Virtues, Functions and Agencies of his, fictitiously personated and deified, which explaineth an eminent Mode of their Idolatry. Pervading, acting, and ruling in the Air, he may be call’d Juno; in the Earth, Pluto; in the inferior Parts of it, Proserpina; in the Sea, Neptune; in the lower Part of it, Salacia; in the Vineyards, Liber; in the Smith’s Forges, Vulcan; and in the domestick Hearths, Vesta; as he bestows Corn, he may be called Ceres; Wine, Bacchus; Health, Aesculapius; as he governeth the Wars, Mars; and the Winds, Aeolus. “The Names that denote a certain Force or Effect of Things Coelestial are, any of them, properly applicable to him. His Appellations may be as many as his Gifts, or Functions.”121 Which Polyonymy of the one Supreme God inferreth, that the Pagans Polytheism was, in part, and so far, not real, but apparent only. Thus, as the Mythical Theology personateth and deifieth the Parts and Powers of Mundane corporeal Matter; so the Philosophick Theology personateth and deifieth the several Powers, Virtues, and Agencies, of the one Supreme God. By this Mythical Plea, they defended their Worship of the several Parts of the Corporeal World. For their Polyonymy of the one Supreme God, was not design’d to deprive the Parts of the World of their Godship, but to give a plausible Account and Reason of their Worship.
The Reason of this Stoical Polyonymy was double; partly, because of a Fancy which they had, to apply, to the Supreme Deity, the proper Names of other Deities; and partly, because they discarded the Deities, which they called Mythical and Commentitious, which are Things Physical represented by Fictitious Deities; which having discarded, they substituted in their stead the various Powers, Virtues, Effects, and Agencies, of the Mundane System Jove; “Calling him Minerva, because his Rule is extended in the Aether; Juno, as pervading the Air; Vulcan, Neptune, Ceres, as pervading and acting in the Artificer’s Fire, in the Sea and the Earth.”122 So Balbus in Cicero, having rejected the Deities, which he calleth the Mythical, substituteth in their Room, “God passing thro’ the Nature of every Thing.” Agreeably to which Stoical Notion, it is most reasonable to understand the saying of Antisthenes the Cynick, “Populares Deos multos, naturalem unum esse dicens,”123 that is, one natural God ought to be substituted in the stead of those many Popular Deities, which the Stoicks, and their Brethren, the Cynicks, rejected as Mythical and Commentitious.
It is, however, here to be observ’d, that the Stoicks Polyonymy is so far from destroying the Pagans Polytheism, that it maketh no considerable Abatement in the Multitude of their Deities. For they deified the Parts of the Corporeal World, as living Members of the Mundane Animal, Residences of the Powers and Virtues of the Supreme God, Sections of the Soul of the World. Both Varro and Balbus plainly affirm, That the Stars are animated with intelligent Souls, (they might as well say the same of the Earth;) and, consequently, they are so many distinct Personal Deities.124 And, accordingly, Plutarch representeth the Stoical Polyonymists as the most extravagant Polytheists in all the Pack, “That filled the Air, Heaven, Earth, Sea, with Gods.”125 Wherefore their Reduction of Deities to the Polyonymy of one Supreme God, signifieth nothing to the Prejudice, or Diminution of their Polity of Gods. When they call Jove by the proper Names of several other Deities, they must not be thought to deny the Existence of those Synonymous Genial Deities of the vulgar Theology, Liber Pater, Mercury, and the like; for in their various Allegorizings, Interpretations, Accommodations, and the various honourary Appellatives which they bestow upon Jove, they do not speak privatively with respect to their Genial Deities, but Accumulatively; not with intention to destroy them, but to super-add to them the Polyonymy of their Supreme God. And, if this is the true Account of the Stoicks Polyonymy, as certainly it is, there is no Reason imaginable, why they should condemn the vulgar Polytheism, as a learned Writer supposes they would have done, if fear of disturbing the Commonwealth, and creating a Socrates-like Danger to themselves, had not restrain’d them.126 For the Sense of the Stoicks, and of all the genuine Pagan Theologers, must be thus represented. The Constitution of the Universe being Politically consider’d, and Jupiter, as Politically Imperial, they conceiv’d (as they usually say) all full of Gods and Demons: But withal, the Constitution of the Universe being Physiologically consider’d, and Jupiter, as Vital and Animative of the Whole, they conceiv’d Jovis omnia plena, all full of Jove, his various Virtues, Powers and Effects.
The Mundane System Jove must be consider’d, both as Animatively, or Physiologically, and as Politically-Imperial to the World. For, being he Mundane Soul, he is Animatively-Regent and Imperial, as the Soul of Man is. “That is a God, which is Vigent, Sentient, Reminiscent, Provident, which ruleth, and governeth, and moveth, that Body, whose Prefect it is, as the chieftain God does this World.”127 “As we have a Soul that is an Animative Regent: So the Government of the World is by a Soul, that containeth and keepeth it in Consistence, which is call’d Zeus.”128 Who, as an Animative Regent, is suppos’d, regularly to agitate the Mundane Matter, to form all Things Coelestial and Terrestrial, to figurate his own Animal Body, and to generate all sorts of Animals, as the Poet Philosophizeth,
Principio Coelum, ac Terras camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum Lunae, Titaniaque Astra,
Spiritus in tus alit; totamque infusa per artus,
Mens agitat molem, & magno se corpore miscet,
Inde Hominum, Pecudamque genus, vitaeque volantûm,
Et quae marmoreo fert Monstra sub aequore Pontus. Virg. Aen. 6.
From first, Earth, Seas, and Heavens all spangled Robe,
The golden Stars, and Phoebe’s silver Globe,
A Spirit fed, and to the Mass conjoin’d,
Inspiring the vast Body with a Mind.
Hence Men, and Beasts, and Birds, derive their Strain,
And Monsters floating in the smooth-fac’d Main.
By Physical Motion, and as Animatively-Regent, the Mundane System Jove steereth the World,129 “As a Pilot doth a Ship, or as a Charioteer doth a Chariot, circumvolving the Heavens, keeping the Earth in Consistence, ruling the Sea.”130 (So Apuleius saith of the Goddess Isis, “Thou whirlest about the World, lightenest the Sun, rulest the World;”) and variously influencing the Minds of Men, according to that of Homer,
Τοῖος γὰρ νόος ὲοτὶν επιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων,
Οῖον ἐπ’ ἥμαρ ἄνησι πάτηρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε.
Men hold not constant in one Mind; such is their Sense,
As daily is instill’d by Jove’s hid Influence.
Because the System-Jove is Animatively the Regent of the World, he ought to have his Regent part seated in some principal Part of the World, (agreeably to the Soul of Man, whose rational Faculty is seated in the Head;) either in the Aether, as some; in the Heaven, as others; or in the Sun, as Cleanthes suppos’d;131 which latter, doubtless, was the Sense of the Pythagoreans in those illustrious Epithets, which they gave the Sun, styling him
Ζηνὼς πύργον, Διὸς ϕνλακιὼν, Διὸς θρόνον,
