(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.)

Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing intially
before a vowel; 3 = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

EXHORTATION TO THE HEATHEN

CHAP. I.--EXHORTATION TO ABANDON THE IMPIOUS MYSTERIES OF IDOLATRY FOR THE
ADORATION OF THE DIVINE WORD AND GOD THE FATHER.

   AMPHION of Thebes and Arion of Methymna were both minstrels, and both
were renowned in story. They are celebrated in song to this day in the
chorus of the Greeks; the one for having allured the fishes, and the other
for having surrounded Thebes with walls by the power of music. Another, a
Thracian, a cunning master of his art (he also is the subject of a Hellenic
legend), tamed the wild beasts by the mere might of song; and transplanted
trees--oaks--by music. I might tell you also the story of another, a
brother to these--the subject of a myth, and a minstrel--Eunomos the
Locrian and the Pythic grasshopper. A solemn Hellenic assembly had met at
Pytho, to celebrate the death of the Pythic serpent, when Eunomos sang the
reptile's epitaph. Whether his ode was a hymn in praise of the serpent, or
a dirge, I am not able to say. But there was a contest, and Eunomos was
playing the lyre in the summer time: it was when the grasshoppers, warmed
by the sun, were chirping beneath the leaves along the hills; but they were
singing not to that dead dragon, but to God All-wise,--a lay unfettered by
rule, better than the numbers of Eunomos. The Locrian breaks a string. The
grasshopper sprang on the neck of the instrument, and sang on it as on a
branch; and the minstrel, adapting his strain to the grasshopper's song,
made up for the want of the missing string. The grasshopper then was
attracted by the song of Eunomos, as the fable represents, according to
which also a brazen statue of Eunomos with his lyre, and the Locrian's ally
in the contest, was erected at Pytho. But of its own accord it flew to the
lyre, and of its own accord sang, and was regarded by the Greeks as a
musical performer.

   How, let me ask, have you believed vain fables and supposed animals to
be charmed by music while Truth's shining face alone, as would seem appears
to you disguised, and is looked on with incredulous eyes? And so Cithaeron,
and Helicon, and the mountains of the Odrysi, and the initiatory rites of
the Thracians, mysteries of deceit, are hallowed and celebrated in hymns.
For me, I am pained at such calamities as form the subjects of tragedy,
though but myths; but by you the records of miseries are turned into
dramatic compositions.

   But the dramas and the raving poets, now quite intoxicated, let us
crown with ivy; and distracted outright as they are, in Bacchic fashion,
with the satyrs, and the frenzied rabble, and the rest of the demon crew,
let us confine to Cithaeron and Helicon, now antiquated.

   But let us bring from above out of heaven, Truth, with Wisdom in all
its brightness, and the sacred prophetic choir, down to the holy mount of
God; and let Truth, darting her light to the most distant points, cast her
rays all around on those that are involved in darkness, and deliver men
from delusion, stretching out her very strong[1] right hand, which is
wisdom, for their salvation. And raising their eyes, and looking above, let
them abandon Helicon and Cithaeron, and take up their abode in Sion. "For
out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from
Jerusalem,[2]--the celestial Word, the true athlete crowned in the theatre
of the whole universe. What my Eunomos sings is not the measure of
Terpander, nor that of Capito, nor the Phrygian, nor Lydian, nor Dorian,
but the immortal measure of the new harmony which bears God's name--the
new, the Levitical song.[3]

   "Soother of pain, calmer of wrath, producing forgetfulness of all
ills."[4]
   Sweet and true is the charm of persuasion which blends with this
strain.

   To me, therefore, that Thracian Orpheus, that Theban, and that
Methymnaean,--men, and yet unworthy of the name,--seem to have been
deceivers, who, under the pretence of poetry corrupting human life,
possessed by a spirit of artful sorcery for purposes of destruction,
celebrating crimes in their orgies, and making human woes the materials of
religious worship, were the first to entice men to idols; nay, to build up
the stupidity of the nations with blocks of wood and stone,--that is,
statues and images,--subjecting to the yoke of extremest bondage the truly
noble freedom of those who lived as free citizens under heaven by their
songs and incantations. But not such is my song, which has come to loose,
and that speedily, the bitter bondage of tyrannizing demons; and leading us
back to the mild and loving yoke of piety, recalls to heaven those that had
been cast prostrate to the earth. It alone has tamed men, the most
intractable of animals; the frivolous among them answering to the fowls of
the air, deceivers to reptiles, the irascible to lions, the voluptuous to
swine, the rapacious to wolves. The silly are stocks and stones, and still
more senseless than stones is a man who is steeped in ignorance. As our
witness, let us adduce the voice of prophecy accordant with truth, and
bewailing those who are crushed in ignorance and folly: "For God is able of
these stones to raise up children to Abraham;"[1] and He, commiserating
their great ignorance and hardness of heart who are petrified against the
truth, has raised up a seed of piety, sensitive to virtue, of those stones-
-of the nations, that is, who trusted in stones. Again, therefore, some
venomous and false hypocrites, who plotted against righteousness, He once
called "a brood of vipers."[2] But if one of those serpents even is willing
to repent, and follows the Word, he becomes a man of God.

   Others he figuratively calls wolves, clothed in sheep-skins, meaning
thereby monsters of rapacity in human form. And so all such most savage
beasts, and all such blocks of stone, the celestial song has transformed
into tractable men. "For even we ourselves were sometime foolish,
disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice
and envy, hateful, hating one another." Thus speaks the apostolic
Scripture: "But after that the kindness and love of God our saviour to man
appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to His mercy, He saved us."[3] Behold the might of the new song! It has
made men out of stones, men out of beasts. Those, moreover, that were as
dead, not being partakers of the true life, have come to life again, simply
by becoming listeners to this song. It also composed the universe into
melodious order, and tuned the discord of the elements to harmonious
arrangement, so that the whole world might become harmony. It let loose the
fluid ocean, and yet has prevented it from encroaching on the land. The
earth, again, which had been in a state of commotion, it has established,
and fixed the sea as its boundary. The violence of fire it has softened by
the atmosphere, as the Dorian is blended with the Lydian strain; and the
harsh cold of the air it has moderated by the embrace of fire, harmoniously
arranging these the extreme tones of the universe. And this deathless
strain,the support of the whole and the harmony of all,--reaching from the
centre to the circumference, and from the extremities to the central part,
has harmonized this universal frame of things, not according to the
Thracian music, which is like that invented by Jubal, but according to the
paternal counsel of God, which fired the zeal of David. And He who is of
David, and yet before him, the Word of God, despising the lyre and harp,
which are but lifeless instruments, and having tuned by the Holy Spirit the
universe, and especially man,--who, composed of body and soul, is a
universe in miniature,makes melody to God on this instrument of many tones;
and to this intrument--I mean man--he sings accordant: "For thou art my
harp, and pipe, and temple."[4]--a harp for harmony--a pipe by reason of
the Spirit- a temple by reason of the word; so that the first may sound,
the second breathe, the third contain the Lord. And David the king, the
harper whom we mentioned a little above, who exhorted to the truth and
dissuaded from idols, was so far from celebrating demons in song, that in
reality they were driven away by his music. Thus, when Saul was plagued
with a demon, he cured him by merely playing. A beautiful breathing
instrument of music the Lord made man, after His own image. And He Himself
also, surely, who is the supramundane Wisdom, the celestial Word, is the
all-harmonious, melodious, holy instrument of God. What, then, does this
instrument--the Word of God, the Lord, the New Song--desire? To open the
eyes of the blind, and unstop the ears of the deaf, and to lead the lame or
the erring to righteousness, to exhibit God to the foolish, to put a stop
to corruption, to conquer death, to reconcile disobedient children to their
father. The instrument of God loves mankind. The Lord pities, instructs,
exhorts, admonishes, saves, shields, and of His bounty promises us the
kingdom of heaven as a reward for learning; and the only advantage He reaps
is, that we are saved. For wickedness feeds on men's destruction; but
truth, like the bee, harming nothing, delights only in the salvation of
men.

   You have, then, God's promise; you have His love: become partaker of
His grace. And do not suppose the song of salvation to be new, as a vessel
or a house is new. For "before the morning star it was;" 'and "in the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God."[2] Error seems old, but truth seems a new thing.

   Whether, then, the Phrygians are shown to be the most ancient people by
the goats of the fable; or, on the other hand, the Arcadians by the poets,
who describe them as older than the moon; or, finally, the Egyptians by
those who dream that this land first gave birth to gods and men: yet none
of these at least existed before the world. But before the foundation of
the world were we, who, because destined to be in Him, pre-existed in the
eye of God before,--we the rational creatures of the Word of God, on whose
account we date from the beginning; for "in the beginning was the Word."
Well, inasmuch as the Word was from the first, He was and is the divine
source of all things; but inasmuch as He has now assumed the name Christ,
consecrated of old, and worthy of power, he has been called by me the New
Song. This Word, then, the Christ, the cause of both our being at first
(for He was in God) and of our well-being, this very Word has now appeared
as man, He alone being both, both God and man--the Author of all blessings
to us; by whom we, being taught to live well, are sent on our way to life
eternal. For, according to that inspired apostle of the Lord, "the grace of
God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us, that,
denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously,
and godly, in this present world; looking for the blessed hope, and
appearing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."[3]

   This is the New Song,[4] the manifestation of the Word that was in the
beginning, and before the beginning. The Saviour, who existed before, has
in recent days appeared. He, who is in Him that truly is, has appeared; for
the Word, who "was with God," and by whom all things were created, has
appeared as our Teacher. The Word, who in the beginning bestowed on us life
as Creator when He formed us, taught us to live well when He appeared as
our Teacher; that as God He might afterwards conduct us to the life which
never ends. He did not now for the first time pity us for our error; but He
pitied us from the first, from the beginning. But now, at His appearance,
lost as we already were, He accomplished our salvation. For that wicked
reptile monster, by his enchantments, enslaves and plagues men even till
now; inflicting, as seems to me, such barbarous vengeance on them as those
who are said to bind the captives to corpses till they rot together. This
wicked tyrant and serpent, accordingly, binding fast with the miserable
chain of superstition whomsoever he can draw to his side from their birth,
to stones, and stocks, and images, and such like idols, may with truth be
said to have taken and buried living men with those dead idols, till both
suffer corruption together.

   Therefore (for the seducer is one and the same) he that at the
beginning brought Eve down to death, now brings thither the rest of
mankind. Our ally and helper, too, is one and the same--the Lord, who from
the beginning gave revelations by prophecy, but now plainly calls to
salvation. In obedience to the apostolic injunction, therefore, let us flee
from "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience,"[5] and let us run to the Lord the saviour,
who now exhorts to salvation, as He has ever done, as He did by signs and
wonders in Egypt and the desert, both by the bush and the cloud, which,
through the favour of divine love, attended the Hebrews like a handmaid. By
the fear which these inspired He addressed the hard-hearted; while by
Moses, learned in all wisdom, and Isaiah, lover of truth, and the whole
prophetic choir, in a way appealing more to reason, He turns to the Word
those who have ears to hear. Sometimes He upbraids, and sometimes He
threatens. Some men He mourns over, others He addresses with the voice of
song, just as a good physician treats some of his patients with cataplasms,
some with rubbing, some with fomentations; in one case cuts open with the
lancet, in another cauterizes, in another amputates, in order if possible
to cure the patient's diseased part or member. The Saviour has many tones
of voice, and many methods for the salvation of men; by threatening He
admonishes, by upbraiding He converts, by bewailing He pities, by the voice
of song He cheers. He spake by the burning bush, for the men of that day
needed signs and wonders.

   He awed men by the fire when He made flame to burst from the pillar of
cloud--a token at once of grace and fear: if you obey, there is the light;
if you disobey, there is the fire; but. since humanity is nobler than the
pillar or the bush, after them the prophets uttered their voice,--the Lord
Himself speaking in Isaiah,  in Elias,--speaking Himself by the mouth of
the prophets. But if thou dost not believe the prophets, but supposest both
the men and the fire a myth, the Lord Himself shall speak to thee, "who,
being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but
humbled Himself,"[1]--He, the merciful God, exerting Himself to save man.
And now the Word Himself clearly speaks to thee, Shaming thy unbelief; yea,
I say, the Word of God became man, that thou mayest learn from man how man
may become God. Is it not then monstrous, my friends, that while God is
ceaselessly exhorting us to virtue, we should spurn His kindness and reject
salvation?

   Does not John also invite to salvation, and is he not entirely a voice
of exhortation? Let us then ask him, "Who of men art thou, and whence?" He
will not say Elias. He will deny that he is Christ, but will profess
himself to be "a voice crying in the wilderness." Who, then, is John?[2] In
a word, we may say, "The beseeching voice of the Word crying in the
wilderness." What criest thou, O voice? Tell us also. "Make straight the
paths of the LORD."[3] John is the forerunner, and that voice the precursor
of the Word; an inviting voice, preparing for salvation,--a voice urging
men on to the inheritance of the heavens, and through which the barren and
the desolate is childless no more. This fecundity the angel's voice
foretold; and this voice was also the precursor of the Lord preaching glad
tidings to the barren woman, as John did to the wilderness. By reason of
this voice of the Word, therefore, the barren woman bears children, and the
desert becomes fruitful. The two voices which heralded the Lord's--that of
the angel and that of John--intimate, as I think, the salvation in store
for us to be, that on the appearance of this Word we should reap, as the
fruit of this productiveness, eternal life. The Scripture makes this all
clear, by referring both the voices to the same thing: "Let her hear who
has not brought forth, and let her who has not had the pangs of childbirth
utter her voice: for more are the children of the desolate, than of her who
hath an husband."[4]

   The angel announced to us the glad tidings of a husband. John entreated
us to recognise the husbandman, to seek the husband. For this husband of
the barren woman, and this husbandman of the desert--who filled with divine
power the barren woman and the desert--is one and the same. For because
many were the children of the mother of noble rule, yet the Hebrew woman,
once blessed with many children, was made childless because of unbelief:
the barren woman receives the husband, and the desert the husbandman; then
both become mothers through the word, the one of fruits, the other of
believers. But to the Unbelieving the barren and the desert are still
reserved. For this reason John, the herald of the Word, besought men to
make themselves ready against the coming of the Christ Of God.[5] And it
was this which was signified by the dumbness of Zacharias, which waited for
fruit in the person of the harbinger of Christ, that the Word, the light of
truth, by becoming the Gospel, might break the mystic silence of the
prophetic enigmas. But if thou desirest truly to see God, take to thyself
means of purification worthy of Him, not leaves of laurel fillets
interwoven. with wool and purple; but wreathing thy brows with
righteousness, and encircling them with the leaves of temperance, set
thyself earnestly to find Christ. "For I am," He says, "the door,"[6] which
we who desire to understand God must discover, that He may throw heaven's
gates wide open to. us. For the gates of the Word being intellectual, are
opened by the key of faith. No one knows God but the Son, and he to whom
the Son shall reveal Him.[7] And I know well that He who has opened the
door hitherto shut, will afterwards reveal what is within; and will show
what we could not have known before, had we not entered in by Christ,
through whom alone God is beheld.

