‘Stoica Philosophia valde nunc exercet, quam Senecae illustrando praemitto et seorsim edo’, in [xvi], 03 01 18 (= Cent. misc. iv, 58) letter to Charles of Cro ÿ: ‘In meis totus in philosophia sum, sed in Stoica, et Senecam, utilem vitae magistrum, conor illustrare’, and in [xvi], 03 02 15 t (letter to Friederich Taubmann): ‘Fieri potest, et durior fortasse iam fio a virili secta, quam tracto, Stoicorum. Nam scita eius sive consulta sapientiae habeo cottidie in mente et manibus Senecae meo illustrando.’

8 See the Ad Lectorem of Lipsius's Manuductio: ‘Habebis autem a capite Sectarum divisiones et initia, item Stoicae, tum praecipua huius dogmata et maxime decantata illa Paradoxa. Reliqua in Physiologiam, ne confusio sit, sunt dilata. Haec eruere et disponere (nemini adhuc factum) arduum fuit, fateor, nec scio an pretium operae apparebit. Illud tamen: haec non facere solum Senecae illustrando, sed Ciceroni, Plutarcho, Laërtio et optimis veterum scriptorum. Hoc fine ama aut aestima, et me quoque, siquid lapsus sim aut titubavi, excusa. Per tenebras et salebras ivi, perviam adhuc inviam, et vetus illud liceat praetendere: Nullum sine venia placuit ingenium.’ The quotation at the end is from Seneca, Epist. ad Luc. 114, 12.

9 ile [xvi], 03 05 07 s². Lipsius's planned Ethica have never been completed.

Structuring knowledge: Lipsius as an Architect

More than once Lipsius underlines that ‘order’ was his prime concern. As early as Manuductio, i, 7 one reads ‘But I love order and I rightly make this distinction’, an allusion to the author's deliberate choice to divide Greek philosophy into three parts - viz. the ‘poetical’, the Ionic and the Eleatic - whereas others confine themselves to one school only (viz. the

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Ionic).¹⁰ This ‘historical’ habit of sorting philosophers into schools seems to have been applied first to Aristotelian philosophers by Francesco Patrizi (Cherso, 1529 - Rome, 1597), the first professor of Platonic philosophy at Ferrara, in his Discussiones peripateticae (1581), a history and critique of the Aristotelian tradition,¹¹ Yet, Lipsius not only boasted on his ‘mastery in order’ in his Manuductio, a history which he had couched into a dialogue as many others of his works, such as his philosophical consolation De constantia (1583/4) and most of his historical-antiquarian treatises on ancient Rome where the setting is a dialogue between master and pupils.¹²

Lipsius's Manuductio, however, is not to be compared to his De constantia in which he sought alliance with the Senecan dialogue. Nor can one just compare it to his Politica¹³ or his antiquarian and historical dialogues which seem to have a close resemblance to Macrobius's Saturnalia, in which - following the tradition of the symposium - learned subjects are dished up in the form of a dialogue.¹⁴ Nor can the structure and order of Lipsius's Manuductio be equated to his structuring of the Admiranda sive de magnitudine Romana, a dialogue from 1598 on the greatness of Rome and its objects and places of interest. Here, Lipsius had followed the structural principles adopted by Varro in his Antiquitates (47 b.c.) who had ordered his subject according to the questions Who? Where? When? Why? This diaeretic subdivision of the subject ‘greatness’ (magnitudo)¹⁵ as adopted in the Admiranda can, however, partly be connected to Lipsius's general method of subdivising the Stoic school and all aspects related to it in his Manuductio. As he had ordered and structured his Lovanium (1605), a dialogue on the history of the city of Louvain and its university, into a logical sequence ot chapters covering all aspects so as to shed light on Brabantine greatness (magnitudo)¹⁶ - history to him was a lesson in philosophy and a mirror of past morals -, the structure of the Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam reveals a similar intention of our self-elected ‘Master in order’.¹⁷

10 Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam, i, 7: ‘Sed nos ordinem amamus et discrimen hoc iure adnotamus.’

11 See M.J. Wilmott, Francesco Patrizi da Cherso's Humanist Critique of Aristotle, PhD diss. University of London 1984; Id., ‘“Aristoteles exotericus, acroamaticus, mysticus”: two interpretations of the typological classification of the corpus Aristotelicum by Francesco Patrizi da Cherso’, in Nouvelles de la République des Lettres (1985), 67-95; M. Muccillo, ‘La storia della filosofia presocratica nelle Discussiones peripateticae di Francesco Patrizi da Cherso’, in La cultura, 13 (1975), 48-105; Id., ‘La vita e le opere di Aristotele nelle Discussiones peripateticae di Francesco Patrizi da Cherso’, in Rinascimento, ser. ii, 21 (1981), 53-119.

12 On the use of the dialogue in the Renaissance, see P. Burke, ‘The Renaissance Dialogue’, in Renaissance Studies, 3 (1989), 1-12, and D. Marsh, The Quattrocento Dialogue. Classical Tradition and Humanist Innovation, Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, 35, Cambridge Mass. 1980.

