Eusebius of Caesarea, Against Hierocles

being a lover of philosophy you do not cease to praise, but Phraotes and Iarchas, the philosophers of the Indians, what greater reputation of gods did they carry off from you though they carried off no peculiar glory of learning, nor of virtue? Likewise of Nero and Domitian, why do you not attribute to the Fates and to necessity their unrestrained arrogance, freeing the men from all blame and every charge? But also if it is fated for someone, as you say, to be a runner and an archer and a carpenter, so also if for one who is a sorcerer in character to be revealed as a murderous and wicked and licentious magician, he will surely turn out to be such a one from necessity. Why then do you go about preaching virtue to those who are not able to obtain correction? Or why do you blame those who are most absurd in their fate, but not in their choice? And why, if it was fated for you yourself, being divine in nature, to surpass the glory of kings, did you frequent the teach 410 ers and philosophers and meddle with the Arabian and Babylonian magi and the wise men of the Indians? For surely even without their company the things from the Fates would have been accomplished for you. And why to the gods you believe in do you cast honey-cakes and frankincense in vain, and feigning piety, do you urge your companions to turn to prayers? And you yourself, when you pray, what do you ask from the gods, when you confess that fate rules even over them? And indeed, passing by the other gods, you ought to have sacrificed only to Necessity and the Fates and to have honored fate more than Zeus himself. Thus you would no longer have had gods, and rightly so, since they are not even able to help men. But also if it was fated for the Ephesian citizens to be taken by a plague, why by legislating the opposite things do you cheat fate? Or rather, how did you overcome Fate, as if raising a trophy against her? And if the thread of Clotho for the girl had reached its end, how, tying up the spindle with the thread from the beginning after death, did you appear as a life-giver for her? But perhaps the Fates led you yourself to these things. You will by no means say it worthily, far from it, you who say that before your entrance into this body you had been one of those who spend their time in the sea and in the waves, but from necessity, as is likely, this also. Therefore you are not wonderful either for your first birth and upbringing, or for your general education, or for your temperate conduct in your prime, or for your discipline in philosophy, but there was, it seems, some necessity of the Fates driving you even to the Babylonians, and being pushed, as it were, you also associated with the wise