Note 168 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
Footnote 168:
(return)
No sound reason can be assigned for translating
θεός
by "
a
god" as some have proposed, rather than "
God
." But even if it were translated "a god," this god must certainly be understood as Zeus. Plato tells us that Zeus is the most appropriate name for God. "For in reality the name Zeus is, as it were, a sentence; and persons dividing it in two parts, some of us make use of one part, and some of another; for some call him Ζήν, and some Δίς. But these parts, collected together into one, exhibit the nature of the God;... for there is no one who is more the cause of living, both to us and everything else, than he who is the ruler and king of all. It follows, therefore, that this god is rightly named, through whom
life
is present in all living beings."--Cratylus, § 28.
Θεός was usually employed, says Cudworth, to designate God by way of pre-eminence, θεοί to designate inferior divinities.