For neither was the sophist, Balaam, who was an empty multitude of contrary and contending doctrines, when he was desirous to imprecate curses upon and to injure the good man, able to do so; since God turned his curses into a blessing, in order to correct the unjust man of wickedness and to display his own love of virtue.

But it is the nature of sophists to have for enemies the faculties which are in them, while their language is at variance with their thoughts and their thoughts with their language, and while neither is in the least degree consistent with the other. At all events, they wear out our ears, arguing that justice is a great bond of society, that temperance is a profitable thing, that continence is a virtuous thing, that piety is a most useful thing, and, of each other virtue, that it is a most wholesome and saving quality. And, on the other hand, that injustice is a quality with which we ought to have no truce, that intemperance is a diseased habit, that impiety is scandalous, and so going through every kind of wickedness, that each sort is most pernicious.

And, nevertheless, they never cease showing by their conduct that their real opinion is the reverse of their language. But, when they extol prudence and temperance and Numbers xxiii. 8. justice and piety, they then show that they are, above all measure, foolish, and intemperate, and unjust, and impious; in short, that they are throwing into confusion and overturning all divine and human regulations and principles.

And to them, therefore, one may very properly say what the divine oracle said to Cain, "What is this that thou hast done?" What good have ye done yourselves? What have all these discourses about virtue profited your souls? In what particular of life, whether small or great, have ye done well? What? Have you not, on the contrary, contributed to advancing true charges against yourselves? because, by expressing your approval of what is good, and philosophising as far as words go, you have been excellent interpreters, but are nevertheless discovered to be men who both think and practise shameful things. In fact, all good things are dead in your souls, these evils having been there kindled; and, on this account there is no one of you who is really alive.

For as, when some musician or grammarian is dead, the music and grammar which existed in them dies with them, but their ideas survive, and in a manner live as long as the world itself endures; according to which the existing race of men, and those who are to exist hereafter in continual succession, will, to the end of time, become skilful in music and grammar. Thus, also, if the prudence, or the temperance, or the courage, or the justice, or, in short, if the wisdom of any kind existing in any individual be destroyed, nevertheless the prudence existing in the nature of the immortal universe will still be immortal; and every virtue is erected like a pillar in imperishable solidity, in accordance with which there are some good people now, and there will be some hereafter.