be incensed and pacified with trifles. 2 For indeed it becomes not the 28 Had it not been much better Supreme Deity to be remiss in any for the so much famed Gauls and thing, but more especially in the Scythians to have neither thought prosecution of the wicked, since they nor imagined nor heard any thing of themselves are no way negligent or their Gods, than to have believed dilatory in doing mischief, but are them such as would be pleased with always driven on by the most rapid the blood of human sacrifices, and impetuosities of their passions to acts would account such for the most of injustice. complete and meritorious of expiations? 3 And I am apt to persuade myself that upon these and no other 29 How much better had it been considerations it is, that wicked men for the Carthaginians to have had encourage and give themselves the either a Critias or a Diagoras for liberty to attempt and commit all their first law-maker, that so they manner of impieties, seeing that the might have believed in neither God fruit which injustice yields is soon nor spirits, than to make such offer- ripe, and offers itself early to the ings to Saturn as they made? gatherer's hand, whereas punishment comes late, and lagging long behind the pleasure of enjoyment. SELECTION V. 30 There is certainly no infirmity belonging to us that contains such a multiplicity of errors and fond pas- 4 After Patrocleas had thus dissions, or that consists of such incon- coursed, Olympicus taking him up, gruous and incoherent opinions, as There is this further, said he, O this of superstition doth. It be- Patrocleas! which thou shouldest hooves us, therefore, to do our have taken notice of; for how great utmost to escape it; but withal, we an inconvenience and absurdity arises must see we do it safely and pru- besides from these delays and dently. procrastinations of divine justice! For the slowness of its execution takes away the belief of providence ; and the wicked, perceiving that calamity does not presently follow every enormous crime, but a long time after, look upon their calamity, when it arrives, as a misfortune; and calling it chance, not punishment, are nothing at all thereby reformed. Troubled indeed they well may be at the dire accident befallen them, but they never repent of the villanies they have committed. Fragmentary selections from the discourse of Plutarch on " The Slowness of Divine Retributions," and from other kindred discourses of his, in which he shows that God is an example to men of justice tempered with mercy; also, that wickedness is its own greatest punishment, and that retributions, as well as rewards, extend to the life after death. THE IE slowness of the Supreme Deity, and his procrastination in reference to the punishment of the wicked, have long perplexed my thoughts. 5 But were the impieties of enormous transgressors and heinous of fenders singly scourged and repressed by immediate severity, it would be self before the eyes of the whole most likely to bring them to a sense world as the exemplar of all that of their folly, humble them, and strike was good and holy, granted human them with an awe of the Divine Be- virtue; by which man is, in some ing; whom they find with a watch- measure, rendered like himself, unto ful eye beholding the actions and those that are able to follow the passions of men, and feel to be no Deity by imitation. dilatory but a speedy avenger of in- 9 And the self-same Plato asserts, iquity. Whereas that remiss and that Nature first kindled the sense slow-paced justice (as Euripides de- of seeing within us, to the end that scribes it) that falls upon the wicked the soul, by the sight and admiration by accident, by reason of its uncer- of the heavenly bodies, being actainty, ill-timed delay, and disorderly customed to love and embrace motion, seems rather to resemble decency and order, might be inchance than providence. duced to hate the disorderly mo 6 So that I cannot conceive what tions of wild and raving passions; benefit there is in these millstones and avoid levity, and rashness, and of the Gods which are said to grind dependence upon chance, as the so late, as thereby celestial punish- original of all improbity and vice. ment is obscured, and the awe of evil-doing rendered vain and despicable. IO For there is no greater benefit that men can enjoy from God, than, by the imitation and pursuit of those perfections and that sanctity which is in Him, to be excited to the study of virtue. 