At the very beginning of his _Discourses_ he draws a distinction between the things which the gods _have_ and the things which they _have not_ put in our own power, and he held (being deficient here in that light which Christianity might have furnished to him) that the blessings denied to us are denied not because the gods _would_ not, but because they _could_ not grant them to us. And then he supposes that Jupiter addresses him:-- "O Epictetus, had it been possible, I would have made both your little body and your little property free and unentangled; but now, do not be mistaken, it is not yours at all, but only clay finely kneaded. Since, however, I could not do this, I gave you a portion of ourselves, namely, this power of pursuing and avoiding, of desiring and of declining, and generally the power of _dealing with appearances_: and if you cultivate this power, and regard it as that which constitutes your real possession, you will never be hindered or impeded, nor will you groan or find fault with, or flatter any one. Do these advantages then appear to you to be trifling? Heaven forbid! Be content therefore with these, and thank the gods." And again in one of his _Fragments_ (viii. ix.):-- "Freedom and slavery are but names, respectively, of virtue and of vice: and both of them depend upon the will. But neither of them have anything to do with those things in which the will has no share. For no one is a slave whose will is free." "Fortune is an evil bond of the body, vice of the soul; for he is a slave whose body is free but whose soul is bound, and, on the contrary, he is free whose body is bound but whose soul is free." Who does not catch in these passages the very tone of St, Paul when he says, "He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant?"