This paper investigates the reception and controversies surrounding Seneca in seventeenth-century Spain, with particular attention to the interpretation of anger and irascibility as vice within neo-Stoicism and its integration into Christian orthodoxy, in contrast to the Aristotelian view and its virtuous employment in the defence of raison d’état. Focusing on the critique by Alonso Núñez de Castro and the responses of Diego Ramírez de Albelda, Juan de Baños, and Francisco de Zárraga, it reveals how the Cordoban philosopher became a locus of intellectual, political, and cultural dispute. Beyond scholarly debate, these controversies reflect broader tensions concerning the appropriation of the classics, the shaping of national identity, and the role of the passions in moral and political life.