MINUCIUS FELIX. 481 be elements,he forciblydenounces and overcomes the public error. Chrysippussays almostthe same. He believesthat a divine force,a rationalnature,and sometimesthe world, and a fatalnecessity,is God ; and he followsthe example of Zeno in hisphysiologicalinterpretationof the poems of Hesiod, of Homer, and of Orpheus. Moreover,the teaching of Diogenes of Babylon isthatof expounding and arguing that the birth of Jupiter,and the originof Minerva, and this kind, are names for other things,not for gods. For Xenophon the Socraticsays that the form of the trueGod cannot be seen, and thereforeought not to be inquired after. Aristothe Stoic1 saysthatHe cannot at allbe com prehended. And both of them were sensibleof the majesty of God, whilethey despairedof understandingHim. Plato has a clearerdiscourseabout God, both in the mattersthem selvesand in the names by which he expressesthem ; and his discoursewould be altogetherheavenly,if itwere not occa sionallyfouledby a mixture of merely civilbelief. There fore in his TimcEus Plato'sGod is by His very name the parent of the world,the artificerof the soul,the fabricator of heavenly and earthlythings,whom both to discoverhe declaresisdifficult,on accountof His excessiveand incredi ble power ; and when you have discoveredHim, impossible to speak of inpublic. The same almostarethe opinionsalso which are ours. For we both know and speakof a God who is parentof all,and never speak of Him in publicunlesswe are interrogated. CHAPTER XX. ARGuMENT. — But if the world is ruled by providenceand governed by the willof one God, an ignorantantiquity oughtnottocaivyus away intotheerrorof agreementtcith it: althoughdelightedwithitsown fables,ithas broughtin ridiculoustraditions.Nor is it shown lessplainlythat the worshipof thegods has always beensillyand impious, 1Otherwise," AristotheChian." CTP.— VOL. II. 2 H