EPISTLE LXVI.
in a human body.[1] If reason is divine, and the good in no case lacks reason, then the good in every case is divine. And furthermore, there is no distinction between things divine; hence there is none between goods, either. Therefore it follows that joy and a brave unyielding endurance of torture are equal goods; for in both there is the same greatness of soul relaxed and cheerful in the one case, in the other combative and braced for action. 13. What? Do you not think that the virtue of him who bravely storms the enemy’s stronghold is equal to that of him who endures a siege with the utmost patience? Great is Scipio when he invests Numantia,[2] and constrains and compels the hands of an enemy, whom he could not conquer, to resort to their own destruction. Great also are the souls of the defenders—men who know that, as long as the path to death lies open, the blockade is not complete, men who breathe their last in the arms of liberty. In like manner, the other virtues are also equal as compared with one another: tranquillity, simplicity, generosity, constancy, equanimity, endurance. For underlying them all is a single virtue—that which renders the soul straight and unswerving.
14. “What then,” you say; “is there no difference between joy and unyielding endurance of pain?” None at all, as regards the virtues themselves; very great, however, in the circumstances in which either of these two virtues is displayed. In the one case, there is a natural relaxation and loosening of the soul; in the other there is an unnatural pain. Hence these circumstances, between which a great distinction can be drawn, belong to the category of indifferent things,[3] but the virtue shown in each case is equal. 15. Virtue is not changed by the matter with
- ↑ Ratio (λόγος) is also defined as God, as Absolute Truth, Destiny, etc. The same idea is evident in the definition of sapientia (the object of philosophy) as rerum divinarum et humanarum . . . scientia (Cic. Off. ii. 2. 5, etc.), and nosse divina et humana et horum causas, etc.
- ↑ A Spanish city, reduced and razed to the ground in 133 B.C. by Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Carthage.
- ↑ Cf. Ep. xxxi. 4 and footnote (Vol. I.).
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