XVI. Nor do those whom the Greeks worship as gods,
and (to use their own expression) dæmons, need us in any respect
for their accusers, but are convicted upon the testimony of their own
theologians, some as subject to passion, some as given to faction, and
full of innumerable evils and changes, and in a state of opposition,
not only to one another, but even to their first causes, whom they call
Oceani and Tethyes and
Phanetes, and by several other names; and last of all a certain god who
hated his children through his lust of rule, and swallowed up all the
rest through his greediness that he might become the father of all men
and gods whom he miserably devoured, and then vomited forth
again. And if these are but myths and fables, as they say in
order to escape the shamefulness of the story, what will they say in
reference to the dictum that all things are divided into three
parts, Homer, Il., xiv.,
189. and that each god
presides over a different part of the Universe, having a distinct
province as well as a distinct rank? But our faith is not like
this, nor is this the portion of Jacob, says my Theologian. Jer. x. 16. But each of these Persons possesses
Unity, not less with that which is United to it than with itself, by
reason of the identity of Essence and Power. Petavius praises this
dictum, De Trin., IV., xiii., 9. And this is the account of the Unity,
so far as we have apprehended it. If then this account is the
true one, let us thank God for the glimpse He has granted us; if it is
not let us seek for a better.