ABSTRACT
Posidonius's first observation was that the cosmos is in some sense a unity, yet a unity with many parts. Posidonius emphasized that the cosmos is one through a sympathy that links the different parts together, thus combining unity with diversity. But this is an older notion that can be found in the two main philosophic traditions that influenced early Christianity: Stoicism and Platonism. Both these schools- of philosophy held that the world exhibits design and order; thus natural science reveals the operations of mind in the cosmos. After the cosmos is formed, the artificer then proceeds to form all kinds of beings to inhabit this cosmos, particularly individual souls. Plotinus's search was a quest for an intuitive grasp of the order in the cosmos. Galen shared with Jews and Christians a belief that the origin of generation comes from the fashioner, but Galen rejected a simple act of divine will as the explanation of the cosmos.
