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who made heaven and the vast earth, both being filled with His beauty according to the nature of God, teaching both where God must be and that He must be one. And Philolaus, saying that all things are contained by God as in a guard-post, shows both that He is one and that He is above matter. And Lysis and Opsimus—the one defines God as an unutterable number, the other, as the excess of the greatest number over the one nearest to it. And if the greatest number is ten according to the Pythagoreans, being the tetractys and containing all the arithmetical and harmonic ratios, and nine is placed near this, God is a monad, that is, one; for the greatest exceeds the nearest by one. The least to him. But Plato and Aristotle (and I will not go through what they have said about God with the intention of precisely displaying the doctrines of the philosophers; for I know that as much as you surpass all in understanding and in the power of your reign, so much also do you excel all in making every branch of learning precise, succeeding in each part of learning in a way that not even those who have devoted themselves to one part of it do; but since it is impossible to show without citing names that we are not the only ones who confine God to a monad, I have turned to their opinions), Plato, then, says: "To find the maker and father of this universe is a task, and having found him, it is impossible to declare him to all," understanding God to be one, unbegotten and eternal. And if he knows others, such as sun and moon and stars, yet he knows them as created beings: "Gods of gods, of whom I am craftsman and father of works which are indissoluble, I being unwilling; for indeed, all that is bound is soluble." If, therefore, Plato is not an atheist, understanding the one creator of all things to be the unbegotten God, neither are we atheists, knowing and holding as God this one, by whose Word all things have been created and are held together by the Spirit from him. But Aristotle and his followers, while holding to one, say that God is, as it were, a composite living being, constituted of soul and body, considering his body to be the ethereal element, both the wandering stars and the sphere of the fixed stars, which move in a circular motion, and his soul to be the reason which presides over the motion of the body, itself unmoved, but being the cause of its motion. And those of the Stoa, even if they multiply the divine by names in their appellations according to the variations of matter, through which they say the spirit of God passes, yet in reality they consider God to be one. For if God is a creative fire, proceeding methodically to the creation of the world, containing in itself all the seminal principles according to which each thing comes into being according to fate, and his spirit pervades the whole world, God is one according to them, being named Zeus from the fervent part of matter, and Hera from the air, and being called the other names according to each part of the matter through which he has passed. When, therefore, for the most part, that the divine is one, even if not

