Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers
Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers
Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers
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"<br />
"<br />
The Delay <strong>of</strong> the Deity<br />
<strong>of</strong> course, to defend ourselves against all those who<br />
assail us with ill-grounded or fallacious arguments,<br />
but it will suffice us if we cast them from us before<br />
they become firmly fixed in our minds."<br />
there then." said I,<br />
What was<br />
in what he said that most<br />
impressed you? For many things <strong>and</strong> without any<br />
order, one here, another there, the man kept charging<br />
against Providence, with anger <strong>and</strong> vituperation at<br />
the same time."<br />
2. Hereupon Patrocleas said: The tardiness <strong>and</strong><br />
delay <strong>of</strong> the Deity in punishing the wicked seems to<br />
me a matter <strong>of</strong> special importance; <strong>and</strong> now, by the<br />
arguments that have been advanced, I have been led<br />
anew <strong>and</strong>, as it were, a stranger, to the question; but<br />
long ago I was <strong>of</strong>fended when I read in Euripides,<br />
He procrastinates, <strong>and</strong> this is the manner <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Deity. Yet God ought, least <strong>of</strong> all things, to be slack<br />
towards the wicked, as they are neither slack nor dila<br />
tory about doing evil, but are impelled by their unre<br />
strained passions to acts <strong>of</strong> injustice. And in truth,<br />
the retribution, which Thucydides says follows close<br />
upon the commission <strong>of</strong> a crime, forthwith bars the<br />
way for those who usually prosper in succesful vil<br />
lainy. For there is no debt like overdue justice that<br />
makes him who has been wronged so faint-hearted<br />
<strong>and</strong> discouraged, while it emboldens the wicked man<br />
in his audacity <strong>and</strong> violence; but the punishments that<br />
follow close<br />
upon the commission <strong>of</strong> crimes are re<br />
straints upon those who are meditating wrongs<br />
against others, <strong>and</strong> there is the greatest consolation<br />
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