To Autolycus 3.7

Having said that there are gods, they then treated them as nothing. Some said that the gods are made of atoms, others that they dissolve into atoms, and they say that the gods can do no more than human beings. Plato, having said that there are gods, would make them material. Pythagoras, after laboring so hard over the gods and traveling up and down the world, finally defines nature and says that all things happen by chance, and that the gods care nothing for human beings. Then there is all that Clitomachus the Academic introduced on atheism. And what of Critias, and of Protagoras of Abdera, who says: “Whether there are gods, I cannot say, nor can I show what they are like; for many things hinder me”? As for Euhemerus, the most godless of all, it is superfluous for us even to speak of him. After daring to say many things about the gods, in the end he would have it that there are no gods at all, but that all things are governed by chance. And Plato, who said so much about the sole sovereignty of God and about the soul of man, saying that the soul is immortal, is he not later found contradicting himself, saying that souls pass into other human beings, and that some even go into irrational animals? How will his teaching not appear terrible and unlawful to anyone with sense: that one who was once a human being will later be a wolf or a dog or an ass or some other irrational beast? Pythagoras too is found talking the same nonsense, besides doing away with providence. Which of them, then, shall we believe? Philemon the comic poet, who says, “Those who worship God have good hopes of salvation,” or those we have mentioned, Euhemerus and Epicurus and Pythagoras and the rest, who deny that there is any religion and abolish providence? About God and providence Ariston said: “Take heart: God is accustomed to help all who are worthy, [indeed,] and such people above all. If there is no reward of honor laid up for those who live as they should, what more is there in being godly? Suppose it were so; yet I see all too often those who choose to live godly lives faring badly, while those who seek nothing but their own advantage enjoy a more honored position than we do, for the present. But one must look far ahead and await the final outcome of all things. For it is not as some think, a malicious opinion and useless for life, that there is some random drift, or that things are awarded as chance falls; the wicked judge all these ideas to be provisions for their own way of life. There is a reward of honor for those who live holy lives, and a fitting punishment for the wicked; for without providence nothing at all happens.” From all that others, and indeed most of them, have said about God and providence, one can see how inconsistently they spoke: some abolished God and providence altogether, while others affirmed God and confessed that all things are governed by providence. The intelligent listener and reader, then, must pay close attention to what is said, as Simylus also said: “It is the custom to call poets alike both those who are extraordinary by nature and those who are fine; but one ought to judge.” And as Philemon says: “A senseless listener sitting there is a trial; in his folly he never blames himself.” One must, then, pay attention and understand what is said, examining critically what the philosophers and the poets have said.