CHAP. II.--THE ABSURDITY AND IMPIETY OF THE HEATHEN MYSTERIES AND FABLES
ABOUT THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF THEIR GODS.

   Explore not then too curiously the shrines of impiety, or the mouths of
caverns full of monstrosity, or the Thesprotian caldron, or the Cirrhaean
tripod, or the Dodonian copper. The Gerandryon,[8] once regarded sacred in
the midst of desert sands, and the oracle there gone to decay with the oak
itself, consigned to the region of antiquated fables. The fountain of
Castalia is silent, and the other fountain of Colophon; and, in like
manner, all the rest of the springs of divination are dead, and stripped of
their vainglory, although at a late date, are shown with their fabulous
legends to have run dry. Recount to us also the useless[9] oracles of that
other kind of divination, or rather madness, the Clarian, the Pythian, the
Didymaean, that of Amphiaraus, of Apollo, of Amphilochus; and if you will,
couple[10] with them the expounders of prodigies, the augurs, and the
interpreters of dreams. And bring and place beside the Pythian those that
divine by flour, and those that divine by barley, and the ventriloquists
still held in honour by many. Let the secret shrines of the Egyptians and
the necromancies of the Etruscans be consigned to darkness. Insane devices
truly are they all of unbelieving men. Goats, too, have been confederates
in this art of soothsaying, trained to divination; and crows taught by men
to give oracular responses to men.

   And what if I go over the mysteries? I will not divulge them in
mockery, as they say Alcibiades did, but I will expose right well by the
word of truth the sorcery hidden in them; and those so-called gods of
yours, whose are the mystic rites, I shall display, as it were, on the
stage of life, to the spectators of truth. The bacchanals hold their orgies
in honour of the frenzied Dionysus, celebrating their sacred frenzy by the
eating of raw flesh, and go through the distribution of the parts of
butchered victims, crowned with snakes, shrieking out the name of that Eva
by whom error came into the world. The symbol of the Bacchic orgies. is a
consecrated serpent. Moreover, according to the strict interpretation of
the Hebrew term, the name Hevia, aspirated, signifies a female serpent.

   Demeter and Proserpine have become the heroines of a mystic drama; and
their wanderings, and seizure, and grief, Eleusis celebrates by torchlight
processions. I think that the derivation of orgies and mysteries ought to
be traced, the former to the wrath (orgh') of Demeter against Zeus, the
latter to the nefarious wickedness (mu'sos) relating to Dionysus; but if
from Myus of Attica, who Pollodorus says was killed in hunting--no matter,
I don't grudge your mysteries the glory of funeral honours. You may
understand mysteria in another way, as mytheria (hunting fables), the
letters of the two words being interchanged; for certainly fables of this
sort hunt after the most barbarous of the Thracians, the most senseless of
the Phrygians, and the superstitious among the Greeks.

   Perish, then, the man who was the author of this imposture among men,
be he Dardanus, who taught the mysteries of the mother of the gods, or
Eetion, who instituted the orgies and mysteries of the Samothracians, or
that Phrygian Midas who, having learned the cunning imposture from Odrysus,
communicated it to his subjects. For I will never be persuaded by that
Cyprian Islander Cinyras, who dared to bring forth from night to the light
of day the lewd orgies of Aphrodite in his eagerness to deify a strumpet of
his own country. Others say that Melampus the son of Amythaon imported the
festivals of Ceres from Egypt into Greece, celebrating her grief in song.

   These I would instance as the prime authors of evil, the parents of
impious fables and of deadly superstition, who sowed in human life that
seed of evil and ruin--the mysteries.

   And now, for it is time, I will prove their orgies to be full of
imposture and quackery. And if you have been initiated, you will laugh all
the more at these fables of yours which have been held in honour. I publish
without reserve what has been involved in secrecy, not ashamed to tell what
you are not ashamed to worship.

   There is then the foam-born and Cyprus-born, the darling of Cinyras,--I
mean Aphrodite, lover of the virilia, because sprung from them, even from
those of Uranus, that were cut off,--those lustful members, that, after
being cut off, offered violence to the waves. Of members so lewd a worthy
fruit--Aphrodite--is born. In the rites which celebrate this enjoyment of
the sea, as a symbol of her birth a lump of suit and the phallus are handed
to those who are initiated into the art of uncleanness. And those initiated
bring a piece of money to her, as a courtesan's paramours do to her,

   Then there are the mysteries of Demeter, and Zeus's wanton embraces of
his mother, and the wrath of Demeter; I know not what for the future I
shall call her, mother or wife, on which account it is that she is called
Brimo, as is said; also the entreaties of Zeus, and the drink of gall, the
plucking out of the hearts of sacrifices, and deeds that we dare not name.
Such rites the Phrygians perform in honour of Attis and Cybele and the
Corybantes. And the story goes, that Zeus, having torn away the orchites of
a ram, brought them out and cast them at the breasts of Demeter, paying
thus a fraudulent penalty for his violent embrace, pretending to have cut
out his own. The symbols of initiation into these rites, when set before
you in a vacant hour, I know will excite your laughter, although on account
of the exposure by no means inclined to laugh. "I have eaten out of the
drum, I have drunk out of the cymbal, I have carried the Cernos,[1] I have
slipped into the bedroom." Are not these tokens a disgrace? Are not the
mysteries absurdity?

   What if I add the rest? Demeter becomes a mother, Core[2] is reared up
to womanhood. And, in course of time, he who begot her,--this same Zeus has
intercourse with his own daughter Pherephatta,--after Ceres, the mother,--
forgetting his former abominable wickedness. Zeus is both the father and
the seducer of Core, and shamefully courts her in the shape of a dragon;
his identity, however, was discovered. The token of the Sabazian mysteries
to the initiated is "the deity gliding over the breast,"--the deity being
this serpent crawling over the breasts of the initiated. Proof surely this
of the unbridled lust of Zeus. Pherephatta has a child, though, to be sure,
in the form of a bull, as an idolatrous poet says,--

   "The bull The dragon's father, and the father of the bull the dragon,
   On shill the herdsman's hidden ox-goad,"--

alluding, as I believe, under the name of the herdsman's ox-goad, to the
reed wielded by bacchanals. Do you wish me to go into the story of
Persephatta's gathering of flowers, her basket, and her seizure by Pluto
(Aidoneus), and the rent in the earth, and the swine of Eubouleus that were
swallowed up with the two goddesses; for which reason, in the Thesmophoria,
speaking the Megaric tongue, they thrust out swine? This mythological story
the women celebrate variously in different cities in the festivals called
Thesmophoria and Scirophoria; dramatizing in many forms the rape of
Pherephatta or Persephatta (Proserpine).

   The mysteries of Dionysus are wholly inhuman; for while still a child,
and the Curetes danced around [his cradle] clashing their weapons, and the
Titans having come upon them by stealth, and having beguiled him with
childish toys, these very Titans tore him limb from limb when but a child,
as the bard of this mystery, the Thracian Orpheus, says:--

   "Cone, and spinning-top, and limb-moving rattles,
   And fair golden apples from the clear-toned Hesperides."

And the useless symbols of this mystic rite it will not be useless to
exhibit for condemnation. These are dice, ball, hoop, apples, top,[1]
looking-glass, tuft of wool.

   Athene (Minerva), to resume our account, having abstracted the heart of
Dionysus, was called Pallas, from the vibrating of the heart; and the
Titans who had torn him limb from limb, setting a caldron on a tripod, and
throwing into it the members of Dionysus, first boiled them down, and then
fixing them on spits, "held them over the fire." But Zeus having appeared,
since he was a god, having speedily perceived the savour of the pieces of
flesh that were being cooked,--that savour which your gods agree to have
assigned to them as their perquisite,assails the Titans with his
thunderbolt, and consigns the members of Dionysus to his son Apollo to be
interred. And he--for he did not disobey Zeus--bore the dismembered corpse
to Parnassus, and there deposited it.

   If you wish to inspect the orgies of the Corybantes, then know that,
having killed their third brother, they covered the head of the dead body
with a purple cloth, crowned it, and carrying it on the point of a spear,
buried it under the roots of Olympus. These mysteries are, in short,
murders and funerals. And the priests of these rites, who are called kings
of the sacred rites by those whose business it is to name them, give
additional strangeness to the tragic occurrence, by forbidding parsley with
the roots from being placed on the table, for they think that parsley grew
from the Corybantic blood that flowed forth; just as the women, in
celebrating the Thesmophoria, abstain from eating the seeds of the
pomegranate which have fallen on the ground, from the idea that
pomegranates sprang from the drops of the blood of Dionysus. Those
Corybantes also they call Cabiric; and the ceremony itself they announce as
the Cabiric mystery.

   For those two identical fratricides, having abstracted the box in which
the phallus of Bacchus was deposited, took it to Etruria--dealers in
honourable wares truly. They lived there as exiles, employing themselves in
communicating the precious teaching of their superstition, and presenting
phallic symbols and the box for the Tyrrhenians to worship. And some will
have it, not improbably, that for this reason Dionysus was called Attis,
because he was mutilated. And what is surprising at the Tyrrhenians, who
were barbarians, being thus initiated into these foul indignities, when
among the Athenians, and in the whole of Greece--I blush to say it--the
shameful legend about Demeter holds its ground? For Demeter, wandering in
quest of her daughter Core, broke down with fatigue near Eleusis, a place
in Attica, and sat down on a well overwhelmed with grief. This is even now
prohibited to those who are initiated, lest they should appear to mimic the
weeping goddess. The indigenous inhabitants then occupied Eleusis: their
names were Baubo, and Dusaules, and Triptolemus; and besides, Eumolpus and
Eubouleus. Triptolemus was a herdsman, Eumolpus a shepherd, and Eubouleus a
swineherd; from whom came the race of the Eumolpidae and that of the
Heralds--a race of Hierophants--who flourished at Athens.

   Well, then (for I shall not refrain from the recital), Baubo having
received Demeter hospitably, reaches to her a refreshing draught; and on
her refusing it, not having any inclination to drink (for she was very
sad), and Baubo having become annoyed, thinking herself slighted, uncovered
her shame, and exhibited her nudity to the goddess. Demeter is delighted at
the sight, and takes, though with difficulty, the draught--pleased, I
repeat, at the spectacle. These are the secret mysteries of the Athenians;
these Orpheus records. I shall produce the very words of Orpheus, that you
may have the great authority on the mysteries himself, as evidence for this
piece of turpitude:--

   "Having thus spoken, she drew aside her garments,
   And showed all that shape of the body which it is improper to name,
   And with her own hand Baubo stripped herself under the breasts.
   Blandly then the goddess laughed and laughed in her mind,
   And received the glancing cup in which was the draught."

   And the following is the token of the Eleusinian mysteries: I have
fasted, I have drunk the cup; I have received from the box; having done, I
put it into the basket, and out of the basket into the chest.[1] Fine
sights truly, and becoming a goddess; mysteries worthy of the night, and
flame, and the magnanimous or rather silly people of the Erechthidae, and
the other Greeks besides, "whom a fate they hope not for awaits after
death." And in truth against these Heraclitus the Ephesian prophesies, as
"the night-walkers, the magi, the bacchanals, the Lenaean revellers, the
initiated." These he threatens with what will follow death, and predicts
for them fire. For what are regarded among men as mysteries, they celebrate
sacrilegiously. Law, then, and opinion, are nugatory. And the mysteries of
the dragon are an imposture, which celebrates religiously mysteries that
are no mysteries at all, and observes with a spurious piety profane rites.
What are these mystic chests?--for I must expose their sacred things, and
divulge things not fit for speech. Are they not sesame cakes, and pyramidal
cakes, and globular and flat cakes, embossed all over, and lumps of salt,
and a serpent the symbol of Dionysus Bassareus? And besides these, are they
not pomegranates, and branches, and rods, and ivy leaves? and besides,
round cakes and poppy seeds? And further, there are the unmentionable
symbols of Themis, marjoram, a lamp, a sword, a woman's comb, which is a
euphemism and mystic expression for the muliebria.

   O unblushing shamelessness! Once on a time night was silent, a veil for
the pleasure of temperate men; but now for the initiated, the holy night is
the tell-tale of the rites of licentiousness; and the glare of torches
reveals vicious indulgences. Quench the flame, O Hierophant; reverence, O
Torch-bearer, the torches. That light exposes Iacchus; let thy mysteries be
honoured, and command the orgies to be hidden in night and darkness.[2]

   The fire dissembles not; it exposes and punishes what it is bidden.

   Such are the mysteries of the Atheists.[3] And with reason I call those
Atheists who know not the true God, and pay shameless worship to a boy torn
in pieces by the Titans, and a woman in distress, and to parts of the body
that in truth cannot be mentioned for shame, held fast as they are in the
double impiety, first in that they know not God, not acknowledging as God
Him who truly is; the other and second is the error of regarding those who
exist not, as existing and calling those gods that have no real existence,
or rather no existence at all, who have nothing but a name. Wherefore the
apostle reproves us, saying, "And ye were strangers to the covenants of
promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."[4]

   All honour to that king of the Scythians, whoever Anacharsis was, who
shot with an arrow one of his subjects who imitated among the Scythians the
mystery of the Mother of the gods, as practised by the inhabitants of
Cyzicus, beating a drum and sounding a cymbal strung from his neck like a
priest of Cybele, condemning him as having become effeminate among the
Greeks, and a teacher of the disease of effeminacy to the rest of the
Cythians.

