Oration to the Greeks 11

How then shall I accept birth according to fate, when I see what kind of stewards it has? I do not wish to be a king; I do not want to be rich; I have refused military command; I have come to hate sexual immorality; I do not go to sea out of greed; I do not compete to win crowns; I am free of the craving for fame; I despise death; I rise above every kind of disease; grief does not consume my soul. If I am a slave, I endure slavery; if I am free, I do not pride myself on my good birth. I see that the sun is the same for all, and that death is one for all, whether it comes through pleasure or through want. The rich man sows, and the poor man shares in the same sowing; the very rich die, and beggars have the same span of life. The rich need more, and they get it by trading on their credit and reputation; but the poor man, who desires only what is most modest for his station, gets by more easily. Why do you lie awake for love of money, as fate would have it? Why, as fate would have it, do you so often reach out and so often die? Die to the world, rejecting the madness in it; live to God, rejecting your old birth by coming to know him. We were not made to die; we die through our own fault. Our free will has destroyed us; we who were free have become slaves; we were sold because of sin. Nothing bad was made by God; it was we who brought forth wickedness; but we who brought it forth are able to reject it again.