Chapter III. They Were Not Able Even to Defend Their Own Consecrated Shrines When Struck by Lightning

[PORPHYRY] [1] ‘Thus even shrines and temples have their destinies, and Apollo’s own temple had been destined to be struck by lightning, as he says:

“Offspring of Erichthonius’ godlike race, Boldly ye come mine oracle to ask When shall this fairest shrine be laid in dust. Hear then this utterance of the voice divine, That issues from the laurel-shaded cave. When high in air the warring winds resound, And storms embattled meet with thundering crash, While the wide world lies wrapped in silent frost, And the imprisoned air no outlet finds, A blazing torch falls, where it will, to earth. Whereat the wild beasts on the mountain tops Flee in swift terror to their dens, nor stay To scan with trembling eyes Jove’s fallen bolt. Shrines of the blessed, trees of stateliest growth, Steep mountain peaks, fair ships upon the sea All shattered lie beneath those wings of fire. Fair Amphitrite too, Poseidon’s bride, Cleft by that awful stroke shrinks moaning back. Ye therefore, though by mighty pain oppressed, Bear with brave souls the counsels of the Fates That know no change: for whatsoe’er the lot Their whirling spindles twine, his awful brow Zeus nods on high to fix the changeless doom. Thus in long ages past this fairest shrine By fiery bolts from heaven was doomed to fall.”’

If therefore by the spindles of the Fates even the shrines of the venerable gods and their holy temples are conquered by ‘wings of fire,’ what hope can be left for mortal men to escape from their destiny? If, moreover, there is no help from the gods, but one must in any case

‘Bear with brave soul the counsels of the Fates That know no change,’

what is the meaning, some one may say, of our useless zeal concerning the gods?

Or what need to assign a portion ‘of libation and burnt-offering,’ and the honour thereof, to those who are not worthy even of these things, if they have no power to help us at all? For then we ought not to ascribe the bestowal of good things to them, but to that (destiny) which they confessed to be the cause of the evil.

For if anything either good or the reverse is destined for men, it will of necessity occur, and, whether the gods will or not, it will come to pass. We ought therefore to worship Necessity only, and care little, or rather nothing, for the gods, as being able neither to annoy nor to benefit us.

But then if He, who is God over all, is sole ruler of the Fates, and sole Lord over them also----for, as the Oracle says:

‘Whate’er the lot Their whirling spindles twine, his awful brow Zeus nods on high, to fix the changeless doom’----

why then dost thou not put aside all else, and confess that the universal Monarch and the Lord of Fate is the only God, and only Giver of good, and Saviour? Seeing that for Him alone it is easy to turn and change even what you call

‘The counsels of the Fates That know no change:’

so that the man who has been consecrated to the all-ruling God, and worships only Him, is enslaved neither to necessity nor to fate, but. as being free and released from every bond, follows without hindrance the divine dispensations of salvation. Such is the path which true reason shows: but see by what means this author, the contrary, that the decrees of fate are dissolved.