comes to this, that both of them are shown to be Jupiter._
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.