And now, after the two former ranks of ill and
common men, we will in the third place consider the best
sort and most beloved of the Gods, and what great satisfactions they receive from their clean and generous sentiments of the Deity, to wit, that he is the Prince of all
good things and the Parent of all things brave, and can
no more do an unworthy thing than he can be made to
suffer it. For he is good, and he that is good can upon
no account fall into envy, fear, anger, or hatred; for it is
not proper to a hot thing to cool, but to heat; nor to a
good thing to do harm. Now anger is by nature at the
farthest distance imaginable from complacency, and spleenishness from placidness, and animosity and turbulence from
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humanity and kindness. For the latter of these proceed
from generosity and fortitude, but the former from impotency and baseness. The Deity is not therefore constrained by either anger or kindnesses; but that is because it is natural to it to be kind and aiding, and
unnatural to be angry and hurtful. But the great Jove,
whose mansion is in heaven and who drives his winged
chariot, is the first that descends downwards and orders
all things and takes the care of them. But of the other
Gods one is surnamed the Distributer, and another the
Mild, and a third the Averter of Evil. And according to
Pindar,
Apollo was by mighty Jove designed
Of all the Gods to be to man most kind.
And Diogenes saith, that all things are the Gods', and
friends have all things common, and good men are the
Gods' friends; and therefore it is impossible either that a
man beloved of the Gods should not be happy, or that a
wise and a just man should not be beloved of the Gods.
Can you think then that they that take away Providence
need any other chastisement, or that they have not a sufficient one already, when they root out of themselves such
vast satisfaction and joy as we that stand thus affected
towards the Deity have? Metrodorus, Polyaenus, and
Aristobulus were the confidence and rejoicing of Epicurus; the better part of whom he all his lifetime either
attended upon in their sicknesses or lamented at their
deaths. So did Lycurgus, when he was saluted by the
Delphic prophetess,
Dear friend to heavenly Jove and all the Gods.
And did Socrates when he believed that a certain Divinity
was used out of kindness to discourse him, and Pindar
when he heard Pan sing one of the sonnets he had composed, but a little rejoice, think you? Or Phormio, when
he thought he had treated Castor and Pollux at his
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house ? Or Sophocles, when he entertained Aesculapius,
as both he himself believed, and others too, that thought
the same with him by reason of the apparition that then
happened? What opinion Hermogenes had of the Gods
is well worth the recounting in his very own words.
‘For these Gods,’ saith he, ‘who know all things and
can do all things, are so friendly and loving to me that,
because they take care of me, I never escape them either
by night or by day, wherever I go or whatever I am
about. And because they know beforehand what issue
every thing will have, they signify it to me by sending
angels, voices, dreams, and presages.’
