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The contradictions of the Stoics (36-37)

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Again, in his First Book of Justice, having spoken of the Gods as resisting the injustices of some, he says But wholly to take away vice is neither possible nor expedient. Whether it were not better that law-breaking, injustice, and folly should be taken away, is not the design of this present discourse to enquire. But he himself, as much as in him lies, by his philosophy taking away vice, which it is not expedient to take away, does something repugnant both to reason and God. Besides this, saying that God resists some injustices, he again declares plainly the impiety of sins.

Having often written that there is nothing reprehensible, nothing to be complained of in the world, all things being finished according to a most excellent nature, he again elsewhere leaves certain negligences to be reprehended, and those not concerning small or base matters.

For having in his Third Book of Substance related that some such things befall honest and good men, he says: Is it because some things are not regarded, as in great families some bran—yea, and some grains of corn also—are scattered, the generality being nevertheless well ordered; or is it that there are evil Genii set over those things in which there are real and faulty negligence And he also affirms that there is much necessity intermixed, I let pass, how inconsiderate it is to compare such accidents befalling honest and good men, as were the condemnation of Socrates, the burning of Pythagoras, whilst he was yet living, by the Cyloneans, the putting to death—and that with torture—of Zeno by the tyrant Demylus, and of Antiphon by Dionysius, with the letting of bran fall. But that there should be evil Genii placed by Providence over such charges,—how can it but be a reproach to God, as it would be to a king, to commit the administration of his provinces to evil and rash governors and captains, and suffer the best of his subjects to be despised and ill-treated by them? And furthermore, if there is much necessity mixed amongst affairs, then God has not power over them all, nor are they all administered according to his reason.

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