Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

The Delay of the Deity
may turn to repentance, and He gives time for amend
ment to those whose vices are not ineradicable and
incurable. For, knowing (as He does) what portion
of virtue souls going forth from Him to be born,
carry with them, and how strong and ineffaceable is
the nobleness implanted in them, and that virtue
yields to vice contrary to its nature because corrupted
by food and evil communications, and that some, after
undergoing a cure, again resume their former nature,
He does not inflict upon all a penalty equally severe.
But him who is incorrigible He removes forthwith
from life and cuts off, because constant association
with wickedness is very harmful to others, and in the
highest degree
harmful to the soul itself. On the
contrary, to those who from ignorance of the good
rather than from a predilection for
evil and to whom
it is only second nature to go astray, He gives time
for repentance. But if they remain obdurate He vis
its these also with punishment, for, of course, He has
no fear lest they may escape Him. Consider also
what transformations have taken place in the char
acter of men and in their life; for which reason also
this change and character (>?0o?)
is called a turning
(rPOTTO?) as habit (*0?) for the most part shapes
it
and by laying hold of it controls it. I think, there
fore, that the ancients represented Kecrops dual in
form (a combination of man and dragon), not as
some say, because, after he had been an excellent
but for
king he became a cruel and ruthless tyrant, the opposite reason, namely, that after having been
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