Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.3

So let our work begin with the second question that follows: whether the world is ruled by the power of one God or of many. No one who is wise and consults reason fails to see that there is one who both founded all things and governs them with the same virtue by which he founded them. What need is there for many to sustain the rule of the world? One might suppose that if there are several, each has less nerve and strength; but those who want many gods do so because it is necessary for them to be weak, since no single one can bear the helm of so great a burden without the help of the rest. God, however, who is eternal mind, is perfect and complete virtue in every respect. If that is true, there must be one. Absolute power or virtue retains its own firmness. What is solid lacks nothing; what is perfect admits nothing further. Who would doubt that the king who holds command of the whole world is most powerful? And not without reason: all things everywhere are his, and all resources from every quarter are gathered to him alone. But if many divide the world, each will certainly have less wealth and less strength, since each is confined to his allotted portion. The same holds for gods: if there are many, they will be weaker, because each has no more in himself than the others have. Perfect virtue can reside only in that which contains the whole, not in that which contains a mere part. If God is perfect, as he must be, he cannot be anything but one, so that all things may be in him. Therefore the virtues and powers of the gods must be inferior, for each lacks exactly as much as resides in the others: the more there are, the smaller they become. The supreme power of things and divine strength cannot be divided even once. Whatever undergoes division must also undergo destruction. But destruction is far from God, because he is incorruptible and eternal; therefore divine power cannot be divided. God is one, if nothing else can possess as much power. Yet those who think there are many say they have divided offices among themselves. We will dispute all these points in their proper place. For now I hold to what belongs to the present argument: if they have divided offices, the matter returns to the same point, so that no one of them can suffice for all things. He will not be perfect who cannot govern all things when the others are absent. Thus ruling the world requires the perfect virtue of one, not the weakness of many. Whoever thinks this great magnitude cannot be ruled by one is mistaken and does not understand how great the strength and power of divine majesty is, if he supposes that the singular God who could make the world cannot rule what he made. But if he conceives in his mind how great the immensity of this divine work is—how, when nothing previously existed, it was brought into being from nothing by the virtue and counsel of God, a work that could not have been begun and completed except by one—he will then understand that it is far easier for it to be ruled by one than it was to be established by one. Someone may say that not even so immense a work as the world could have been made without many. Let him imagine whatever multitude, whatever greatness, whatever magnitude of power, virtue, and majesty he pleases in many; I gather it all into one and say it exists in one, so that there is as much of those things in him as cannot be thought or spoken. In this matter we fail both in sense and in words, because the human heart cannot grasp such great light of understanding, nor can mortal tongue grasp the explanation of such great things; yet we ought to understand and say this very thing. I see again what might be said on the contrary: that those many are such as we want the one to be. But this cannot happen in any way, because the power of each will not be able to advance further when met by the powers of the others. Each must have his own limits, which he cannot cross, or if he crosses them he drives another back with his own boundaries. Those who believe in many gods do not see that it is possible for them to will something different, from which a dispute and contest would arise among them, just as Homer fashioned gods fighting among themselves when some wanted Troy taken and others resisted. Therefore the world must be ruled by the decision of one. Unless the power of individual parts is referred to one providence, the whole itself cannot hold together, each caring for nothing more than what belongs to him—just as even a military force cannot have more than one leader and ruler. If in one army there were as many commanders as legions, cohorts, wedges, and wings, first the battle line could not be formed, each refusing his own danger, nor would it be easy to rule or temper, because all would follow their own counsels, whose diversity harms more than it helps. So in this command of nature, unless there is one to whom the care of the whole sum is referred, all things will dissolve and collapse. To say that the world is ruled by the decision of many is like affirming that in one body there are many minds, because there are many and varied ministries of the members, so that individual minds are believed to rule individual senses of the body, and also many affections by which we are moved—to anger, desire, joy, fear, pity—so that as many minds are thought to operate. If someone said that, he would not even be seen to have the one mind that is alone. But if in one body one mind possesses the governance of so many things and is attentive to all at once, why would anyone think the world cannot be ruled by one but can be ruled by many? Because those who assert the gods understand this, they say the gods preside over individual things and parts, yet there is one excellent ruler. Now therefore the others would not be gods but satellites and ministers, whom that one greatest and most powerful of all has placed over those offices to serve his command and nods. If all are not equal, then not all are gods: it cannot be the same thing that serves and that dominates. If God is the name of the highest power, he must be incorruptible, perfect, impassible, subject to nothing. Therefore those whom necessity compels to obey the greatest God are not gods. But because those who think this are not mistaken in vain, we will reveal the cause of this error a little later. Now we will confirm the unity of divine power with testimonies.