On Providence — Fragments
Philo of Alexandria
Book 2 · Section 41
About this work
Fragments of a philosophical discussion of divine providence and the ordering of the world. These are surviving portions rather than a reconstruction of the complete work.
- Author
- Philo of Alexandria
- Date
- First century AD; dates vary by treatise
- Genre
- Theological Treatise
- Textual language
- Greek
- Translator
- C. D. Yonge
- Translation / Edition
- C. D. Yonge translation, first published 1854.
(41) And why should we wonder if God employs the agency of tyrants to get rid of wickedness when widely diffused over cities, and countries, and nations? For he very often uses other ministers, and himself brings about the same end by his own resources, inflicting upon the nation famine, or pestilence, or earthquakes, or any other heaven-sent calamity, by which great and numerous multitudes perish every day, and by which a great portion of the habitable world is made desolate, on account of his care for the preservation of virtue.