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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: were one, but now because of the wickedness of mankind God has dispersed
us, as the Arcadians were dispersed into villages by the Lacedaemonians
(compare Arist. Pol.). And if we are not obedient to the gods, there is a
danger that we shall be split up again and go about in basso-relievo, like
the profile figures having only half a nose which are sculptured on
monuments, and that we shall be like tallies. Wherefore let us exhort all
men to piety, that we may avoid evil, and obtain the good, of which Love is
to us the lord and minister; and let no one oppose him--he is the enemy of
the gods who opposes him. For if we are friends of the God and at peace
with him we shall find our own true loves, which rarely happens in this
world at present. I am serious, and therefore I must beg Eryximachus not
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