13 Lipsius's special care for ‘order’ is often mentioned in the Politicorum sive Civilis Doctrinae Libri Sex Qui ad principatum maxime spectant (Leiden: F. Raphelengius, 1589); see, for instance, Politica iv, 1 (ed. Waszink, 384): ‘Itaque (verum fateamur) ego et alii hic caligamus; nec est quisquam qui ad plenum praecepta Prudentiae non dicam tradiderit, sed tentarit. Quid ergo? Quiesco, et sileo? Res et ordo vetant: et faciam potius quod in Syrtium aliquo aequore deprehensus. Et quoniam clausum directumque iter tenere non possum, confuse viam aliquam signabo, velut astris’, and Politica v, 1 (ed. Waszink, 534): ‘Quid enim hic meum? Ordo aliquis et contextus fortasse: at verba sensusque mihi praeeunt illi, quos in hac ipsa re (fidenter dicam) Annibal aliquis audire nihil abnuat, aut ipse Caesar.’ I thank Drs. E. De Bom (K.U. Leuven) for kindly drawing my attention to these two instances.

14 C. Zintzen, ‘Bermerkungen zur Nachwirkung des Macrobius in Mittelalter und Renaissance’, in M. Wissemann (ed.), Roma Renascens. Beiträge... Ilona Opelt... gewidmet, Frankfurt am Main 1988, 415-439. On Macrobius and table talks in the Renaissance, see M. Jeanneret, A Feast of Words. Banquets and Table Talk in the Renaissance. English transl. by J. Whiteley and E. Hughes, Cambridge 1991.

15 M. Laureys-J. Papy, ‘The Grandeur that was Rome: Lipsius' variaties op een oud thema’, in Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) en het Plantijnse Huis, 129-137, and M. Laureys, ‘“The Grandeur that was Rome”: Scholarly analysis and pious awe in Lipsius's Admiranda’, in Recreating Ancient History, 123-146.

16 See J. Papy, ‘The Use of Medieval and Contemporary Sources in the History of Louvain of Justus Lipsius (1547-1606): the Lovanium (1605) as A Case of Humanist Historiography’, in Lias, 29 (2002), 45-62.

17 See Lovanium sive apidi et academiae eius descriptio. Libri tres (Antwerp: J. Moretus, 1605) i, 2, where Lipsius has his pupil or interlocutor answering in the following revealing way: ‘Lips.: Ordinem amo [...]. Aud.: Certe ordinem amas, gloriari potes, et ea re palmam non aufert haec, fortasse nec prior aetas.’

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Socratic diaeresis and philosophical truth in the Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam

Even a simple look at the table of contents is revealing in more than one sense. First, this Index dissertationum seems to have been put at the very start of the Manuductio deliberately, in a way functioning as a true Index rerum. Second, this table of contents immediately shows how Lipsius starts and ends his Manuductio with an exhortation to practise philosophy (an Adhortatio ad philosophiam in i, 1, and an Ad exercitium adhortatio in iii, 24). Moreover, a closer look at this table of contents proves that the classical and erudite scholar Lipsius - comparing, so it appeared, information stored up in Diogenes Laertius, Clement of Alexandria's Stromata, and Eusebius's Praeparatio evangelica - does not limit himself to a simple introductory and panoramic account of the main philosophical schools which existed in Antiquity, including the origin and succession of the Stoic schools, and their different views on the parts and definitions of philosophy. After a detailed survey of all Greek philosophical schools, Dissertation i, 10 offers a praise of Stoic philosophers and Dissertation 1, 18 forms a eulogy of Seneca's writings and life, whereas Dissertation i, 19 is conceived as a similar chapter now devoted to Epictetus. Further, before entering into the subject matter of the second book, viz. the various definitions and kinds of philosophy and the main goal of Stoic philosophy, Lipsius opens this book with a general praise of philosophy (ii, 1) and ends it with a practically oriented dissertation (ii, 24) demonstrating how someone trained in philosophy by means of Stoic precepts copes with wealth and luxury. His third book, finally, opens with a general dissertation on fear and vain hopes which misdirect human souls and how Stoic paradoxes, all explained in great detail in this third book and seen as explicitly connected the one with the other, are to be seen as therapeutic and effective as long as three kinds of spiritual exercises are repeated daily. It is with this adhortation to ‘exercise oneself’ that Lipsius ends his Manuductio.

Yet, there is more to it than this general and logical ordering of the subsequent Dissertationes. Following an age-old tradition, going back to Plato's dialogue Phaedrus in which Socrates (at 265e sqq.) outlined what he would consider to be a true art or techné of rhetoric and in which he described the method of diairesis or the divisive method, Lipsius subdivided his work into well-ordered chapters, chapters into subject matters, subject matters into different aspects, aspects into elements, elements into definitions.¹⁸ It is important to call to mind Lipsius's letter addressed to Nicolas de Hacqueville in December 1600 on the method of reading history. In this famous letter he stressed that he deliberately and consciously followed the diairetic method proclaimed by the ‘divine’ Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus..¹⁹ Similarly, in a letter written to Johannes Woverius three years later, he praised Woverius's Eucharisticum while he did not omit to praise his own talents and, above all, his own ‘divine’ mastery of order in which, Lipsius humbly added, he had surpassed most of the ancients.²⁰

18 Also in the Politica Lipsius exposed and explained the ‘Ordo et index librorum singillatim et capitum’ (The order of, and index to individual books and chapters) at the very beginning of his work; see ed. Waszink, 240.

