them, cannot bear to submit to such laws about their way of
living: whereas our being accustomed willingly to submit to
laws in these instances, renders us fit to show our fortitude
upon other occasions also.

34. Yet do the Lysimachi and the Molones, and some other
writers, (unskillful sophists as they are, and the deceivers of
young men,) reproach us as the vilest of all mankind. Now I
have no mind to make an inquiry into the laws of other
nations; for the custom of our country is to keep our own
laws, but not to bring accusations against the laws of others.
And indeed our legislator hath expressly forbidden us to
laugh at and revile those that are esteemed gods by other
people? on account of the very name of God ascribed to
them. But since our antagonists think to run us down upon
the comparison of their religion and ours, it is not possible
to
keep silence here, especially while what I shall say to confute
these men will not be now first said, but hath been already
said by many, and these of the highest reputation also; for
who is there among those that have been admired among the
Greeks for wisdom, who hath not greatly blamed both the
most famous poets, and most celebrated legislators, for
spreading such notions originally among the body of the
people concerning the gods? such as these, that they may be
allowed to be as numerous as they have a mind to have them;
that they are begotten one by another, and that after all the
kinds of generation you can imagine. They also distinguish
them in their places and ways of living as they would
distinguish several sorts of animals; as some to be under the