Chapter XIX.—Argument:  Moreover, the Poets Have Called Him the Parent of Gods and Men, the Creator of All Things, and Their Mind and Spirit.  And, Besides, Even the More Excellent Philosophers Have Come Almost to the Same Conclusion as the Christians About the Unity of God.

“I hear the poets also announcing ‘the One Father of gods and men;’ and that such is the mind of mortal men as the Parent of all has appointed His day.56    Homer, Odyss., xviii. 136, 137.  What says the Mantuan Maro?  Is it not even more plain, more apposite, more true?  ‘In the beginning,’ says he, ‘the spirit within nourishes, and the mind infused stirs the heaven and the earth,’ and the other members ‘of the world.  Thence arises the race of men and of cattle,’57    Virgil, Æneid, vi. 724. and every other kind of animal.  The same poet in another place calls that mind and spirit God.  For these are his words:58    Some read, “For these things are true.”  ‘For that God pervades all the lands, and the tracts of the sea, and the profound heaven, from whom are men and cattle; from whom are rain and fire.’59    Virgil, Georgics, iv. 221; Æneid, i. 743.  What else also is God announced to be by us, but mind, and reason, and spirit?  Let us review, if it is agreeable, the teaching of philosophers.  Although in varied kinds of discourse, yet in these matters you will find them concur and agree in this one opinion.  I pass over those untrained and ancient ones who deserved to be called wise men for their sayings.  Let Thales the Milesian be the first of all, for he first of all disputed about heavenly things.  That same Thales the Milesian said that water was the beginning of things, but that God was that mind which from water formed all things.  Ah! a higher and nobler account of water and spirit than to have ever been discovered by man.  It was delivered to him by God.  You see that the opinion of this original philosopher absolutely agrees with ours.  Afterwards Anaximenes, and then Diogenes of Apollonia, decide that the air, infinite and unmeasured, is God.  The agreement of these also as to the Divinity is like ours.  But the description of Anaxagoras also is, that God is said to be the motion of an infinite mind; and the God of Pythagoras is the soul passing to and fro and intent, throughout the universal nature of things, from whom also the life of all animals is received.  It is a known fact, that Xenophanes delivered that God was all infinity with a mind; and Antisthenes, that there are many gods of the people, but that one God of Nature was the chief of all; that Xeuxippus60    Otherwise, “Speusippus.” acknowledged as God a natural animal force whereby all things are governed.  What says Democritus?  Although the first discoverer of atoms, does not he especially speak of nature, which is the basis of forms, and intelligence, as God?  Strato also himself says that God is nature.  Moreover, Epicurus, the man who feigns either otiose gods or none at all, still places above all, Nature.  Aristotle varies, but nevertheless assigns a unity of power:  for at one time he says that Mind, at another the World, is God; at another time he sets God above the world.61    The ms. here inserts, “Aristoteles of Pontus varies, at one time attributing the supremacy to the world, at another to the divine mind.”  Some think that this is an interpolation, others transfer the words to Theophrastus below.  Heraclides of Pontus also ascribes, although in various ways, a divine mind to God.  Theophrastus, and Zeno, and Chrysippus, and Cleanthes are indeed themselves of many forms of opinion but they are all brought back to the one fact of the unity of providence.  For Cleanthes discoursed of God as of a mind, now of a soul, now of air, but for the most part of reason.  Zeno, his master, will have the law of nature and of God, and sometimes the air, and sometimes reason, to be the beginning of all things.  Moreover, by interpreting Juno to be the air, Jupiter the heaven, Neptune the sea, Vulcan to be fire, and in like manner by showing the other gods of the common people to be elements, he forcibly denounces and overcomes the public error.  Chrysippus says almost the same.  He believes that a divine force, a rational nature, and sometimes the world, and a fatal necessity, is God; and he follows the example of Zeno in his physiological interpretation of the poems of Hesiod, of Homer, and of Orpheus.  Moreover, the teaching of Diogenes of Babylon is that of expounding and arguing that the birth of Jupiter, and the origin of Minerva, and this kind, are names for other things, not for gods.  For Xenophon the Socratic says that the form of the true God cannot be seen, and therefore ought not to be inquired after.  Aristo the Stoic62    Otherwise, “Aristo the Chian.” says that He cannot at all be comprehended.  And both of them were sensible of the majesty of God, while they despaired of understanding Him.  Plato has a clearer discourse about God, both in the matters themselves and in the names by which he expresses them; and his discourse would be altogether heavenly, if it were not occasionally fouled by a mixture of merely civil belief.  Therefore in his Timæus Plato’s God is by His very name the parent of the world, the artificer of the soul, the fabricator of heavenly and earthly things, whom both to discover he declares is difficult, on account of His excessive and incredible power; and when you have discovered Him, impossible to speak of in public.  The same almost are the opinions also which are ours.  For we both know and speak of a God who is parent of all, and never speak of Him in public unless we are interrogated.63    [See note on Plato, chap. xxvi.]