19 ile xiii, 00 12 03 h, 159-160: ‘Itaque Socratem sequor, divisioni amicum, et cum illo divinum virum habeo, qui commode et opportune utetur.’ Reference to Plato, Phaedrus, 265e sqq.

20 ile [xvi], 03 11 03 w (= Cent. misc. iv, 84): ‘Iudicium inprimis Deo acceptum refero, et ab eo ordinem in scribendo et dispositionem, vel paucis veterum ubique sic usurpatum. In sparsa quavis et confusa materia servavi, et partiri semper apte studui, quod Socrates alibi apud Platonem divini viri censet, ego divini doni.’

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Ill. 1. Lipsius's Stemma Socraticum in Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam, i, 8 (ed. 1604, pp. 26-27).

Yet, Lipsius's preoccupation with this divisive method is not to be seen as lip service to his Socratic image with posterity. Several autograph versions of different works, preserved at Leiden University Library, show sheets on which Lipsius drew and wrote diaeretic structures, either as a basic structure of a work intended to be written or as a schematic visualization of his text. Similar structures or schemes which one encounters in the printed version of the Manuductio are also to be found in the autograph manuscript version still preserved at Leiden University Library as Ms. Lips 6(5). Even if Lipsius is certainly not the only one to insert diaeretic structures in his Manuductio, it deserves attention that the first schematic structures included in the Manuductio are intended to visualize a ‘stemma Socraticum’ - a scheme which is strikingly dependent on the one published with Christopher Plantin in

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1575 by Gulielmus Canterus in his Latin translation of Stobaeus's Eclogues (see Ill. 1 and 2) and other similar ‘stemmata’ illustrating various schools and their successive representatives. All other six schemes in the Manuductio could be labelled as ‘technical’ and ‘pedagogical’, and they only occur in the second book (viz. ii, 22 and 23: on the different divisions of bona and adiaphora proposed by various Stoic thinkers). While Lipsius has a clear predilection for a divisive method, it has to be emphasized that pedagogical concerns and intentions predominate. If a subdivision of philosophy tends to become too detailed so as to lose its pedagogical or philosophical value, he invokes Seneca's view, explained in Letter 89 to Lucilius, on the parts of philosophy: to divide philosophy into parts, not into scraps. For it is useful that philosophy should be divided, but not chopped into bits. [...] Over-analysis is faulty

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Ill. 2. Ioannis Stobaei eclogarum libri duo, quorum prior Physicas, posterior Ethicas complectitur, nunc primum Graece editi, interprete Culielmo Cantero (Antwerp: C. Plantin, 1575), f. [*5r].

in precisely the same way as is no analysis at all.²¹ Above all, Lipsius reveals in Manuductio iii, 1, philosophical truth is equal to geometrical truth: order and coherence, a true Stoic accomplishment which Cato in Cicero's De finibus called consectaria (‘logically consequent’), should be waterproof.²²

Although expressing his disdain for Ramism in a letter to Paulus Buys, in which he pro-

21 Manuductio ii, 5, where Lipsius quotes Seneca, Epist. ad Luc. 89, 2-3: ‘Faciam ergo quod exigis, et philosophiam in partes, non in frusta, dividam. Dividi enim illam, non concidi, utile est. [...] Idem enim vitii habet nimia quod nulla divisio.’

22 Manuductio iii, 1: ‘Faciamus, et ad decreta nostra redeamus: quorum radicem heri vidimus et truncum. Iam ex isto ecce rami et ramuli adsurgunt, mira serie nexi. Proprium hoc Stoicorum, vincire omnia, et quasi anulos nectere in catena: ut non ordo solum sed sequela et cohaesio sit rerum. Tullii super ea re iudicium: Hercules fatendum est quod sentio: mirabilis est apud Stoicos contextus rerum. Respondent extrema primis, media utrisque, omnia omnibus. Quid sequatur, quid repugnet, vident: et ut in Geometria, prima si dederis, danda sunt omnia. Haec caussa, cur apud eumdem Cato consectaria appellet: Consectaria me, inquit, Stoicorum brevia et acuta delectant. Quia nempe mutuo sese consequuntur et devincta haerent, ipsum illud grande argumentum Veritatis; nam falsa discordant.’ Lipsius quotes Cicero, De fin. 5, 28, 83 and 4, 18, 50.

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moted a re-introduction of Aristotle's philosophical writings,²³ and at the same time expressing his support for Isaac Casaubon's critique of Ramism,²⁴ Lipsius's predilection for logical coherence and, as a direct consequence of this, truth, is remarkably different in scope. As he had likened himself to an architect bringing new materials to shore up the antique structure of Philosophy in the Praescriptio to the 1585 edition of his De constantia,²⁵ and as he had considered himself an architect again in the writing of the Politica,²⁶ Lipsius in his Manuductio equally builds his own logical truth. His reconstruction of Stoic wisdom is a pedagogical and philosophical one based on historical research and philological acumen.

23 ile i, 83 07 12 (= Cent. misc. i, 89), letter to the newly elected Curator of Leiden University, Paulus Buys: ‘Numquam ille magnus erit, cui Ramus est magnus’. On Lipsius's attitude towards Ramism, see also P. Dibon, La philosophie néerlandaise au siècle d'or. Tome i: L'enseignement philosophique dans les universités à l'époque précartésienne (1575-1650), Amsterdam-Paris 1954, 72-74, and E. Garin - E. Kessler, Geschichte und Dokumente der abendländischen Pädagogik. ii: Humanismus, Reinbek 1966, 294-297.

