04_Biblica_Collins_Layout 1 01/04/14 11:47 Pagina 70 70 C. JOHN COLLINS that all things are from God and hold together [sune,sthken] for us through God, and no kind of thing is self-sufficient if deprived of his preserving influence (397b, 14-17). God holds this position in the cosmos, holding together [sune,cwn] the harmony and preservation of the whole (400a, 3-5). The God described here “uses an indefatigable power, by means of which he controls even things that seem a great way off” (397b, 23-25); one cannot imagine “loving” the seemingly remote God that this treatise presents 16. This God is not one of the visible items in the world; however he is “the leader and author of all things, invisible ῍ except to the eye of reason (avo,ratoj wn a;llw| plh.n logismw/|)”, who impels all visible things to move (399a, 31-32, cf. 399b, 13) 17. Pseudo-Aristotle’s De Mundo carries on a trend of Hellenistic “monotheism” in which God, or the Supreme God, “put the world together and holds it together”. This trend, using the terms sunisthmi and sune,cw, stretches back at least as far as Plato (428- , 348 B.C.E.) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.), and then to the Stoics (3rd c. B.C.E. and later), from whom I give only a sample. Plato’s Timaeus contains a “creation story” that has many interest- ing points of connection with Genesis in the LXX. In 31b, he speaks of when God “was beginning to put together (xunista,nai) the body of the All”; and 32c has instances of the verb and of a cognate noun (quoted with approval in Eusebius, Prep. Gosp., 13.18 [702d]): 16 MAGUIRE, “Sources of de Mundo”, 148, mentions “the isolation of God Himself beside the pervasiveness of His power”. In fairness to the author, this might not be the full tale of his notion of God; after all, “the bearing in our treatise is Aristotelian and scientific, not mystical” (MAGUIRE, 150). 17 Pseudo-Aristotle’s notion that God is “invisible to every mortal kind” yet “visible from his very works” (399b, 22-23) has a clear connection to Rom 1,20, which shows its relevance to Colossians (which by its attribution to Paul invites a “Pauline” reading). Cf. how G. VAN KOOTEN, “Pagan and Jewish monotheism according to Varro, Plutarch and St Paul”, Flores Flo- rentino. Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Flo- rentino García Martínez (eds. A. HILHORST – É. PUECH – E. TIGCHELAAR) (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism; Leiden 2007) 633-651, draws attention to the connections between Paul and Plutarch; he does not address Pseudo-Aristotle, nor (of course) the Christian apologists.