giver, since God cannot hope to receive any advantages from us,
there is no cause why God should give anything.

IV. I know what answer may be made to this. "True; therefore God
does not bestow benefits, but, free from care and unmindful of us,
He turns away from our world and either does something else, or
else does nothing, which Epicurus thought the greatest possible
happiness, and He is not affected either by benefits or by
injuries." The man who says this cannot surely hear the voices of
worshippers, and of those who all around him are raising their
hands to heaven and praying for the success both of their private
affairs and those of the state; which certainly would not be the
case, all men would not agree in this madness of appealing to deaf
and helpless gods, unless we knew that their benefits are sometimes
bestowed upon us unasked, sometimes in answer to our prayers, and
that they give us both great and seasonable gifts, which shield us
from the most terrible dangers. Who is there so poor, so uncared
for, born to sorrow by so unkind a fate, as never to have felt the
vast generosity of the Gods? Look even at those who complain and
are discontented with their lot; you will find that they are not
altogether without a share in the bounty of heaven, that there is
no one upon whom something has not been shed from that most
gracious fount. Is the gift which is bestowed upon all alike, at
their birth, not enough? However unequally the blessings of after
life may be dealt out to us, did nature give us too little when she
gave us herself?

V. It is said, "God does not bestow benefits." Whence, then, comes
all that you possess, that you give or refuse to give, that you
hoard or steal? whence come these innumerable delights of our eyes,