78. Wherefore, O men,
refrain from obstructing what you hope for by vain questions; nor
should you, if anything is otherwise than you think, trust your own
opinions rather than that which should be reverenced.3918
| 3918
Lit., “than an august thing.” |
The times, full of
dangers, urge
us, and fatal penalties threaten us; let us
flee for
safety to
God our
Saviour, without demanding the reason of the offered
gift. When
that at stake is our
souls’
salvation and our own interests,
something must be done even without reason, as Arrhianus approves of
Epictetus having said.
3919
| 3919
Orelli refers to Arrh., i. 12; but the doctrine there insisted on is
the necessity of submission to what is unavoidable. Oehler, in
addition, refers to Epict., xxxii. 3, where, however, it is merely
attempted to show that when anything is withheld from us, it is just as
goods are unless paid for, and that we have therefore no reason to
complain. Neither passage can be referred to here, and it seems
as though Arnobius has made a very loose reference which cannot be
specially identified. |
We doubt, we hesitate, and suspect
the credibility of what is said; let us
commit ourselves to
God, and
let not our incredulity
prevail more with us than the greatness of His
name and power, lest, while we are seeking out arguments for ourselves,
through which that may seem false which we do not wish and deny to be
true, the last day steal upon us, and we be found in the jaws of our
enemy, death.
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