GOOD TEACHER, EVIL STUDENT

He had a good teacher and at a young age, his teacher taught him some excellent principles for living which could carry him through the rest of his life. The teacher, without knowing it, showed the truth of Romans 2:14-15: "For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them . . ."

This teacher was a Gentile who had no Bible, Old or New Testament. But he, like all those without the Bible, had a moral code written in his heart, put there by God, an innate knowledge and a inherent sense of what's right and what's wrong. This morality was, as it is for all men, stamped in his DNA. 

And so he taught his young ward the principles of what was good: he taught him the virtues: clemency, justice, and that human life was sacrosanct. He also taught him about generosity, a trait admired the world over. The teacher he's famous for writing: “We are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not Ill-supplied but wasteful of it.”

His teacher warned him against egotism: "The chief obstacle is that we are quick to be satisfied with ourselves. If we find someone to call us good men, cautious and principled, we acknowledge him. We are not content with a moderate eulogy, but accept as our due whatever flattery has shamelessly heaped upon us. We agree with those who call us best and wisest, although we know they often utter many falsehoods: we indulge ourselves so greatly that we want to be praised for a virtue which is the opposite of our behavior. A man hears himself called ‘most merciful . . . so it follows that we don’t want to change because we believe we are already excellent.”

THE STUDENT

The problem was that his most famous student didn't do his homework; he became one of those in history who has rightly deserved the title of "monster." It all started when the student decided that he would be the master of his own destiny. He came to believe that he was omnipotent, that no one was going to tell him what to do, and if I want to do something, who's going to stop me?

His gluttony knew no bounds--he would throw lavish parties that lasted from noon to midnight. Donning a disguise, he became a serial killer, stalking, beating, and murdering people night after night. In all of this, not one single person gave him any reproof. He murdered his mother (matricide). He murdered his brother (fratricide). He murdered every relative he had.

There were two things that summarize his life: cruelty and chaos. 

His teacher is the epitome of Romans 2:14-15, a good man without the Bible, with a morality written in his heart. 

The student is the epitome of Jeremiah 17:9: "“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?"

The teacher? Seneca. The student? Nero.