Should they let fall from the sky a golden chain on which all the gods and goddesses might be suspended, they still would be powerless, however hard they might strain to drag him from the heavens to the earth; and if it pleased him, he could draw them up even with the earth, even with the sea, and he would then fix the chain on the ridge of Olympus, and suspend on it the whole universe; so much is he above mankind, above the gods. Not only is he the most powerful, but also he is the wisest--the μητιέτης; he is all wisdom and he is likewise all justice. It is from him that the judges of the sons of the Achæans have received their laws: very good, very great, he holds learned conversations with Themis (the law) who sits at his side; prayers are his daughters, whom he avenges for all the insults of the wicked. Thus, power, wisdom, justice, belonged from all time to Zeus, to the Zeus of Homer as well as to the Zeus of Cleanthes; to the Zeus of the poets as to him of the philosophers, in the remotest period of paganism as at the approach of the religion of Christ. A providential god rules the Pantheon of the Hellenes. What Zeus is in Greece, Jupiter is in Italy: the God who is above all the gods. The identity of the two deities is so striking that the ancients themselves, forestalling comparative mythology, recognized it from the very first. He is the God, great and good amongst them all: _Jupiter, optimus, maximus_. _Varuna._--The most ancient of the religions of India, which the Vedas have made known to us, has also a Zeus, whose name is Varuna.[40] "Truly admirable for grandeur are the works of Him who has separated the two worlds and fixed their vast extent: of Him who has set in motion the high and sublime firmament, who has spread out the heavens above and the earth beneath. "These heavens and this earth which reach so far, flowing with milk, so beautiful in form, it is by the law of Varuna that they remain fixed, facing each other, immortal beings with fertile seed. "This Asura,[41] who is acquainted with all things, has propped up these heavens, he has fixed the boundaries of the earth. He is enthroned above all the worlds, universal king; all the laws of the world are the laws of Varuna. "In the bottomless abyss the king Varuna has lifted up the summit of the celestial tree.[42] It is the king Varuna who has traced out to the sun the broad path he is to follow: to footless creatures he has given feet so that they may run. "Those stars, which illumine the night, where were they during the day? Infallible are the laws of Varuna: the moon kindles itself and walks through the night. "Varuna has traced out paths for the sun: he has thrown forwards the fluctuating torrent of rivers. He has dug out the wide and rapid beds where the waves of the days, let loose, unroll themselves in their order.