Re: Battle of the Bands

And thus philosophers have
said in vain: "Retire within yourselves, you will find your good there." We
do not believe them, and those who believe them are the most empty and the
most foolish.

465. The Stoics say, "Retire within yourselves; it is there you will find
your rest."

And that is not true.

Others say, "Go out of yourselves; seek happiness in amusement." And this is
not true. Illness comes.

Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us
and within us.

466. Had Epictetus seen the way perfectly, he would have said to men, "You
follow a wrong road"; he shows that there is another, but he does not lead
to it. It is the way of willing what God wills. Jesus Christ alone leads to
it: Via, veritas.75 The vices of Zeno himself.

467. The reason of effects.--Epictetus. Those who say, "You have a
headache"; this is not the same thing. We are assured of health, and not of
justice; and in fact his own was nonsense.

And yet he believed it demonstrable, when he said, "It is either in our
power or it is not." But he did not perceive that it is not in our power to
regulate the heart, and he was wrong to infer from this the fact that there
were some Christians.

468. No other religion has proposed to men to hate themselves. No other
religion, then, can please those who hate themselves, and who seek a Being
truly lovable. And these, if they had never heard of the religion of a God
humiliated, would embrace it at once.

469. I feel tha