24 ile iii, 90 08 22 c: ‘Valde probo quae in retorridum illum spargis et infelicem Ramum. Ubi philosophia vetus et vera, si locum haec novitia invenit? Et apud multos iam invenit, sed dii porro arcete hanc pestem.’

25 Lipsius, De constantia (Antwerp: C. Plantin, 1585), Ad Lectorem pro Constantia mea praescriptio, p. *2v: ‘In domo exstruenda architecti maximam laudem et usum, tollesne operas igitur et administros? Idem hic cense. Divinae illae litterae veri roboris, verae virtutis et constantiae, solidae effectrices, nec tamen humanam prorsus Sapientiam sperne. Eam dico quae non se effert, sed servit placide et ancillatur. Lapides, caementa, calcem, ex veteri et diu lapso aedificio illo Philosophiae comportamus, ne invide lucellum hoc architecto, et patiare materiam hanc substerni saltem in fundamentis.’ See also Morford, Stoics and Neostoics, 161.

26 Lipsius, Ad i. librum Politicorum Notae, In Caput i (in marg.: Forma scriptionis): ‘Lapides et ligna ab aliis accipio, aedificii tamen exstructio et forma tota nostra. Architectus ego sum, sed materiam varie undique conduxi’ (I have taken the stones and rafters from others; but the construction and shape of the building are mine entirely. I am the architect, but I have collected material from everywhere around).

Lipsius's Stoic Laboratory: Leiden, UB, Ms. Lips. 6(5)

Lipsius's historical, philological and philosophical reconstructing of Stoic wisdom can be followed in a unique way, since we are able to enter the humanist's study and look over his shoulders while at work. First and foremost we can trace Lipsius's architectural work by the autograph manuscript of his Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam, which is actually preserved at Leiden University Library as ms. Lips. 6(5). This autograph manuscript was the final version of the Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam as it was used by the compositor. Lipsius himself made carefull indications about the final lay-out of his text (e.g. the titles and numbers of Dissertationes in small capitals, their argumenta in italics), as he usually did, whereas the compositor added marginal markings, in ink or, starting from f. 114r, in red pencil, to point out the beginning of a new quire or page in the printed 1604 edition. Though incomplete now, this autograph manuscript still contains:

f. 32r-60v (= Manuductio i, 17-ii, 13; ed. 1604, pp. 55-95);²⁷
f. 76r-f. 80v (= Manuductio ii, 22-23; ed. 1604, pp. 119-127);
f. 114r-116v (= Manuductio iii, 17-19; ed. 1604, pp. 186-192);
f. 121r-124v (= Manuductio, iii 22-23; ed. 1604, pp. 200-209).

27 In ms. Lips 6(5), f. 38r-v are lacking: they contained the final part of Manuductio i, 19. The text on f. 60r-v has been deleted in the manuscript and was not included in Manuductio ii, 13.

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Second, I was able to retrieve some of the folia, lacking in ms. Lips. 6(5), elsewhere in Lipsius's files. Whereas ms. Lips. 6(6), containing Dissertationes argumenti philosophici, only offers various (previous versions of?) chapters of Lipsius's Physiologia Stoicorum, ms. Lips. 6(8) did contain the lacking f. 54r-v of ms. Lips. 6(5).²⁸ Moreover, ms. Lips. 6(7) holds an interesting (unnumbered) folium containing the approbatio for Lipsius's Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam (see Ill. 3):

Tres isti in Stoicam philosophiam Manuductionis Libri, quatenus A. Senecae facem praeferunt, utiliter imprimentur. In cuius tamen Senecae et similiter philosophantium lectione est ita versandum, ut inconcussa interim fide teneantur qu〚od〛ae de Beatitudine script 〚um〛 a reliquit Beatus Aug. lib. 19 de Civit. Dei cap. 4 etc. dat. 6 Mar[tii] 1603.

Next to the slight change of quod into quae and scriptum into scripta, the word Senecae and the date have been added in a different hand. The final printed version of this approbatio by Guilielmus Fabricius, Apostolicus ac Archiducalis Censor, kept to these manuscript changes, but it also reads: ‘Tres isti ad Stoicam philosophiam Manuductionis libri’, ‘B. Augustinus lib. 19 de Civit. Dei cc. 4 et 25’, and simply has ‘vi. Mart. m.dc.iii.’ without the preceding abbreviation ‘dat.’ (for datum).

At the bottom this same (unnumbered) folium also shows how Lipsius tried out different titles for his work and various combinations of words and cases, the major alternative of Manuductio ad Stoicam Philosophiam there being Praeparatio ad Stoicam Philosophiam. Besides, a similar try out can be discerned in ms. Lips. 6(5) itself, where on f. 39r the very title of the second book has been changed several times: the initial title I. Lipsi ad veterem philosophiam et maxime Stoicorum Manuductio, is changed into I. Lipsi in Stoicam Manuductio and into I. Lipsi in Stoicam Manuductionis Liber ii, all of which is finally moulded into I. Lipsi Manuductionis ad stoicam philosophiam libr. ii, Dissert. i.