   Wherefore (for I must by no means conceal it) I cannot help wondering
how Euhemerus of Agrigentum, and Nicanor of Cyprus, and Diagoras, and Hippo
of Melos, and besides these, that Cyrenian of the name of Theodorus, and
numbers of others, who lived a sober life, and had a clearer insight than
the rest of the world into the prevailing error respecting those gods, were
called Atheists; for if they did not arrive at the knowledge of the truth,
they certainly suspected the error of the common opinion; which suspicion
is no insignificant seed, and becomes the germ of true wisdom. One of these
charges the Egyptians thus: "If you believe them to be gods, do not mourn
or bewail them; and if you mourn and bewail them, do not any more regard
them as gods." And another, taking an image of Hercules made of wood (for
he happened most likely to be cooking something at home), said, "Come now,
Hercules; now is the time to undergo for us this thirteenth labour, as you
did the twelve for Eurystheus, and make this ready for Diagoras," and so
cast it into the fire as a log of wood. For the extremes of ignorance are
atheism and superstition, from which we must endeavour to keep. And do you
not see Moses, the hierophant of the truth, enjoining that no eunuch, or
emasculated man, or son of a harlot, should enter the congregation? By the
two first he alludes to the impious custom by which men were deprived both
of divine energy and of their virility; and by the third, to him who, in
place of the only real God, assumes many gods falsely so called,--as the
son of a harlot, in ignorance of his true father, may claim many putative
fathers.

   There was an innate original communion between men and heaven, obscured
through ignorance, but which now at length has leapt forth instantaneously
from the darkness, and shines resplendent; as has been expressed by one[1]
in the following lines:--

   "See'st thou this lofty, this boundless ether,
   Holding the earth in the embrace of its humid arms."

And in these:--

   "O Thou, who makest the earth Thy chariot, and in the earth hast Thy
seat,
Whoever Thou be, baffling our efforts to behold Thee."

And whatever else the sons of the poets sing.

   But sentiments erroneous, and deviating from what is right, and
certainly pernicious, have turned man, a creature of heavenly origin, away
from the heavenly life, and stretched him on the earth, by inducing him to
cleave to earthly objects. For some, beguiled by the contemplation of the
heavens, and trusting to their sight alone, while they looked on the
motions of the stars, straightway were seized with admiration, and deified
them, calling the stars gods from their motion (theo's from thei^n); and
worshipped the sun,--as, for example, the Indians; and the moon, as the
Phrygians. Others, plucking the benignant fruits of earth-born plants,
called grain Demeter, as the Athenians, and the vine Dionysus, as the
Thebans. Others, considering the penalties of wickedness, deified them,
worshipping various forms of retribution and calamity. Hence the Erinnyes,
and the Eumenides, and the piacular deities, and the judges and avengers of
crime, are the creations of the tragic poets.

   And some even of the philosophers, after the poets, make idols of forms
of the affections in your breasts,--such as fear, and love, and joy, and
hope; as, to be sure, Epimenides of old, who raised ar Athens the altars of
Insult and Impudence. Other objects deified by men take their rise from
events, and are fashioned in bodily shape, such as a Dike, a Clotho, and
Lachesis, and Atropos, and Heimarmene, and Auxo, and Thallo, which are
Attic goddesses. There is a sixth mode of introducing error and of
manufacturing gods, according to which they number the twelve gods, whose
birth is the theme of which Hesiod sings in his Theogony, and of whom Homer
speaks in all that he says of the gods. The last mode remains (for there
are seven in all)--that which takes its rise from the divine beneficence
towards men. For, not understanding that it is God that does us good, they
have invented saviours in the persons of the Dioscuri, and Hercules the
averter of evil, and Asclepius the healer. These are the slippery and
hurtful deviations from the truth which draw man down from heaven, and cast
him into the abyss. I wish to show thoroughly what like these gods of yours
are, that now at length you may abandon your delusion, and speed your
flight back to heaven. "For we also were once children of wrath, even as
others; but God, being rich in mercy, for the great love wherewith He loved
us, when we were now dead in trespasses, quickened us together with
Christ."[2] For the Word is living, and having been buried with Christ, is
exalted with God. But those who are still unbelieving are called children
of wrath, reared for wrath. We who have been rescued from error, and
restored to the truth, are no longer the nurslings of wrath. Thus,
therefore, we who were once the children of lawlessness, have through the
philanthropy of the Word now become the sons of God.

   But to you a poet of your own, Empedocles of Agrigentum, comes and
says:--

   "Wherefore, distracted with grievous evils,
   You will never ease your soul of its miserable woes."

   The most of what is told of your gods is fabled and invented; and those
things which are supposed to have taken place, are recorded of vile men who
lived licentious lives:--

   "You walk in pride and madness,
   And leaving the right and straight path, you have gone away
   Through thorns and briars. Why do ye wander?
   Cease, foolish men, from mortals;
   Leave the darkness of night, and lay hold on the light."

   These counsels the Sibyl, who is at once prophetic and poetic, enjoins
on us; and truth enjoins them on us too, stripping the crowd of deities of
those terrifying and threatening masks of theirs, disproving the rash
opinions formed of them by showing the similarity of names. For there are
those who reckon three Jupiters: him of Aether in Arcadia, and the other
two sons of Kronos; and of these, one in Crete, and the others again in
Arcadia. And there are those that reckon five Athenes: the Athenian, the
daughter of Hephaestus; the second, the Egyptian, the daughter of Nilus;
the third the inventor of war, the daughter of Kronos; the fourth, the
daughter of Zeus, whom the Messenians have named Coryphasia, from her
mother; above all, the daughter of Pallas and Titanis, the daughter of
Oceanus, who, having wickedly killed her father, adorned herself with her
father's skin, as if it had been the fleece of a sheep. Further, Aristotle
calls the first Apollo, the son of Hephaestus and Athene (consequently
Athene is no more a virgin); the second, that in Crete, the son of Corybas;
the third, the son Zeus; the fourth, the Arcadian, the son of Silenus (this
one is called by the Arcadians Nomius); and in addition to these, he
specifies the Libyan Apollo, the son of Ammon; and to these Didymus the
grammarian adds a sixth, the son of Magnes. And now how many Apollos are
there? They are numberless, mortal men, all helpers of their fellow-men who
similarly with those already mentioned have been so called. And what were I
to mention the many Asclepiuses, or all the Mercuries that are reckoned up,
or the Vulcans of fable? Shall I not appear extravagant, deluging your ears
with these numerous names?

   At any rate, the native countries of your gods, and their arts and
lives, and besides especially their sepulchres, demonstrate them to have
been men. Mars, accordingly, who by the poets is held in the highest
possible honour:--

"Mars, Mars, bane of men, blood-stained stormer of walls,"[1]--

this deity, always changing sides, and implacable, as Epicharmus says, was
a Spartan; Sophocles knew him for a Thracian; others say he was an
Arcadian. This god, Homer says, was bound thirteen months:--

   "Mars had his suffering; by Aloeus' sons,
   Otus and Ephialtes, strongly bound,
   He thirteen months in brazen fetters lay."[2]

Good luck attend the Carians, who sacrifice dogs to him! And may the
Scythians never leave off sacrificing asses, as Apollodorus and Callimachus
relate:--

   "Phoebus rises propitious to the Hyperboreans,
   Then they offer sacrifices of asses to him."

And the same in another place:--

   "Fat sacrifices of asses' flesh delight Phoebus."

Hephaestus, whom Jupiter cast from Olympus, from its divine threshold,
having fallen on Lemnos, practised the art of working in brass, maimed in
his feet:--

   "His tottering knees were bowed beneath his weight."[3]

You have also a doctor, and not only a brass-worker among the gods. And the
doctor was greedy of gold; Asclepius was his name. I shall produce as a
witness your own poet, the Boeotian Pindar:--

   "Him even the gold glittering in his hands,
   Amounting to a splendid fee, persuaded
   To rescue a man, already death's capture, from his grasp;
   But Saturnian Jove, having shot his bolt through both,
   Quickly took the breath from their breasts,
   And his flaming thunderbolt sealed their doom."

And Euripides:--

   "For Zeus was guilty of the murder of my son
   Asclepius, by casting the lightning flame at his breast."

He therefore lies struck with lightning in the regions of Cynosuris.
Philochorus also says, that Poseidon was worshipped as a physician in
Tenos; and that Kronos settled in Sicily, and there was buried. Patroclus
the Thurian, and Sophocles the younger, in three tragedies, have told the
story of the Dioscuri; and these Dioscuri were only two mortals, if Homer
is worthy of of credit:--

   ".  .  .  .  .  .  but they beneath the teeming earth,
   In Lacedaemon lay, their native land."[4]

And, in addition, he who wrote the Cyprian poems says Castor was mortal,
and death was decreed to him by fate; but Pollux was immortal, being the
progeny of Mars. This he has poetically fabled. But Homer is more worthy of
credit, who spoke as above of both the Dioscuri; and, besides, proved
Herucles to be a mere phantom:--

   "The man Hercules, expert in mighty deeds."

Hercules, therefore, was known by Homer himself as only a mortal man. And
Hieronymus the philosopher describes the make of his body, as tall,[5]
bristling-haired, robust; and Dicaearchus says that he was square-built,
muscular, dark, hook-nosed, with greyish eyes and long hair. This Hercules,
accordingly, after living fifty-two years, came to his end, and was burned
in a funeral pyre in OEta.

   As for the Muses, whom Alcander calls the daughters of Zeus and
Mnemosyne, and the rest of the poets and authors deify and worship,-those
Muses, in honour of whom whole states have already erected museums, being
handmaids, were hired by Megaclo, the daughter of Macar. This Macar reigned
over the Lesbians, and was always quarrelling with his wife; and Megaclo
was vexed for her mother's sake. What would she not do on her account?
Accordingly she hires those handmaids, being so many in number, and calls
them Mysae, according to the dialect of the Aeolians. These she taught to
sing deeds of the olden time, and play melodiously on the lyre. And they,
by assiduously playing the lyre, and singing sweetly to it, soothed Macar,
and put a stop to his ill-temper. Wherefore Megaclo, as a token of
gratitude to them, on her mother's account erected brazen pillars, and
ordered them to be held in honour in all the temples. Such, then, are the
Muses. This account is in Myrsilus of Lesbos.

   And now, then, hear the loves of your gods, and the incredible tales of
their licentiousness, and their wounds, and their bonds, and their
laughings, and their fights, their servitudes too, and their banquets; and
furthermore, their embraces, and tears, and sufferings, and lewd delights.
Call me Poseidon, and the troop of damsels deflowered by him, Amphitrite
Amymone, Alope, Melanippe, Alcyone, Hippothoe, Chione, and myriads of
others; with whom, though so many, the passions of your Poseidon were not
satiated.

   Call me Apollo; this is Phoebus, both a holy prophet and a good
adviser. But Sterope will not say that, nor Aethousa, nor Arsinoe, nor
Zeuxippe, nor Prothoe, nor Marpissa, nor Hypsipyle. For Daphne alone
escaped the prophet and seduction.

   And, above all, let the father of gods and men, according to you,
himself come, who was so given to sexual pleasure, as to lust after all,
and indulge his lust on all, like the goats of the Thmuitae. And thy poems,
O Homer, fill me with admiration!

   "He said, and nodded with his shadowy brows;
   Waved on the immortal head the ambrosial locks,
   And all Olympus trembled at his nod."[1]

   Thou makest Zeus venerable, O Homer; and the nod which thou dost
ascribe to him is most reverend. But show him only a woman's girdle, and
Zeus is exposed, and his locks are dishonoured. To what a pitch of
licentiousness did that Zeus of yours proceed, who spent so many nights in
voluptuousness with Alcmene? For not even these nine nights were long to
this insatiable monster. But, on the contrary, a whole lifetime were short
enough for his lust; that he might beget for us the evil-averting god.

   Hercules, the son of Zeus--a true son of Zeus--was the offspring of
that long night, who with hard toil accomplished the twelve labours in a
long time, but in one night deflowered the fifty daughters of Thestius, and
thus was at once the debaucher and the bridegroom of so many virgins. It is
not, then, without reason that the poets call him a cruel wretch and a
nefarious scoundrel. It were tedious to recount his adulteries of all
sorts, and debauching of boys. For your gods did not even abstain from
boys, one having loved Hylas, another Hyacinthus, another Pelops, another
Chrysippus, and another Ganymede. Let such gods as these be worshipped by
your wives, and let them pray that their husbands be such as these--so
temperate; that, emulating them in the same practices, they may be like the
gods. Such gods let your boys be trained to worship, that they may grow up
to be men with the accursed likeness of fornication on them received from
the gods.

   But it is only the male deities, perhaps, that are impetuous in sexual
indulgence.

   "The female deities stayed each in the house, for shame,"[2] says
Homer; the goddesses blushing, for modesty's sake, to look on Aphrodite
when she had been guilty of adultery. But these are more passionately
licentious, bound in the chains of adultery; Eos having disgraced herself
with Tithonus, Selene with Endymion, Nereis with Aeacus, Thetis with
Peleus, Demeter with Jason, Persephatta with Adonis. And Aphrodite having
disgraced herself with Ares, crossed over to Cinyra and married Anchises,
and laid snares for Phaethon, and loved Adonis. She contended with the ox-
eyed Juno; and the goddesses un-robed for the sake of the apple, and
presented themselves naked before the shepherd, that he might decide which
was the fairest.

   But come, let us briefly go the round of the games, and do away with
those solemn assemblages at tombs, the Isthmian, Nemean, and Pythian, and
finally the Olympian. At Pytho the Pythian dragon is worshipped, and the
festival-assemblage of the serpent is called by the name Pythia. At the
Isthmus the sea spit out a piece of miserable refuse; and the Isthmian
games bewail Melicerta.

   At Nemea another--a little boy, Archemorus--was buried; and the funeral
games of the child are called Nemea. Pisa is the grave of the Phrygian
charioteer, O Hellenes of all tribes; and the Olympian games, which are
nothing else than the funeral sacrifices of Pelops, the Zeus of Phidias
claims for himself. The mysteries were then, as is probable, games held in
honour of the dead; so also were the oracles, and both became public. But
the mysteries at Sagra[3] and in Alimus of Attica were confined to Athens.
But those contests and phalloi consecrated to Dionysus were a world's
shame, pervading life with their deadly influence. For Dionysus, eagerly
desiring to descend to Hades, did not know the way; a man, by name
Prosymnus, offers to tell him, not without reward. The reward was a
disgraceful one, though not so in the opinion of Dionysus: it was an
Aphrodisian favour that was asked of Dionysus as a reward. The god was not
reluctant to grant the request made to him, and promises to fulfil it
should he return, and confirms his promise with an oath. Having learned the
way, he departed and again returned: he did not find Prosymnus, for he had
died. In order to acquit himself of his promise to his lover, he rushes to
his tomb, and burns with unnatural lust. Cutting a fig-branch that came to
his hand, he shaped the phallus, and so performed his promise to the dead
man. As a mystic memorial of this incident, phalloi are raised aloft in
honour of Dionysus through the various cities. "For did they not make a
procession in honour of Dionysus, and sing most shameless songs in honour
of the pudenda, all would go wrong," says Heraclitus. This is that Pluto
and Dionysus in whose honour they give themselves up to frenzy, and play
the bacchanal,--not so much, in my opinion, for the sake of intoxication,
as for the sake of the shameless ceremonial practised. With reason,
therefore, such as have become slaves of their passions are your gods!

