Praeparatio Evangelica (The Preparation of the Gospel)

'THE Stoics then represented the world as one, which they also affirmed to be the All, including the corporeal elements.

'But Empedocles said that, though the world was one, yet it was not the All, but only a small part of the All, and the rest useless matter.

'Plato derives his opinion that the world is one, and the All one, by inference from three arguments: from the notion that it will not be perfect, unless it comprehends all things; that it will not be like its pattern, unless it be unique; that it will not be indestructible, if there be anything outside it. But in answer to Plato it must be said, that the world is not perfect, for it does not include all things; for man also is perfect, but does not include all things: and there are many examples, as in the case of statues, and houses, and pictures: and how can it be perfect, if it is possible for anything to revolve outside it? And indestructible it is not, and cannot be, since it is created.

'But Metrodorus says it is as absurd that there should be but one world generated in infinite space, as that there should be but one head of corn in a great plain: and that the world is one of an infinite multitude is manifest from the infinity of causes. For if the world is finite, while the causes from which the world has come are all infinite, the number of worlds must be infinite. For where they all have been causes, there must also be effects: and causes they are, whether the atoms or the elements.'