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ὃς οὐρανόν τ' ἔτευξε καὶ γαῖαν μακράν, πρὸς τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ φύσιν τοῦ κάλλους τοῦ ἐκείνου πληρουμένην ἑκάτερα, καὶ ποῦ δεῖ εἶναι τὸν θεὸν καὶ ὅτι ἕνα δεῖ εἶναι, διδάσκων. Καὶ Φιλόλαος δὲ ὥσπερ ἐν φρουρᾷ πάντα ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ περιει λῆφθαι λέγων, καὶ τὸ ἕνα εἶναι καὶ τὸ ἀνωτέρω τῆς ὕλης δεικνύει. Λῦσις δὲ καὶ Ὄψιμος ὁ μὲν ἀριθμὸν ἄρρητον ὁρίζεται τὸν θεόν, ὁ δὲ τοῦ μεγίστου τῶν ἀριθμῶν τὴν παρὰ τὸν ἐγγυτάτω ὑπεροχήν. εἰ δὲ μέγιστος μὲν ἀριθμὸς ὁ δέκα κατὰ τοὺς Πυθαγορικοὺς ὁ τετρακτύς τε ὢν καὶ πάντας τοὺς ἀριθμητικοὺς καὶ τοὺς ἁρμονικοὺς περιέχων λόγους, τούτῳ δὲ ἐγγὺς παράκειται ὁ ἐννέα, μονάς ἐστιν ὁ θεός, τοῦτ' ἔστιν εἷς· ἑνὶ γὰρ ὑπερέχει ὁ μέγιστος τὸν ἐγγυτάτω. ἐλάχιστον αὐτῷ. Πλάτων δὲ καὶ Ἀριστοτέλης (καὶ οὐχ ὡς ἐπι δεικνύων τὰ δόγματα τῶν φιλοσόφων ἐπ' ἀκριβές, οὕτως ἃ εἰρήκασι περὶ θεοῦ διέξειμι· οἶδα γὰρ ὅτι ὅσον συνέσει καὶ ἰσχύι τῆς βασι λείας πάντων ὑπερέχετε, τοσοῦτον καὶ τῷ πᾶσαν παιδείαν ἀκριβοῦν πάντων κρατεῖτε, οὕτω καθ' ἕκαστον παιδείας μέρος κατορθοῦντες ὡς οὐδὲ οἱ ἓν αὐτῆς μόριον ἀποτεμόμενοι· ἀλλ' ἐπειδὴ ἀδύνατον δεικνύειν ἄνευ παραθέσεως ὀνομάτων ὅτι μὴ μόνοι εἰς μονάδα τὸν θεὸν κατακλείομεν, ἐπὶ τὰς δόξας ἐτραπόμην), φησὶν οὖν ὁ Πλάτων· "τὸν μὲν οὖν ποιητὴν καὶ πατέρα τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς εὑρεῖν τε ἔργον καὶ εὑρόντα εἰς πάντας ἀδύνατον λέγειν", ἕνα τὸν ἀγένητον καὶ ἀίδιον νοῶν θεόν. εἰ δ' οἶδεν καὶ ἄλλους οἷον ἥλιον καὶ σελήνην καὶ ἀστέρας, ἀλλ' ὡς γενητοὺς οἶδεν αὐτούς· "θεοὶ θεῶν, ὧν ἐγὼ δημιουργὸς πατήρ τε ἔργων ἃ ἄλυτα ἐμοῦ μὴ θέλοντος, τὸ μὲν οὖν δεθὲν πᾶν λυτόν" εἰ τοίνυν οὔκ ἐστιν ἄθεος Πλάτων, ἕνα τὸν δημιουργὸν τῶν ὅλων νοῶν ἀγένητον θεόν, οὐδὲ ἡμεῖς ἄθεοι, ὑφ' οὗ λόγῳ δεδημιούργηται καὶ τῷ παρ' αὐτοῦ πνεύματι συνέχεται τὰ πάντα, τοῦτον εἰδότες καὶ κρατύνοντες θεόν. ὁ δὲ Ἀριστοτέλης καὶ οἱ ἀπ' αὐτοῦ ἕνα ἄγοντες οἱονεὶ ζῷον σύνθετον, ἐκ ψυχῆς καὶ σώματος συνεστηκότα λέγουσι τὸν θεόν, σῶμα μὲν αὐτοῦ τὸ αἰθέριον νομίζοντες τούς τε πλανωμένους ἀστέρας καὶ τὴν σφαῖραν τῶν ἀπλανῶν κινούμενα κυκλοφορητικῶς, ψυχὴν δὲ τὸν ἐπὶ τῇ κινήσει τοῦ σώματος λόγον, αὐτὸν μὲν οὐ κινούμενον, αἴτιον δὲ τῆς τούτου κινήσεως γινόμενον. οἱ δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς Στοᾶς, κἂν ταῖς προσηγορίαις κατὰ τὰς παραλλάξεις τῆς ὕλης, δι' ἧς φασι τὸ πνεῦμα χωρεῖν τοῦ θεοῦ, πληθύνωσι τὸ θεῖον τοῖς ὀνόμασι, τῷ γοῦν ἔργῳ ἕνα νομίζουσι τὸν θεόν. εἰ γὰρ ὁ μὲν θεὸς πῦρ τεχνικὸν ὁδῷ βαδίζον ἐπὶ γενέσει κόσμου ἐμπεριειληφὸς ἅπαντας τοὺς σπερματικοὺς λόγους καθ' οὓς ἕκαστα καθ' εἱμαρμένην γίγνεται, τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ διήκει δι' ὅλου τοῦ κόσμου, ὁ θεὸς εἷς κατ' αὐτούς, Ζεὺς μὲν κατὰ τὸ ζέον τῆς ὕλης ὀνομαζόμενος, Ἥρα δὲ κατὰ τὸν ἀέρα, καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ καθ' ἕκαστον τῆς ὕλης μέρος δι' ἧς κεχώρηκε καλούμενος. Ὅταν οὖν τὸ μὲν εἶναι ἓν τὸ θεῖον ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πλεῖστον, κἂν μὴ