   Furthermore, like the Helots among the Lacedemonians, Apollo came under
the yoke of slavery to Admetus in Pherae, Hercules to Omphale in Sardis.
Poseidon--was a drudge to Laomedon; and so was Apollo, who, like a good-
for-nothing servant, was unable to obtain his freedom from his former
master; and at that time the walls of Troy were built by them for the
Phrygian. And Homer is not ashamed to speak of Athene as appearing to
Ulysses with a golden lamp in her hand. And we read of Aphrodite, like a
wanton serving-wench, taking and setting a seat for Helen opposite the
adulterer, in order to entice him.

   Panyasis, too, tells us of gods in plenty besides those who acted as
servants, writing thus:--

   "Demeter underwent servitude, and so did the famous lame god;
   Poseidon underwent it, and Apollo too, of the silver bow,
   With a mortal man for a year. And fierce Mars
   Underwent it at the compulsion of his father."

And so on.

   Agreeably to this, it remains for me to bring before you those amatory
and sensuous deities of yours, as in every respect having human feelings.

   "For theirs was a mortal body."

   This Homer most distinctly shows, by introducing Aphrodite uttering
loud and shrill cries on account of her wound; and describing the most
warlike Ares himself as wounded in the stomach by Diomede. Polemo, too,
says that Athene was wounded by Ornytus; nay, Homer says that Pluto even
was struck with an arrow by Hercules; and Panyasis relates that the beams
of Sol were struck by the arrows of Hercules;[1] and the same Panyasis
relates, that by the same Hercules Hera the goddess of marriage was wounded
in sandy Pylos. Sosibius, too, relates that Hercules was wounded in the
hand by the sons of Hippocoon. And if there are wounds, there is blood. For
the ichor of the poets is more repulsive than blood; for the putrefaction
of blood is called ichor. Wherefore cures and means of sustenance of which
they stand in need must be furnished. Accordingly mention is made of
tables, and potations, and laughter, and intercourse; for men would not
devote themselves to love, or beget children, or sleep, if they were
immortal, and had no wants, and never grew old. Jupiter himself, when the
guest of Lycaon the Arcadian, partook of a human table among the
Ethiopians--a table rather inhuman and forbidden. For he satiated himself
with human flesh unwittingly; for the god did not know that Lycaon the
Arcadian, his entertainer, had slain his son (his name was Nyctimus), and
served him up cooked before Zeus.

   This is Jupiter the good, the prophetic, the patron of hospitality, the
protector of suppliants, the benign, the author of omens, the avenger of
wrongs; rather the unjust, the violater of right and of law, the impious,
the inhuman, the violent, the seducer, the adulterer, the amatory. But
perhaps when he was such he was a man; but now these fables seem to have
grown old on our hands. Zeus is no longer a serpent, a swan, nor an eagle,
nor a licentious man; the god no longer flies, nor loves boys, nor kisses,
nor offers violence, although there are still many beautiful women, more
comely than Leda, more blooming than Semele, and boys of better looks and
manners than the Phrygian herdsman. Where is now that eagle? where now that
swan? where now is Zeus himself? He has grown old with his feathers; for as
yet he does not repent of his amatory exploits, nor is he taught
continence. The fable is exposed before you: Leda is dead, the swan is
dead. Seek your Jupiter. Ransack not heaven, but earth. The Cretan, in
whose country he was buried, will show him to you,--I mean Callimachus, in
his hymns:--

   "For thy tomb, O king,
   The Cretans fashioned!"

For Zeus is dead, be not distressed, as Leda is dead, and the swan, and the
eagle, and the libertine, and the serpent. And now even the superstitious
seem, although reluctantly, yet truly, to have come to understand their
error respecting the Gods.

   "For not from an ancient oak, nor from a rock,
   But from men, is thy descent."[2]

But shortly after this, they will be found to be but oaks and stones. One
Agamemnon is said by Staphylus to be worshipped as a Jupiter in Sparta; and
Phanocles, in his book of the Brave and Fair, relates that Agamemnon king
of the Hellenes erected the temple of Argennian Aphrodite, in honour of
Argennus his friend. An Artemis, named the Strangled, is worshipped by the
Arcadians, as Callimachus says in his Book of Causes; and at Methymna
another Artemis had divine honours paid her, viz., Artemis Condylitis.
There is also the temple of another Artemis--Artemis Podagra (or, the
gout)--in Laconica, as Sosibius says. Polemo tells of an image of a yawning
Apollo; and again of another image, reverenced in Elis, of the guzzling
Apollo. Then the Eleans sacrifice to Zeus, the averter of flies; and the
Romans sacrifice to Hercules, the averter of flies; and to Fever, and to
Terror, whom also they reckon among the attendants of Hercules. (I pass
over the Argives, who worshipped Aphrodite, opener of graves.) The Argives
and Spartans reverence Artemis Chelytis, or the cougher, from chelu'ttein,
which in their speech signifies to cough.

   Do you imagine from what source these details have been quoted? Only
such as are furnished by yourselves are here adduced; and you do not seem
to recognise your own writers, whom I call as witnesses against your
unbelief. Poor wretches that ye are, who have filled with unholy jesting
the whole compass of your life--a life in reality devoid of life!

   Is not Zeus the Baldhead worshipped in Argos; and another Zeus, the
avenger, in Cyprus? Do not the Argives sacrifice to Aphrodite Peribaso (the
protectress),[1] and the Athenians to Aphrodite Hetsera (the courtesan),
and the Syracusans to Aphrodite Kallipygos, whom Nicander has somewhere
called Kalliglutos (with beautiful rump). I pass over in silence just now
Dionysus Choiropsales.[2] The Sicyonians reverence this deity, whom they
have constituted the god of the muliebria--the patron of filthiness--and
religiously honour as the author of licentiousness. Such, then, are their
gods; such are they also who make mockery of the gods, or rather mock and
insult themselves. How much better are the Egyptians, who in their towns
and villages pay divine honours to the irrational creatures, than the
Greeks, who worship such gods as these?

   For if they are beasts, they are not adulterous or libidinous, and seek
pleasure in nothing that is contrary to nature. And of what sort these
deities are, what need is there further to say, as they have been already
sufficiently exposed? Furthermore, the Egyptians whom I have now mentioned
are divided in their objects of worship. The Syenites worship the braize-
fish; and the maiotes--this is another fish--is worshipped by those who
inhabit Elephantine: the Oxyrinchites likewise worship a fish which takes
its name from their country. Again, the Heraclitopolites worship the
ichneumon, the inhab, itants of Sais and of Thebes a sheep, the
Leucopolites a wolf, the Cynopolites a dog, the Memphites Apis, the
Mendesians a goat. And you, who are altogether better than the Egyptians (I
shrink from saying worse)., who never cease laughing every day of your
lives at the Egyptians, what are some of you, too, with regard to brute
beasts? For of your number the Thessalians pay divine homage to storks, in
accordance with ancient custom; and the Thebans to weasels, for their
assistance at the birth of Hercules. And again, are not the Thessalians
reported to worship ants, since they have learned that Zeus in the likeness
of an ant had intercourse with Eurymedusa, the daughter of Cletor, and
begot Myrmidon? Polemo, too, relates that the people who inhabit the Troad
worship the mice of the country, which they call Sminthoi, because they
gnawed the strings of their enemies' bows; and from those mice Apollo has
received his epithet of Sminthian. Heraclides, in his work, Regarding the
Building of Temples in Acarnania, says that, at the place where the
promontory of Actium is, and the temple of Apollo of Actium, they offer to
the flies the sacrifice of an ox.

   Nor shall I forget the Samians: the Samians, as Euphorion says,
reverence the sheep. Nor shall I forget the Syrians, who inhabit Phoenicia,
of whom some revere doves, and others fishes, with as excessive veneration
as the Eleans do Zeus. Well, then, since those you worship are not gods, it
seems to me requisite to ascertain if those are really demons who are
ranked, as you say, in this second order[next the gods]. For if the
lickerish and impure are demons, indigenous demons who have obtained sacred
honours may be discovered in crowds throughout your cities: Menedemus among
the Cythnians; among the Tenians, Callistagoras; among the Delians, Anius;
among the Laconians, Astrabacus; at Phalerus, a hero affixed to the prow of
ships is worshipped; and the Pythian priestess enjoined the Plataeans to
sacrifice to Androcrates and Democrates, and Cyclaeus and Leuco while the
Median war was at its height. Other demons in plenty may be brought to
light by any one who can look about him a little.

   "For thrice ten thousand are there in the all-nourishing earth
   Of demons immortal, the guardians of articulate-speaking men."[3]

   Who these guardians are, do not grudge, O Boeotian, to tell. Is it not
clear that they are those we have mentioned, and those of more renown, the
great demons, Apollo, Artemis, Leto, Demeter, Core, Pluto, Hercules, and
Zeus himself?

   But it is from running away that they guard us, O Ascraean, or perhaps
it is from sinning, as forsooth they have never tried their hand at sin
themselves! In that case verily the proverb may fitly be uttered:--

   "The father who took no admonition admonishes his son."

   If these are our guardians, it is not because they have any ardour of
kindly feeling towards us, but intent on your ruin, after the manner of
flatterers, they prey on your substance, enticed by, the smoke. These
demons themselves indeed confess their own gluttony, saying:--

   "For with drink-offerings due, and fat of lambs,
   My altar still hath at their hands been fed;
   Such honour hath to us been ever paid. "(1)

   What other speech would they utter, if indeed the gods of the
Egyptians, such as cats and weasels, should receive the faculty of speech,
than that Homeric and poetic one which proclaims their liking for savoury
odours and cookery? Such are your demons and gods, and demigods, if there
are any so called, as there are demi-asses(mules); for you have no want of
terms to make up compound names of impiety.

CHAP. III.--THE CRUELTY OF THE SACRIFICES TO THE GODS.

   Well, now, let us say in addition, what inhuman demons, and hostile to
the human race, your gods were, not only delighting in the insanity of men,
but gloating over human slaughter,--now in the armed contests for
superiority in the stadia, and now in the numberless contests for renown in
the wars providing for themselves the means of pleasure, that they might be
able abundantly to satiate themselves with the murder of human beings.

   And now, like plagues invading cities and nations, they demanded cruel
oblations. Thus Aristomenes the Messenian slew three hundred human beings
in honour of Ithometan Zeus thinking that hecatombs of such a number and
quality would give good omens; among whom was Theopompos, king of the
Lacedemonians, a noble victim.

   The Taurians, the people who inhabit the Tauric Chersonese, sacrifice
to the Tauric Artemis forthwith whatever strangers they lay hands on on
their coasts who have been east adrift on the sea. These sacrifices
Euripides represents in tragedies on the stage. Monimus relates, in his
treatise on marvels, that at Pella, in Thessaly, a man of Achaia was slain
in sacrifice to Peleus and Chiron. That the Lyctii, who are a Cretan race,
slew men in sacrifice to Zeus, Anticlides shows in his Homeward Journeys;
and that the  Lesbians offered the like sacrifice to Dionysus,  is said by
Dosidas. The Phocaeans also(for I will not pass over such as they are),
Pythocles informs us in his third book, On Concord, offer a man as a burnt-
sacrifice to the Taurian Artemis.

   Erechtheus of Attica and Marius the Roman(2) sacrificed their
daughters,--the former to Pherephatta, as Demaratus mentions in his first
book on Tragic Streets; the latter to the evil-averting deities, as
Dorotheus relates in his first book of Italian Affairs. Philanthropic,
assuredly, the demons appear, from these examples; and how shall those who
revere the demons not be correspondingly pious? The former are called by
the fair name of saviours; and the latter ask for safety from those who
plot against their safety, imagining that they sacrifice with good omens to
them, and forget that they themselves are slaying men. For a murder does
not become a sacrifice by being committed in a particular spot. You are not
to call it a sacred sacrifice, if one slays a man either at the altar or on
the highway to Artemis or Zeus, any more than if he slew him for anger or
covetousness,--other demons very like the former; but a sacrifice of this
kind is murder and human butchery. Then why is it, O men, wisest of all
creatures, that you avoid wild beasts, and get out of the way of the savage
animals, if you fall in with a bear or lion?

   " .  .  .  .  .  As when some traveller spies,
   Coiled in his path upon the mountain side,
   A deadly snake, back he recoils in haste,--
   His limbs all trembling, and his cheek all pale,"(3)

But though you perceive and understand demons to be deadly and wicked,
plotters, haters of the human race, and destroyers, why do you not turn out
of their way, or turn them out of yours? What truth can the wicked tell, or
what good can they do any one?

   I can then readily demonstrate that man is better than these gods of
yours, who are but demons; and can show, for instance, that Cyrus and Solon
were superior to oracular Apollo. Your Phoebus was a lover of gifts, but
not a lover of men. 'He betrayed his friend Croesus, and forgetting the
reward he had got(so careful was he of his fame), led him across the Halys
to the stake. The demons love men in such a way as to bring them to the
fire[unquenchable].

   But O man, who lovest the human race better, and art truer than Apollo,
pity him that is bound on the pyre. Do thou, O Solon, declare truth; and
thou, O Cyrus, command the fire to be extinguished. Be wise, then, at last,
O Croesus, taught by suffering. He whom you worship is an ingrate; he
accepts your reward, and after taking the gold plays false. "Look again to
the end, O Solon. It is not the demon, but the man that tells you this. It
is not ambiguous oracles that Solon utters. You shall easily take him up.
Nothing but true, O Barbarian, shall you find by proof this oracle to be,
when you are placed on the pyre. Whence I cannot help wondering, by what
plausible reasons those who first went astray were impelled to preach
superstition to men, when they exhorted them to worship wicked demons,
whether it was Phoroneus or Merops, or whoever else that raised temples and
altars to them; and besides, as is fabled, were the first to offer
sacrifices to them. But, unquestionably, in succeeding ages men invented
for themselves gods to worship. It is beyond doubt that this Eros, who is
said to be among the oldest of the gods, was worshipped by no one till
Charmus took a little boy and raised an altar to him in Academia, --a thing
more seemly, than the lust he had gratified; and the lewdness of vice men
called by the name of Eros, deifying thus unbridled lust. The Athenians,
again, knew not who Pan was till Philippides told them.

