(23) For calamity followeth on calamity, and wound on wound, and tribulation on tribulation, and evil tidings on evil tidings, and illness on illness, and all evil judgments such as these, one with another, illness and over- throw, and snow and frost and ice, and fever, and chills, and torpor, and famine, and death, and sword, and captivity, and all kinds of calamities and pains." *

(16) The punishment justly overtaking the wicked must therefore be ascribed to the kosmic order which leads all in accordance with the right.

But what of chastisements, poverty, illness, falling upon the good outside of all justice? These events, we will be told, are equally interwoven into the world order and fall under prediction, and must consequently have a cause in the general reason: are they therefore to be charged to past misdoing?

No: such misfortunes do not answer to reasons established in the nature of things; they are not laid up in the master-facts of the universe, but were merely accidental sequents: a house falls, and anyone that chances to be underneath is killed, no matter what sort of man he be: two objects are moving in perfect order- or one if you like- but anything getting in the way is wounded or trampled down. Or we may reason that the undeserved stroke can be no evil to the sufferer in view of the beneficent interweaving of the All or again, no doubt, that nothing is unjust that finds justification in a past history.

We may not think of some things being fitted into a system with others abandoned to the capricious; if things must happen by cause, by natural sequences, under one Reason-Principle and a single set scheme, we must admit that the minor equally with the major is fitted into that order and pattern.

Wrong-doing from man to man is wrong in the doer and must be imputed, but, as belonging to the established order of the universe is not a wrong even as regards the innocent sufferer; it is a thing that had to be, and, if the sufferer is good, the issue is to his gain. For we cannot think that this ordered combination proceeds without God and justice; we must take it to be precise in the distribution of due, while, yet, the reasons of things elude us, and to our ignorance the scheme presents matter of censure.

(33) But seeing all is corrupted, therefore must the upper water in the wrath of God come to help the astringent, bitter and hot quality of the earth, and soften the quality and quench its fire, so that the life may always be generated, and that the holy birth, between death and the wrath of God, may be generated also.

(45) When experiencing miseries, because of the force of evil karma, Let it come that the Conquerors, the Peaceful and Wrathful, may dispel the miseries; When the self-existing Sound of Reality reverberates [like] a thousand thunders, Let it come that they be transmuted into the sounds of the Mahayana Doctrines.

(20) ¶But immediately, in those days after that tribulation, there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars: the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall; and the powers that are in the heavens shall be shaken: and upon the earth [shall be] distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and waves roaring: men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

(2) The co-adaptation, however, of these natures in different things, produces a great and various difference of co-adapted substances. For in the comprehension of the whole of things, the co-adaptation of both the natures, i. e. of the nature which is always moved, and of that which is always passive, is the world. For it is not possible for the whole and the universe to be otherwise saved, than by that which is generated being co-adapted to that which is divine, and that which is always passive to that which is always moved. In man, likewise, the co-adaptation of the irrational to the rational part of the soul, is virtue. For it is not possible in these, when there is sedition in both the parts, that virtue should have a subsistence.

In a city also, the co-adaptation of the governors to the governed, produces strength and concord. For to govern is the peculiarity of the better nature; but to be governed, is easier to the subordinate [than to the more excellent] nature. And strength and concord are common to both. There is, however, the same mode of adaptation in the universe and in a family: for allurements and erudition concur with reason in one and the same thing; and likewise pains and pleasures, prosperity and adversity. For the life of man requires intension and remission, sorrow and gladness, prosperity and adversity. For some things are able to collect and retain the intellect to industry and wisdom; but others impart relaxation and delight, and thus render the intellect vigorous and prompt to action.

If however one of these prevails in life, then the life of man becomes of one part, and verges to one part, tending either to sorrow and difficulty, or to remission and levity. But the co-adaptation of all these ought to subsist with reference to prudence. For this separates and distinguishes bound and infinity in actions. Hence prudence is the leader and mother of the other virtues. For all of them are co-harmonized and co-arranged with reference to the reason and law of this virtue. And now my discussion of this subject is terminated. For the irrational and the effable are in all things. And the latter defines and bounds; but the former is defined and bounded. That, however, which consists of both these, is the apt composition of the whole and the universe.

(13) And we must not despise the familiar observation that there is something more to be considered than the present. There are the periods of the past and, again, those in the future; and these have everything to do with fixing worth of place.

Thus a man, once a ruler, will be made a slave because he abused his power and because the fall is to his future good. Those that have money will be made poor- and to the good poverty is no hindrance. Those that have unjustly killed, are killed in turn, unjustly as regards the murderer but justly as regards the victim, and those that are to suffer are thrown into the path of those that administer the merited treatment.

It is not an accident that makes a man a slave; no one is a prisoner by chance; every bodily outrage has its due cause. The man once did what he now suffers. A man that murders his mother will become a woman and be murdered by a son; a man that wrongs a woman will become a woman, to be wronged.

Hence arises that awesome word "Adrasteia" ; for in very truth this ordinance is an Adrasteia, justice itself and a wonderful wisdom.