CAPUT XIX.

ARGUMENTUM.---Praeterea poetae illum divum hominumque Parentem, omnium rerum creatorem, mentem et spiritum appellarunt. Quin et ipsimet praestantiores philosophi eadem fere ac Christiani de Deo uno sensere.

Quid Mantuanus Maro? nonne apertius, proximius, verius? «Principio, ait, coelum et terras,» et caetera mundi membra «spiritus intus alit, et infusa mens agitat. Inde hominum pecudumque genus» et quidquid 0292B aliud animalium. Idem alio loco, mentem istam et spiritum, Deum nominat; haec enim vera [impr. verba] sunt: 0293A Deum namque ire per omnes Terrasque tractusque maris coelumque profundum. Unde homines, et pecudes, unde imber et ignis.Quid aliud et a nobis Deus, quam mens et ratio et spiritus praedicatur? Recenseamus, si placet, disciplinas philosophorum, deprehendes eos, etsi sermonibus variis, ipsis tamen rebus in hanc unam coire et conspirare sententiam. (XII) Omitto illos rudes et veteres qui de suis dictis sapientes esse meruerunt. Sit Thales Milesius omnium primus, qui primus omnium de coelestibus disputavit. Is Milesius Thales rerum initium aquam dixit; Deum autem eam mentem quae ex aqua cuncta formaverit. Eho! altior et sublimior aquae et spiritus ratio, quam ab homine potuerit inveniri; a Deo traditum. Vides Philosophi principalis 0294A nobiscum penitus opinionem consonare. Anaximenes deinceps, et post Apolloniates Diogenes, aera Deum statuunt, infinitum et immensum. Horum quoque similis de divinitate consensio est. Anaxagorae vero descriptio et motus infinitae mentis Deus dicitur. Et Pythagorae Deus est animus, per universam rerum naturam commeans et intentus: ex quo etiam animalium omnium vita capiatur. Xenophanem notum est omne infinitum cum mente Deum tradere; et Antisthenem, populares deos multos, sed naturalem unum praecipuum; Zeuxippum [imp. Spensippum], vim naturalem, animalem, qua omnia regantur, Deum nosse. Quid Democritus? quamvis atomorum primus inventor, nonne plerumque naturam, quae imagines 0295A fundat, et intelligentiam, Deum loquitur? Straton quoque et ipse naturam: etiam Epicurus ille qui deos aut otiosos fingit aut nullos, naturam tamen superponit. Aristoteles variat, et adsignat tamen unam potestatem. Nam interim mentem, mundum interim Deum dicit, interim mundo Deum praeficit. Aristoteles Ponticus variat, alias mundo, alias menti divinae tribuens principatum. Heraclides Ponticus quoque Deo divinam mentem, quamvis varie, adscribit. Theophrastus, et Zenon, et Chrysippus, et Cleanthes, sunt et ipsi multiformes; sed ad unitatem providentiae omnes revolvuntur. Cleanthes enim mentem, modo animum, modo aethera, plerumque rationem Deum disseruit. Zenon, ejusdem magister, naturalem legem atque divinam, et aethera interim, 0295B interdumque rationem, vult omnium esse principium. Item interpretando Junonem aera, Jovem coelum, Neptunum mare, ignem esse Vulcanum, et caeteros similiter vulgi deos elementa esse monstrando, publicum arguit graviter et revincit errorem. Eadem 0296A fere Chrysippus, vim divinam, rationalem naturam, et mundum interim, et fatalem necessitatem Deum credit, Zenonemque interpretatione physiologiae in Hesiodi, Homeri Orpheique carminibus imitatur. (XIII) Babylonio etiam Diogeni disciplina est exponendi et disserendi Jovis partum et ortum Minervae, et hoc genus caeterarum rerum vocabula esse, non deorum. (XIV) Nam Socraticus Xenophon formam Dei veri negat videri posse, et ideo quaeri non oportere. Aristo Stoicus [impr. Chius], comprehendi omnino non posse. Uterque majestatem Dei, intelligendi desperatione; senserunt. Platoni apertior de Deo et rebus ipsis et nominibus oratio est; et quae tota esset coelestis, nisi persuasionis civilis nonnumquam admixtione sordesceret. Platoni itaque in Timaeo Deus est ipso 0296B suo nomine mundi parens, artifex animae, coelestium terrenorumque fabricator; quem et invenire difficile, prae nimia et incredibili potestate; et, cum inveneris, in publicum dicere impossibile praefatur. 0297A (XV) Eadem fere et ista quae nostra sunt nam et Deum novimus et parentem omnium dicimus, et numquam publice, nisi interrogati, praedicamus.