More important, however, are Lipsius's major changes in the construction and elaboration of his text. It can be observed that Lipsius's arrangement of Dissertationes was not wholly fixed. On f. 49v, for instance, he first intended to start a new Dissertatio in book ii, but, obviously realizing that ii, 7 dealing with the distinction between wisdom (sapientia) and philosophy (philosophia) would then be too short and unequal when compared to other Dissertationes, he crossed out the word Dissert. and continued his exposition on wisdom. Similarly, on f. 55v Lipsius had in mind to change ‘Dissertatio xi’ (De Notionibus, quae ad Doctrinam faciunt. Quid, et quotuplices eae, accurate dictum) into ‘Dissertatio x’, for on f. 56r he wanted to rewrite this Dissertatio 11, a chapter which he also gave a new and different title: De Notionibus, quae eo ducunt. Quid eae sint, quomodo fiant, quomodo Rationes dirigantur ad Scientiam et Virtutem. Yet, after having written 26 lines of this new Dissertatio 11, Lipsius had second thougths and deleted f. 56r almost entirely in order to continue the previous version of Dissertatio xi. On f. 76r the manuscript numbers Manuductio ii, 22 of the printed edition as ii, 21, and, consequently, on f. 78v Dissertatio 23 of the printed edition as Dissertatio xxii, although title and text is the same in both versions. Unfortunately, the lacuna in the manuscript between f. 60v and 76r does not allow to see what did happen

28 Dr. A.Th. Bouwman, Curator of the Western Manuscripts Department of Leiden ub, allowed me to replace and add this missing folium to ms. Lips. 6(5), where it belongs.

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Ill. 3. Lipsius's draft of the approbatio for the Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam (Leiden, Univ. Libr., ms. Lips. 6 (7), unnumbered folium).

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precisely in the previous Dissertationes, but one can easily imagine that Lipsius renumbered or rearranged his final text, or simply added a new Dissertatio to it.

Of equal interest are those passages which Lipsius afterwards decided to omit and which he deleted in his manuscript. Without intending to be exhaustive here,²⁹ a few examples may reveal what Lipsius's Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam was all about. In Manuductio ii, 1 (ed, 1604, pp. 65-67), dealing with the effect of philosophical study and meditation, Lipsius entirely changed the second part of his original text, as can be seen on f. 40r-v of ms. Lips. 6 (5): only people trained in philosophy make true progress in life; all others in fact remain children. In answering the question who those ‘erudite’ and ‘trained’ people are, Lipsius initially inserted a long quotation from Isocrates's Panathenaikos, although he himself had to admit that this famous Greek orator is extra haec castra, that he is no real Stoic. Considering this digression superfluous, it was partly scored out and partly replaced by sticking a new piece of paper on f. 40v containing a quotation from Propertius (4, 3, 38; ‘Qualis et haec docti sit positura Dei’). Considering this quotation to be truly ‘Stoic’ in spirit, he had intended to insert it originally on f. 40r, but he nevertheless deleted twice in the left and right margin of f. 40r.

Fol. 45v too shows how Lipsius added new strips with a rewritten text that had to replace a passus which he considered unsuitable or incorrect: dealing with sceptic utterances by Pyrrho, he also refers to Parmenides's saying, also testified in Plato's Sophist (237a), that ‘there is nothing in the Universe’ (Nihil esse in Universum). Lipsius's first comment was meant to explain that this dictum relies on a false reading of the text, as has been indicated and corrected by Marcus Antonius Muretus and as was easy to understand:

Quia falsa dictio et lectio, et a Mureto substituta. Nam antea erat: in Universo, sicut et scripti libri habent. Emendenda vix est quia in verbo adsimili latuit atque, ut fit, periit: in Universo diversum. Ipsa haec Parmenidis sententia, ut mox adiungit: Nihil esse praeter Unum. [f. 45v]

In his second (and also printed) version Lipsius omits Muretus's emendation and refines his first reasoning:

Si vera haec lectio, dixerim respectum ad illud Parmenidis, οὐδαμη̑ εἰ̑ναι τὰ μὴ ὄντα. Nullo modo esse quae non sunt. Platoni bis terque, illo auctore, expressum et refutatum. Quo voluisse videtur, νοητὰ et aeterna illa solum esse, haec visibus subiecta et fugacia, nec vere esse. Sed arbitror interpolata ista et verba haec ‘ex iis quae videntur’ prave e superiore linea translata, itaque delenda. Tum amplius, cum in optimo meo Codice nulla sit negativa illa Nihil; legendum: ‘Parmenides ait esse unum Universum’. Nam periit aut latuit ista vocula in principio sequentis. Res quidem ita habet et est germana ipsa sententia, imo verba Parmenidis: ‘Ὲν τὸ πα̑ν, Unum universum. Seneca adfirmat cum statim hoc repetens ait Parmenidi nihil esse praeter unum. [Manuductio, ii, 4; ed. 1604, 74-75]

Further, on f. 52r-v and 53v Lipsius deleted the first, shorter yet somewhat more technical version(s) of Manuductio ii, 8 and the beginning of Manuductio ii, 9, in which the important description of the Stoic wise man, the sapiens, is given and in which the distinction between the wise man and the one who is making progress (proficiens) is explained. Strik-

29 I refer the reader to the critical edition which I am currently preparing with Jill Kraye (Warburg Institute London): Justus Lipsius, Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam/Guide to Stoic Philosophy. Edition, introduction, commentary, and English translation, Warburg Studies & Texts, London [2007].