   Superstition, then, as was to be expected, having taken its rise thus,
became the fountain of insensate wickedness; and not being subsequently
checked, but having gone on augmenting and rushing along in full flood, it
became the originator of many demons, and was displayed in sacrificing
hecatombs, appointing solemn assemblies, setting up images, and building
temples, which were in reality tombs: for I will not pass these over in
silence, but make a thorough exposure of them, though called by the august
name of temples; that is, the tombs which got the name of temples. But do
ye now at length quite give up your superstition, feeling ashamed to regard
sepulchres with religious veneration. In the temple of Athene in Larissa,
on the Acropolis, is the grave of Acrisius; and at Athens, on the
Acropolis, is that of Cecrops, as Antiochus says in the ninth book of his
Histories. What of Erichthonius? was he not buried in the temple of Polias?
And Immarus, the son of Eumolpus and Daira, were they not buried in the
precincts of the Elusinium, which is under the Acropolis; and the daughters
of Celeus, were they not interred in Eleusis? Why should I enumerate to you
the wives of the Hyperboreans? They were called Hyperoche and Laodice; they
were buried in the Artemisium in Delos, which is in the temple of the
Delian Apollo. Leandrius says that Clearchus was buried in Miletus, in the
Didymaeum. Following the Myndian Zeno, it were unsuitable in this
connection to pass over the sepulchre of Leucophryne, who was buried in the
temple of Artemis in Magnesia; or the altar of Apollo in Telmessus, which
is reported to be the tomb of Telmisseus the seer. Further, Ptolemy the son
of Agesarchus, in his first book about Philopator, says that Cinyras and
the descendants of Cinyras were interred in the temple of Aphrodite in
Paphos. But all time would not be sufficient for me, were I to go over the
tombs which are held sacred by you, And if no shame for these audacious
impieties steals over you, it comes to this, that you are completely dead,
putting, as really you do, your trust in the dead.

   "Poor wretches, what misery is this you suffer?
   Your heads are enveloped in the darkness of night."(2)

CHAP. IV.--THE ABSURDITY AND SHAMEFULNESS OF THE IMAGES BY WHICH THE GODS
ARE WORSHIPPED.

   If, in addition, I take and set before you for inspection these very
images, you will, as you go over them, find how truly silly is the custom
in which you have been reared, of worshipping the senseless works of men's
hands.

   Anciently, then, the Scythians worshipped their sabres, the Arabs
stones, the Persians rivers. And some, belonging to other races still more
ancient, set up blocks of wood in conspicuous situations, and erected
pillars of stone, which were called Xoana, from the carving of the material
of which they were made. The image of Artemis in Icarus was doubtless
unwrought wood, and that of the Cithaeronian Here was a felled tree-trunk;
and that of the Samian Here, as Aethlius says, was at first a plank, and
was afterwards during the government of Proclus carved into human shape.
And when the Xoana began to be made in the likeness of men, they got the
name of Brete,a term derived from Brotos(man). In Rome, the historian Varro
says that in ancient times the Xoaron of Mars--the idol by which he was
worshipped--was a spear, artists not having yet applied themselves to this
specious pernicious art; but when art flourished, error increased. That of
stones and stocks--and, to speak briefly, of dead matte--you have made
images of human form, by which you have produced a counterfeit of piety,
and slandered the truth, is now as clear as can be; but such proof as the
point may demand must not be declined.

   That the statue of Zeus at Olympia, and that of Polias at Athens, were
executed of gold and ivory by Phidias, is known by everybody; and that the
image of Here in Samos was formed by the chisel of Euclides, Olympichus
relates in his Samiaca. Do not, then, entertain any doubt, that of the gods
called at Athens venerable, Scopas made two of the stone called Lychnis,
and Calos the one which they are reported to have had placed between them,
as Polemon shows in the fourth of his books addressed to Timaeus. Nor need
you doubt respecting the images of Zeus and Apollo at Patara, in Lycia,
which Phidias executed, as well as the lions that recline with them; and
if, as some say, they were the work of Bryxis, I do not dispute,--you have
in him another maker of images. Whichever of these you like, write down.
Furthermore, the statues nine cubits in height of Poseidon and Amphitrite,
worshipped in Tenos are the work of Telesius the Athenian, as we are told
by Philochorus. Demetrius, in the second book of his Argolics, writes of
the image of Here in Tiryns, both that the material was pear-tree and the
artist was Argus.

   Many, perhaps, may be surprised to learn that the Palladium which is
called the Diopetes--that is, fallen from heaven--which Diomede and Ulysses
are related to have carried off from Troy and deposited at Demophoon, was
made of the bones of Pelops, as the Olympian Jove of other bones--those of
the Indian wild beast. I adduce as my authority Dionysius, who relates this
in the fifth part of his Cycle. And Apellas, in the Delphics, says that
there were two Palladia, and that both were fashioned by men. But that one
may suppose that I have passed over them through ignorance, I shall add
that the image of Dionysus Morychus at Athens was made of the stones called
Phellata, and was the work of Simon the son of Eupalamus, as Polemo says in
a letter. There were also two other sculptors of Crete, as I think: they
were called Scyles and Dipoenus; and these executed the statues of the
Dioscuri in Argos, and the image of Hercules in Tiryns, and the effigy of
the Munychian Artemis in Sicyon. Why should I linger over these, when I can
point out to you the great deity himself, and show you who he was,--whom
indeed, conspicuously above all, we hear to have been considered worthy of
veneration? Him they have dared to speak of as made without hands--I mean
the Egyptian Serapis. For some relate that he was sent as a present by the
people of Sinope to Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of the Egyptians, who won
their favour by sending them corn from Egypt when they were perishing with
famine; and that this idol was an image of Pluto; and Ptolemy, having
received the statue, placed it on the promontory which is now called
Racotis; where the temple of Serapis was held in honour, and the sacred
enclosure borders on the Spot; and that Blistichis the courtesan having
died in Canopus, Ptolemy had her conveyed there, and buried beneath the
forementioned shrine.

   Others say that the Serapis was a Pontic idol, and was transported with
solemn pomp to Alexandria. Isidore alone says that it was brought from the
Seleucians, near Antioch, who also had been visited with a dearth of corn,
and had been fed by Ptolemy. But Athenodorns the son of Sandon, while
wishing to make out the Serapis to be ancient, has somehow slipped into the
mistake of proving it to be an image fashioned by human hands. He says that
Sesostris the Egyptian king, having subjugated the most of the Hellenic
races, on his return to Egypt brought a number of craftsmen with him.
Accordingly he ordered a statue of Osiris, his ancestor, to be executed in
sumptuous style; and the work was done by the artist Bryaxis, not the
Athenian, but another of the same name, who employed in its execution a
mixture of various materials. For he had filings of gold, and silver, and
lead, and in addition, tin; and of Egyptian stones not one was wanting, and
there were fragments of sapphire, and hematite, and emerald, and topaz.
Having ground down and mixed together all these ingredients, he gave to the
composition a blue colour, whence the darkish hue of the image; and having
mixed the whole with the colouring matter that was left over from the
funeral of Osiris and Apis, moulded the Serapis, the name of which points
to its connection with sepulture and its construction from funeral
materials, compounded as it is of Osiris and Apis, which together make
Osirapis.

   Another new deity was added to the number with great religious pomp in
Egypt, and was near being so in Greece by the king of the Romans, who
deified Antinous, whom he loved as Zeus loved Ganymede, and whose beauty
was of a very rare order: for lust is not easily restrained, destitute as
it is of fear; and men now observe the sacred nights of Antinous, the
shameful character of which the lover who spent them with him knew well.
Why reckon him among the gods, who is honoured on account of uncleanness?
And why do you command him to be lamented as a son? And why should you
enlarge on his beauty? Beauty blighted by vice is loathsome. Do not play
the tyrant, O man, over beauty, nor offer foul insult to youth in its
bloom. Keep beauty pure, that it may be truly fair. Be king over beauty,
not its tyrant. Remain free, and then I shall acknowledge thy beauty,
because thou hast kept its image pure: then will I worship that true beauty
which is the archetype of all who are beautiful. Now the grave of the
debauched boy is the temple and town of Antinous. For just as temples are
held in reverence, so also are sepulchres, and pyramids, and mausoleums,
and labyrinths, which are temples of the dead, as the others are sepulchres
of the gods. As teacher on this point, I shall produce to you the Sibyl
prophetess:--

   "Not the oracular lie of Phoebus,
   Whom silly men called God, and falsely termed Prophet;
   But the oracles of the great God, who was not made by men's hands,
   Like dumb idols of Sculptured stone."(1)

She also predicts the ruin of the temple, foretelling that that of the
Ephesian Artemis would be engulphed by earthquakes and rents in the ground,
as follows:--

   "Prostrate on the ground Ephesus shall wail, weeping by the shore,
   And seeking a temple that has no longer an inhabitant."

She says also that the temple of Isis and Serapis would be demolished and
burned:--

   "Isis, thrice-wretched goddess, thou shalt linger by the streams of the
Nile;
   Solitary, frenzied, silent, on the sands of Acheron."

Then she proceeds:--

   "And thou, Serapis, covered with a heap of white stones,
   Shalt lie a huge ruin in thrice-wretched Egypt."

But if you attend not to the prophetess, hear at least your own
philosopher, the Ephesian Heraclitus, upbraiding images with their
senselessness: "And to these images they pray, with the same result as if
one were to talk to the Walls of his house." For are they not to be
wondered at who worship stones, and place them before the doors, as if
capable of activity? They worship Hermes as a god, and place Aguieus as a
doorkeeper. For if people upbraid them with being devoid of sensation, why
worship them as gods? And if they are thought to be endowed with sensation,
why place them before the door? The Romans, who ascribed their greatest
successes to Fortune, and regarded her as a very great deity, took her
statue to the privy, and erected it there, assigning to the goddess as a
fitting temple--the necessary. But senseless wood and stone, and rich gold,
care not a whir for either savoury odour, or blood, or smoke, by which,
being at once honoured and fumigated, they are blackened; no more do they
for honour or insult. And these images are more worthless than any animal.
I am at a loss to conceive how objects devoid of sense were deified, and
feel compelled to pity as miserable wretches those that wander in the mazes
of this folly: for if some living creatures have not all the senses, as
worms and caterpillars, and such as even from the first appear imperfect,
as moles and the shrew-mouse, which Nicander says is blind and uncouth; yet
are they superior to those utterly senseless idols and images. For they
have some one sense,--say, for example, hearing, or touching, or something
analogous to smell or taste; while images do not possess even one sense.
There are many creatures that have neither sight, nor hearing, nor speech,
such as the genus of oysters, which yet live and grow, and are affected by
the changes of the moon. But images, being motionless, inert, and
senseless, are bound, nailed, glued,--are melted, filed, sawed, polished,
carved. The senseless earth is dishonoured by the makers of images, who
change it by their art from its proper nature, and induce men to worship
it; and the makers of gods worship not gods and demons, but in my view
earth and art, which go to make up images. For, in sooth, the image is only
dead matter shaped by the craftsman's hand. But we have no sensible image
of sensible matter, but an image that is perceived by the mind alone,--God,
who alone is truly God.(1)

   And again, when involved in calamities, the superstitious worshippers
of stones, though they have learned by the event that senseless matter is
not to be worshipped, yet, yielding to the pressure of misfortune, become
the victims of their superstition; and though despising the images, yet not
wishing to appear wholly to neglect them, are found fault with by those
gods by whose names the images are called.

   For Dionysius the tyrant, the younger, having stripped off the golden
mantle from the statue of Jupiter in Sicily, ordered him to be clothed in a
woollen one, remarking facetiously that the latter was better than the
golden one, being lighter in summer and warmer in winter. And Antiochus of
Cyzicus, being in difficulties for money, ordered the golden statue of
Zeus, fifteen cubits in height, to be melted; and one like it, of less
valuable material, plated with gold, to be erected in place of it. And the
swallows and most birds fly to these statues, and void their excrement on
them, paying no respect either to Olympian Zeus, or Epidaurian Asclepius,
or even to Athene Polias, or the Egyptian Serapis; but not even from them
have you learned the senselessness of images.(1) But it has happened that
miscreants or enemies have assailed and set fire to temples, and plundered
them of their votive gifts, and melted even the images themselves, from
base greed of gain. And if a Cambyses or a Darius, or any other madman, has
made such attempts, and if one has killed the Egyptian Apis, I laugh at him
killing their god, while pained at the outrage being perpetrated for the
sake of gain. I will therefore willingly forget such villany, looking on
acts like these more as deeds of covetousness, than as a proof of the
impotence of idols. But fire and earthquakes are shrewd enough not to feel
shy or frightened at either demons or idols, any more than at pebbles
heaped by the waves on the shore.

   I know fire to be capable of exposing and curing superstition. If thou
art willing to abandon this folly, the element of fire shall light thy way.
This same fire burned the temple in Argos, with Chrysis the priestess; and
that of Artemis in Ephesus the second time after the Amazons. And the
Capitol in Rome was often wrapped in flames; nor did the fire spare the
temple of Serapis, in the city of the Alexandrians. At Athens it demolished
the temple of the Eleutherian Dionysus; and as to the temple of Apollo at
Delphi, first a storm assailed it, and then the discerning fire utterly
destroyed it. This is told as the preface of what the fire promises. And
the makers of images, do they not shame those of you who are wise into
despising matter? The Athenian Phidias inscribed on the finger of the
Olympian Jove, Pantarkes(1) is beautiful. It was not Zeus that was
beautiful in his eyes, but the man he loved. And Praxiteles, as Posidippus
relates in his book about Cnidus, when he fashioned the statue of Aphrodite
of Cnidus, made it like the form of Cratine, of whom he was enamoured, that
the miserable people might have the paramour of Praxiteles to worship. And
when Phryne the courtesan, the Thespian, was in her bloom, all the painters
made their pictures of Aphrodite copies of the beauty of Phryne; as, again,
the sculptors at Athens made their Mercuries like Alcibiades. It remains
for you to judge whether you ought to worship cour-tesans. Moved, as I
believe, by such facts, and despising such fables, the ancient kings
unblushingly proclaimed themselves gods, as this involved no danger from
men, and thus taught that on account of their glory they were made
immortal. Ceux, the son of Eolus, was styled Zeus by his wife Alcyone;
Alcyone, again, being by her husband styled Hera. Ptolemy the Fourth was
called Dionysus; and Mithridates of Pontus was also called Dionysus; and
Alexander wished to be considered the son of Ammon, and to have his statue
made horned by the sculptors--eager to disgrace the beauty of the human
form by the addition of a horn. And not kings only, but private persons
dignified themselves with the names of deities, as Menecrates the
physician, who took the name of Zeus. What need is there for me to instance
Alexarchus? He, having been by profession a grammarian, assumed the
character of the sun-god, as Aristus of Salamis relates. And why mention
Nicagorus? He was a native of Zela[in Pontus], and lived in the days of
Alexander. Nicagorus was styled Hermes, and used the dress of Hermes, as he
himself testifies. And whilst whole nations, and cities with all their
inhabitants, sinking into self-flattery, treat the myths about the gods
with contempt, at the same time men themselves, assuming the air of
equality with the gods, and being puffed up with vainglory, vote themselves
extravagant honours. There is the case of the Macedonian Philip of Pella,
the son of Amyntor, to whom they decreed divine worship in Cynosargus,
although his collar-bone was broken, and  he had a lame leg, and had one of
his eyes knocked out. And again that of Demetrius, who was raised to the
rank of the gods; and where he alighted from his horse on his entrance into
Athens is the temple of Demetrius the Alighter; and altars were raised to
him everywhere, and nuptials with Athene assigned to him by the Athenians.
But he disdained the goddess, as he could not marry the statue; and taking
the courtesan Lamia, he ascended the Acropolis, and lay with her on the
couch of Athene, showing to the old virgin the postures of the young
courtesan.

