[99] So the law says that “some went up with violence into the mountain, and the Amorite who dwelt in that mountain came out and wounded them, as bees might do, and chased them from Seir to Hormah” (Deut. 1:43, 44).
[100] For it must needs be that if those, who have no aptness for the acquisition of the arts, use force or compel themselves to labour at them, they not only fail in their purpose, but also incur disgrace. Those, too, who perform any other right action without the assent of their judgement or will, but by doing violence to their inclination, do not achieve righteousness, but are wounded and chased by their inward feelings.
[101] Would you say there was any difference in the matter of honesty between those who repay an insignificant deposit in the hope of securing an opportunity to defraud on a larger scale, and those who actually make a large repayment but in doing so have to do violence to their natural inclination to dishonesty, which never ceases to prick them with the stings of regret?
[102] What of those who render an insincere worship to the only wise God, those who as on a stage assume a highly sanctified creed and profession of life, which does no more than make an exhibition to the assembled spectators? Are not these men, whose souls are filled with ribaldry rather than piety, racking and torturing themselves as on the wheel, compelling themselves to counterfeit what they have never felt?
[103] And therefore, though for a short time they are disguised by the insignia of superstition, which is a hindrance to holiness, and a source of much harm both to those who are under its sway and those who find themselves in such company, yet in course of time the wrappings are cast aside and their hypocrisy is seen in its nakedness. And then, like convicted aliens, they are marked as bastard citizens, having falsely inscribed their names in the burgess-roll of that greatest of commonwealths, virtue, to which they had no claim. For violence is short-lived, as the very name (βίαιον) seems to shew, since it is derived from βαιός; for that was the word used in old times for short-lived.