many anomalies in law, if he did not know the intentions of the law-maker, and did not understand the reason for every single part of the decrees that have been issued. What wonder is it then, if, when it is so hard to see through human purposes, that it is not easy to say with respect to the gods for what reason they punish some transgressors later, others sooner. 5. These things are no excuse for shunning an investigation, but a plea for indulgence, so that the discussion, looking as it were, toward a harbor and port of refuge, may move forward with the greater confidence, in the midst of perplexities. Then consider first this fact, that according to Plato, God having placed Himself in the midst of all that is enchantingly fair, as a sort of model, gives to human worth, which is in some measure an image of Himself, an exemplar which all are to follow so far as they are able. For the universe, being in its natural state devoid of order, began to change and to be transformed into a cosmos when it participated in, and became assimilated to, the divine idea and virtue. This same man also says that nature kindles in us the germ of vision so that by beholding the heavenly bodies borne along in their courses, and by admiration of the same, the soul becomes habituated to take pleasure in and to love what is orderly and systematically arranged, but that it hates all disorderly and uncontrolled passion, and shuns the purposeless and hit-or-miss as being the origin of all vice and discord. It is impossible for man, by his very nature, to have a completer enjoyment of God than when seeking and earnestly striving after virtue by imitating everything that is good and noble. For this reason also God punishes the wicked in due time and with deliberation; not because He is Himself afraid of making a mistake by chastising any one too soon or because He might repent of it, but in order to remove from us what is brutal and hasty in the infliction of punishment, and to teach us not to chastise in anger nor when greatly excited and indignant, ‘rage o’erleaps the bounds of reason’; as if, in order to satisfy our hunger or quench our thirst we rushed upon those who have done us an injury, but imitating His goodness and long-suffering and taking time as our adviser, that gives least room for repentance, we should proceed to inflict punishments in accordance with justice. For, as Socrates said, it is less mischievous to drink murky water, heedlessly, than when one is in a perturbed state of mind and under the influence of anger and has lost the power of self-control before the mind has become calm and clear, to vent one’s wrath on the person of a kinsman or friend. For vengeance does not belong close upon the inquiry, as Thucydides says, but is most in place when as far from it as possible. Since anger, according to Melanthius ‘commits terrible deeds when it has displaced self-control’; so, likewise, reason does what is