most perfect power, blessed
Zeus (Sup. 522).[172] Such are some of the titles by which Zeus is most
frequently addressed; such the attributes commonly ascribed to him in
AEschylus.

Sophocles was the great master who carried Greek tragedy to its highest
perfection. Only seven out of more than a hundred of his tragedies have
come down to us. There are passages cited by Justin Martyr, Clemens
Alexandrinus, and others which are not found in those tragedies now
extant. The most famous and extensively quoted passage is given by
Cudworth.[173]

Eis tais aletheiaisin, eis estin Theos,
Os ouranon t' eteuxe kai gaian makran,
Poniou te karapon oidma, kanemon bian, k. t. l.[174]

This "one only God" is Zeus, who is the God of justice, and reigns
supreme:

"Still in yon starry heaven supreme,
Jove, all-beholding, all-directing, dwells--
To him commit thy vengeance."--"Electra," p. 174 sqq.

This description of the unsleeping, undecaying power and dominion of
Zeus is worthy of some Hebrew prophet--

"Spurning the power of age, enthroned in might,
Thou dwell'st mid heaven's broad light;
This was in ages past thy firm decree,
Is now, and shall forever be:
That none of mortal race on earth shall know
A life of joy serene, a course unmarked by woe."

"Antigone," pp. 606-614.[175]

[Footnote 172: Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 213, 214.]

[Footnote 173: "Intellectual Syst.," vol. i. p. 483.]

[Footnote 174: "There is, in truth, one only God, who made heaven and
earth, the sea, air, and winds," etc.]

[Footnote 175: "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 322.]

Whether we regard the poets as the principal theological teachers of the
ancient Greeks, or as the compilers, systematizers, and artistic
embellishers of the theological traditions and myths which were afloat
in the primitive Hellenic families, we can not resist the conclusion
that, for the masses of the people Zeus was the Supreme God, "the God of
gods" as Plato calls him. Whilst all other deities in Greece are more or
less local and tribal gods, Zeus was known in every village and to every
clan. "He is at home on Ida,[176] on Olympus, at Dodona.[177] While
Poseidon drew to himself the AEolian family, Apollo the Dorian, Athene
the Ionian, there was one powerful God for all the sons of
Hellen--Dorians, AEolians, Ionians, Achaeans, viz., the Panhellenic
Zeus."[178] Zeus was the name invoked in their sol