|
28. But those who, giving the rein to lust, either wander about
steeping themselves in a multitude of debaucheries, or even in regard
to one wife not only exceed the measure necessary for the procreation of
children, but with the shameless licence of a sort of slavish freedom
heap up the filth of a still more beastly excess, such men do not
believe it possible that the men of ancient times used a number of wives
with temperance, looking to nothing but the duty, necessary in the
circumstances of the time, of propagating the race; and what they
themselves, who are entangled in the meshes of lust, do not accomplish
in the case of a single wife, they think utterly impossible in the case
of a number of wives.
29. But these same men might say that it is not right even to honor
and praise good and holy men, because they themselves when they are
honored and praised, swell with pride, becoming the more eager for the
emptiest sort of distinction the more frequently and the more widely
they are blown about on the tongue of flattery, and so become so light
that a breath of rumor, whether it appear prosperous or adverse, will
carry them into the whirlpool of vice or dash them on the rocks of
crime. Let them, then, learn how trying and difficult it is for
themselves to escape either being caught by the bait of praise, or
pierced by the stings of insult; but let them not measure others by
their own standard.
|
|