did consent. And allowing error to arise at the first, and to go on increasing, He endeavours in later times to destroy it, when already many have miserably perished on account of the [original] defect. 4. It is not seemly, however, to say of Him who is God over all, since He is free and in- dependent, that He was a slave to necessity, or that anything takes place with His permission, yet against His desire; otherwise they will make necessity greater and more kingly than God, since that which has the most power is superior364 to all [others]. And He ought at the very beginning to have cut off the causes of [the fancied] necessity, and not to have allowed Himself to be shut up to yielding to that necessity, by permitting anything besides that which became Him. For it would have been much better, more consistent, and more God-like, to cut off at the beginning the principle of this kind of necessity, than afterwards, as if moved by repentance, to endeavour to extirpate the results of necessity when they had reached such a development. And if the Father of all be a slave to necessity, and must yield to fate, while He unwillingly tolerates the things which are done, but is at the same time powerless to do anything in opposition to necessity and fate (like the Homeric Jupiter, who says of necessity, “I have willingly given thee, yet with unwilling mind”), then, according to this reasoning, the Bythus of whom they speak will be found to be the slave of necessity and fate. 364 The text has “antiquius,” literally “more ancient,” but it may here be rendered as above. 951 Chapter V.—This world was not formed by any other beings within the territory…