One God orders the whole world and its parts

It would take long to go through them one by one. There is no part of a human being that does not exist both for necessity and for beauty, and what is more remarkable, the shape is the same for everyone, yet certain features are bent aside in each person: so we all appear alike as a whole, and yet each of us is found to be unlike the others. What of the principle of birth? What of the desire to beget? Was it not given by God, both that the breasts should grow milky as the birth matures and that the tender offspring should grow by the richness of the milky dew?

God takes thought not only for the whole but also for its parts. Britain is deprived of sun, but it is refreshed by the warmth of the surrounding sea. The river Nile tempers the dryness of Egypt, the Euphrates compensates Mesopotamia in place of rains, and the river Indus is said both to sow the East and to water it.

If you entered some house and saw everything cultivated, arranged, and adorned, you would certainly believe that a master presided over it and was far better than those good things. So in this house of the world, when you look closely at heaven and earth—text lost—and see providence, order, and law, believe that there is a lord of the universe and a parent more beautiful than the very stars and all the parts of the world.

Unless perhaps, since there is no doubt about providence, you think the question is whether the heavenly kingdom is governed by the command of one or by the judgment of many. That itself is not hard to open up for anyone who considers earthly empires, which certainly take their examples from heaven.

When did a partnership in kingship ever begin with trust or end without bloodshed? I pass over the Persians, who divined their ruler from the neighing of horses, and I skip the pair of Theban brothers—that story is dead. The story of the twins is very well known: a kingdom over shepherds and a hut. Wars between son-in-law and father-in-law were spread over the whole world, and fortune did not hold two men in so great an empire.

Look at the rest: there is one king for the bees, one leader among the flocks, one ruler in the herds. Would you believe that in heaven the highest majesty is divided and the whole power of that true and divine empire is split apart, when it is plain that God, the parent of all things, has neither beginning nor end, who grants birth to all things and perpetuity to himself, who was before the world and was to himself his own world? He commands all things that exist by his word, orders them by reason, and completes them by power.

He cannot be seen—he is too bright for sight. He cannot be grasped—he is too pure for touch. He cannot be measured—he is greater than the senses. He is infinite, immense, and known only to himself as great as he is. But our heart is too narrow for understanding, and so we measure him worthily when we call him immeasurable.

I will say what I feel: whoever thinks he knows the greatness of God diminishes it; whoever does not want to diminish it does not know it. Do not seek a name for God: God is his name. Words are needed when a multitude must be separated by the proper marks of individual names. For God, who alone exists, the word 'God' is the whole name. If I call him Father, you will think of him as fleshly; if I call him King, you will suspect him as earthly; if I call him Lord, you will certainly understand him as mortal. Take away the additions of names and you will see his brightness.

What of the fact that I have the agreement of all people about him? I hear the common crowd: when they stretch their hands to heaven, they say nothing other than 'God,' and 'God is great,' and 'God is true,' and 'if God grants it.' Is this the natural speech of the crowd or the prayer of a Christian confessing? And those who want Jupiter to be chief are mistaken in the name, but they agree about one power.