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 />
<strong>of</strong>fer supplications <strong>and</strong> intercessions for his father;<br />
but wanting to turn about <strong>and</strong> flee, he no longer<br />
saw his kind <strong>and</strong> familiar guide, <strong>and</strong> felt himself<br />
urged forward by other beings horrible to look upon,<br />
by whom he was compelled to pass among <strong>and</strong> be<br />
hold the chastisements <strong>of</strong> others <strong>of</strong> his acquaint<br />
ances who had openly led a wicked life, though the<br />
shade <strong>of</strong> those who had been punished in<br />
was less greviously tormented than the rest,<br />
in the same way, as<br />
the world<br />
<strong>and</strong> not<br />
they were merely condemned to<br />
severe toil for the irrational nature <strong>and</strong> the pas<br />
sions. On the other h<strong>and</strong>, those who had worn the<br />
garb <strong>and</strong> assumed the name <strong>of</strong> virtue, but had in<br />
secret led corrupt lives, were forced by other tor<br />
mentors, with severe exertion <strong>and</strong> great pain, to turn<br />
the inner parts <strong>of</strong> the soul outward; which action<br />
being so contrary to their nature, they performed it<br />
with wrigglings <strong>and</strong> contortions like those made by<br />
the marine scolopendra when they have swallowed<br />
the hook; some, their tormentors flayed <strong>and</strong> laid<br />
open in order to show how corrupt <strong>and</strong> flecked they<br />
were, <strong>and</strong> that their iniquity had its root in the<br />
reason which is the noblest part <strong>of</strong> the soul.<br />
Other<br />
souls, he also said, he observed coiled about each other<br />
by twos <strong>and</strong> threes <strong>and</strong> even more, gnawing one an<br />
other on the score <strong>of</strong> old grudges for the deeds <strong>of</strong><br />
malice they had suffered or commited in life. And<br />
he noticed further, some lakes alongside <strong>of</strong> each<br />
other, one <strong>of</strong> which was <strong>of</strong> seething gold, another<br />
<strong>of</strong> exceeding cold lead, <strong>and</strong> still another <strong>of</strong> hard iron;<br />
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