Zeus the Tragedian (19)

Momos

But for my part, Zeus, if I am at liberty to speak with perfect freedom, I have a good many things to say.

Zeus

Speak, Momos, without restraint. I am sure your frankness will be for our good.

Momos

Hear, then, deities, what at any rate I think in my heart of hearts, as they say. You must know that I have been pretty confidently expecting that our affairs would come to as bad a pass as this, and that numbers of sophists like these would spring up against us, finding grounds for their temerity in our own conduct. By heaven, we have no right to be angry with Epicurus or with his disciples and successors if they have

conceived these notions about us. What, then, could you ask them to think when they see such anarchy in human life, the best of them neglected, perishing utterly in poverty and disease and slavery, while worthless blackguards are preferred to them in honor, and surpass them in riches, and are placed in authority over their betters; when they see that sacrilege is not punished but escapes unnoticed, while sometimes innocent men are impaled on stakes and beaten to death? It is only natural, then, that when they see such things they decide as they do, that we have no existence at all,