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And yet these men leave nothing unsaid against
Epicurus, crying out, Fie, fie upon him, as confounding
their presumption concerning God by taking away Providence; for God (they say) is presumed and understood to
be not only immortal and happy, but also a lover of men
and careful of them and beneficial to them; and herein
they say true. Now if they who abolish Providence take
away the pre-conception concerning God, what do they
who say that the Gods indeed have care of us, but deny
them to be helpful to us, and make them not bestowers of
good things but of indifferent ones, giving, to wit, not
virtue, but wealth, health, children, and such like things,
[p. 407]
none of which is helpful, profitable, desirable, or available?
Or shall we not rather think, that the Epicureans do not
take away the conceptions concerning the Gods; but that
these Stoics scoff at the Gods and deride them, saying one
is a God of fruits, another of marriage, another a physician, and another a diviner, while yet health, issue, and
plenty of fruits are not good things, but indifferent things
and unprofitable to those who have them?
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 4.
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