76. Inasmuch then, you say, as you serve the Almighty God, and trust that He cares for your safety and salvation, why does He suffer you to be exposed to such storms of persecution, and to undergo all kinds of punishments and tortures? Let us, too, ask in reply, why, seeing that you worship so great and so innumerable gods, and build temples to them, fashion images of gold, sacrifice herds of animals, and all heap up674    Lit., “provide,” conficiatis, which, however, some would understand “consume.” boxfuls of incense on the already loaded altars, why you live subject to so many dangers and storms of calamity, with which many fatal misfortunes vex you every day? Why, I say, do your gods neglect to avert from you so many kinds of disease and sickness, shipwrecks, downfalls, conflagrations, pestilences, barrenness, loss of children, and confiscation of goods, discords, wars, enmities, captures of cities, and the slavery of those who are robbed of their rights of free birth?675    Lit., “slaveries, their free births being taken away.” But, my opponent says, in such mischances we, too, are in no wise helped by God. The cause is plain and manifest. For no hope has been held out to us with respect to this life, nor has any help been promised or676    Lit., “and.” aid decreed us for what belongs to the husk of this flesh,—nay, more, we have been taught to esteem and value lightly all the threats of fortune, whatever they be; and if ever any very grievous calamity has assailed us, to count as pleasant in that misfortune677    So the ms. first five edd., Hild. and Oehler, reading adscribere infortunio voluptatem, which is omitted in the other edd. as a gloss which may have crept in from the margin. the end which must follow, and not to fear or flee from it, that we may be the more easily released from the bonds of the body, and escape from our darkness and678    Lit., “our dark.” blindness.

LXXVI. Cum ergo, inquitis, omnipotenti serviatis Deo, et eum habere confidatis salutis atque incolumitatis vestrae curam, cur persecutiones patitur perpeti vos tantas, atque omnia genera poenarum et suppliciorum subire? Perquiramus et nos contra, cur et vos cum tantos et tam innumeros colatis deos, cumque illis aedes constituatis sacras, simulacra effingatis ex auro, animantium mactetis greges, acerras omnes thuris plenis conficiatis altaribus, cur non immunes agitis tot discriminibus, et procellis, quibus quotidie 0934A vos agunt exitiabiles multiplicesque fortunae? Cur, inquam, dii vestri cessant a vobis avertere tot morborum et valetudinum genera, naufragia, ruinas, incendia, pestilentias, sterilitatem, amissionem pignorum, et proscriptionem bonorum, discordias, bella, simultates, captivitates urbium, et, sublatis ingenuitatibus, servitutes? Sed et nobis in hujusmodi casibus minime auxiliatur Deus. Prompta et manifesta causa est. Nihil enim est nobis promissum ad hanc vitam, nec in carunculae hujus folliculo constitutis, opis aliquid sponsum est, auxiliique decretum: quinimmo edocti sumus minas omnes, quaecumque sunt, parvi ducere, atque aestimare fortunae. Ac si 0935A quando ingruerit vis quaepiam gravior, quam finem necesse sit consequi, eam non timere, nec fugere quo facilius exui corporalibus possimus e vinculis, et tenebrosam evadere caecitatem.