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In the second and third place, they thus distinguished the Deities into those which are beneficial and those that are injurious to mankind. Those which are beneficial they call Jupiter, Juno, Mercury, Ceres; those who are mischievous the Dirae, Furies, and Mars. These, which threaten dangers and violence, men endeavor to appease and conciliate by sacred rites. The fourth and the fifth order of Gods they assign to things and passions; to passions, Love, Venus, and Desire; the Deities that preside over things, Hope, Justice, and Eunomia.
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The sixth order of deities are those made by the poets; Hesiod, willing to find out a father for those Gods that acknowledge an original, invented their progenitors, Hyperion, Coeus, and Iapetus, With Creius; Hesiod, Theogony, 134.
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upon which account this is called the fabulous. The seventh rank of the deities added to the rest are those which, by their beneficence to mankind, were honored with a divine worship, though they were born of mortal race; of this sort were Hercules, Castor and Pollux, and Bacchus. These are reputed to be of a human species; for of all beings that which is divine is most excellent, and man amongst all animals is adorned with the greatest beauty, and is also the best, being distinguished by virtue above the rest because of his intellect: therefore it was thought that those who were admirable for goodness should resemble that which is the best and most beautiful.
Chapter VII. WHAT IS GOD ?
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SOME of the philosophers, such as Diagoras the Melian, Theodorus the Cyrenean, and Euemerus the Tegeatan, did unanimously deny there were any Gods; and Callimachus the Cyrenean discovered his mind touching Euemerus in these Iambic verses, thus writing: To th’ ante-mural temple flock apace, Where he that long ago composed of brass According to Bentley, Panchaean Jove. See Diodorus, VI. Frag. 2; and Bentley’s note to Callimachus, Frag. 86. (G.) Great Jupiter, Thrasonic old bald pate, Now writes his impious books,—a boastful ass!
