CHAP. IV.
What then shall we say concerning the next inquiry to this, viz. “why the powers who are invoked think it requisite that he who worships them should be just, but they when called upon to act unjustly do not refuse so to act?” To this I reply, that I am dubious with respect to what you call acting justly, and am of opinion that what appears to us to be an accurate definition of justice does not also appear to be so to the Gods. For we, looking to that which is most brief, direct our attention to things present, and to this momentary life, and the manner in which it subsists. But the powers that are superior to us know the whole life of the soul, and all its former lives; and, in consequence of this, if they inflict a certain punishment from the prayer of those that invoke them, they do not inflict it without justice, but looking to the offences committed by souls in former lives;[[88]] which men not perceiving think that they unjustly fall into the calamities which they suffer.