ef and peculiar attribute of the most perfect being.
For what is better and more excellent than goodness and beneficence? To
refuse your Gods that quality is to say that no man is any object of
their favor, and no Gods either; that they neither love nor esteem any
one; in short, that they not only give themselves no trouble about us,
but even look on each other with the greatest indifference.

XLIV. How much more reasonable is the doctrine of the Stoics, whom you
censure? It is one of their maxims that the wise are friends to the
wise, though unknown to each other; for as nothing is more amiable than
virtue, he who possesses it is worthy our love, to whatever country he
belongs. But what evils do your principles bring, when you make good
actions and benevolence the marks of imbecility! For, not to mention
the power and nature of the Gods, you hold that even men, if they had
no need of mutual assistance, would be neither courteous nor
beneficent. Is there no natural charity in the dispositions of good
men? The very name of love, from which friendship is derived, is dear
to men;[103] and if friendship is to centre in our own advantage only,
without regard to him whom we esteem a friend, it cannot be called
friendship, but a sort of traffic for our own profit. Pastures, lands,
and herds of cattle are valued in the same manner on account of the
profit we gather from them; but charity and friendship expect no
return. How much more reason have we to think that the Gods, who want
nothing, should love each other, and employ themselves about us! If it
were not so, why should we pray to or adore them? Why do the priests
preside over the altars, and the augurs over the auspices? What have we
to ask of the Gods, and why do we prefer our vows to them?

But Epicurus, you say, has written a book concerning sanctity. A
trifling performance by a man whose wit is not so remarkable in it, as
the unrestrained license of writing which he has permitted himself; for
what sanctity can there be if the Gods take no care of human affairs?
Or how can that nature be called animated which neither regards nor
performs anything? Therefore our friend Posidonius has well observed,
in his fifth book of the Nature of the Gods, that Epicurus believed
there were no Gods, and that what he had said about the immortal Gods
was only said from a desire to avoid unpopularity. He could not be so
weak as to imagine that the Deity has only the outward features of a