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 />
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