“Then again, who could feel alarm at the
other notions of the Stoics, who ask how there shall
continue to be one Destiny and one Providence, and
how there shall not be many supreme gods bearing
the name of Zeus or Zen, if there are more worlds
than one ? For, in the first place, if it is preposterous
that there should be many supreme gods bearing this
name, then surely these persons' ideas will be far
more preposterous ; for they make an infinite number
of suns and moons and Apollos and Artemises and
Poseidons in the infinite cycle of worlds. But the
second point is this : what is the need that there
be many gods bearing the name of Zeus, if there
be more worlds than one, and that there should
not be in each world, as pre-eminent governor and
ruler of the whole, a god possessing sense and reason,
such as the one who among us bears the name of Lord
and Father of all ? Or again, what shall prevent all
worlds from being subject to the Destiny and Providence of Zeus, and what shall prevent his overseeing
and directing them all in turn and supplying them all
with first principles, material sources, and schemes of
all that is being carried out ? Do we not in this
world of ours often have a single body composed
of separate bodies,1 as, for example, an assembly of
people or an army or a band of dancers, each one of
whom has the contingent faculty of living, thinking,
and learning, as Chrysippus2 believes, while in the
whole universe, that there should be ten worlds, or
fifty, or an hundred even, living under one reasoned
plan, and organized under one government, is an
[p. 437]
impossibility ? Yet such an organization is altogether
appropriate for the gods. For we must not make
them unable to go out, like the queens in a hive of
bees, nor keep them imprisoned by enclosing them
with matter, or rather fencing them about with it,
as those3 do who make the gods to be atmospheric
conditions, or regard them as powers of waters or of
fire blended therewith, and bring them into being at
the same time with the world, and burn them up with
it, since they are not unconfined and free like drivers
of horses or pilots of ships, but, just as statues are
riveted and welded to their bases, so they are enclosed and fastened to the corporeal; and are
partners with it even unto destruction, dissolution,
and transmutation, of whatsoever sort may befall.