Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Some say the gods are so called because theein, that is, to run, is the interpretation for "to be moved" and "to run." So then this word carries no majesty at all: it was formed from running and motion, not from any dominion of power. But since even that one God whom we worship is called theos, and yet no motion or running of his ever appears — because he is not visible to anyone at all — it is plain that this word was borrowed from elsewhere and is his own proper word, being native to himself, an invention proper to divinity. And so, setting aside the cleverness of that etymology, it is more likely that theoi was not named from running and motion, but instead took its name from the title belonging to the one true God — with the aim that you could apply the label theoi indifferently to whatever gods you happen to be manufacturing. In fact, proof enough is at hand: you call the whole lot of your gods theoi in common, even those in whom no function of running or motion whatsoever is to be found. So then, if the theoi are equally motionless, the etymology of the word and the notion of divinity part ways together, since the derivation shaped from running and motion is cut off from it. But if this name is the proper and simple name of divinity and not derived by interpretation at all — a point not disputed in the case of that one God — but is transferred to all the rest whom you wish to be gods, then show us that there is a fellowship of quality among them too, so that a title held in common might rightly imply a community of substance as well. Furthermore, that theos already stands apart, by this fact alone — that he is not in plain view — from comparison with those who are in plain view, exposed to sight and sense. But it is sufficient testimony to the senses, for the difference between the hidden and the manifest, that things are reported this way: if the elements are set plainly before everyone, while god, on the contrary, is before no one, how will you be able to bring together, from that side which you have never seen, that which you do see? So then, since you cannot join them by sense or by reason, why do you join them by name, so as to join them also in power?And look — even Zeno separates the world's matter from god, or else says that god passes through it the way honey passes through the honeycomb. So then matter and god are two names, two things: by the distinction of the names the things too are separated, and even the condition of matter follows from its name. But if matter is not god — since the very name forbids it — how can the things that are in matter, that is, the elements, be held to be gods, when parts cannot be alien to the body they belong to?
But why do I bother with arguments of physical theory? The mind ought to have climbed upward from the condition of the world, not descended into uncertainties. Plato gives the world a round shape; others have invented a squared, angular one — devised, I suppose, with a round compass, since it strains to be believed without even a head. But Epicurus, who had said, "whatever is above us is nothing to us," when he too felt the urge to inspect the sky, discovered the sun's disk to be a foot wide. Frugality, it seems, was still the order of the day even up in the heavens. Then, as ambition made progress, the sun's own reach expanded too — thus the Peripatetics reckoned it larger than its actual orb. I ask you, what sense is there in this lust for guesswork? What does it prove, this leisurely fussiness dressed up in elaborate eloquence, all backed by such presumptuous assertion? It was well deserved, then, that Thales of Miletus, while examining the whole sky and walking it with his eyes, fell disgracefully into a well — much mocked by that Egyptian woman who said, "Seeing nothing on the earth, do you suppose you can survey the sky?" And so his fall marks, in figure, the philosophers themselves — namely those who exercise a stupefied curiosity about the works of nature before first examining its maker and overseer, and so are destined to end up in emptiness.
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