ndeed
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 themselves are received by the darkest place in Hades,
and while God, who is their Father, punishes those that offend against
either of them in their posterity? for which reason God hates such
doings, and the crime is punished by our most wise legislator.
Accordingly, our laws determine that the bodies of such as kill
themselves should be exposed till the sun be set, without burial,
although at the same time it be allowed by them to be lawful to bury our
enemies [sooner]. The laws of other nations also enjoin such men's
hands to be cut off when they are dead, which had been made use of in
destroying themselves when alive, while they reckoned that as the
body is alien from the soul, so is the hand alien from the body. It is
therefore, my friends, a ri