   There is no cause for indignation, then, at Hippo, who immortalized his
own death. For this Hippo ordered the following elegy to be inscribed on
his tomb:--

   "This is the sepulchre of Hippo, whom Destiny
   Made, through death, equal to the immortal gods."

Well done, Hippo! thou showest to us the delusion of men. If they did not
believe thee speaking, now that thou art dead, let them become thy
disciples. This is the oracle of Hippo; let us consider it. The objects of
your worship were once men, and in process of time died; and fable and time
have raised them to honour. For somehow, what is present is wont to be
despised through familiarity; but what is past, being separated through the
obscurity of time from the temporary censure that attached to it, is
invested with honour by fiction, so that the present is viewed with
distrust, the past with admiration. Exactly in this way is it, then, that
the dead men of antiquity, being reverenced through the long prevalence of
delusion respecting them, are regarded as gods by posterity. As grounds of
your belief in these, there are your mysteries, your solemn assemblies,
bonds and wounds, and weeping deities.

   "Woe, woe! that fate decrees my best-belov'd,
   `Sarpedon, by Patroclus' hand to fall."(2)

   The will of Zeus was overruled; and Zeus being worsted, laments for
Sarpedon. With reason, therefore, have you yourselves called them shades
and demons, since Homer, paying Athene and the other divinities sinister
honour, has styled them demons:--

   "She her heavenward course pursued
   To join the immortals in the abode of Jove."(3)

How, then, can shades and demons be still reckoned gods, being in reality
unclean and impure spirits, acknowledged by all to be of an earthly and
watery nature, sinking downwards by their own weight, and flitting about
graves and tombs, about which they appear dimly, being but shadowy
phantasms? Such things are your gods--shades and shadows; and to these add
those maimed, wrinkled, squinting divinities the Litae, daughters of
Thersites rather than of Zeus. So that Bion--wittily, as I think--says, How
in reason could men pray Zeus for a beautiful progeny,--a thing he could
not obtain for himself?

   The incorruptible being, as far as in you lies, you sink in the earth;
and that pure and holy essence you have buried in the grave, robbing the
divine of its true nature.

   Why, I pray you, have you assigned the prerogatives of God to what are
no gods? Why, let me ask, have you forsaken heaven to pay divine honour to
earth? What else is gold, or silver, or steel, or iron, or brass, or ivory,
or precious stones? Are they not earth, and of the earth?

   Are not all these things which you look on the progeny of one mother--
the earth?

   Why, then, foolish and silly men(for I will repeat it), have you,
defaming the supercelestial region, dragged religion to the ground, by
fashioning to yourselves gods of earth, and by going after those created
objects, instead of the uncreated Deity, have sunk into deepest darkness?

   The Parian stone is beautiful, but it is not yet Poseidon. The ivory is
beautiful, but it is not yet the Olympian Zeus. Matter always needs art to
fashion it, but the deity needs nothing. Art has come forward to do its
work, and the matter is clothed with its shape; and while the preciousness
of the material makes it capable of being turned to profitable account, it
is only on account of its form that it comes to be deemed worthy of
veneration. Thy image, if considered as to its origin, is gold, it is wood,
it is stone, it is earth, which has received shape from the artist's hand.
But I have been in the habit of walking on the earth, not of worshipping
it. For I hold it wrong to entrust my spirit's hopes to things destitute of
the breath of life. We must therefore approach as close as possible to the
images. How peculiarly inherent deceit is in them, is manifest from their
very look. For the forms of the images are plainly stamped with the
characteristic nature of demons. If one go round and inspect the pictures
and images, he will at a glance recognise your gods from their shameful
forms: Dionysus from his robe; Hephaestus from his art; Demeter from her
calamity; Ino from her head-dress; Poseidon from his trident; Zeus from the
swan; the pyre indicates Heracles; and if one sees a statue of a naked
woman without an inscription, he understands it to be the golden Aphrodite.
Thus that Cyprian Pygmalion became enamoured of an image of ivory: the
image was Aphrodite, and it was nude. The Cyprian is made a conquest of by
the mere shape, and embraces the image. This is related by Philostephanus.
A different Aphrodite in Cnidus was of stone, and beautiful. Another person
became enamoured of it, and shamefully embraced the stone. Posidippus
relates this. The former of these authors, in his book on Cyprus, and the
latter in his book on Cnidus. So powerful is art to delude, by seducing
amorous men into the pit. Art is powerful, but it cannot deceive reason,
nor those who live agreeably to reason. The doves on the picture were
represented so to the life by the painter's art, that the pigeons flew to
them; and horses have neighed to well-executed pictures of mares. They say
that a girl became enamoured of an image, and a comely youth of the statue
at Cnidus. But it was the eyes of the spectators that were deceived by art;
for no one in his senses ever would have embraced a goddess, or entombed
himself with a lifeless paramour, or become enamoured of a demon  and a
stone. But it is with a different kind of spell that art deludes you, if it
leads you not to  the indulgence of amorous affections: it leads you to pay
religious honour and worship to images and pictures.

   The picture is like. Well and good! Let art receive its meed of praise,
but let it not deceive man by passing itself off for truth. The horse
stands quiet; the dove flutters not, its wing is motionless. But the cow of
Daedalus, made of wood, allured the savage bull; and art having deceived
him, compelled him to meet a woman full of licentious passion. Such frenzy
have mischief--working arts created in the minds of the insensate. On the
other hand, apes are admired by those who feed and care for them, because
nothing in the shape of images and girls' ornaments of wax or clay deceives
them. You then will show yourselves inferior to apes by cleaving to stone,
and wood, and gold, and ivory images, and to pictures. Your makers of such
mischievous toys-- the sculptors and makers of images, the painters and
workers in metal, and the poets--have introduced a motley crowd of
divinities: in the fields, Satyrs and Pans; in the woods, Nymphs, and
Oreads, and Hamadryads; and besides, in the waters, the rivers, and
fountains, the Naiads; and in the sea the Nereids. And now the Magi boast
that the demons are the ministers of their impiety, reckoning them among
the number of their domestics, and by their charms compelling them to be
their slaves. Besides, the nuptials of the deities, their begetting and
bringing forth of children that are recounted, their adulteries celebrated
in song, their carousals represented in comedy, and bursts of laughter over
their cups, which your authors introduce, urge me to cry out, though I
would fain be silent. Oh the godlessness! You have turned heaven into a
stage; the Divine has become a drama; and what is sacred you have acted in
comedies under the masks of demons, travestying true religion by your
demon-worship [superstition].

   "But he, striking the lyre, began to sing beautifully."(1)

Sing to us, Homer, that beautiful song

   "About the amours of Ares and Venus with the beautiful crown:
   How first they slept together in the palace of Hephaestus
   Secretly; and he gave many gifts, and dishonoured the
   bed and chamber of king Hephaestus."

Stop, O Homer, the song! It is not beautiful; it teaches adultery, and we
are prohibited from polluting our ears with hearing about adultery for we
are they who bear about with us, in this living and moving image of our
human nature, the likeness of God,--a likeness which dwells with us, takes
counsel with us, associates with us, is a guest with us, feels with us,
feels for us. We have become a consecrated offering to God for Christ's
sake: we are the chosen generation, the royal priesthood, the holy nation,
the peculiar people, who once were not a people, but are now the people of
God; who, according to John, are not of those who are beneath, but have
learned all from Him who came from above; who have come to understand the
dispensation of God; who have learned to walk in newness of life. But these
are not the sentiments of the many; but, casting off shame and fear, they
depict in their houses the unnatural passions of the demons. Accordingly,
wedded to impurity, they adorn their bed-chambers with painted tablets(2)
hung up in them, regarding licentiousness as religion; and lying in bed, in
the midst of their embraces, they look on that Aphrodite locked in the
embrace of her paramour. And in the hoops of their rings they cut a
representation of the amorous bird that fluttered round Leda,--having a
strong predilection for representations of effeminacy,--and use a seal
stamped with an impression of the licentiousness of Zeus. Such are examples
of your voluptuousness, such are the theologies of vice, such are the
instructions of your gods, who commit fornication along with you; for what
one wishes, that he thinks, according to the Athenian orator. And of what
kind, on the other hand, are your other images? Diminutive Pans, and naked
girls, and drunken Satyrs, and phallic tokens, painted naked in pictures
disgraceful for filthiness. And more than this: you are not ashamed in the
eyes of all to look at representations of all forms of licentiousness which
are portrayed in public places, but set them up and guard them with
scrupulous care, consecrating these pillars of shamelessness at home, as
if, forsooth, they were the images of your gods, depicting on them equally
the postures of Philaenis and the labours of Heracles. Not only the use of
these, but the sight of them, and the very hearing of them, we denounce as
deserving the doom of oblivion. Your ears are debauched, your eyes commit
fornication, your looks commit adultery before you embrace. O ye that have
done violence to man, and have devoted to shame what is divine in this
handiwork of God, you disbelieve everything that you may indulge your
passions, and that ye may believe in idols, because you have a craving
after their licentiousness, but disbelieve God, because you cannot bear a
life of self-restraint. You have hated what was better, and valued what was
worse, having been spectators indeed of virtue, but actors of vice. Happy,
therefore, so to say, alone are all those with one accord,--

   "Who shall refuse to look on any temples
   And altars, worthless seats of dumb stones,
   And idols of stone, and images made by hands,
   Stained with the life's-blood, and with sacrifices
   Of quadrupeds, and bipeds, and fowls, and butcheries
   of wild beasts."(3)

For we are expressly prohibited from exercising a deceptive art: "For thou
shalt not make," says the prophet, "the likeness of anything which is in
heaven above or in the earth beneath."(4)

   For can we possibly any longer suppose the Demeter, and the Core, and
the mystic Iacchus of Praxiteles, to be gods, and not rather regard the art
of Leucippus, or the hands of Apelles, which clothed the material with the
form of the divine glory, as having a better title to the honour? But while
you bestow the greatest pains that the image may be fashioned with the most
exquisite beauty possible, you exercise no care to guard against your
becoming like images for stupidity. Accordingly, with the utmost clearness
and brevity, the prophetic word condemns this practice: "For all the gods
of the nations are the images of demons; but God made the heavens, and what
is in heaven."(5) Some, however, who have fallen into error, I know not
how, worship God's work instead of God Himself,--the sun and the moon, and
the rest of the starry choir,--absurdly imagining these, which are but
instruments for measuring time, to be gods; "for by His word they were
established, and all their host by the breath of His mouth."(6)

   Human art, moreover, produces houses, and ships, and cities, and
pictures. But how shall I tell what God makes? Behold the whole universe;
it is His work: and the heaven, and the sun, and angels, and men, are the
works of His fingers.(1) How great is the power of God! His bare volition
was the creation of the universe. For God alone made it, because He alone
is truly God. By the bare exercise of volition He creates; His mere willing
was fob lowed by the springing into being of what He willed. Consequently
the choir of philosophers are in error, who indeed most nobly confess that
man was made for the contemplation of the heavens, but who worship the
objects that appear in the heavens and are apprehended by sight. For if the
heavenly bodies are not the works of men, they were certainly created for
man. Let none of you worship the sun, but set his desires on the Maker of
the sun; nor deify the universe, but seek after the Creator of the
universe. The only refuge, then, which remains for him who would reach the
portals of salvation is divine wisdom. From this, as from a sacred asylum,
the man who presses after salvation, can be dragged by no demon.

CHAP. V.--THE OPINIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS RESPECTING GOD.

   Let us then run over, if you choose, the opinions of the philosophers,
to which they give boastful utterance, respecting the gods; that we may
discover philosophy itself, through its conceit making an idol of matter;
although we are able to show, as we proceed, that even while deifying
certain demons, it has a dream of the truth. The elements were designated
as the first principles of all things by some of them: by Thales of
Miletus, who celebrated water, and Anaximenes, also of Miletus, who
celebrated air as the first principle of all things, and was followed
afterwards by Diogenes of Apollonia. Parmenides of Elia introduced fire and
earth as gods; one of which, namely fire, Hippasus of Metapontum and
Heraclitus of Ephesus supposed a divinity. Empedocles of Agrigentum fell in
with a multitude, and, in addition to those four elements, enumerates
disagreement and agreement. Atheists surely these are to be reckoned, who
through an unwise wisdom worshipped matter, who did not indeed pay
religious honour to stocks and stones, but deified earth, the mother of
these,--who did not make an image of Poseidon, but revered water itself.
For what else, according to the original signification, is Poseidon, but a
moist substance? the name being derived from posis (drink); as, beyond
doubt, the warlike Ares is so called, from arsis (rising up) and anoeresis
(destroying). For this reason mainly, I think, many fix a sword into the
ground, and sacrifice to it as to Ares. The Scythians have a practice of
this nature, as Eudoxus tells us in the second book of his Travels. The
Sauromatae, too, a tribe of the Scythians, worship a sabre, as Ikesius says
in his work on Mysteries.

   This was also the case with Heraclitus and his followers, who
worshipped fire as the first cause; for this fire others named Hephaestus.
The Persian Magi, too, and many of the inhabitants of Asia, worshipped
fire; and besides them, the Macedonians, as Diogenes relates in the first
book of his Persica. Why specify the Sauromatae, who are said by
Nymphodorus, in his Barbaric Customs, to pay sacred honours to fire? or the
Persians, or the Medes, or the Magi? These, Dino tells us, sacrifice
beneath the open sky, regarding fire and water as the only images of the
gods.

   Nor have I failed to reveal their ignorance; for, however much they
think to keep clear of error in one form, they slide into it in another.

   They have not supposed stocks and stones to be images of the gods, like
the Greeks; nor ibises and ichneumons, like the Egyptians; but fire and
water, as philosophers. Berosus, in the third book of his Chaldaics, shows
that it was after many successive periods of years that men worshipped
images of human shape, this practice being introduced by Artaxerxes, the
son of Darius, and father of Ochus, who first set up the image of Aphrodite
Anaitis at Babylon and Susa; and Ecbatana set the example of worshipping it
to the Persians; the Bactrians, to Damascus and Sardis.

   Let the philosophers, then, own as their teachers the Persians, or the
Sauromatae, or the Magi, from whom they have learned the impious doctrine
of regarding as divine certain first principles, being ignorant of the
great First Cause, the Maker of all things, and Creator of those very first
principles, the unbeginning God, but reverencing "these weak and beggarly
elements,"(2) as the apostle says, which were made for the service of man.
And of the rest of the philosophers who, passing over the elements, have
eagerly sought after something higher and nobler, some have discanted on
the Infinite, of whom were Anaximander of Miletus, Anaxagoras of
Clazomenae, and the Athenian Archclaus, both of whom set Mind (nou^s) above
Infinity; while the Milesian Leucippus and the Chian Metrodorus apparently
inculcated two first principles--fulness and vacuity. Democritus of Abdera,
while accepting these two, added to them images (ei'dwla); while Alcmaeon
of Crotona supposed the stars to be gods, and endowed with life(I will not
keep silence as to their effrontery). Xenocrates of Chalcedon indicates
that the planets are seven gods, and that the universe, composed of all
these, is an eighth. Nor will I pass over those of the Porch, who say that
the Divinity pervades all matter, even the vilest, and thus clumsily
disgrace philosophy. Nor do I think will it be taken ill, having reached
this point, to advert to the Peripatetics. The father of this sect, not
knowing the Father of all things, thinks that He who is called the Highest
is the soul of the universe; that is, he supposes the soul of the world to
be God, and so is pierced by his own sword. For by first limiting the
sphere of Providence to the orbit of the moon, and then by supposing the
universe to be God, he confutes himself, inasmuch as he teaches that that
which is without God is God. And that Eresian Theophrastus, the pupil of
Aristotle, conjectures at one time heaven, and at another spirit, to be
God. Epicurus alone I shall gladly forget, who carries impiety to its full
length, and thinks that God takes no charge of the world. What, moreover,
of Heraclides of Pontus? He is dragged everywhere to the images--the
ei'dwla--of Democritus.

CHAP. VI.--BY DIVINE INSPIRATION PHILOSOPHERS SOMETIMES HIT ON THE TRUTH.

   A great crowd of this description rushes on my mind, introducing, as it
were, a terrifying apparition of strange demons, speaking of fabulous and
monstrous shapes, in old wives' talk. Far from enjoining men to listen to
such tales are we, who avoid the practice of soothing our crying children,
as the saying is, by telling them fabulous stories, being afraid of
fostering in their minds the impiety professed by those who, though wise in
their own conceit, have no more knowledge of the truth than infants. For
why(in the name of truth!) do you make those who believe you subject to
ruin and corruption, dire and irretrievable? Why, I beseech you, fill up
life with idolatrous images, by feigning the winds, or the air, or fire, or
earth, or stones, or stocks, or steel, or this universe, to be gods; and,
prating loftily of the heavenly bodies in this much vaunted science of
astrology, not astronomy, to those men who have truly wandered, talk of the
wandering stars as gods? It is the Lord of the spirits, the Lord of the
fire, the Maker of the universe, Him who lighted up the sun, that I long
for. I seek after God, not the works of God. Whom shall I take as a helper
in my inquiry? We do not, if you have no objection, wholly disown Plato.
How, then, is God to be searched out, O Plato? "For both to find the Father
and Maker of this universe is a work of difficulty; and having found Him,
to declare Him fully, is impossible."(1)

   Why so? by Himself, I beseech you! For He can by no means be expressed.
Well done, Plato! Thou hast touched on the truth. But do not flag.
Undertake with me the inquiry respecting the Good. For into all men
whatever, especially those who are occupied with intellectual pursuits, a
certain divine effluence has been instilled; wherefore, though reluctantly,
they confess that God is one, indestructible, unbegotten, and that
somewhere above in the tracts of heaven, in His own peculiar appropriate
eminence, whence He surveys all things, He has an existence true and
eternal.

   "Tell me what I am to conceive God to be,
   Who sees all things, and is Himself unseen,"

Euripides says. Accordingly, Menander seems to me to have fallen into error
when he said:--

   "O sun! for thou, first of gods, ought to be worshipped,
   By whom it is that we are able to see the other gods."

For the sun never could show me the true God; but that healthful Word, that
is the Sun of the soul, by whom alone, when He arises in the depths of the
soul, the eye of the soul itself is irradiated. Whence accordingly,
Democritus, not without reason, says, "that a few of the men of intellect,
raising their hands upwards to what we Greeks now call the air (ah'r),
called the whole expanse Zeus, or God: He, too, knows all things, gives and
takes away, and He is King of all."

   Of the same sentiments is Plato, who somewhere alludes to God thus:
"Around the King of all are all things, and He is the cause of all good
things." Who, then, is the King of all? God, who is the measure of the
truth of all existence. As, then, the things that are to be measured are
contained in the measure, so also the knowledge of God measures and
comprehends truth. And the truly, holy Moses says: "There shall not be in
thy bag a balance and a balance, great or small, but a true and just
balance shall be to thee,"(2) deeming the balance and measure and number of
the whole to be God. For the unjust and unrighteous idols are hid at home
in the bag, and, so to speak, in the polluted soul. But the only just
measure is the only true God, always just, continuing the selfsame; who
measures all things, and weighs them by righteousness as in a balance,
grasping and sustaining universal nature in equilibrium. "God, therefore,
as the old saying has it, occupying the beginning, the middle, and the end
of all that is in being, keeps the straight course, while He makes the
circuit of nature; and justice always follows Him, avenging those who
violate the divine law."

   Whence, O Plato, is that hint of the truth which thou givest? Whence
this rich copiousness of diction, which proclaims piety with oracular
utterance? The tribes of the barbarians, he says, are wiser than these; I
know thy teachers, even if thou wouldst conceal them. You have learned
geometry from the Egyptians, astronomy from the Babylonians; the charms of
healing you have got from the Thracians; the Assyrians also have taught you
many things; but for the laws that are consistent with truth, and your
sentiments respecting God, you are indebted to the Hebrews,(1)

   "Who do not worship through vain deceits
   The works of men, of gold, and brass, and silver, and ivory,
   And images of dead men, of wood and stone,
   Which other men, led by their foolish inclinations, worship;
   But raise to heaven pure arms:
   When they rise from bed, purifying themselves with water,
   And worship alone the Eternal, who reigns for ever more."

   And let it not be this one man alone--Plato; but, O philosophy, hasten
to produce many others also, who declare the only true God to be God,
through His inspiration, if in any measure they have grasped the truth. For
Antisthenes did not think out this doctrine of the Cynics; but it is in
virtue of his being a disciple of Socrates that he says, "that God is not
like to any; wherefore no one can know Him from an image." And Xenophon the
Athenian would have in his own person committed freely to writing somewhat
of the truth, and given the same testimony as Socrates, had he not been
afraid of the cup of poison, which Socrates had to drink. But he hints
nothing less; he says: "How great and powerful He is who moves all things,
and is Himself at rest, is manifest; but what He is in form is not
revealed. The sun himself, intended to be the source of light to all
around, does not deem it fitting to allow himself to be looked at; but if
any one audaciously gazes on him, he is deprived of sight." Whence, then,
does the son of Gryllus learn his wisdom? Is it not manifestly from the
prophetess of the Hebrews? who prophesies in the following style?--

   "What flesh can see with the eye the celestial,
   The true, the immortal God, who inhabits the vault of heaven?
   Nay, men born mortal cannot even stand
   Before the rays of the sum"

   Cleanthes Pisadeus,(3) the Stoic philosopher, who exhibits not a poetic
theology, but a true theology, has not concealed what sentiments he
entertained respecting God:--

   "If you ask me what is the nature of the good, listen:
   That which is regular, just, holy, pious.
   Self-governing, useful, fair, fitting,
   Grave, independent, always beneficial;
   That feels no fear or grief; profitable, painless,
   Helpful, pleasant, safe, friendly;
   Held in esteem, agreeing with itself, honourable;
   Humble, careful, meek, zealous,
   Perennial, blameless, ever-during:
   Mean is every one who looks to opinion
   With the view of obtaining some advantage from it."

Here, as I think, he clearly teaches of what nature God is; and that the
common opinion and religious customs enslave those that follow them, but
seek not after God.

   We must not either keep the Pythagoreans in the background, who say:
"God is one; and He is not, as some suppose, outside of this frame of
things, but within it; but, in all the entireness of His being, is in the
whole circle of existence, surveying all nature, and blending in harmonious
union the whole,--the author of all His own forces and works, the giver of
light in heaven, and Father of all,--the mind and vital power of the whole
world,--the mover of all things." For the knowledge of God, these
utterances, written by those we have mentioned through the inspiration of
God, and selected by us, may suffice even for the man that has but small
power to examine into truth.

CHAP. VII.--THE POETS ALSO BEAR TESTIMONY TO THE TRUTH.

   Let poetry also approach to us (for philosophy alone will not suffice):
poetry which is wholly occupied with falsehood--which scarcely will make
confession of the truth, but will rather own to God its deviations into
fable. Let whoever of those poets chooses advance first. Aratus considers
that the power of God pervades all things:--

   "That all may be secure,
   Him ever they propitiate first and last,
   Hail, Father I great marvel, great gain to man."

Thus also the Ascraean Hesiod dimly speaks of God:--

   "For He is the King of all, and monarch
   Of the immortals; and there is none that may vie
   with Him in power."

Also on the stage they reveal the truth:--

   "Look on the ether and heaven, and regard that as God,"

says Euripides. And Sophocles, the son of Sophilus, says:--

   "One, in truth, one is God,
   Who made both heaven and the far-stretching earth,
   And ocean's blue wave, and the mighty winds;
   But many of us mortals, deceived in heart,
   Have set up for ourselves, as a consolation in our afflictions,
   Images of the gods of stone, or wood, or brass,
   Or gold, or ivory;
   And, appointing to those sacrifices and vain festal assemblages,
   Are accustomed thus to practise religion."

In this venturous manner has he on the stage brought truth before the
spectators. But the Thracian Orpheus, the son of OEagrus, hierophant and
poet at once, after his exposition of the orgies, and his theology of
idols, introduces a palinode of truth with true solemnity, though tardily
singing the strain:--

   "I shall utter to whom it is lawful; but let the doors be closed,
   Nevertheless, against all the profane. But do thou hear,
   O Musaeus, offspring of the light-bringing moon,
   For I will declare what is true. And let not these things
   Which once appeared in your breast rob you of dear life;
   But looking to the divine word, apply yourself to it,
   Keeping right the seat of intellect and titling; and walk well
   In the straight path, and to the immortal King of the universe alone
   Direct your gaze."

Then proceeding, he clearly adds:--

   "He is one, self-proceeding; and from Him alone all things proceed,
   And in them He Himself exerts his activity: no mortal
   Beholds Him, but He beholds all."
   Thus far Orpheus at last understood that he had been in error:--
   "But linger no longer, O man, endued with varied wisdom;
   But turn and retrace your steps, and propitiate God."

For if, at the most, the Greeks, having received certain scintillations of
the divine word, have given forth some utterances of truth, they bear
indeed witness that the force of truth is not hidden, and at the same time
expose their own weakness in not having arrived at the end. For I think it
has now become evident to all, that those who do or speak aught without the
word of truth are like people compelled to walk without feet. Let the
strictures on your gods, which the poets, impelled by the force of truth,
introduce in their comedies, shame you into salvation. Menander, for
instance, the comic poet in his drama of the Charioteer, says:--

   "No God pleases me that goes about
   With an old woman, and enters houses
   Carrying a trencher."

For such are the begging priests of Cybele. Hence Antisthenes replies
appropriately to their request for alms:--

   "I do not maintain the mother of the gods,
   For the gods maintain her."

Again, the same writer of comedy, expressing his dissatisfaction with the
common usages, tries to expose the impious arrogance of the prevailing
error in the drama of the Priestess, sagely  declaring:--

   "If a man drags the Deity
   Whither he will by the sound of cymbals,
   He that does this is greater than the Deity;
   But these are the instruments of audacity and means of living
   Invented by men."

And not only Menander, but Homer also, and Euripides, and other poets in
great numbers, expose your gods, and are wont to rate them, and that
soundly too. For instance, they call Aphrodite dog-fly, and Hephaestus a
cripple. Helen says to Aphrodite:--

   "Thy godship abdicate!
   Renounce Olympus!"(1)

And of Dionysus, Homer writes without reserve:--

   "He, mid their frantic orgies, in the groves
   Of lovely Nyssa, put to shameful rout
   The youthful Bacchus' nurses; they in fear,
   Dropped each her thyrsus, scattered by the hand
   Of fierce Lycurgus, with an ox-goad armed."(2)

   Worthy truly of the Socratic school is Euripides, who fixes his eye on
truth, and despises the spectators of his plays. On one occasion, Apollo,

   "Who inhabits the sanctuary that is in the middle of the earth,
   Dispensing most certain oracles to mortals,"

is thus exposed:--

   "It was in obedience to him that I killed her who brought me forth;
   Him do you regard as stained with guilt--put him to death;
   It was he that sinned, not I, uninstructed as I was
   In right and justice."(3)

He introduces Heracles, at one time mad, at another drunk and gluttonous.
How should he not so represent the god who, when entertained as a guest,
ate green figs to flesh, uttering discordant howls, that even his barbarian
host remarked it? In his drama of Ion, too, he barefacedly brings the gods
on the stage:--

   "How, then, is it right for you, who have given laws to mortals,
   To be yourselves guilty of wrong?
   And if--what will never take place, yet I will state the supposition--
   You will give satisfaction to men for your adulteries,
   You, Poseidon, and you, Zeus, the ruler of heaven,--
   You will, in order to make recompense for your misdeeds,
   Have to empty your temples."(4)

CHAP. VIII.--THE TRUE DOCTRINE IS TO BE SOUGHT IN THE PROPHETS.

