The Obsolesence of Oracles (29-31)

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,[*] 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 Chrysippus[*] 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

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 those[*] 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.

That other concept is, I think, more dignified and sublime, that the gods are not subject to outside control, but are their own masters, even as the twin sons of Tyndareüs[*] come to the aid of men who are labouring in the storm,

Soothing the oncoming raging sea,

Taming the swift-driving blasts of the winds,[*]

not, however, sailing on the ships and sharing in the danger, but appearing above and rescuing; so, in the same way, one or another of the gods visits now this world and now that, led thither by pleasure in the sight, and co-operates with Nature in the directing of each. The Zeus of Homer[*] turned his gaze not so very far away from the land of Troy towards the Thracian regions and the wandering tribes about the Danube; but the real Zeus has a fair and fitting variety of spectacles in numerous worlds, not viewing the infinite void outside nor concentrating his mind upon himself and nothing else, as some have imagined,[*] but surveying from above the many works of gods and men and the movements and courses of the stars in their cycles. In fact, the Deity is not averse to changes, but has a very great joy therein, to judge, if need be, by the alternations and cycles in the heavens among the bodies that are visible there. Infinity is altogether senseless and unreasoning, and nowhere admits a god, but in all relations it brings into action the concept of chance and accident. But the Oversight and Providence in a limited group and number of worlds, when compared with that which has entered one body and become attached to one and reshapes and remodels it an infinite number of times, seems to me to contain nothing involving less dignity or greater labour.

Having spoken at this length, I stopped. Philip, after no long interval, said, That the truth about these matters is thus or otherwise is not for me to assert. But if we eliminate the god from one world, there is the question why we make him the creator of only five worlds and no more, and what is the relation of this number to the great mass of numbers; and I feel that I would rather gain a knowledge of this than of the meaning of the E[*] dedicated here. For the number five represents neither a triangle nor a square, nor is it a perfect number nor a cube, nor does it seem to present any

other subtlety for those who love and admire such speculations. Its derivation from the number of elements, at which the Master[*] hinted darkly, is in every way hard to grasp and gives no clear intimation of the plausibility which must have drawn him on to assert that it is likely that when five bodies with equal angles and equal sides and enclosed by equal areas are engendered in matter the same number of worlds should at once be perfected from them.