Celsus, however, says that it is only “the course of _mortal_ things
which, according to the appointed cycles, must always be the same in the
past, present, and future;” whereas the majority of the Stoics maintain
that this is the case not only with the course of mortal, but also with
that of immortal things, and of those whom they regard as gods. For
after the conflagration of the world,[750] which has taken place
countless times in the past, and will happen countless times in the
future, there has been, and will be, the same arrangement of all things
from the beginning to the end. The Stoics, indeed, in endeavouring to
parry, I don’t know how, the objections raised to their views, allege
that as cycle after cycle returns, all men will be altogether
unchanged[751] from those who lived in former cycles; so that Socrates
will not live again, but one altogether like to Socrates, who will marry
a wife exactly like Xanthippe, and will be accused by men exactly like
Anytus and Melitus. I do not understand, however, how the world is to be
always the same, and one individual not different from another, and yet
the things in it not the same, though exactly alike. But the main
argument in answer to the statements of Celsus and of the Stoics will be
more appropriately investigated elsewhere, since on the present occasion
it is not consistent with the purpose we have in view to expatiate on
these points.
Footnote 750:
τοῦ παντός.
Footnote 751:
ἀπαραλλάκτους.