Minucius Felix — Octavius 19
I hear the poets too proclaiming one father of gods and humans, and that mortals’ mind is such as the parent of all has led the day. What? Does Mantuan Maro not say more openly, more nearly, more truly that “in the beginning” heaven and earth and the other members of the world “an inward spirit nourishes and a mind poured in agitates, thence the race of humans and beasts” and whatever else of animals? In another place the same man names that mind and spirit God — that God goes through all lands and tracts of sea and the deep heaven, whence the race of humans and cattle, whence rain and fires. What else is God preached by us than mind and reason and spirit? Let us review the philosophers’ teaching: you will find them, though in varied speeches, nonetheless in the things themselves agreeing and conspiring into this one sentence. Thales of Miletus, first of all who disputed on heavenly things, said water was the beginning of things, but God that mind which formed all from water. Be that account loftier than a human could invent — handed down from God: you see the chief philosopher’s opinion thoroughly sounding with us. Anaximenes and Diogenes of Apollonia set air as God, infinite and immense. Anaxagoras calls the motion of infinite mind God; for Pythagoras God is a soul passing through the universal nature of things, intent, from which even the life of all animals is drawn.
Aristotle varies and yet assigns one power: for at times he calls mind God, at times the world, at times he sets God over the world. Theophrastus likewise varies, giving rule now to the world, now to the divine mind. Heraclides of Pontus also ascribes a divine mind to the world, though variously. Zeno and Chrysippus and Cleanthes are themselves many-formed, but all turn back to the unity of providence. Cleanthes discusses God now as mind of nature and soul, now as aether, often as reason. Zeno wants natural and divine law, and sometimes aether, sometimes reason, to be the beginning of all; by interpreting Juno as air, Jupiter as heaven, Neptune as sea, Vulcan as fire, and likewise showing the crowd’s other gods to be elements, he gravely exposes and refutes public error. Chrysippus nearly the same: he believes the divine rational force, nature and world, and sometimes fatal necessity, to be God. … Plato’s speech about God is clearer in things and names, and would be wholly heavenly if it did not sometimes get dirty by mixture of civic persuasion. So for Plato in the Timaeus God is by his own name parent of the world, craftsman of the soul, maker of heavenly and earthly things, whom he prefaced is hard to find because of too great and incredible power, and when you have found him impossible to speak in public. The same nearly are also these things that are ours: for we both know God and call him parent of all, and never preach him in public unless asked.
Latin
XIX. "Audio poetas quoque unum patrem divum atque hominum praedicantes, et talem esse mortalium mentem qualem parens omnium diem duxerit. Quid? Mantuanus Maro nonne apertius, proximius, verius 'principio' ait 'caelum ac terras' et cetera mundi membra 'spiritus intus alit et infusa mens agitat, inde hominum pecudumque genus' et quicquid aliud animalium? Idem alio loco mentem istam et spiritum deum nominat. Haec enim verba sunt: deum namque ire per omnes terrasque tractusque maris caelumque profundum, unde hominum genus et pecudes, unde imber et ignes. "Quid aliud et a nobis deus quam mens et ratio et spiritus praedicatur? "Recenseamus, si placet, disciplinam philosophorum: deprehendes eos, etsi sermonibus variis, ipsis tamen rebus in hanc unam coire et conspirare sententiam. Omitto illos rudes et veteres, qui de suis dictis sapientes esse meruerunt. Sit Thales Milesius omnium primus, qui primus omnium de caelestibus disputavit. Is autem Milesius Thales rerum initium aquam dixit, deum autem eam mentem quae ex aqua cuncta formaverit. Esto altior et sublimior aquae et spiritus ratio, quam ut ab homine potuerit inveniri, a deo traditum: vides philosophi principalis nobiscum penitus opinionem consonare. Anaximenes deinceps et post Apolloniates Diogenes aera deum statuunt infinitum et inmensum: horum quoque similis de divinitate consensio est. Anaxagorae vero discriptio et motus infinitae mentis deus dicitur, et Pythagorae deus est animus per universam rerum naturam commeans et intentus, ex quo etiam animalium omnium vita carpatur. Xenophanen notum est omne infinitum cum mente deum tradere, et Antisthenen populares deos multos, sed naturalem unum praecipuum, Speusippum vim animalem, qua omnia regantur, deum nosse. Quid? Democritus, quamvis atomorum primus inventor, nonne plerumque naturam quae imagines fundat et intellegentiam deum loquitur? Straton quoque et ipse naturam. Etiam Epicurus ille, qui deos aut otiosos fingit aut nullos, naturam superponit.
Aristoteles variat et adsignat tamen unam potestatem: nam interim mentem, mundum interim deum dicit, interim mundo deum praeficit. Theophrastus etiam variat, alias mundo, alias menti divinae tribuens principatum. Heraclides Ponticus quoque mundo divinam mentem quamvis varie adscribit. Zenon et Chrysippus et Cleanthes sunt et ipsi multiformes, sed ad unitatem providentiae omnes revolvuntur. Cleanthes enim mentem modo naturae atque animum, modo aethera, plerumque rationem deum disserit. Zenon, eiusdem magister, naturalem legem atque divinam et aethera interim interdumque rationem vult omnium esse principium; idem interpretando Iunonem aera, Iovem caelum, Neptunum mare, ignem esse Vulcanum et ceteros similiter vulgi deos elementa esse monstrando publicum arguit graviter et revincit errorem. Eadem fere Chrysippus: vim divinam rationalem, naturam et mundum, interim et fatalem necessitatem deum credit Zenonemque interpretatione physiologica in Hesiodi, Homeri Orpheique carminibus imitatur. Babylonio etiam Diogeni disciplina est exponendi et disserendi Iovis partum et ortum Minervae et hoc genus cetera rerum vocabula esse, non deorum. Nam Socraticus Xenophon formam dei veri negat videri posse et ideo quaeri non oportere, Ariston Stoicus conprehendi omnino non posse: uterque maiestatem dei intellegendi desperatione senserunt. Platoni apertior de deo et rebus ipsis et nominibus oratio est et quae tota esset caelestis, nisi persuasionis civilis nonnunquam admixtione sordesceret. Platoni itaque in Timaeo deus est ipso suo nomine mundi parens, artifex animae, caelestium terrenorumque fabricator, quem et invenire difficile prae nimia et incredibili potestate, et cum inveneris, in publicum dicere inpossibile praefatur. "Eadem fere et ista, quae nostra sunt: nam et deum novimus et parentem omnium dicimus at numquam publice nisi interrogati praedicamus.