g the gods than such things
as these:--

There the blest gods eternally enjoy
Their sweet delights;
("Odyssey," vi. 46.)

and again,

Both gods immortal, and earth-dwelling men;
("Iliad," v. 442.)

and again,

Exempt from sickness and old age are they,
And free from toil, and have escaped the stream
Of roaring Acheron?
(From Pindar.)

One may perhaps light upon some nations so barbarous and savage as
not to think there is a God; but there was never found any man who,
believing a God, did not at the same time believe him immortal and
eternal. Certainly, those who were called Atheists, like Theodorus,
Diagoras, and Hippo, durst not say that the Divinity is corruptible, but
they did not believe that there is anything incorruptible; not indeed
admitting the subsistence of an incorruptibility, but keeping the notion
of a God. But Chrysippus and Cleanthes, having filled (as one may say)
heaven, earth, air, and sea with gods, have not yet made any one of
all these gods immortal or eternal, except Jupiter alone, in whom they
consume all the rest; so that it is no more suitable for him to consume
others than to be consumed himself. For it is alike an infirmity
to perish by being resolved into another, and to be saved by being
nourished by the resolution of others into himself. Now these are
not like other of their absurdities, gathered by argument from their
suppositions or drawn by consequence from their doctrines; but they
themselves proclaim it aloud in their writings concerning the gods,
Providence, Fate, and Nature, expressly saying that all the other gods
were born, and shall die by the fire, melting away, in their opinion,
as if they were of wax or tin. It is indeed as much against common sense
that God should be mortal as the man should be immortal; nay, indeed, I
do not see what the difference between God and man will be, if God also
is a reasonable and corruptible animal. For if they oppose us with
this subtle distinction, that man is mortal, and God not mortal but
corruptible, see what they get by it. For they will say either that
God is at the same time both immortal and corruptible, or else that he
neither is mortal nor immortal; the absurdity of which even those cannot
exceed who set themselves industriously to devise positions repugnant to
common sense. I speak of others; for these men have left no one of the
absurdest things unspoken or unattempted.

To th