GOD Other animals are there to feed us: the purpose of the pig is to produce pork Some creatures exist simply so that we can admire their beauty: the peacock, for instance, was created for the sake of his tail (LS 54o, p) Divine providence was extolled by Cleanthes in his majestic hymn to Zeus O King of Kings Through ceaseless ages, God, whose purpose brings To birth, whate’er on land or in the sea Is wrought, or in high heaven’s immensity; Save what the sinner works infatuate Nay, but thou knowest to make the crooked straight: Chaos to thee is order: in thine eyes The unloved is lovely, who didst harmonise Things evil with things good, that there should be One Word through all things everlastingly (LS 54i, trans James Adam) Cleanthes addresses Zeus in terms that would be appropriate enough for a devout Jew or Christian praying to the Lord God But the underlying Stoic conception of God is very diVerent from that of the monotheistic religions God, according to the Stoics, is material, himself a constituent of the cosmos, fuelling it and ordering it from within as a ‘designing Wre’ God’s life is identical with the history of the universe, as it evolves and develops The doctrine of Chrysippus is thus described by Cicero: He says that divine power resides in reason, and in the soul and mind of the whole of nature He calls the world itself god, and the all-pervasive World-Soul, or the dominant part of that soul that is located in mind and reason He also calls god the universal, all-embracing, common nature of things, and also the power of fate and the necessity of future events (ND 39) God can be identiWed with the elements of earth, water, air, and Wre, and in these forms he can be called by the names of the traditional gods of Olympus As earth, he is Demeter; as water and air, Poseidon; as Wre or ether, he is Zeus, who is also identiWed with the everlasting law that is the guide of our life and the governess of our duties (ND 40) As described by Cicero, Chrysippus’ religion is neither monotheism nor polytheism: it is polymorphous pantheism 307