Non Posse Suaviter Vivi Secundum Epicurum

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

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 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.

Very amiable things must those be that come to us from the Gods; but when these very things come by the Gods too, this is what occasions vast satisfaction and unspeakable assurance, a sublimity of mind and a joy that, like a smiling brightness, doth as it were gild over our good things with a glory. But now those that are persuaded otherwise obstruct the very sweetest part of their prosperity, and leave themselves nothing to turn to in their adversity; but when they are in distress, look only to this one refuge and port, dissolution and insensibility; just as if in a storm or tempest at sea, some one should, to hearten the rest, stand up and say to them: Gentlemen, the ship hath never a pilot in it, nor will Castor and Pollux come themselves to assuage the violence of the beating waves or to lay the swift careers of the winds; yet I can assure you there is nothing at all to be dreaded in all this, for the vessel will be immediately swallowed up by the sea, or else will very quickly fall off and be dashed in pieces against the rocks. For this is Epicurus’s way of discourse to persons under grievous distempers and excessive pains. Dost thou hope for any good from the Gods for thy piety ? It is thy vanity; for the blessed and incorruptible Being is not constrained by either angers or kindnesses. Dost thou

fancy something better after this life than what thou hast here? Thou dost but deceive thyself; for what is dissolved hath no sense, and that which hath no sense is nothing to us. Aye; but how comes it then, my good friend, that you bid me eat and be merry ? Why, by Jove, because he that is in a great storm cannot be far off a shipwreck; and your extreme peril will soon land you upon Death’s strand. Though yet a passenger at sea, when he is got off from a shattered ship, will still buoy himself up with some little hope that he may drive his body to some shore and get out by swimming; but now the poor soul, according to these men’s philosophy,

Has no escape beyond the hoary main.[*](Odyss. V. 410.)

Yea, she presently evaporates, disperses, and perishes, even before the body itself; so that it seems her great and excessive rejoicing must be only for having learned this one sage and divine maxim, that all her misfortunes will at last determine in her own destruction, dissolution, and annihilation.

But (said he, looking upon me) I should be impertinent, should I say any thing upon this subject, when we have heard you but now discourse so fully against those that would persuade us that Epicurus’s doctrine about the soul renders men more disposed and better pleased to die than Plato’s doth. Zeuxippus therefore subjoined and said: And must our present debate be left then unfinished because of that? Or shall we be afraid to oppose that divine oracle to Epicurus? No, by no means, I said; and Empedocles tells us that

What’s very good claims to be heard twice.

Therefore we must apply ourselves again to Theon; for I think he was present at our former discourse; and moreover, he is a young man, and needs not fear being charged by these young gentlemen with having a bad memory.