men of the Indians, and to the Gymnosophists of the Egyptians it was not choice, nor the desire for philosophy, 411 but Fate led you by the throat and forced you to wander to Gades and the pillars of Heracles, the eastern and western Ocean, and to be spun around in vain by the spindles themselves. But if someone should say that he partook of some wisdom from these things, Fate is the cause of these things also, and the man would no longer be counted among the lovers of learning, nor would he reasonably be admired for the philosophy furnished to him not by his will, but by necessity. And on an equal footing would be compared, according to him, Pythagoras himself and some monstrous and outcast slave, Socrates himself dying for philosophy and those who indicted him as worthy of death, and Diogenes and the youths of Athens, and, simply put, the wisest would not differ from the most foolish, nor the most unjust from the most just, nor the most licentious from the most temperate, nor the most cowardly from the most courageous since all these things are shown to be the playthings of fate and the Fates. But against these things the herald of truth will cry out, saying: O men, a mortal and ephemeral race, where are you being carried, having drunk the unmixed wine of ignorance? Cease at last and sober up from your drunkenness, and with the upright eyes of your mind behold the august face of truth. It is not right for truth to war and fight with itself, nor for one and the same cause to underlie two most contrary things. While the providence of God holds sway over all things, the universe has been ordered by divine laws, and the limit of the soul of men

ἐραστὴν ὄντα φιλοσοφίας οὐκ ἀπολείπεις ἐπαινῶν, Φραώτης δὲ καὶ Ἰάρχας οἱ Ἰνδῶν φιλόσοφοι τί μᾶλλον παρὰ σοὶ θεῶν ἀπηνέγκαντο δόξαν μηδέν τι παιδείας ἴδιον, μηδ' ἀρετῆς ἀπενεγκάμενοι κλέος; Νέρωνος δ' ὡσαύτως καὶ ∆ομετιανοῦ τί οὐχὶ Μοίραις καὶ ἀνάγκῃ τὴν ἀκόλαστον περιάπτεις ἀγερωχίαν πάσης αἰτίας καὶ παντὸς ἐγκλήματος ἐλευθερῶν τοὺς ἄνδρας; ἀλλὰ καὶ εἴ τῳ πέπρωται, ὡς φῄς, δρομικῷ καὶ τοξικῷ καὶ τεκτονικῷ, οὕτω δὴ καὶ εἰ γόητι τὸν τρόπον ὄντι μάγῳ ἀναφανῆναι μιαιφόνῳ τε καὶ πονηρῷ καὶ ἀκολάστῳ, πάντως που ἐξ ἀνάγκης τοιόσδε τις ἀποβήσεται. τί δῆτα οὖν περινοστῶν τοῖς μὴ οἵοις τε τυχεῖν διορθώσεως ἀρετὴν προκηρύττεις; ἢ τί καταμέμφῃ τοῖς τὴν μοῖραν, ἀλλ' οὐ τὴν προαίρεσιν ἀτοπωτάτοις; τί δὲ καί, εἰ αὐτῷ σοι πέπρωτο θείῳ ὄντι τὴν φύσιν ὑπερᾶραι βασιλέων δόξης, εἰς διδα 410 σκάλων ἐφοίτας καὶ φιλοσόφων Ἀραβίους τε καὶ Βαβυλωνίων μάγους καὶ σοφοὺς Ἰνδῶν ἐπολυπραγμόνεις; πάντως γάρ που καὶ τῆς τούτων δίχα κοινωνίας τὰ ἐκ Μοιρῶν ἐτελεῖτό σοι. τί δὲ καὶ οἷς νομίζεις θεοῖς τὰ μελιττοῦτα καὶ τὸν λιβανωτὸν εἰς μάτην ῥιπτεῖς, εὐσέβειάν τε ἐπιμορφαζόμενος ἐπ' εὐχὰς