Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

The Delay of the Deity
20. Of a truth, in this matter is the Deity any wiser
than HeBiod when he exhorts and advises us Not
when returned from the sorrowful burial, to propagate
the race, but after the feast of the immortals?" on the
ground that not only vice and virtue, but sorrow and
joy and all qualities, are transferred to the offspring
in procreation;
that at such a time men should be
jocund and in good spirits and merry. But it does
not follow, according to Hesiod. nor is it the work of
human wisdom, but of God, to see through and
understand similarities and differences of human na
ture, before they have led to great crimes and are thus
made plain to all men. For while the cubs of bears
and the whelps of wolves and monkeys immediately
disclose their inborn nature because there is nothing
to conceal or disguise it, the natural disposition of
man conforms to customs and opinions and laws, and
thus frequently puts a mask on what is evil and imi
tates the good. In this way it altogether expunges
or eradicates the inborn taint of vice, or hides it for
a long time by cunningly disguising itself under the
cloak of virtue; inasmuch as we hardly take note of
any particular act of villany, unless it falls upon us
or strikes us; or. rather, we are for the most part
accustomed to regard men as bad only when they do
a bad deed, licentious when they indulge their lusts,
and cowards when they run away. This is doing as
if we believed scorpions had a sting only when they
strike, and serpents were poisonous only when they
bite, a foolish notion, verily! The man who proves
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