Page:The religion of Plutarch, a pagan creed of apostolic times; an essay (IA religionofplutar00oakeiala).pdf/185

 maintain that the cessation of the oracles is due to any other cause than the will of God, we can hardly escape the conclusion that their foundation also was not His work. If the prophetic power of the oracles is, indeed, the work of God, we can imagine no greater or stronger power than that required to destroy it. Planetiades' remarks were displeasing to me, particularly on account of the inconstancy which he attributes to God in His attitude towards men's wickedness, now punishing and now protecting it, as if God were some king or tyrant excluding vicious men at one door while welcoming and rewarding them at another. We ought to start with the principle that God's action is always marked by an adaptation of means to ends, that He does not furnish an excess of what is not required, and should then observe that Greece has shared in a particular degree that general depopulation which wars and revolutions have effected in all parts of the world, to such an extent, indeed, that the whole of Greece could now barely furnish the 3000 hoplites which were Megara's contingent to Platæa. If we were to do this we should accurately display our own judgment; for how could the god leave his oracles with us for the mere purpose of marking the desolation of our land? For who would be the better if its ancient oracle were still left to Tegyra, or at Ptoum, where after searching whole days you can hardly find a single herdsman tending his