god
Providentia (Pronoia)
Providence
also: Pronoea, Pronoia, Providence
The personified divine Providence of the Stoics (Greek Pronoia), which Velleius mockingly calls a 'prophesying old woman.' Cicero gives the Latin rendering Providentia.
Reading notes
- On the Nature of the Gods §1.18 Providence \textit{[Greek: Pronoia]}
The Stoic doctrine that a rational providence governs the universe, here personified and mocked by Velleius as 'a prophesying old woman.' Pronoia is the Greek term; Providentia the Latin.
- On the Nature of the Gods §2.73 a prophesying old woman, Pronoea --- that is, Providence
Pronoia (Providence), the Stoic rational forethought governing the world. Velleius mocked it as a separate "prophesying old woman"; Balbus replies it is shorthand for "the providence of the gods," not a distinct goddess.
- On the Nature of the Gods §2.160 our Stoic Providence seems to have been an Epicurean
A joke: the sheer pleasure humans take in fish and fowl makes Stoic Providence look almost hedonistic, like the pleasure-seeking gods of Epicurus. Balbus uses it to argue that even such delights serve human ends.