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Homer and Hesiod, say Xenophanes, “have ascribed to the gods all deeds that are a shame and disgrace among men – thieving, adultery, and fraud.  But he himself was not a pillar of orthodoxy.

            There never was, nor ever will be, any man who know, with certainty the things about the god…Mortals fancy that god are born, and wear clothes, and have voice and form like themselves.  Yet if oxen and lions had hands, and could paint and fashion images as men do, they would make the pictures and images of their gods in their own likeness; horses would make them like horses, oxen like oxen.  Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; Thracians give theirs blue eyes and red hair….There is one god, supreme among gods and men ; resembling mortals neither in form nor in mind.  The whole of him see, the whole of him thinks, the whole of him hers.  Without toil he rules all things by the power of his mind.


The Story of Civilization II, The Life of Greece, by Will Durant, page 168

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