20. Of a truth, in this matter is the Deity any wiser than Hesiod when he exhorts and advises us ‘Not when returned from the sorrowful burial, to propagate the race, but after the feast of the immortals?’ on the ground that not only vice and virtue, but sorrow and joy and all qualities, are transferred to the offspring in procreation; that at such a time men should be jocund and in good spirits and merry. But it does not follow, according to Hesiod, nor is it the work of human wisdom, but of God, to see through and understand similarities and differences of human nature, before they have led to great crimes and are thus made plain to all men. For while the cubs of bears and the whelps of wolves and monkeys immediately disclose their inborn nature because there is nothing to conceal or disguise it, the natural disposition of man conforms to customs and opinions and laws, and thus frequently puts a mask on what is evil and imitates the good. In this way it altogether expunges or eradicates the inborn taint of vice, or hides it for a long time by cunningly disguising itself under the cloak of virtue; inasmuch as we hardly take note of any particular act of villainy, unless it falls upon us or strikes us; or, rather, we are for the most part accustomed to regard men as bad only when they do a bad deed, licentious when they indulge their lusts, and cowards when they run away. This is doing as if we believed scorpions had a sting only when they strike, and serpents were poisonous only when they bite,—a foolish notion, verily! The man who proves to be a villain does not become so just at the moment he is found out, but he had in him from his birth the germs of iniquity, the thief merely seizing the opportunity or using his power to steal, and the tyrant to override the law. But God, depend upon it, is not ignorant of the inclinations and nature of any man because He looks to the soul rather than the body; He does not wait to punish deeds of violence, until they are done with the hands, or impurity until it is uttered with the tongue, or lasciviousness until it is committed with the sexual organs. He does not take vengeance on the evil-doer from any wrong he has himself suffered, neither is He incensed at the robber, because he has been roughly handled, nor does He hate the adulterer because of the disgrace; yet, for the sake of betterment, He often punishes the adulterer and the miser and the unjust man, thus cutting off vice, as if it were an epilepsy, before it becomes firmly rooted.