XII. (67) Therefore those rewards which were thus long since assigned to the good, both publicly and privately, have now been described though somewhat in outline, but sufficiently to enable anyone to comprehend with tolerable ease what has been omitted. We must now proceed in regular order to consider in turn the punishments appointed for the wicked, speaking of them in a somewhat general way since the time does not allow of my enumerating all the particular instances. (68) Now there was at the very beginning of the world when the race of men had not as yet multiplied, a fratricide: this is the first man who ever was under a curse; the first man who imprinted on the pure earth the unprecedented pollution of human blood; the first man who checked the fertility of the earth which was previously blooming, and producing all kinds of animals, and plants, and flourishing with every kind of productiveness; the first man who introduced destruction as a rival against creation, death against life, sorrow against joy, and evil against good. (69) What then could possibly have been inflicted upon him, which would have been an adequate punishment for him, who thus in one single action left no description of violence and impiety unperformed? Perhaps some one will say he should have been put to death at once; this is a human mode of reasoning, fit for one who does not consider the great tribunal of all for men look upon death as the extreme limit of all punishments, but in the view of the divine tribunal it is scarcely the beginning of them. (70) Since then the action of this man was a novel one, it was necessary that a novel punishment should be devised for him; and what was it? That he should live continually dying, and that he should in a manner endure an undying and never ending death; for there are two kinds of death; the one that of being dead, which is either good or else a matter of indifference; the other that of dying, which is in every respect an evil; and the more protracted the dying the more intolerable the evil. (71) Consider now then how it is that death can be said to be never ending in this man’s case; since there are four different affections to which the soul is liable, two of them being conversant with good either present or future, namely, pleasure and desire; and two with evil either present or expected, namely, sorrow and fear; it cuts up the pair of those which are conversant with good by the roots, in order that the man may never receive pleasure from any accident of fortune, nor ever feel a desire even for anything pleasant; and it leaves him only those affections conversant about evil, sorrow without any mixture of cheerfulness, and unmingled fear, (72) for the scripture Says{2}{#ge 4:14.} that God laid a curse upon the fratricide, so that he should be continually groaning and trembling. Moreover he put a mark upon him, that he might never be pitied by any one, so that he might not die once, but might, as I have said before, pass all his time in dying, amid griefs, and pains, and incessant calamities; and what is most grievous of all, might have a feeling of his own miseries, and be afflicted both with the evils which were before him, and also from a foresight of the number of misfortunes which were constantly impending over him, which nevertheless he was unable to guard against, since hope was wholly taken from him, which God has implanted in the race of mankind, in order that thus, having an innate comfort in themselves, they might feel their sorrows relieved, provided they had not committed any inexpiable crimes. (73) Therefore, as a man who is being carried away by a torrent shudders at the nearest waves by which he is being hurried away, and still more at those coming upon him from above, since the one is continually and incessantly propelling him forward with violence, but the other being raised above him threatens to overwhelm him utterly, so in the same manner those evils which are present are grievous, but those which proceed from fear of the future are more grievous still; for fear continually supplies sorrowful feelings as from an everlasting spring.
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