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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De Providentia<br />
well-known exemplar <strong>of</strong> good faith,<br />
patient endurance?<br />
an exemplar <strong>of</strong><br />
Nails pierce his skin, <strong>and</strong> what<br />
ever way he lays down his weary body<br />
he lies on a<br />
wound, while his open eyes doom him to perpetual<br />
wakefulness.<br />
9. The greater the anguish, the greater will be the<br />
glory. Wouldst thou know how little he regretted<br />
the high value he set on fortitude? Heal his wounds<br />
<strong>and</strong> send him back to the senate he will give the<br />
same advice (as before). Dost thou think Maecenas<br />
happier when a prey to the torments <strong>of</strong> love <strong>and</strong> when<br />
grieving over the daily repulses <strong>of</strong> a wayward wife,<br />
he courts sleep amid the sound <strong>of</strong> symphonies s<strong>of</strong>tly<br />
sounding in the distance? Though he stupify him<br />
self with wine, <strong>and</strong> seek diversion in the murmur <strong>of</strong><br />
waters, or trick his troubled mind with a thous<strong>and</strong><br />
pastimes, he lies awake on his bed <strong>of</strong> down no less<br />
than the other on his bed <strong>of</strong> torture. But for the<br />
former there is the solace that he is enduring hard<br />
ness for a noble purpose, <strong>and</strong> he can look away from<br />
his pain to its cause; the latter, surfeited with pleas<br />
ures, weighed down by an excess <strong>of</strong> good fortune, is<br />
more tormented by the cause <strong>of</strong> his sufferings than<br />
by the sufferings themselves.<br />
10. Not yet has vice so completely taken posses<br />
sion <strong>of</strong> the human race as to make it doubtful that<br />
the majority, if<br />
they had the choice <strong>of</strong> their lot,<br />
would prefer that <strong>of</strong> Regulus<br />
to that <strong>of</strong> Maecenas.<br />
Or, if there should be anybody who had presumption<br />
enough to say that he had rather be born a Maecenas<br />
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