Fears lest we plunge headlong to wat’ry graves.
9. When the high-spirited youth heard these words he said, “I like the way; I shall ascend it even though I fall forthwith in so doing.” The sun-god still tries to dissuade him from his rash purpose by exciting his fears:
Hold straight thy course nor turn for aught aside,
Through Taurus’ horns adverse thy coursers guide,
And Haemon’s bow and Leo’s searching face.
To this he replied, “Yoke the steeds to the chariot; by the very words which you seek to deter me, you incite me. I long to stand where Sol himself quakes with fear; it is only ignoble and weak souls that journey on safe roads; courage ventures on giddy heights.”
VI.
“But why does God suffer any evil to befall the good”? Verily, He does not suffer it. He wards off from them all evils, crimes and misdeeds and impure thoughts and avaricious designs and unbridled passions and lust after other men’s property; He watches over and protects them. Will any one in addition to this demand of God that He shall also bear the luggage of good men (as if He were a slave)! They themselves cast this burden upon God; mere externals they make light of. Democritus threw away his riches, thinking them a fardel upon his noble soul. Why do you wonder that God sometimes suffers that to come upon a good man which he himself desires?
2. “Good men sometimes lose their children.” Why not, when they sometimes even put them to death? “They are sent into exile.” Why not, when they sometimes leave their country, voluntarily, never to return? “They are put to death.” Why not, when they sometimes lay violent hands on themselves? “Why do they suffer many hardships?” That they may teach others to suffer patiently; they are born to be examples.
3. Think of God as speaking to them thus: “What right have ye to complain of me, ye who take pleasure in doing right? Other men I have encompassed with seductive pleasures and their torpid souls I have lulled into a long and delusive sleep; gold, silver and ivory I have lavished upon them; yet at heart they are good for nothing. Those men whom you look upon as fortunate, if you regard them, not with respect to what is external but what is concealed, are wretched, unclean, deformed, adorned on the outside after the similitude of their own walls. Their good fortune is not substantial and unalloyed; it is a mere crust and a thin one at that.