Of humid arms? This reckon Zeus,
And this regard as God."
And in the drama of Pirithous, the same writes those lines in tragic vein:
"Thee, self-sprung, who on Ether's wheel
Hast universal nature spun,
Around whom Light and dusky spangled Night,
The countless host of stars, too, ceaseless dance."
For there he says that the creative mind is self-sprung. What follows applies to the universe, in which are the opposites of light and darkness.
Æschylus also, the son of Euphorion, says with very great solemnity of God:
"Ether is Zeus, Zeus earth, and Zeus the heaven;
The universe is Zeus, and all above."
I am aware that Plato assents to Heraclitus, who writes: "The one thing that is wise alone will not be expressed, and means the name of Zeus." And again, "Law is to obey the will of one." And if you wish to adduce that saying, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," you will find it expressed by the Ephesian[1] to the following effect: "Those that hear without understanding are like the deaf. The proverb witnesses against them, that when present they are absent."
But do you want to hear from the Greeks expressly of one first principle? Timæus the Locrian, in the work on Nature, shall testify in the following words: "There is one first principle of all things unoriginated. For were it originated, it would be no longer the first principle; but the first principle would be that from which it originated." For this true opinion was derived from what follows: "Hear," it is said, "O Israel; the Lord thy God is one, and Him only shalt thou serve."[2]
"Lo[3] He all sure and all unerring is,"
says the Sibyl.
Homer also manifestly mentions the Father and the Son by a happy hit of divination in the following words:
