The existence of many gods did not necessarily mean that ancient thinkers regarded them as equals. Ralph Cudworth (1617–1688) distinguished the beings named in popular worship from the highest divine principle described by philosophers. That distinction allowed him to read pagan writings as evidence against atheism. A people might worship a crowded pantheon while its learned teachers still acknowledged a supreme source of order and life.
In The True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678), Cudworth pursued that possibility through Egyptian, Persian, and Greek traditions. Their agreements promised support for belief in God beyond the testimony of Christian Scripture. Their differences required patient explanation, especially where the language of one author seemed inconsistent with the conclusions attributed to another. Cudworth’s defence grew into an extensive collection of ancient arguments, including arguments an opponent could use.
His treatment of atomism, the account of matter as minute particles, illustrates the purpose. A physical explanation of nature did not have to imply the absence of divine government. Cudworth sought an early religious history for such teaching, resisting the claim that ancient material philosophy belonged automatically to atheism. Disputes in his own century shaped the questions he asked of the oldest sources.
The resulting book could be read in more than one way. A believer might find an impressive convergence of testimony, while a critic could question whether Cudworth had reconciled authors who actually disagreed. Because he printed so much of the material, later readers could revisit those decisions rather than merely accept his summary. His collection remained valuable even to scholars who wanted to dismantle the history he had assembled from it.