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Ill. 4. Lipsius's marginal notes in his autograph manuscript: Leiden, Univ. Libr., ms. Lips. 6 (5), f. 78v.

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ingly, Lipsius decided to leave aside Seneca's prolix comparisons from De beneficiis 7, 1, 5, and Simplicius's threefold distinction between the indoctus, tiro, and rectus in his commentary on Epictetus in his final version. A similar observation can be made about Lipsius's rewritten Dissertatio ii, 11. Whereas his text on f. 56r, dealing with notions and innate ideas, is slightly more elaborate and went into a short rehearsal of the Stoic view on ratio and the divine sparklings, it also phrased Lipsius's promise that he would deal with this issue in more detail elsewhere, viz. in Logicis, as he explained it in his marginal note. It is not clear whether Lipsius here refers to another introductory treatise which he had in mind, just as he planned but never completed a third manual, to be entitled Ethica, in the series Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam and Physiologia Stoicorum.³⁰

Aud. Iuvat, fateor, haec dissertio, sed de Igniculis illud, saepe dictum³¹, quale sit, et unde n〚o〛ascantur, haud etiam novi. Operae pretium videtur rem tam aestimabilem, et caussam aut fontem nobis Boni, latius aperire. Lips. At enim vereor ne a re longius, aut certe instituto ordine eamus. 〚Quam is autem mihi ubique placeat, non ignoras〛. Tamen, quia vis,breviter hic habe: alibi (in marg.: In Logicis} fortasse³² a principiis diffusius et subtilius tractandum. In homine Ratio est, ut Stoici volunt, pars divinae substantiae sive spiritus: atque in ea, etsi a corpore, et deinde opinione 〚aut prava censione diu〛 oppressae, rectae sententiae et decreta. 〚Haec〛 Hi sint igniculi, de quibus dicimus, qui se exserunt in Notionibus, quas appellant: 〚et quas aliis〛 praesertim iis, quae Communes et Insitae dicuntur. Ita enim Graeci passim κοινὰ έννοίας, προλήψεις, itemque ἐμφύτους 〚appellant〛 dicunt. Quid ita? Quia scilicet congenitae videntur, et communiter in hominibus insunt, et 〚ab iis〛 efferuntur. Plutarchi libellus exstat, περὶ κοινω̑ν ἐννοι, De communibus notionibus, adversum Stoicos, et vult eorum inopinata Dogmata subvertere istas aut oppugnare, audiendum 〚nobis〛³³ 〚vere〛, non credendum. Hae tales Notiones, sunt principia et fundamenta Sapientiae: et Stoici ita habuerunt. [f. 56r]

On f. 60r-v, originally intended to be part of Manuductio ii, 13, Lipsius equally left aside a long and rather technical passage, interspersed with extensive quotations from the third book of Cicero's De finibus and Stobaeus's ethical Eclogues on the philosophical good and end.

If all these deletions are speaking examples of Lipsius's double concern - to elucidate Stoic philosophy to such a degree so as to guarantee a proper reading of Seneca - two other omissions reveal Lipsius's true Stoic face in a totally different and unexpected way. Two marginal notes on f. 78v (see Ill. 4), both identical in content and both carefully deleted, conceal Lipsius's personal view on Stoicism as a philosophical doctrine which ought to be taught at universities just as the Aristotelian one which dominated all the curricula:

Cui bona ista? iam [f. 78v] tecum loqueris, fortasse et obloqueris. Mehercule nec ego satis solide scio, ut 〚rem apud te dicam〛 libere apud te fabuler. Sed talia plura in Stoicis, nova et inutilia hodie, fortasse quia tota illa doctrina 〚illa‛³⁴ extra usum 〚hominum〛 iacet.*
*add. in marg. laeva: Colatur in scholis, ut Aristotelea, an non aurum et gemmae fient? Sed tamen *add. in marg. dextera: quae si, ut Aristotelea, colatur, gem[m]as et aurum ista haberemus.
〚Tamen divisiones〛 Tamen et lucem aliquam Tullio aut Laertio dedimus: et communiter didicimus, primo et vere bona non nisi virtutes esse...

30 See again ile [xvi], 03 05 07 s³ (= Iusti Lipsi Epistolarum (Quae in Centuriis non extant) Decades xiix. Quibus accedunt Poematia eiusdem, Harderwijk 1621, 36; letter to Petrus Scriverius): ‘Sum, aut eram potius in Stoica Philosophia totus, sine qua operam ludat qui Senecam interpretatur. Tres libros ei rei scripseram aut conceperam, Manuductionis, Physicorum, Ethicorum, et singuli iterum tripertiti erant. Pergenti morbus manum iniecit.’

31 saepe dictum: add. in marg. I cordially thank J. De Landtsheer for all her corrections to my transcriptions of Lipsius's manuscript.

32 fortasse: add. in marg.

33 〚nobis〛: add. in marg.

34 〚illa〛: add. in marg.

