The same act can spring from different doctrines
To this too we must say that, if the Scythians and the Nomads of Libya and the Seres, whom Celsus calls godless, and other most unholy and lawless nations, and the Persians as well, cannot bear the sight of temples and altars and images, their refusal to bear these things is not, on that account, the same as our refusal to bear them. For we must examine the doctrines that move those who cannot bear temples and images to refuse them, so that one who refuses them on the basis of sound doctrines may be praised, and one who refuses them on the basis of mistaken ones may be blamed. For the same act can come about from different doctrines.
For example, those who pursue the philosophy of Zeno of Citium shun adultery, but so do the followers of Epicurus, and so do some who are wholly unlearned. But see how great a disagreement there is among so many people about why they shun adultery. Some shun it out of regard for the common good, and because it is against nature for a rational being to corrupt a woman whom the laws have already secured to another, and to ruin another man’s household. But the followers of Epicurus, when they abstain from adultery, do not refrain for this reason; they refrain because they hold pleasure to be the end, and because many things that hinder pleasure meet the man who yields to the single pleasure of adultery: sometimes imprisonment or death, and often, before these, dangers too, in watching for the husband, and those who take his side, to go out of the house. So if, by hypothesis, a man committing adultery could escape the notice of the woman’s husband, and of all his household, and of those in whose eyes a man loses his good name through adultery, the Epicurean would even have committed adultery for the sake of pleasure.
And if the unlearned man too, at some time when he could commit adultery, does not commit it, he would sometimes be found refraining from adultery because of the fear that the law holds over him and its punishments; and it would not be in pursuit of greater pleasures that such a man abstained from adultery. You see, then, that what is thought to be one act, abstaining from adultery, is not the same but different according to the purposes of those who abstain; for it comes either from sound doctrines, or from the wicked and most impious ones held by the Epicurean, or by such an unlearned man.
Greek
Καὶ πρὸς ταῦτα δὲ λεκτέον ὅτι, εἴπερ Σκύθαι καὶ Λιβύων οἱ Νομάδες καὶ Σῆρες, οὕς φησιν ἀθέους εἶναι ὁ Κέλσος. καὶ ἄλλα ἔθνη δυσαγέστατα καὶ ἀνομώτατα ἀλλὰ καὶ Πέρσαι οὐκ ἀνέχονται νεὼς ὁρῶντες καὶ βωμοὺς καὶ ἀγάλματα, οὐ παρὰ τοῦτο ἴσον ἐστὶ τὸ μὴ ἀνέχεσθαι τούτων ἐκείνους τῷ καὶ ἡμᾶς μὴ ἀνέχεσθαι αὐτῶν. ἐξεταστέον γὰρ τὰ δόγματα, ἀφ᾿ ὧν ὁρμώμενοι οὐκ ἀνέχονται ναῶν καὶ ἀγαλμάτων οἱ μὴ ἀνεχόμενοί γε αὐτῶν· ἵν᾿, εἰ μὲν ἀπὸ ὑγιῶν δογμάτων οὐκ ἀνέχεται. ἐπαινῆται ὁ μὴ ἀνεχόμενος, εἰ δ᾿ ἀπὸ ἐσφαλμένων, ψέγηται. δυνατὸν γὰρ τὸ αὐτὸ ἀπὸ διαφόρων δογμάτων γίνεσθαι. οἷον ἐπὶ παραδείγματος ἐκκλίνουσι τὸ μοιχεύειν οἱ τὰ τοῦ Κιτιέως Ζήνωνος φιλοσοφοῦντες ἀλλὰ καὶ οἱ τὰ Ἐπικούρου τινὲς δὲ καὶ τῶν παντελῶς ἰδιωτῶν. ἀλλ᾿ ὅρα ὅση διαφωνία ἐστὶ περὶ τῆς τοῦ μοιχεύειν ἐκκλίσεως τῶν τοσούτων· οἱ μὲν διὰ τὸ κοινωνικὸν καὶ παρὰ φύσιν εἶναι τῷ λογικῷ ζῴῳ νοθεύειν τὴν ὑπὸ τῶν νόμων ἑτέρῳ προκαταληφθεῖσαν γυναῖκα καὶ φθείρειν τὸν ἄλλου ἀνθρώπου οἶκον, οἱ δὲ ἀπὸ Ἐπικούρου οὐ διὰ τοῦτο οὐ μοιχεύουσιν, ὅτε ἀπέχονται τοῦ μοιχεύειν. ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸ νενομικέναι τέλος τὴν ἡδονὴν, πολλὰ δ᾿ ἀπαντᾶν κωλυτικὰ τῆς ἡδονῆς τῷ εἴξαντι μιᾷ τῇ τοῦ μοιχεύειν ἡδονῇ καὶ ἔσθ᾿ ὅτε φυλακὰς ἢ θανάτους πολλάκις δὲ πρὸ τούτων καὶ κινδύνους κατὰ τὸ ἐπιτηρεῖν τὴν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἔξοδον ἀπὸ τῆς οἰκίας καὶ τῶν τὰ ἐκείνου φρονούντων· ὡς εἰ καθ᾿ ὑπόθεσιν μοιχεύοντα οἷόν τ᾿ ἦν λαθεῖν καὶ τὸν ἄνδρα τῆς γυναικὸς καὶ τοὺς οἰκείους πάντας αὐτοῦ καὶ τοὺς, παρ᾿ οἷς τις ἐκ τοῦ μοιχεύειν χεύειν ἀδοξεῖ. κἂν ἐμοίχευσε διὰ τὴν ἡδονὴν ὁ Ἐπικούρειος. εἰ δὲ καὶ ὁ ἰδιώτης ποτὲ παρὸν μοιχεύειν οὐ μοιχεύει, εὑρεθείη ἂν ἐνίοτε διὰ τὸν ἐνεστῶτα ἐκ τοῦ νόμου φόβον καὶ τὰς κολάσεις (οὐ) μοιχεύων. καὶ οὐ διὰ τὸ θηρᾶσθαι πλείονας ἡδονὰς ὁ τοιοῦτος ἀπέχοιτ᾿ ἂν τοῦ μοιχεύειν. ὁρᾷς οὖν ὅτι τὸ ἓν εἶναι νομιζόμενον ἔργον. ἡ τῆς μοιχείας ἀποχὴ, παρὰ τὰς προθέσεις τῶν ἀπεχομένων οὐ ταὐτὸν ἀλλὰ διάφορον γίνεται· ἢ γὰρ ἀπὸ ὑγιῶν δογμάτων ἢ ἀπὸ μοχθηρῶν καὶ ἀσεβεστάτων τῶν ἐν τῷ Ἐπικουρείῳ ἢ τῷ τοιῷδε ἰδιώτῃ.