wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted, and

2 22 2^^ Arimanius ^y /^^ Perfian Book Lhis friendfhip and contention -could be no other than a good and evil god;though we have rendred it probable, that nothing elfe was underftoodthereby but an aSive fpermatick power in this corporeal world, caufingvicKTitudes of generation and corruption. Again; Anaxagoras, is entiiledby him to the fame philofophy, for no other reafon, but only becaufc hemade mind and infinite matter two principles of the univcrfi. And laftly,Ariftotle himfelf cannot fcape him from bei'-.g made an aiTertor of a goodand evil god too, merely becaufe he concluded form and privation to betwo principles of natural bodies N ither docs Plutarch acquit himfelfany thing better, as to the fenfe 'of \vh >Ie nations, when tiiis doftrineis therefore imputed by him to the Chaldeans, becaufe their aflrologers fuppofedtwo of the planets to be beneficent, tw ) n aleficent, and three of amiddle nature; and to the ancient Greeks, becaufe they facrificed not onlyto Jupiter Olympius, but alfo to Hades or Pluto, who was fometimes calledby them the infernal Jupiter. We confcfs, that his interpretation of thetraditions and myfteries of the ancient Egyptians is ingenious, but yet thereis no necefllty for all that, that by their Typhon ihould be underftood afubftantial evil principle, or God felf exiftent, as he contends. For it beingdie manner of the ancient Pagans, (as fliall be more fully declared afterwards)to phyfiologize in their theology, and to perfonate all the feveralthings in nature; it feems more likely, that thefe Egyptians did after thatmanner, only Tr^oo-uTroTrotsu/, perfoliate that evil and confufion, tumult andhurliburly, conftant alternation and vicilfitude of generations and corruptions,which is in this lower world, ^though not without a divine providence)•by Typhon.Wherefore, the only probability now left is that of the Perfian Magi,that they might indeed alTcrt two fuch adive principles of good and evil,as Plutarch and the Manicheans afterwards did ; and we muft confefs, thatthere is fome probability of this, becaufe befides Plutarch, Laertius » affirmsthe fame of them, iJJs y-xr «ut«V jivai «fP