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Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

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The Delay <strong>of</strong> the Deity<br />

the souls <strong>of</strong> men by the name they themselves bore<br />

during life) by reciting<br />

that Adrastea, the daughter<br />

<strong>of</strong> Necessity <strong>and</strong> Zeus, had been placed in the highest<br />

seat as the avenger <strong>of</strong> all crimes, <strong>and</strong> that there is no<br />

wicked man so powerful or so insignificant as to be<br />

able, either by craft or by force, to escape her. Three<br />

attendants wait upon her to each <strong>of</strong> whom has been<br />

assigned a different mode <strong>of</strong> inflicting punishment:<br />

those who are to be chastised while yet in the body<br />

<strong>and</strong> by means <strong>of</strong> the body, swift Poena (Punishment)<br />

seizes, though in a rather mild way that still leaves<br />

behind many things needing expiation; those whose<br />

cure is a matter <strong>of</strong> greater difficulty on account <strong>of</strong><br />

their vices, the daemon h<strong>and</strong>s over, after death, to<br />

Dike (Justice), while those that Dike gives up as<br />

entirely incorrigible, the third <strong>and</strong> most terrible <strong>of</strong><br />

the attendants <strong>of</strong> Adrastea, Eriiiys (the Fury), pur<br />

sues, <strong>and</strong> after hounding them as they rush about<br />

trying to escape her in one way or another, she puts<br />

them all out <strong>of</strong> sight in a pitiless <strong>and</strong> awful way by<br />

thrusting them into a nameless <strong>and</strong> invisible abyss.<br />

Of the other punishments, said he, that inflicted by<br />

Poena in this life is like those <strong>of</strong> the non=Greeks.<br />

For as among the Persians the clothes <strong>and</strong> tiaras <strong>of</strong><br />

those who are undergoing chastisement are pulled<br />

<strong>of</strong>f <strong>and</strong> they are scourged, while the culprits beg<br />

with tears that their castigatiori may be ended; so<br />

the punishments suffered in body or estate are no<br />

severe affliction, nor do they touch vice itself, but<br />

are chiefly for appearance sake <strong>and</strong> for<br />

205<br />

the outward

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