fear of a storm, should sink his ship of his own accord. Now
self-murder is a crime most remote from the common nature of all
animals, and an instance of impiety against God our Creator; nor
indeed is there any animal that dies by its own contrivance, or
by its own means, for the desire of life is a law engraven in
them all; on which account we deem those that openly take it away
from us to be our enemies, and those that do it by treachery are
punished for so doing. And do not you think that God is very
angry when a man does injury to what he hath bestowed on him? For
from him it is that we have received our being, and we ought to
leave it to his disposal to take that being away from us. The
bodies of all men are indeed mortal, and are created out of
corruptible matter; but the soul is ever immortal, and is a
portion of the divinity that inhabits our bodies. Besides, if any
one destroys or abuses a depositum he hath received from a mere
man, he is esteemed a wicked and perfidious person; but then if
any one cast out of his body this Divine depositum, can we
imagine that he who is thereby affronted does not know of it?
Moreover, our law justly ordains that slaves which run away from
their master shall be punished, though the masters they run away
from may have been wicked masters to them. And shall we endeavor
to run away from God, who is the best of all masters, and not
guilty of impeity? Do not you know that those who depart out of
this life according to the law of nature, and pay that debt which
was received from God, when he that lent it us is pleased to
require it back again, enjoy eternal fame; that their houses and
their posterity are sure, that their souls are pure and obedient,
and obtain a most holy place in heaven, from whence, in the
revolutions of ages, they are again sent into pure bodies; while
the souls of those whose hands have acted madly against