a philosophical species of idolatry, leading to atheism, in which the universe was considered as the supreme God. The inventor of this absurd system is not known; but it was of early origin, and variously modi- Some held that the universe was one immense animal, of which the incorporeal soul was properly 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 Pantheist of whom we read was Orpheus, who called the world the body of God, and its several parts his members, making the whole universe one divine animal. According to Cudworth, Orpheus and his followers believed in the immaterial soul of the world; therein agreeing with Aristotle, who certainly held that God and matter are co-eternal, and that there is some such union between them as subsists between the souls and bodies of men.

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 together in the womb of God; that God is the head and middle of all things; that he is the basis 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; and that there is one divine body, for,

"all these things lie in the great body of God." But, further, to prove that the most ancient Greek philosophers resolved all things into God, and made God all, we shall cite a most remarkable passage from Plutarch's *Defect of Oracles*. "Whereas there are two causes of all generations, the divine and the human, the most ancient theologists and poets attended only to the more excellent of these two; resolving all things into God, and pronouncing this of them universally:

*Zois εξεγερται, Zois μετασυνεχει, Δια το παντα συνεχει*

'that God is both the beginning and middle, and that all things are out of God,' insomuch, that they had no 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 theologists 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. 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. See SPINOZA.