We cannot but recognize from what we observe in this universe that some such principle of order prevails throughout the entire of existence- the minutest of things a tributary to the vast total; the marvellous art shown not merely in the mightiest works and sublimest members of the All, but even amid such littleness as one would think Providence must disdain: the varied workmanship of wonder in any and every animal form; the world of vegetation, too; the grace of fruits and even of leaves, the lavishness, the delicacy, the diversity of exquisite bloom; and all this not issuing once, and then to die out, but made ever and ever anew as the Transcendent Beings move variously over this earth.

In all the changing, there is no change by chance: there is no taking of new forms but to desirable ends and in ways worthy of Divine Powers. All that is Divine executes the Act of its quality; its quality is the expression of its essential Being: and this essential Being in the Divine is the Being whose activities produce as one thing the desirable and the just- for if the good and the just are not produced there, where, then, have they their being?

(82) Owing to them men shall be at fault and not reckon them in the whole reckoning of the year: yea, men shall be at fault, and not recognize them accurately.

(6) Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and troubles, and pestilences, and great earthquakes, in divers places; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven. All these things are the beginnings of sorrows.

(60) And the thunders according to the places where they fall, and all the divisions that are made among the lightnings that it may lighten, and their host that they may at once obey.

(45) When the roarings of savage beasts are uttered, Let it come that they be changed into the sacred sounds of the Six Syllables; When pursued by snow, rain, wind, and darkness, Let it come that I see with the celestial eyes of bright Wisdom.

(7) Further, the counsels and activities of those who have rebelled, being partial, proceed from a bad disposition, as bodily diseases from a bad constitution, but are guided by universal Providence to a salutary issue, even though the cause be productive of disease. It is accordingly the greatest achievement of divine Providence, not to allow the evil, which has sprung from voluntary apostasy, to remain useless, and for no good, and not to become in all respects injurious. For it is the work of the divine wisdom, and excellence, and power, not alone to do good (for this is, so to speak, the nature of God, as it is of fire to warm and of light to illumine), but especially to ensure that what happens through the evils hatched by any, may come to a good and useful issue, and to use to advantage those things which appear to be evils, as also the testimony which accrues from temptation.

(2) But “ the oblation of victims ,” when some evil is present in places about the earth, procures a remedy for the evil, and secures us from the incursion of any mutation or passion. Hence, whether a thing of this kind is effected through Gods or dæmons, it invokes these as the expellers of evil, and [our true] saviours, and through them exterminates all the injury which may accede from the calamities. Those powers, also, who avert genesiurgic and physical punishments, do not expel them through passions. And if some one should think that the suppression of the guardian care of the Gods, introduces a certain spontaneous injury, in this case the persuasion arising from pacification recalls the benevolence of the more excellent genera, to a providential attention to our affairs, and takes away our privation of good, being itself perfectly pure and immutable.

(26) When experiencing miseries, through the power of evil karma, May the tutelary deities dispel the miseries. When the thousand thunders of the Sound of Reality reverberate, May they all be sounds of the Six Syllables. When Karma follows, without there being any protector, May the Compassionate One protect me, I pray.

(71) But if one member be too much stirred, it crieth to the whole body for help, and the whole body stirs, as if it were in a great commotion or uproar, as if the enemy were at hand, and cometh to help that member, and to deliver and release it from the pain.

(45) When [I am] unprotected, [and] karmic influences have to be followed here, I beseech the Conquerors, the Peaceful and the Wrathful, to protect me; When suffering miseries, because of the karmic influence of propensities, Let it come that the blissful Samadhi of the Clear Light may dawn [upon me].

Certainly, if these things have happened to each one of us, it is fitting for us, surely, to think about all so that the house may be holy and silent for unity. Like people who have moved from a house, if they have some dishes around that are not good, they are broken. Nevertheless, the householder does not suffer a loss but rejoices, for in the place of these defective dishes there are those that are completely perfect. For this is the judgment that has come from above and that has judged every person, a drawn two-edged sword cutting on this side and that. When the word appeared, who is in the heart of those who pronounce it—it was not merely a sound but has become a body—a great disturbance occurred among the dishes, for some were emptied, others filled; some were provided for, others were removed; some were purified, still others were broken. All the spaces were shaken and disturbed for they had no composure nor stability. Error was disturbed, not knowing what she should do. She was troubled, she lamented, she was beside herself because she did not know anything. When knowledge, which is the abolishment of error, approached her with all her emanations, error was empty, since there was nothing in her. Truth appeared; all its emanations recognized it. They greeted the father in truth with a power which is complete and which joins them with the father.

(16) Every cause, apprehended by the mind as a cause, is occupied with something, and is conceived in relation to something; that is, some effect, as the sword for cutting; and to some object, as possessing an aptitude, as the fire to the wood. For it will not burn steel. The cause belongs to the things which have relation to something. For it is conceived in its relation to another thing. So that we apply our minds to the two, that we may conceive the cause as a cause.

(29) The order of petitions is somewhat different in the later recensions, and the text has suffered other alterations