Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 6.djvu/56

50 are removed, being repaired, and equivalents for them being introduced, it remains eternal.

Some maintain that Plato asserts the Deity to be one, ingenerable and incorruptible, as he says in The Laws: "God, therefore, as the ancient account has it, possesses both the beginning, and end, and middle of all things." Thus he shows God to be one, on account of His having pervaded all things. Others, however, maintain that Plato affirms the existence of many gods indefinitely, when he uses these words: "God of gods, of whom I am both the Creator and Father." But others say that he speaks of a definite number of deities in the following passage: "Therefore the mighty Jupiter, wheeling his swift chariot in heaven;" and when he enumerates the offspring of the children of heaven and earth. But others assert that [Plato] constituted the gods as generable; and on account of their having been produced, that altogether they were subject to the necessity of corruption, but that on account of the will of God they are immortal, [maintaining this] in the passage already quoted, where, to the words, "God of gods, of whom I am Creator and Father," he adds, "indissoluble through the fiat of my will;" so that if [God] were disposed that these should be dissolved, they would easily be dissolved.

And he admits natures [such as those] of demons, and says that some of them are good, but others worthless. And some affirm that he states the soul to be uncreated and immortal, when he uses the following words, "Every soul is immortal, for that which is always moved is immortal;" and when he demonstrates that the soul is self-moved, and capable of originating motion. Others, however, [say that Plato asserted that the soul was] created, but rendered imperishable through the will of God. But some [will have it that he considered the soul] a composite [essence], and generable