The symbol E at Delphi affords him a text here. It is one of "the kind Apollo's" riddles to stimulate thought. Plutarch read it as Epsilon and translates it "Thou Art," and from this as from the very name of Apollo he draws a lesson as to the nature of real Being. The name _A-poll-o_ means of itself the "Not-Many," and the symbol E is the soul's address to God--God is, and God is one. Not every one understands the nature of the divine; men confuse God with his manifestations. "Those who suppose Apollo and the sun to be one and the same, we should welcome and love for their pious speech, because they attach the idea (_epinoia_) of God to that thing which they honour most of all they know and crave for," but we should point them higher, "bid them go upward and see the truth of their dream, the real Being (_ten ousian_)." They may still honour the image--the visible sun. But that a god should do the work of the sun, that there should be changes and progressions in a god, that he should project fire from himself and extend himself into land, sea, winds and animals, and into all the strange experiences of animals and plants (as the Stoics taught)--it is not holy even to hear such things mentioned. No, God is not like Homer's child playing on the sand, making and unmaking; all this belongs to another god, or rather daemon, set over nature with its becomings and perishings.[67] To confuse gods and daemons is to make disorder of everything. It is here that the real interest of Plutarch's theology begins; for, as Christian apologists were quick to point out, all the philosophers were in the last resort monotheists. But the ultimate One God is by common consent far from all direct contact with this or any other universe of becoming and perishing. For it was questioned how many universes (_kosmoi_) there might be[68]--some conjecturing there would be one hundred and eighty-three--and if there were more than one, the Stoics asked what became of Fate and Destiny, and would there not be many "Zeuses or Zenes"? Why should there be? asked {95} Plutarch; why not in each universe a guide and ruler with mind and reason, such as he who in our universe is called lord and father of all? What hinders that they should all be subjects of the Fate and Destiny that Zeus controls; that he should appoint to each several one of them his own realm, and the seeds and reasons of everything achieved in it; that he should survey them, and they be responsible to him? That in the whole scheme of things there should be ten universes, or fifty, or a hundred, all governed by one Reason, all subordinate to one rule, is not impossible. The Ultimate God rules through deputies.[69] [Sidenote: The deputies of the supreme]