{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/002/0020103.htm","path":"chr/ecf/002/0020103.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/002/0020103.htm","text":"So that the opinion of your philosophers and authors is discordant; for while the former have propounded the foregoing opinions, the poet Homer is found explaining the origin not only of the world, but also of the gods, on quite another hypothesis. For he says somewhere: 553 \u2014\n \u201cFather of Gods, Oceanus, and she\nWho bare the gods, their mother Tethys, too,\nFrom whom all rivers spring, and every sea.\u201d\nIn saying which, however, he does not present God to us. For who does not know that the ocean is water? But if water, then not God. God indeed, if He is the creator of all things, as He certainly is, is the creator both of the water and of the seas. And Hesiod himself also declared the origin, not only of the gods, but also of the world itself. And though he said that the world was created, he showed no inclination to tell us by whom it was created. Besides, he said that Saturn, and his sons Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, were gods, though we find that they are later born than the world. And he also relates how Saturn was assailed in war by his own son Jupiter; for he says: 554 \u2014\n \u201cHis father Saturn he by might o\u2019ercame,\nAnd \u2019mong th\u2019 immortals ruled with justice wise,\nAnd honours fit distributed to each.\u201d\nThen he introduces in his poem the daughters of Jupiter, whom he names Muses, and as whose suppliant he appears, desiring to ascertain from them how all things were made; for he says: 555 \u2014\n \u201cDaughters of Jove, all hail! Grant me your aid\nThat I in numbers sweet and well-arrayed,\nOf the immortal gods may sing the birth;\nWho of the starry heav\u2019ns were born, and earth;\nWho, springing from the murky night at first,\nWere by the briny ocean reared and nursed.\nTell, too, who form unto the earth first gave,\nAnd rivers, and the boundless sea whose wave\nUnwearied sinks, then rears its crest on high;\nAnd how was spread yon glittering canopy\nOf glistening stars that stud the wide-spread heaven.\nWhence sprang the gods by whom all good is given?\nTell from their hands what varied gifts there came,\nRiches to some, to others wealth, or fame;\nHow they have dwelt from the remotest time\nIn many-nooked Olympus\u2019 sunny clime.\nThese things, ye Muses, say, who ever dwell\nAmong Olympian shades\u2014since ye can tell:\nFrom the beginning there thy feet have strayed;\nThen tell us which of all things first was made.\u201d\nBut how could the Muses, who are younger than the world, know these things? Or how could they relate to Hesiod [what was happening], when their father was not yet born?","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol II: THEOPHILUS: Chapter V.\u2014Opinions of Homer and Hesiod Concerning the Gods.","type":"page"}