Sacred vs profane places

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Often appears with: the nature and attributes of God · sacrilege · roman land grants · crime and punishment · bion of borysthenes

Usually: argument (1) · injustice endured (1) · detachment (1) · skepticism (1)

Quotable

“The sacrilegious man cannot do God any harm, for He is placed beyond his reach by His divine nature; yet he is punished because he seems to have done Him harm: his punishment is demanded by our feeling on the matter, and even by his own.” Lucius Annaeus Seneca, L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits · insight

L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits primary

Lucius Annaeus Seneca · c. 59-65 CE (approx.)
BOOK I. The prevalence of ingratitude--How a benefit ought to be bestowed--The three Graces--Benefits are the chief bond of human society--What we owe in return for a benefit received--A benefit consists not of a thing but of the wish to do good--Socrates and > BOOK VII. (7/22)

Seneca explains paradoxes about sacrilege using the argument of Bion, then distinguishes sacred from merely worldly places, concluding the wise man can be “robbed” only where he owns property.

from another point of view is his. In the same way the wise man in his mind possesses everything, in actual right and ownership he possesses only his own property. VII. Bion is able to prove by argument at one time that everyone is sacrilegious, at another that no one is. When he is in a mood for casting all men down the Tarpeian rock, he says, "Whosoever touches that which belongs to the gods, and consumes it or co…