Lactantius, Divine Institutes 3

Let the second and following question be the starting point of our work: whether the world is governed by the power of one God or of many. No one who is truly wise and exercises reason can fail to recognize that there is a single Being who both founded all things and governs them with the very power by which he created them. What need would there be for many to sustain the governance of the world? Unless one supposes that if there were several, each would possess less strength and vigor—a concession that proponents of many gods are forced to make, since individually they could not bear the helm of so vast a mass without the help of the others. God, however, is eternal mind, and from every angle he is perfect, consummate virtue. If that is true, he must be one. Absolute power or virtue retains its own firmness; what is solid lacks nothing, and what is perfect admits no addition. Who doubts that the mightiest king is he who holds command over the whole world? And not without reason: all things everywhere belong to him, and all resources from every quarter are gathered to him alone. If more than one were to divide the world, each would certainly possess less wealth and less strength, confined as each is to an allotted portion. The same holds for gods: if they were many, each would be weaker, having no more in himself than the others possess. The perfect nature of virtue can reside only in that which contains the whole, not in that which holds but a small part of the whole. Since God is perfect, as he must be, he cannot be anything but one, so that all things may be in him. Consequently, the virtues and powers of many gods would necessarily be inferior, for each would lack exactly as much as the others contain; the more there are, the smaller each becomes. Moreover, the supreme power of the universe and divine strength cannot be divided even once. Whatever undergoes division necessarily undergoes destruction. But destruction is utterly foreign to God, because he is incorruptible and eternal; therefore divine power cannot be divided. God is one, then, if nothing else can possess equal power. Those who argue for many gods claim that offices are divided among them, a matter we will dispute in its proper place. For now I hold this point, which bears on the present argument: if offices are divided, the case reduces to the same problem—no single one can suffice for all. A being who cannot govern all things when the others fail is not perfect. Thus the world requires the perfect virtue of one, not the weakness of many. Anyone who thinks this immense magnitude cannot be ruled by one is deceived and fails to grasp the strength and power of divine majesty. If a single God could make the world, he can certainly govern what he made. Once one conceives in his mind the immensity of this divine work—how, though nothing existed before, it was formed from nothing by God's virtue and counsel, a work that could be begun and completed by one alone—he will understand all the more easily that what was established by one is far more easily governed by one. Someone may object that even the making of so immense a world could not have been accomplished by fewer than many. However many or great he imagines them, whatever magnitude, power, virtue, and majesty he distributes among them, I gather all of it into one and declare that it exists in one, so that there is in him as much of those qualities as can be neither thought nor expressed. In this matter we fail both in perception and in language, for the human breast cannot grasp so great a light of understanding, nor can mortal tongue compass the explanation of such things; yet we must understand and speak this truth. I see again what might be urged on the contrary: that those many are each such as we would have the one be. But this is impossible, because the power of each cannot advance further when confronted by the powers of the others. Each must have his own limits, which he cannot transgress; if he does transgress, he simply drives another back within his own bounds. Those who believe in many gods do not see that it becomes possible for them to will different things, giving rise to dispute and conflict among them—just as Homer invented gods warring with one another, some wanting Troy taken, others resisting. The world must therefore be governed by the judgment of one. Unless the power of the individual parts is referred to a single providence, the whole cannot hold together, each part caring for nothing beyond what properly belongs to it, just as no army can function with more than one leader and ruler. If in one army there were as many commanders as there are legions, cohorts, wedges, or wings, the battle line could not even be drawn up, each commander shirking danger, and it would be impossible to direct or control them, since all would follow their own counsels, whose diversity would harm more than help. So in this command of nature, unless there is one to whom the care of the whole is referred, all things will dissolve and collapse. To say that the world is governed by the judgment of many is like asserting that one body contains many minds because its members perform many and varied functions—as if separate minds were thought to rule the separate senses of the body, and as many minds as there are emotions—anger, desire, joy, fear, pity—were thought to operate within us. If someone actually said that, he would not even seem to possess one mind himself. But if one mind in a single body governs so many things and attends to all simultaneously, why should anyone think the world cannot be governed by one but can be by many? Because the advocates of many gods recognize this, they say the gods preside over individual things and parts, yet insist there is still one supreme ruler. Then the others are not gods at all, but satellites and ministers whom that one greatest and most powerful has placed over those offices to serve his command and bidding. If all are not equal, they are not all gods; the same thing cannot be both servant and master. For if God is the name of highest power, he must be incorruptible, perfect, impassible, subject to nothing. Therefore those whom necessity compels to obey the greatest God are not gods. Yet because those who think this way are not deceived in vain, we will reveal the cause of their error shortly. Now we will confirm the unity of divine power with testimonies.