De consolatione ethnica et christiana, censura theologica

continues from previous page: ...to be chosen; furthermore, to become passionless, not to be overcome by the εὐθάλεφαν- blooming/flourishing λοξέτωρ deceiver/oblique one.

VIII.

Let us see now, in the second place, how successfully, in order to console the afflicted, the Epicureans recalled them from evils to goods. Pain, they say, is usually light in duration, and short in gravity, so that its speed consoles its magnitude, and its brevity consoles its duration. On the Ends of Goods and Evils, Book 1. 13. And Book 2. 20. Now, let those Epicurean medicines for pain be brought forth as if from a medicine box: "If it is heavy, it is short; if it is long, it is light." One thing I do not know, how a man, if he is a lover of luxury, can have finite desires.

What is to be attributed to this consolation is clear from this dialogue which exists in Tusculan Disputations, Book 2. 39. 40. "If the pain is extreme, it must be short." M: "Repeat these same things to me: for I do not understand what you call extreme, what short." M: "Extreme is that than which nothing can be higher; short is that than which nothing can be shorter. I despise the magnitude of pain, from which the brevity of time will set me free almost before it has come. But if the pain is as great as Philoctetes's, it seems clearly great to me, but yet not extreme, for nothing hurts except the foot: the eyes can, the head can, the sides, the lungs: everything can. Therefore, it is far from extreme pain." Therefore, he says, long-lasting pain has more joy than annoyance. "Now, I cannot say that such a man knows nothing, but I think we are being mocked by him. I do not say that extreme pain (and I call it extreme even if it is greater by ten atoms) is immediately short. I can name good men who are tormented for many years by the pains of gout, but a cautious man never defines the limit of magnitude or duration, so that I might know what he calls extreme in pain, and what short in time."

O remarkable consolation of Epicurus, saying: "If a wise man is burned, if he is tortured, if he is in the bull of Phalaris, he will say: 'How pleasant is this? How little do I care for this?'" Tusculan Disputations, Book 2. 13. And Book 5. 54. Epicurus says there is no time for the wise man, even if he is burned, tortured, or cut, in which he cannot exclaim: "How much do I consider this for nothing?" If the pagans themselves held the consolations of Epicurus in contempt and mocked them in scenic plays, what should be attributed to them by us Christians cannot be obscure.

IX.

But as the philosophy of the Peripatetics (among others) excelled the most in the name of truth and Method...