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But why speak more of this Jupiter, with whom perchance all the rest
are to be identified; so that, he being all, the opinion as to the
existence of many gods may remain as a mere opinion, empty of all
truth? And they are all to be referred to him, if his various parts
and powers are thought of as so many gods, or if the principle of mind
which they think to be diffused through all things has received the
names of many gods from the various parts which the mass of this visible
world combines in itself, and from the manifold administration of
nature. For what is Saturn also? "One of the principal gods," he
says, "who has dominion over all sowings." Does not the exposition
of the verses of Valerius Soranus teach that Jupiter is the world,
and that he emits all seeds from himself, and receives them into
himself?
It is he, then, with whom is the dominion of all sowings. What is
Genius? "He is the god who is set over, and has the power of
begetting, all things." Who else than the world do they believe to
have this power, to which it has been said: "Almighty Jove,
progenitor and mother?"
And when in another place he says that Genius is the rational soul of
every one, and therefore exists separately in each individual, but
that the corresponding soul of the world is God, he just comes back to
this same thing,, namely, that the soul of the world itself is to be
held to be, as it were, the universal genius. This, therefore, is
what he calls Jupiter. For if every genius is a god, and the soul of
every man a genius, it follows that the soul of every man is a god.
But if very absurdity compels even these theologists themselves to
shrink from this, it remains that they call that genius god by special
and pre-eminent distinction, whom they call the soul of the world,
and therefore Jupiter.
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