For flexible are e’en the Gods themselves[37].
And in short whatever of a similar nature is to be found in poetry.
Nor must we omit to observe, that though the Gods are not the causes
of evil, yet they connect certain persons with things of this kind,
and surround those who deserve [to be afflicted] with corporeal and
external detriments; not through any malignity, or because they think
it requisite that men should struggle with difficulties, but for the
sake of punishment. For as pestilence and drought, and besides these
excessive rain, earthquakes, and every thing of this kind, are for
the most part produced through certain other more physical causes,
yet sometimes are effected by the Gods, when the times are such that
the iniquity of the multitude, publicly, and in common, requires to
be punished; after the same manner, also, the Gods sometimes afflict
an individual with corporeal and external detriments, in order to
punish him, and convert others to what is right.
But to be persuaded that the Gods are never the cause of any
evil[38], contributes greatly, as it appears to me, to proper
conduct towards the Gods. For evils proceed from vice alone, but
the Gods are of themselves the causes of good, and of whatever
is advantageous; while, in the meantime, we do not admit their
beneficence, but surround ourselves with voluntary evils. Hence, on
this occasion, it appears to me that it is well said by the poet:
——that mortals blame the Gods,
as if they were the causes of their evils!
——though not from Fate,
But for their crimes they suffer pain and woe[39].
For that God is never in any way the cause of evil may be proved by
many arguments; but at present we shall only adduce what Plato[40]
says: viz. “that as it is not the province of what is hot to
refrigerate, but the contrary; so neither is it the province of that
which is beneficent to be noxious, but the contrary.” Moreover, God
being good, and immediately replete from the beginning with every
virtue, cannot be noxious, or the cause to any one of evil; but on
the contrary, must impart every good to those who are willing to
receive it; bestowing on us, also, such media[41] as are according
to nature, and which are effective of what is conformable to nature.
But there is only one cause of evil[42].