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As early as July 1583 Lipsius had openly opposed Ramism and the commentaries of Philip Melanchthon. Besides, he had argued that it was necessary to return to Aristotle himself - especially to his writings on Politics and Metaphysics - and urged to incorporate Plato, Epictetus, Plutarch, Seneca and the sixth book of Lucretius in the educational program of Leiden University.³⁵ Nevertheless, in the printed edition of the Manuductio this open defense of Stoicism as being equal to Aristotelian philosophy for university teaching (cf. Manuductio ii, 22; ed. 1604, p. 123), was omitted considerately.

35 See note 22.

The ‘Fax philosophica’?

One of Lipsius's main goals was to open up Antiquity for his own time in composing a true Fax historica - a comprehensive and well-ordered synthesis of Roman and Greek, history, together with their institutions and customs. In the Preface to his edition of Seneca (1605), Lipsius explained his major project as such:

My old project more and more recedes; I had resolved on a Fax historica: to write books on religious practice and collect there all obscure passages on the customs and rites of Antiquity. In that way I started to light my ‘torch’, in which I wanted to include the more important rites, involving the priests, the magistrates, the public games, the army, marriages, funerals and other such things [...] Such was my resolve. Over the last twenty five years I had collected material, but my old age and still more my poor health prevent me from ordering and imposing a structure on it.³⁶

Lipsius's Manuductio reveals a similar goal: to open up all extant testimonies, quotations and fragments on Stoic philosophy in collecting and ordering them into a ‘Fax philosophica’. This ‘torch’, conceived and fabricated in Lipsius's humanist manufacture, was a ‘Manuductio’, a guide to ‘illustrate’ the new reading of Seneca and others. In this way, Lipsius deliberatly built a room with a view, though this view, due to the architect's blind spots and humanist agenda, was incomplete and partly overexposed.

When entering Lipsius's neo-Stoic house, Anthony A. Long observed Lipsius's architectural interventions which had sligthly changed Stoicism into something more acceptable

36 L. Annaei Senecae Philosophi Opera, quae exstant omnia: a Iusto Lipsio emendata, et Schollis illustrata (Antwerp: J. Moretus, 1605): Introductio lectoris, p. iiii: ‘Itaque vetus meum consilium magis magisque sedet, quo institueram Facem Historicam, tum et Ritualium libros scribere et in eos congerere quidquid esset in moribus ritibusque priscis obscurum. Et facem quidem coepi accendere, in quam grandiores illos ritus, De Sacerdotibus, De Magistratibus, De Ludis, De Militia, De Nuptiis, De Funeribus et qui tales volebam includere... Haec, inquam, institueram, et materiem ab annis xxv iam paraveram; disponere et exstruere aetas, et magis valetudo, me vetant’, also quoted in Laureys - Papy, ‘The Grandeur that was Rome: Lipsius' variaties op een oud thema’, 137, n. 50. See also ile [iv], 91 01 13 0 (= J.H. Hessels, Abrahami Ortelii et virorum eruditorum ad eundem et ad Jacobum Colium Ortelianum epistolae, Cambridge 1887, i, 454-455, n^o 189): ‘sum in eo ut Facem Historicam conscribam, quae serviet bono et facili ordine ad illustrationem omnium historicorum, imo omnium scriptorum. Continebit omnes antiquitates, ritus privatos et publicos, divinos et humanos, militares et legales, praeterea verba etiam et phrases rariores.’ On Lipsius's Fax historica, see H.F. Bouchery, Waarom Justus Lipsius gevierd?, in Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Letteren, 11/8, Brussels 1949), 19; Saunders, Justus Lipsius: The Philosophy of Renaissance Stoicism, 45-47; Laureys - Papy, ‘The Grandeur that was Rome: Lipsius'; variaties op een oud thema’, 133-134; J. De Landtsheer, ‘Justus Lipsius's De militia Romana: Polybius Revived or How an Ancient Historian was Turned into a Manual of Early Modern Warfare’, in Recreating Ancient History, 101-122 (esp. 105); and J. Papy, ‘An Antiquarian Scholar between Text and Image? Justus Lipsius, Humanist Education, and the Visualization of Ancient Rome’, in Sixteenth Century journal, 35 (2004), 97-131. A manuscript version of what was to become the Fax historica is preserved at Leiden, University Library, ms. Lips. 14, although only the letter A and part of the letter D (viz. Deus) is worked out properly. The main part of the manuscript is blank!

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for Christianity.³⁷ Yet, whereas this critique had been heard before, it is more striking to read that Lipsius's correspondent Kaspar Schoppe, who himself published the Elementa philosophiae Stoicae moralis in 1606, not only criticized Lipsius for not even having dealt with 20% of the history of the Stoic school, but also, and more important to our subject, for lacking order in his discussion of Stoic philosophy.³⁸ However much personal reasons might have inspired Schoppe for uttering this critique, it demonstrates that Lipsius's neo-Stoic and humanist building was not visited in one and the same way. For, although he wanted his friend Dionysius Villerius to believe that his writings were always ordered and composed so as to be utmost useful for his own time and leading towards wisdom or prudence,³⁹ Lipsius, in writing a guide for a proper reading of Seneca, apparently omitted to provide his readers with a guide for his own writing. Or did he not? Modern readers such as Anthony Long, criticizing Lipsius for having distorted the original Stoic doctrines,⁴⁰ may be right if they consider Lipsius's building to be one of the many storehouses full of realia, a building typical of nineteenth-century Altertumswissenschaft. A proper reading of Lipsius's Ad Lectorem, however, and a full visit of Lipsius's Stoic dwelling, both in manuscript and in print, learn that this house which Lipsius was the first to rebuild since Antiquity for reasons which were not those of Von Arnim and others, is a frontal extension indispensable to enter Lipsius's new Seneca in a proper way.⁴¹ Not entering Seneca through this Lipsian frontal extension, would be a waste of time and an intellectual failure.⁴²

The modern reader, attracted by Lipsius's neo-Stoic building because of its erudite looks and fascinating material, must be aware that every step might indeed open up new ways of discovery, new corridors and rooms. Yet these steps, however exciting they may be, are not always the ones traced out by the neo-Stoic Architect Lipsius.

