wind; whose hands have founded the host of heaven;"[1] and that in Moses, "Behold, behold that I am He, and there is no god beside me: I will kill, and I will make to live; I will smite, and I will heal: and there is none that shall deliver out of my hands."[2]
{{block center|"And He, from good, to mortals planteth ill,
And cruel war, and tearful woes,"
according to Orpheus.
Such also are the words of the Parian Archilochus:
{{block center|"O Zeus, thine is the power of heaven, and thou
Inflict'st on men things violent and wrong."[3]
Again let the Thracian Orpheus sing to us:
"His right hand all around to ocean's bound
He stretches; and beneath His feet is earth."
These are plainly derived from the following: "The Lord will save the inhabited cities, and grasp the whole land in His hand like a nest;"[4] "It is the Lord that made the earth by His power," as saith Jeremiah, "and set up the earth by His wisdom."[5] Further, in addition to these, Phocylides, who calls the angels demons, explains in the following words that some of them are good, and others bad (for we also have learned that some are apostate):
"Demons there are—some here, some there—set over men;
Some, on man's entrance [into life], to ward off ill."
Rightly, then, also Philemon, the comic poet, demolishes idolatry in these words:
""Fortune is no divinity to us:
There's no such god. But what befalls by chance
And of itself to each, is Fortune called."
And Sophocles the tragedian says:
"Not even the gods have all things as they choose,
Excepting Zeus; for he beginning is and end."
