Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

The Delay of the Deity
that over these stood certain demons who in turn,
like smiths, seized with tongs the souls of those who
had been guilty of insatiable greed and avarice,
drawing them out and thrusting them in. When
they had become heatedjthrough and diaphanous in
the gold from the effects of the burning, they were
plunged into the sea of lead: having become con
gealed here and hard as hailstones, they were next
thrust into the lake of iron, where they turned com
pletely black, and were then twisted round and
round because of their hard-heartedness, and rubbed
together until they
lost all semblance of their for
mer selves. They were then put once more into
the lake of gold to undergo, as he said, awful tor
ments by the change. But he said those endured
the keenest anguish, who, supposing they had been
released by Justice (Dike) were seized anew: these
were the souls of those for whose trangressions
their descendants or children had to pay the penalty.
For whenever one of these arrived and encountered
the other, he fell upon the shade in great wrath,
uttering loud cries and showing the marks of what
he had endured, at the same time execrating and
pursuing it while it endeavored to flee away and hide
could not. For swiftly did the avengers of
itself, yet
justice pursue such, dragging them back again amid
loud lamentations because they foreknew their im
pending doom. To some of the souls, he said, many
of their decendants at the same time attached them
selves like bees or bats, uttering
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shrill cries and