37 Long, ‘Stoicism in the Philosophical Tradition: Spinoza, Lipsius, Butler’, 380.

38 See J. Kraye, ‘Teaching Stoic Moral Philosophy: Kaspar Schoppe's Elementa philosophiae Stoicae moralis (1606)’, in E. Campi et aL (eds,), Scholarly Knowledge: The Transmission of Social Practice in Academic Textbooks 1450-1650, Geneva [forthcoming], who refers to Correspondance de Rubens et documents épistolaires concernant sa vie et ses oeuvres, publiés, traduits, annotés par Ch. Ruelens. Tome premier: 1600-1608 (Antwerp 1887), 265.

39 See ile [xvi], 03 06 06 (= Cent. misc. v, 26): ‘Alii philologi aut litterati (audacter dicam, et examina) meo aevo a vano multum traxerunt; ego strinxi et interius adduxi, et ad utilia aut profutura, non ad splendida aut famosa tantum respexi. Raro scripsi, cui non sapientiae aut prudentiae, etiam ubi locus vix videbatur, monita aut praecepta sint inspersa. Hanc laudem mecum feram, et illam optimae conscientiae, publico elaborasse, nullius famam minuisse aut per obtrectatiunculas auctum meam ivisse. Amplius dicam: Pauci an nemo, meo aevo, singularia argumenta aggressi sunt aut pertractarunt; ego feci in Constantia, in Politicis, Saturnalibus, Militia, Admirandis, et sparsim etiam materias, quae usui aut oblectationi generi humano essent, disposui et ordine digessi. Ordine, quem in omnibus scriptis amavi, et super novos atque adeo (an non superbum erit?) su per veteres usurpavi.’

40 Long, ‘Stoicism in the Philosophical Tradition: Spinoza, Lipsius, Butler’, 379.

41 See the Ad Lectorem of the Manuductio: ‘Habes Manuductionem et finem ex ipsa vides fructumque: id est facem aliquam ad Annaeum Senecam tibi praelucentem.’ Lipsius expresses a similar view in ile [xvi], 03 03 17 go (= Cent. misc. iv, 64) to Balthasar Gomez de Amescua: ‘Hunc [sc. Senecam] avide et iucunde illustrabam brevi commentario, sed et seorsim Philosophiam Stoicam. Qua tenebrosa, frustra facem alluxerim illi.’

42 ile [xvi], 03 01 19 w (= Cent. misc. iv, 59) to Johannes Woverius: ‘Ego ad Senecam aliquid molior et Manuductionis in Stoicam Philosophiam libros tres praemitto. Item Physica Stoica libros tres. Opus istis, aut totus Seneca seponendus’; and ile [xvi], 03 05 07 s² (letter to Petrus Scriverius): ‘Sum, aut eram potius in Stoica Philosophia totus, sine qua operam ludat qui Senecam interpretatur.’

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Samenvatting

Om te peilen naar de effectieve draagwijdte van Lipsius' neostoïcijnse programma is een diepere analyse van zijn theoretische traktaat over de Stoa, de Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam (1604) een noodzaak. Werden in het verleden vaak conclusies getrokken op basis van een eenzijdige studie van Lipsius' succesrijke dialoog De constantia (1583/4), dan blijkt zijn behandeling van de voor zijn tijd vaak problematische Stoa in de Manuductio een verhelderende aanvulling. Meer nog, door de tekst door Lipsius bij Moretus in druk gegeven te vergelijken met het autografe handschrift, nog bewaard in de Leidse Universiteitsbibliotheek, kan worden aangetoond wat Lipsius uiteindelijk heeft weggelaten en wat hij wel voor publicatie geschikt achtte. Men mag immers niet vergeten dat de stoïcijnse filosofie niet zomaar op alle vlakken ‘compatibel’ was met het Rooms-katholieke gedachtegoed van Lipsius' dagen.

Summary

In order to grasp the true face of Lipsius's Neostoic programme, an in-depth analysis of his theoretical treatiste on Stoic philosophy, the Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam (1604), seems necessary. Whereas in the past most, if not all scholarly attention was attracted by Lipsius's succesful dialogue De Constantia (1583/4), a new interest in Lipsius's own theoretical treatise on Stoicism, the Manuductio, is more than welcome. Moreover, a comparison of the text which Lipsius handed over to his printer Moretus and the autograph manuscript preserved at Leiden University Library reveals what Lipsius considered fit for publication and what he thought to be too dangerous or unsuitable to publish.

Unlike Aristotelianism, Stoicism, one should not forget, was not overall accepted nor was it ‘compatible’ with Roman Catholicism in all aspects.