Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
1| The Good, which all things desire, is God, who is beyond essence and exists forever. He has no coming-into-being, and therefore no beginning either, for he is himself the beginning of all things that come into being. And the one who derives his origin from him is united to him again, the separation from him and the joining with him taking place not spatially but in the intellect. For what was begotten did not come to be through any loss to the Father's inward being, as indeed things born of seed do; it came to be by the ordering of a providence that contrived a Savior to preside over the perceptible world and everything in it. Accordingly, for all things that the world contains, the cause of their being and living comes from there. From there too come the soul and every sense, and the organs through which what the senses signify is brought to completion.
2| What, then, does the argument show? That there is one ruler over everything that exists, and that all things are subject to his lordship alone, the things of heaven and the things of earth, bodies natural and bodies organic alike. For if the sovereignty over these countless things belonged not to one but to many, there would be allotments and divisions of the elements, and everything would shake loose the harmonious concord of the whole, since many rulers would manage in different ways the portion that had fallen to each by lot,
3| and the whole world's remaining always in the same state and in the same way ... and supplication to which of them first, or to which last? And in paying special honor to any one of them, would I not be guilty of impiety toward the rest? Or perhaps, if I were in need of something for my life, I would give thanks to the one who helped me and find fault with the one who worked against me. And to which of them would I pray, asking to learn the cause of my misfortune and to obtain release from it?
4| Suppose, then, that we were answered by oracles and prophecies that the matter was not within their own power but belonged to another god. What mercy would there be then, what providence of God toward humankind? Unless, perhaps, the god more kindly disposed than the rest came to the aid, by force, of one with whom he had no connection. But anger, strife and reproach would have followed, as among beings who do not keep to their own affairs and, out of greed, are not content with what falls to their share; and in the end, the confusion of everything would have followed.
5| What, then, would come next? Plainly the strife among the heavenly beings would have wrecked everything beneath heaven and on earth: the ordered course of the seasons would have vanished, along with the change of times and the change of the fruits that grow in their seasons, and the day would have vanished too, together with the night's rest that follows it. But enough of this. Let us return once more to the argument that cannot be refuted.
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