On the Resurrection of the Dead 19

To those who acknowledge providence and have accepted the same principles as we, but then somehow fall away from their own premises, one might use arguments like these, and many more, if one wished to expand what has been said briefly and in passing. But with those who disagree about the first principles it might be well to lay down another starting point before these. We would join them in their doubts about their opinions and consider with them questions like this: has the life of human beings, and the whole course of life, been utterly and once for all neglected, and has a deep darkness been poured over the earth, hiding in ignorance and silence both human beings themselves and their deeds? Or is it far safer to hold that the Maker presides over his own works, overseeing all that exists or happens in any way, and judging deeds and counsels? If there were no judgment anywhere of what human beings have done, human beings would have no advantage over irrational creatures; rather, those who master their passions and care for piety and justice or any other virtue would fare worse than the beasts. The life of cattle would be best, virtue foolish, the threat of judgment a great joke, the indulgence of every pleasure the greatest good; and the common creed and single law of them all would be the one dear to the licentious and lustful: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” For the end of such a life is not even pleasure, as some think, but complete insensibility. But if the Maker of human beings has some care for his own works, and the distinction between those who have lived well and those who have lived badly is preserved somewhere, it is either in the present life, while those who have lived in virtue or in vice are still alive, or after death, when they are separated and dissolved. But in neither case can a just judgment be found to be preserved. For in the present life the good do not obtain the rewards of virtue, nor do the wicked receive the wages of vice. I pass over the point that, as long as the nature we now have is preserved, a mortal nature could not bear a penalty proportionate to offenses that are many or grave. The robber or ruler or tyrant who has unjustly killed thousands upon thousands could not pay the penalty for them by a single death. And one who holds no true opinion about God, but lives in every kind of insolence and blasphemy, despises divine things, overturns laws, outrages boys and women alike, razes cities unjustly, burns houses with their inhabitants, lays waste a country and destroys with it communities and peoples or even a whole nation: how could he, in a corruptible body, suffice for a penalty proportionate to these crimes, when death forestalls what he deserves and mortal nature is not enough for even one of his deeds? So a judgment according to desert is shown neither in the present life nor after death.