In Homer there is a perpetual blending of the natural and the supernatural, the human and divine. The _Iliad_ is an incongruous medley of theology, physics, and history. In its gorgeous scenic representations, nature, humanity, and deity are mingled in inextricable confusion. The gods are sometimes supernatural and superhuman personages; sometimes the things and powers of nature personified; and sometimes they are deified men. And yet there are passages, even in Homer, which clearly distinguish Zeus from all the other divinities, and mark him out as the Supreme. He is "the highest, first of Gods" (bk. xix. 284); "most great, most glorious Jove" (bk. ii. 474). He is "the universal Lord" (bk. xi. 229); "of mortals and immortals king supreme," (bk. xii. 263); "over all the immortal gods he reigns in unapproached pre-eminence of power" (bk. xv. 125). He is "the King of kings" (bk. viii. 35), whose "will is sovereign" (bk. iv. 65), and his "power invincible" (bk. viii. 35). He is the "eternal Father" (bk. viii. 77). He "excels in wisdom gods and men; all human things from him proceed" (bk. xiii. 708-10); "the Lord of counsel" (bk. i. 208), "the all-seeing Jove" (bk. xiii. 824). Indeed the mere expression "Father of gods and men" (bk. i. 639), so often applied to Zeus, and him _alone_, is proof sufficient that, in spite of all the legendary stories of gods and heroes, the idea of Zeus as the Supreme God, the maker of the world, the Father of gods and men, the monarch and ruler of the world, was not obliterated from the Greek mind.[167] [Footnote 167: "In the order of legendary chronology Zeus comes after Kronos and Uranos, but in the order of Grecian conception Zeus is the prominent person, and Kronos and Uranos are inferior and introductory precursors, set up in order to be overthrown, and to serve as mementos of the powers of their conqueror. To Homer and Hesiod, as well as to the Greeks universally, Zeus is the great, the predominant God, 'the Father of gods and men,' whose power none of the gods can hope to resist, or even deliberately think of questioning. All the other gods have their specific potency, and peculiar sphere of action and duty, with which Zeus does not usually interfere; but it is he who maintains the lineaments of a providential government, as well over the phenomena of Olympus as over the earth."--Grote, "Hist. of Greece," vol. i. p. 3. Zeus is not only lord of heaven but likewise the ruler of the lower world, and the master of the sea.--Welcher, "Griechische Götterlehre," vol. i. p. 164. The Zeus of the Greek poets is unquestionably the god of whom Paul declared: In him we live and move, and have our being, as certain of your own poets have also said-- "'For we are his offspring.'" Now whether this be a quotation from Aratus or Cleanthes, the language of the poets is, "We are the offspring of Zeus;" consequently the Zeus of the poets and the God of Christianity are the same God.