7 These things thus uttered, while I was in deep meditation of what he had said, Simon interposed :-While one that understands nothing of sci- II Therefore, God, with forbearence, said he, finds it hard to give a ance and at leisure, inflicts his punreason why the physician did not let ishment upon the wicked. Not that blood before but afterward, or why he is afraid of committing an error he did not bathe his patient yester- or of repenting should he accelerate day but to-day; it cannot be that it his indignation, but to eradicate that is safe or easy for a mortal to speak brutish and eager desire of revenge otherwise of the Supreme Deity than that reigns in human breasts; and only this: that he alone it is who to teach us that we are not, in the knows the most convenient time to heat of fury, (or when our anger apply most proper corrosives for the heaving and palpitating boils up cure of sin and impiety, and to ad- above our understanding,) to fall minister punishments as medica- upon those who have done us an inments to every transgressor, yet be- jury, like those who seek to gratify ing not confined to an equal quality a vehement thirst or craving appeand measure common to all distem-tite; but that we should, in imitapers, nor to one and the same time. tion of His mildness and forbearance, 8 But first consider this: that God, wait with due composure of mind according to Plato, when he set him- before we proceed to chastisement or correction, till such sufficient time for consideration is taken as shall allow for the least possible chance of repentance. 15 But probable it is that God, whatever distempered soul it be which he prosecutes with his divine justice, observes the motions and inclinations of it, whether they be such as tend to repentance; and allows time for the reformation of those whose wickedness is neither invincible nor incorrigible. 16 For, since He well knows what 12 For men, giving ear to humane examples, become more pliable and gentle. As when they hear how Plato, holding his rod over his page's shoulders, as himself relates, paused a good while, correcting his own anger. And how in like manner Archy- a proportion of virtue souls carry tas, observing the sloth and wilful along with them from himself, when negligence of his servants in the they come into the world, and how field, and perceiving his passion to strong and vigorous their innate and rise at a more than usual rate, did primitive good yet continues; while nothing at all; but as he went away, wickedness buds forth preternatuIt is your good fortune, said he, that rally upon the corruption of bad diet ye have angered me. and evil conversation, and even then 13 If, then, the sayings of men some souls recover again to perfect when called to mind, and their ac- cure or an indifferent habitude,tions being told, have such a power therefore He doth not make haste to to mitigate the roughness and vehe- inflict his punishments alike upon mency of wrath; much more, behold- all. ing God, with whom there is neither dread nor repentance of any thing, deferring nevertheless his punishments to future time, and admitting to others, but most baneful to themdelay, becomes it us to be cautious selves, to be always wallowing in and circumspect in these matters; wickedness. and to deem as a divine part of virtue that mildness and long-suffering of which God affords us an example. 17 But those that are incurable He presently lops off and deprives of life; deeming it altogether hurtful 18 But as for those who may probably be thought to transgress rather out of ignorance of what is 14 In the second place, therefore, virtuous and good, than through let us consider this: that human choice of what is foul and vicious, punishments of injuries regard no He grants them time to turn; but if more than that the party suffer in his they remain obdurate, then likewise turn, and are satisfied when the He inflicts his punishments upon offender has suffered according to them; for He has no fear lest they his merit; and farther they never should escape. proceed. Which is the reason that they run after provocations, like dogs that bark in their fury, and immediately pursue the injury as soon as committed. 19 These things I have alleged, as it was but reason, upon a supposition that there is a forbearance of inflicting punishment upon the wicked. 20 As for what remains, it be- resembled his perfection, nothing hooves us to listen to Hesiod, where permanent and stable; but were he asserts, not like Plato, that pun- only poor creatures, that (according ishment is a suffering which accom- to Homer's expression) faded and panies injustice, but that it is of dropped like withered leaves, and the same age with it, and arises from in a short time too; yet he should the same place and root. For, says make so great account of us-like women that bestow their pains in making little gardens, no less delightful to them than the gardens of Adonis, in earthen pans and pots he, Bad counsel, so the Gods ordain, And in another place, He that his neighbor's harm contrives, his art Contrives the mischief 'gainst his own false heart. -as to create us souls to blossom and flourish only for a day, in a soft and tender body of flesh, without any firm and solid root of life; and then to be blasted and extinguished in a moment upon every slight occa 21 For my part, if it may be lawful for me to deliver my opinion, I believe there is no occasion either for God or for men to inflict their sion? never deny the immortality of the soul, till somebody or other (as they punishment upon the most wicked 25 Therefore, for my part, I will and sacrilegious offenders; seeing that the course of their own lives is sufficient to chastise their crimes, say Hercules did of old) shall be so while they remain under the con- daring as to come and take away sternations and torments attending the prophetical tripod, and so quite their impiety. 