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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The Delay <strong>of</strong> the Deity<br />
apparitions by day <strong>and</strong> oracles <strong>and</strong> celestial portents<br />
<strong>and</strong> whatever other phenomenon is regarded an<br />
caused by the direct interposition <strong>of</strong> God, cause<br />
anxieties <strong>and</strong> fears to persons who have a guilty<br />
conscience. For example, it is said, that Apollodorus<br />
once in a dream saw himself flayed by the Scythians,<br />
then boiled, <strong>and</strong> heard his heart speaking from the<br />
caldron <strong>and</strong> saying, I am the cause <strong>of</strong> all this <strong>and</strong><br />
;<br />
that at another time he saw his daughters all<br />
ablaze,<br />
their bodies encircled with flame, running about him.<br />
Hipparchus also, the son <strong>of</strong> Peisistratus. a little<br />
before his death saw Aphrodite flinging blood in his<br />
face from a kind <strong>of</strong> basin; <strong>and</strong> the favorites <strong>of</strong><br />
Ptolemy the Thunderer, saw him summoned before a<br />
Seleucus where vultures <strong>and</strong> wolves were<br />
tribunal by<br />
the judges, distributing many pieces <strong>of</strong> flesh among<br />
his enemies. Pausanias, likewise, having caused a<br />
free maiden to be brought by force from Byzantium<br />
in order to pass the night with her, but when she was<br />
come, owing to some perturbation<br />
<strong>of</strong> mind <strong>and</strong><br />
suspicion, had her put to death this maiden he fre<br />
quently saw in a dream calling to him, Hasten to<br />
judgment; assuredly lust brings sorrow on men. As<br />
the apparition did not cease to haunt him. it is said<br />
that he set sail for the oracle <strong>of</strong> the dead at Heracleia<br />
where he called up the ghost <strong>of</strong> the damsel by ex<br />
piatory rites <strong>and</strong> libations. Appearing before him.<br />
she said that he would be freed from his troubles<br />
when he came to Lacedaemon: but as soon as he<br />
arrived there he died.<br />
iso