The being of the Good is a certain Will; the being of the Bad is a
certain kind of Will. What then are externals? Materials for the Will,
about which the will being conversant shall obtain its own good or
evil. How shall it obtain the good? If it does not admire the
materials; for the opinions about the materials, if the opinions are
right, make the will good: but perverse and distorted opinions make
the will bad. God has fixed this law, and says, "If you would have
anything good, receive it from yourself." You say, "No, but I have
it from another." Do not so: but receive it from yourself. Therefore
when the tyrant threatens and calls me, I say, "Whom do you threaten
If he says, "I will put you in chains," I say, "You threaten my
hands and my feet." If he says, "I will cut off your head," I reply,
"You threaten my head." If he says, "I will throw you into prison,"
I say, "You threaten the whole of this poor body." If he threatens
me with banishment, I say the same. "Does he, then, not threaten you
at all?" If I feel that all these things do not concern me, he does
not threaten me at all; but if I fear any of them, it is I whom he
threatens. Whom then do I fear? the master of what? The master of
things which are in my own power? There is no such master. Do I fear
the master of things which are not in my power? And what are these
things to me?
"Do you philosophers then teach us to despise kings?" I hope not.
Who among us teaches to claim against them the power over things which
they possess? Take my poor body, take my property, take my reputation,
take those who are about me. If I advise any persons to claim these
things, they may truly accuse me. "Yes, but I intend to command your
opinions also." And who has given you this power? How can you
conquer the opinion of another man? "By applying terror to it," he
replies, "I will conquer it." Do you not know that opinion conquers
itself, and is not conquered by another? But nothing else can
conquer Will except the Will itself. For this reason, too, the law
of God is most powerful and most just, which is this: "Let the
stronger always be superior to the weaker." "Ten are stronger than
one." For what? For putting in chains, for killing, for dragging
whither they choose, for taking away what a man has. The ten therefore
conquer the one in this in which they are stronger. "In what then
are the ten weaker," If the one possess right opinions and the
others do not. "Well then, can the ten conquer in this matter?" How is
it possible? If we were placed in the scales, must not the heavier
draw down the scale in which it is?
"How strange, then, that Socrates should have been so treated by the
Athenians." Slave, why do you say Socrates? Speak of the thing as it
is: how strange that the poor body of Socrates should have been
carried off and dragged to prison by stronger men, and that any one
should have given hemlock to the poor body of Socrates, and that it
should breathe out the life. Do these things seem strange. do they
seem unjust, do you on account of these things blame God? Had Socrates
then no equivalent for these things, Where, then, for him was the
nature of good? Whom shall we listen to, you or him? And what does