Note 473 — Lecture IX. GREEK AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. III. God as the Supreme Being.

The necessity for such intermediate links is not affected by the question how far, outside the Platonic schools, there was a belief in a real transcendence of God, or only in His existence outside the solar system. In this connection, note the allegory in the Phædrus. The Epicureans coarsely expressed the transcendence of God by the expression, διῄρηται ἡ οὐσία, Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. p. 114, § 5; cf. Ocellus Lucanus, cited above, p. 242. Hippolytus describes Aristotle’s Metaphysics as dealing with things beyond the moon, 7. 19, p. 354; cf. Origen’s idea of the heavens in de princ. ii. 3, 7, and Celsus’ objection that Christians misunderstand Plato by confusing his heaven with the Jewish heavens. Origen, c. Cels. vi. 19; cf. Keim, p. 84.