Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

174 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMof the Kosmos, their bodies out of fire and otherelements, their souls of the Forms called Identityand Diversity. Here, then, Plato supposes thephysical construction of a complete world by hisDemiurge. But after such a construction, what ishe to do with the mythological gods believed in bythe people among whom he lived ? The account whichhe had given of the formation of the world, or, as heterms it,1 " what we have said of the nature of thevisible and generated gods," was plainly quite incompatiblewith the existence of these others. He dismissesthem in the following words : " To speak ofthe other deities and to know their generation isbeyond our faculties, but we must trust to whatthose of old have said, for they were, as they said,descendants of the gods, and surely knew their ownancestors. It is impossible, then, to disbelieve thechildren of gods, although what they say is destituteboth of probable and necessary proof; but as theyassert that they are recounting family matters, wemust obey the laws and credit them. Now accordingto them the generation of these gods was thus:Oceanus and Tethys were children of Earth andHeaven, and Phorcys, Kronos, and Rhea and therest were children of these ; but children of Kronosand Rhea were Zeus and Hera, and all that we knoware called their brethren, and others still who weretheir progeny." Thus all the traditional gods ofGreece, including Zeus, are practically got rid of byPlato, while his Demiurge stands at an immeasurableheight above the gods whom he has generated. ForPlato next supposes the Demiurge to call togetherboth all those who revolve around us visibly, being1 Timrcus, sec. 15. 2 Timceus, sec. 16.