Legatio Ad Gaium

for if the sight of elders, or instructors, or rulers, or parents, excites those who behold them to reverence and orderly conduct, and to an admiration of and desire for a life of moderation and temperance, how great a bulwark of virtue and excellence must we not expect [*](There seems some corruptiou in the text here. )

to find in those souls which, after having investigated the nature of every created thing, have learnt to contemplate the uncreated and Divine Being, the first good of all, the one beautiful, and happy, and glorious, and blessed being; better, if one is to tell the plain truth, than the good itself; more beautiful than the beautiful itself; more happy than happiness itself; more blessed than blessedness itself; and, in short, if anything else in the world is so, more perfect than any one of the above-mentioned things.