Onatas of Croton

Croton

-In plants:* Croton , a plant genus of the family Euphorbiaceae* Crotoneae, a tribe of the subfamily Crotonoideae* Codiaeum variegatum, a plant commonly called a "Croton"...

 or Tarentum

Tarentum

Tarentum may refer to:* Taranto, Apulia, Italy; on the site of the ancient Roman city Tarentum; formerly the Greek colony Taras. See also: History of Taranto* Tarentum, Pennsylvania, United States** Tarentum Bridge, in the above place...

 was a Pythagorean

Pythagoreanism

Pythagoreanism was the system of esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were considerably influenced by mathematics. Pythagoreanism originated in the 5th century BCE and greatly influenced Platonism...

 philosopher. Nothing is known about his life, but a long passage from a work entitled On God and the Divine is preserved Stobaeus

Stobaeus

Joannes Stobaeus , from Stobi in Macedonia, was the compiler of a valuable series of extracts from Greek authors. The work was originally divided into two volumes containing two books each...

. The work probably dates from the 1st century BC or AD and is part of the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

ous Neo-Pythagorean literature.

The author ("Pseudo-Onatas") argues that God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

is a governing part of the universe, although the universe itself is not God but only divine. He argued against the belief in a single deity on the basis of the many "powers" in the universe; they must belong to different gods. He also claimed that the earthy mixture of the body defiles the purity of the soul.