τρέπεσθαι τοὺς ἑταίρους παρορμᾷς; αὐτός τε εὐχόμενος τί παρὰ θεῶν αἰτεῖς, ὁπότε καὶ τούτων ὁμολογεῖς τὴν εἱμαρμένην κρατεῖν; καὶ μὴν ἔδει τοὺς ἄλλους θεοὺς παραμειψάμενον Ἀνάγκῃ μόνον καὶ Μοίραις θύειν καὶ τοῦ ∆ιὸς αὐτοῦ μᾶλλον τὴν εἱμαρμένην προτιμᾶν. οὕτω δ' ἄν σοι θεοὶ μὲν οὐκέτ' ἂν ἦσαν καὶ εἰκότως, ἅτε μηδὲ ἀνθρώπους οἷοί τε ὠφελεῖν. ἀλλὰ καὶ εἰ πέπρωτο τοὺς Ἐφεσίους ἁλῶναι λοιμῷ πολίτας, τί τἀναντία νομοθετῶν παρακρούῃ τὴν εἱμαρμένην; μᾶλλον δὲ πῶς ὑπερῆρας τὴν Μοῖραν, τρόπαιον ὥσπερ κατ' αὐτῆς ἀράμενος; εἰ δὲ καὶ τῆς Κλωθοῦς ἐπὶ τῇ κόρῃ τὸ νῆμα πέρας εἰλήχει, πόθεν ἐξ ὑπαρχῆς μετὰ θάνατον ἀναδησάμενος τῷ μίτῳ τὸν ἄτρακτον, ζωοποιὸς αὐτῇ παραπέφηνας; ἀλλ' ἴσως Μοῖραι καὶ σὲ αὐτὸν ἐπὶ ταῦτ' ἦγον. οὔτι πω φήσεις κατ' ἀξίαν, πολλοῦ γε καὶ δεῖ, ὃς πρὸ τῆς εἰς τοῦτο τὸ σῶμα παρόδου τῶν ἐν θαλάττῃ καὶ κύμασι διατριβόντων γεγονέναι σεαυτὸν λέγεις, ἀλλ' ἐξ ἀνάγκης, ὡς εἰκὸς καὶ τοῦτο. οὔκουν θαυμάσιος οὔτε τῆς πρώτης γενέσεως καὶ τροφῆς, οὔτε τῆς ἐγκυκλίου παιδείας, οὔτε τῆς ἐν ἀκμῇ σώφρονος ἀγωγῆς, οὔτ' ἀσκήσεως τῆς ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ, ἦν δ' ἄρα τις Μοιρῶν ἀνάγκη καὶ εἰς Βαβυλωνίους ἐλαύνουσα, ὠθούμενος δ' ὥσπερ καὶ τοῖς Ἰνδῶν ὡμίλεις σοφοῖς, καὶ ἐπὶ τοὺς Αἰγυπτίων δὲ Γυμνοὺς οὐχ ἡ προαίρεσις, οὐδ' ὁ φιλοσοφίας πόθος, 411 Μοῖρα δὲ ἦγεν ἄγχουσα καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ Γάδειρα καὶ τὰς Ἡρακλείους στήλας ἑῷόν τε καὶ ἑσπέριον Ὠκεανὸν ἀλᾶσθαι καὶ αὐταῖς ἀτράκτοις εἰς μάτην ἐξεβιάζετο περιστρέφεσθαι. εἰ δὲ δὴ μετειληφέναι τι σοφίας αὐτὸν ἐκ τούτων εἴποι τις, Μοῖρα καὶ τούτων αἰτία καὶ οὐκέτ' ἂν ἐν φιλομαθέσιν ὁ ἀνὴρ καταλεχθείη, οὐδ' ἂν εὐλόγως θαυμασθείη τῆς οὐ κατὰ γνώμην, ἀλλὰ κατὰ ἀνάγκην αὐτῷ πορισθείσης φιλοσοφίας. ἐν ἴσῳ δ' ἂν συγκρινόμενος εἴη κατ' αὐτὸν Πυθαγόρας αὐτὸς καί τι τερατῶδες καὶ ἀπερριμμένον ἀνδράποδον, Σωκράτης αὐτὸς φιλοσοφίας ὑπεραποθνήσκων καὶ οἱ τοῦτον θανάτου ἄξιον γραψάμενοι, ∆ιογένης τε καὶ τὰ Ἀθηναίων μειράκια, καὶ ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν ὁ σοφώτατος οὐκ ἂν διαφέροι τοῦ ἀφρονεστάτου καὶ ὁ ἀδικώτατος τοῦ δικαιοτάτου ὅ τε ἀκολαστότατος τοῦ σωφρονεστάτου καὶ ὁ δειλότατος τοῦ ἀνδρειοτάτου εἱμαρμένης καὶ Μοιρῶν παιγνίων τούτων ἁπάντων ἀποδεδειγμένων. ἀλλὰ γὰρ πρὸς ταῦτα τῆς ἀληθείας ὁ κῆρυξ ἀναβοήσεται λέγων· ὦ ἄνθρωποι, θνητὸν καὶ ἐπίκηρον γένος, ποῖ δὴ φέρεσθε τὸν τῆς ἀγνωσίας ἄκρατον ἐμπιόντες; λήξατε ποτὲ καὶ διανήψατε τῆς μέθης καὶ διανοίας ὀρθοῖς ὄμμασι τὸ σεμνὸν τῆς ἀληθείας ἐνοπτρίσασθε πρόσωπον. οὐ θέμις ἀλήθειαν πολεμεῖν ἑαυτῇ καὶ μάχεσθαι, οὐδὲ δυοῖν ἐναντιωτάτοιν μίαν ὑφεστάναι καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν αἰτίαν. τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ προνοίας τὰ πάντα κρατούσης θείοις νόμοις διατέτακται τὸ πᾶν, ἀνθρώπων τε ψυχῆς ὅρος