22 While I was yet speaking, Olympicus, interrupting me, said: You seem by this discourse of yours to infer as if the soul were immortal, which is a supposition of great consequence. ruin and destroy the oracle. 26 Besides, if nothing befalls the soul after the expiration of this life, but death is the end of all reward and punishment, I might infer from thence rather that the Deity is remiss and indulgent in not swiftly punishing the wicked and depriving them of life. 23 It is very true, said I, nor is it any more than what yourself have granted already; in fact, the whole 27 For if a man shall assert that discussion has tended from the be- in the space of this life the wicked ginning to this, that the Supreme are no otherwise affected than by Deity overlooks us, and deals to the convincement that crime is a every one of us according to our fruitless and barren thing; that it deserts. 24 But can we think that God so little considers his own actions, or is such a waster of his time in trifles, that, if we had nothing of divine within us, nothing that in the least produces nothing of good, nothing worthy of esteem, nothing but the many great and terrible combats and agonies of the mind, the consideration of this would altogether pervert the soul. 28 As it is related that Lysima- serve not only an existence agreeable chus, being under the violent to nature, but are encircled with constraint of a parching thirst, sur-glory. rendered up his person and his dominions to the Getæ for a little drink; but after he had quenched his draught and found himself a captive, Shame of this wickedness of mine, cried he, that for so small a pleasure have lost so great a kingdom. There the sun with glorious ray, Where souls in fields of purple roses play; Others in verdant plains disport, Crowned with trees of every sort, Trees that never fruit do bear, But always in the blossom are. The rivers there without rude 29 But as long as many prophe- murmurs gently glide. And there cies are uttered even in these our they meet and bear each other comdays by the Delphic oracle, the same pany, passing away their time in comin substance that were formerly memorating and recalling things past given to Corax the Naxian, it is and present. impious to declare that the human 34 Another state there is of them soul can die. 30 Therefore, there is one and the same reason to confirm the providence of God and the immortality of the soul; neither is it possible to admit the one, if you deny the other. who have led vicious and wicked lives, which precipitates souls into a kind of hell and miserable abyss, Where sluggish streams of sable night Spout floods of darkness infinite. This is the receptacle of the tormented; here lie they hid under the veil of eternal ignorance and oblivion. 31 Now, then, the soul surviving after the decease of the body, the 35 For vultures do not everlastinference is the stronger that it par- ingly gorge themselves upon the takes of punishment and reward. liver of a wicked man, exposed by For during this mortal life the soul angry Gods upon the earth, as poets is in continual combat like a wrest-fondly feign of Prometheus. Nor do ler; but after all those conflicts are the bodies of the tormented undergo at an end, she then receives accord- (as Sisyphus is fabled to do) the toil ing to her merits. and pressure of weighty burdens. There are no reliques of the body in dead men which stripes and tortures can make impressions on. 32 But what the punishments and what the rewards of past transgressions or just and laudable actions are to be while the soul is thus alone by itself, is nothing at all to us that are alive; for either they are altogether concealed from our knowledge, or else we give but little credit to them. 36 But in very truth the sole punishment of those who have lived in gross wickedness is an inglorious obscurity, or final extinction; which through oblivion hurls and plunges them into deplorable rivers, bottom 33 But it is certain, in the regions less seas, and a dark abyss; involving prepared for pious souls, they con-all in uselessness and inactivity; ab |