PANTHEISM, a philosophical species of idolatry
leading to atheism, in which the universe was considered
as the supreme God. Who was the inventor of this ab-
surd system, is, perhaps, not known; but it was of car-
ly origin, and differently modified by different philoso-
phers. Some held the universe to be one immense animal,
of which the incorporeal soul was properly their
God, and the heavens and earth the body of that God;
whilst others held but one substance, partly active and
partly passive; and therefore looked upon the visible
universe as the only Numen. The earliest Grecian Pan-
theist of whom we read was Orpheus, who called the
world the body of God, and its several parts his mem-
bers, making the whole universe one drone animal.
According to Cudworth, Orpheus and his followers be-
lieved in the immaterial soul of the world; therein ag-
reeing with Aristotle, who certainly held that God and
matter are coeternal; and that there is some such union
between them as subsists between the souls and bodies of
men. See METAPHYSICS, No 264.
In the ancient Orphic theology, we are taught, that
"this universe, and all things belonging to it, were
made within God; that all things are contained to-
gether in the womb of God; that God is the head and
middle of all things; that he is the besis of the earth
and heaven; that he is the depth of the sea, the air we
breathe, the force of the untameable fire; that he is
the sun, moon, and stars; that there is one divine body;
for,
Πάντα γὰρ ἐν μὴτᾷ τῷ θεῷ οὐκ ἑκὶναι κτλ.
"all these things lie in the great body of God."—But
further, to prove that the most ancient Greek philoso-
phers resolved all things into God, and made God all,
we shall cite a most remarkable passage from Plutarch's
Delect of Oracles. "Whereas there are two causes of
all generations, the divine and the human, the most an-
cient theologians and poets attended only to the more ex-
cellent of these two; resolving all things into God, and
pronouncing this of them universally;
Ζῶν ἄρτι, Ζῶν μὲν τὸν, Διὸς δ' ἔκ πᾶσι πᾶντα
"that God is both the beginning and middle, and that
all things are out of God; inasmuch, that they had no
regard
Pantheon. regard at all to the other natural and necessary causes of things: but on the contrary, their juniors, who were called naturalists, deviating from this most excellent and divine principle, placed all in bodies, their passions, colliſions, mutations, and commixtures."
That by the most ancient theologians here mentioned, Plutarch meant Orpheus and his immediate followers, is plain from the Orphic verse by which he proves their antiquity. By their juniors, whom he calls naturalists, he could mean no other than the first Grecian philosophers, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Hippo, who were followed by the atheistical atomists, Leucippus, Democritus, Protagoras, and Epicurus. But with respect to the universe being God, and all things divine and human being modifications of mere matter, the stoics undoubtedly agreed with Anaximander and his followers; for the school of Zeno held but one substance. See METAPHYSICS, No. 265. This impious doctrine, that all things are God, and that there is but one substance, was revived in modern times by Spinoza, an apostate Jew. As we shall give a life of him and a view of his principles, we must refer the reader for a fuller account of Pantheism to SPINOZA. See also PAN.