   It is now time, as we have despatched in order the other points, to go
to the prophetic Scriptures; for the oracles present us with the appliances
necessary for the attainment of piety, and so establish the truth. The
divine Scriptures and institutions of wisdom form the short road to
salvation. Devoid of embellishment, of outward beauty of diction, of
wordiness and seductiveness, they raise up humanity strangled by
wickedness, teaching men to despise the casualties of life; and with one
and the same voice remedying many evils, they at once dissuade us from
pernicious deceit, and clearly exhort us to the attainment of the salvation
set before us. Let the Sibyl(1) prophetess, then, be the first to sing to
us the song of salvation:--

   "So He is all sure and unerring:
   Come, follow no longer darkness and gloom;
   See, the sun's sweet-glancing light shines gloriously.
   Know, and lay up wisdom in your hearts:
   There is one God, who sends rains, and winds, and earthquakes,
   Thunderbolts, famines, plagues, and dismal sorrows,
   And snows and ice. But why detail particulars?
   He reigns over heaven, He rules earth,
   He truly is;"--

where, in remarkable accordance with inspiration(2) she compares delusion
to darkness, and the knowledge of God to the sun and light, and subjecting
both to comparison, shows the choice we ought to make. For falsehood is not
dissipated by the bare presentation of the truth, but by the practical
improvement of the truth it is ejected and put to flight.

   Jeremiah the prophet, gifted with consummate wisdom? or rather the Holy
Spirit in Jeremiah, exhibits God. "Am I a God at hand," he says, "and not a
God afar off? Shall a man do ought in secret, and I not see him? Do I not
fill heaven and earth? Saith the LORD."4

   And again by Isaiah, "Who shall measure heaven with a span, and the
whole earth with his hand?"(5) Behold God's greatness, and be filled with
amazement. Let us worship Him of whom the prophet says, "Before Thy face
the hills shall melt, as wax melteth before the fire!"(6) This, says he, is
the God "whose throne is heaven, and His footstool the earth; and if He
open heaven, quaking will seize thee."(7) Will you hear, too, what this
prophet says of idols? "And they shall be made a spectacle of in the face
of the sun, and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven and
the wild beasts of the earth; and they shall putrefy before the sun and the
moon, which they have loved and served; and their city shall be burned
down."(8) He says, too, that the elements and the world shall be destroyed.
"The earth," he says, "shall grow old, and the heaven shall pass away; but
the word of the Lord endureth for ever." What, then, when again God wishes
to show Himself by Moses: "Behold ye, behold ye, that I AM, and there is no
other God beside Me. I will kill, and I will make to live; I will strike,
and I will heal; and there is none who shall deliver out of My hands."(9)
But do you wish to hear another seer? You have the whole prophetic choir,
the associates of Moses. What the Holy Spirit says by Hosea, I will not
shrink from quoting: "Lo, I am He that appointeth the thunder, and createth
spirit; and His hands have established the host of heaven."(10) And once
more by Isaiah. And this utterance I will repeat: "I am," he says, "I am
the LORD; I who speak righteousness, announce truth. Gather yourselves
together, and come. Take counsel together, ye that are saved from the
nations. They have not known, they who set up the block of wood, their
carved work, and pray to gods who will not save them."(11) Then proceeding:
"I am God, and there is not beside Me a just God, and a Saviour: there is
none except Me. Turn to Me, and ye will be saved, ye that are from the end
of the earth. I am God, and there is no other; by Myself I swear."(12) But
against the worshippers of idols he is exasperated, saying, "To whom will
ye liken the LORD, or to what likeness will ye compare Him? Has not the
artificer made the image, or the goldsmith melted the gold and plated it
with gold?"(13)--and so on. Be not therefore idolaters, but even now beware
of the threatenings; "for the graven images and the works of men's hands
shall wail, or rather they that trust in them,"(14) for matter is devoid of
sensation. Once more he says, "The LORD will shake the cities that are
inhabited, and grasp the world in His hand like a nest."(15) Why repeat to
you the mysteries of wisdom, and sayings from the writings of the son of
the Hebrews, the master of wisdom? "The LORD created me the beginning of
His ways, in order to His works."(16) And, "The LORD giveth wisdom, and
from His face proceed knowledge and understanding."(17) "How long wilt thou
lie in bed, O sluggard; and when wilt thou be aroused from sleep?"(18) "but
if thou show thyself no sluggard, as a fountain thy harvest shall come,"(1)
the "Word of the Father, the benign light, the Lord that bringeth light,
faith to all, and salvation."(2) For "the LORD who created the earth by His
power," as Jeremiah says, "has raised up the world by His wisdom;"(3) for
wisdom, which is His word, raises us up to the truth, who have fallen
prostrate before idols, and is itself the first resurrection from our fall.
Whence Moses, the man of God, dissuading from all idolatry, beautifully
exclaims, "Hear, O Israel, the LORD thy God is one LORD; and thou shall
worship the LORD thy God, and Him only shall thou serve."(4) "Now therefore
be wise, O men," according to that blessed psalmist David; "lay hold on
instruction, lest the Lord be angry, and ye perish from the way of
righteousness, when His wrath has quickly kindled. Blessed are all they who
put their trust in Him."(5) But already the Lord, in His surpassing pity,
has inspired the song of salvation, sounding like a battle march, "Sons of
men, how long will ye be slow of heart? Why do you love vanity, and seek
after a lie?"(6) What, then, is the vanity, and what the lie? The holy
apostle of the Lord, reprehending the Greeks, will show thee: "Because
that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were
thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and changed the glory of
God into the likeness of corruptible man, and worshipped and served the
creature more than the Creator."(7) And verily this is the God who "in the
beginning made the heaven and the earth."(8) But you do not know God, and
worship the heaven, and how shall you escape the guilt of impiety? Hear
again the prophet speaking: "The sun, shall suffer eclipse, and the heaven
be darkened; but the Almighty shall shine for ever: while the powers of the
heavens shall be shaken, and the heavens stretched out and drawn together
shall be rolled as a parchment-skin (for these are the prophetic
expressions), and the earth shall flee away from before the face of the
Lord."(9)

CHAP. IX.--"THAT THOSE GRIEVOUSLY SIN WHO DESPISE OR NEGLECT GOD'S GRACIOUS
CALLING."

   I could adduce ten thousand Scriptures of which not "one tittle shall
pass away,"(10) without being fulfilled; for the mouth of the Lord the Holy
Spirit hath spoken these things. "Do not any longer," he says, "my son,
despise the chastening of the LORD, nor faint when thou art rebuked of
Him."(11) O surpassing love for man! Not as a teacher speaking to his
pupils, not as a master to his domestics, nor as God to men, but as a
father, does the Lord gently admonish his children. Thus Moses confesses
that "he was filled with quaking and terror"(12) while he listened to God
speaking concerning the Word. And art not thou afraid as thou hearest the
voice of the Divine Word? Art not thou distressed? Do you not fear, and
hasten to learn of Him,--that is, to salvation,--dreading wrath, loving
grace, eagerly striving after the hope set before us, that you may shun the
judgment threatened? Come, come, O my young people! For if you become not
again as little children, and be born again, as saith the Scripture, you
shall not receive the truly existent Father, nor shall you ever enter into
the kingdom of heaven. For in what way is a stranger permitted to enter?
Well, as I take it, then, when he is enrolled and made a citizen, and
receives one to stand to him in the relation of father, then will he be
occupied with the Father's concerns, then shall he be deemed worthy to be
made His heir, then will he share the kingdom of the Father with His own
dear Son. For this is the first-born Church, composed of many good
children; these are "the first-born enrolled in heaven, who hold high
festival with so many myriads of angels." We, too, are first-born sons, who
are reared by God, who are the genuine friends of the First-born, who first
of all other men attained to the knowledge of God, who first were wrenched
away from our sins, first severed from the devil. And now the more
benevolent God is, the more impious men are; for He desires us from slaves
to become sons, while they scorn to become sons. O the prodigious folly of
being ashamed of the Lord! He often freedom, you flee into bondage; He
bestows salvation, you sink down into destruction; He confers everlasting
life, you wait for punishment, and prefer the fire which the Lord "has
prepared for the devil and his angels."(13) Wherefore the blessed apostle
says: "I testify in the Lord, that ye walk no longer as the Gentiles walk,
in the vanity of their mind; having their understanding darkened, being
alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them,
because of the hardness of their heart: who, being past feeling, have given
themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness and
concupiscence."(14) After the accusation of such a witness, and his
invocation of God, what else remains for the unbelieving than judgment and
condemnation? And the Lord, with ceaseless assiduity, exhorts, terrifies,
urges, rouses, admonishes; He awakes from the sleep of darkness, and raises
up those who have wandered in error. "Awake," He says, "thou that sleepest,
and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light,"(1)--Christ, the
Sun of the Resurrection, He "who was born before the morning star,"(2) and
with His beams bestows life. Let no one then despise the Word, lest he
unwittingly despise himself. For the Scripture somewhere says, "To-day, if
ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in
the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers proved Me by
trial."(3) And what was the trim? If you wish to learn, the Holy Spirit
will show you: "And saw my works," He says, "forty years. Wherefore I was
grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in heart, and
have not known My ways. So I sware in my wrath, they shall not enter into
My rest."(4) Look to the threatening! Look to the exhortation! Look to the
punishment! Why, then, should we any longer change grace into wrath, and
not receive the word with open ears, and entertain God as a guest in pure
spirits? For great is the grace of His promise, "if to-day we hear His
voice."(5) And that to-day is lengthened out day by day, while it is called
to-day. And to the end the to-day and the instruction continue; and then
the true to-day, the never-ending day of God, extends over eternity. Let us
then ever obey the voice of the divine word. For the to-day signifies
eternity. And day is the symbol of light; and the light of men is the Word,
by whom we behold God. Rightly, then, to those that have believed and obey,
grace will superabound; while with those that have been unbelieving, and
err in heart, and have not known the Lord's ways, which John commanded to
make straight and to prepare, God is incensed, and those He threatens.

   And, indeed, the old Hebrew wanderers in the desert received typically
the end of the threatening; for they are said not to have entered into the
rest, because of unbelief, till, having followed the successor of Moses,
they learned by experience, though late, that they could not be saved
otherwise than by believing on Jesus. But the Lord, in His love to man,
invites all men to the knowledge of the truth, and for this end sends the
Paraclete. What, then, is this knowledge? Godliness; and "godliness,"
according to Paul, "is profitable for all things, having the promise of the
life that now is, and of that which is to come."(6) If eternal salvation
were to be sold, for how much, O men, would you propose to purchase it?
Were one to estimate the value of the whole of Pactolus, the fabulous river
of gold, he would not have reckoned up a price equivalent to salvation.

   Do not, however, faint. You may, if you choose, purchase salvation,
though of inestimable value, with your own resources, love and living
faith, which will be reckoned a suitable price. This recompense God
cheerfully accepts; "for we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of
all men, especially of those who believe."(7)

   But the rest, round whom the world's growths have fastened, as the
rocks on the sea-shore are covered over with sea-weed, make light of
immortality, like the old man of Ithaca, eagerly longing to see, not the
truth, not the fatherland in heaven, not the true light, but smoke. But
godliness, that makes man as far as can be like God, designates God as our
suitable teacher, who alone can worthily assimilate man to God. This
teaching the apostle knows as truly divine. "Thou, O Timothy," he says,
"from a child hast known the holy letters, which are able to make thee wise
unto salvation, through faith that is in Christ Jesus."(8) For truly holy
are those letters that sanctify and deify; and the writings or volumes that
consist of those holy letters and syllables, the same apostle consequently
calls "inspired of God, being profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be
perfect, thoroughly furnished to every good work."(9) No one will be so
impressed by the exhortations of any of the saints, as he is by the words
of the Lord Himself, the lover of man. For this, and nothing but this, is
His only work--the salvation of man. Therefore He Himself, urging them on
to salvation, cries, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand."(10) Those men that
draw near through fear, He converts. Thus also the apostle of the Lord,
beseeching the Macedonians, becomes the interpreter of the divine voice,
when he says, "The Lord is at hand; take care that ye be not apprehended
empty."(11) But are ye so devoid of fear, or rather of faith, as not to
believe the Lord Himself, or Paul, who in Christ's stead thus entreats:
"Taste and see that Christ is God?"(12) Faith will lead you in; experience
will teach you; Scripture will train you, for it says, "Come hither, O
children; listen to me, and I will teach you the fear of the LORD." Then,
as to those who already believe, it briefly adds, "What man is he that
desireth life, that loveth to see good days?"(13) It is we, we shall say--
we who are the devotees of good, we who eagerly desire good things. Hear,
then, ye who are far off, hear ye who are near: the word has not been
hidden from any; light is common, it shines "on all men." No one is a
Cimmerian in respect to the word. Let us haste to salvation, to
regeneration; let us who are many haste that we may be brought together
into one love, according to the union of the essential unity; and let us,
by being made good, conformably follow after union, seeking after the good
Monad.

   The union of many in one, issuing in the production of divine harmony
out of a medley of sounds and division, becomes one symphony following one
choir-leader and teacher,(1) the Word, reaching and resting in the same
truth, and crying Abba, Father. This, the true utterance of His children,
God accepts with gracious welcome--the first-fruits He receives from them.

CHAP. X.-- ANSWER TO THE OBJECTION OF THE HEATHEN, THAT IT WAS NOT RIGHT TO
ABANDON THE CUSTOMS OF THEIR FATHERS.

   But you say it is not creditable to subvert the customs handed down to
us from our fathers. And why, then, do we not still use our first
nourishment, milk, to which our nurses accustomed us from the time of our
birth? Why do we increase or diminish our patrimony, and not keep it
exactly the same as we got it? Why do we not still vomit on our parents'
breasts, or still do the things for which, when infants, and nursed by our
mothers, we were laughed at, but have corrected ourselves, even if we did
not fall in with good instructors? Then, if excesses in the indulgence of
the passions, though pernicious and dangerous, yet are accompanied with
pleasure, why do we not in the conduct of life abandon that usage which is
evil, and provocative of passion, and godless, even should our fathers feel
hurt, and betake ourselves to the truth, and seek Him who is truly our
Father, rejecting custom as a deleterious drug? For of all that I have
undertaken to do, the task I now attempt is the noblest, viz., to
demonstrate to you how inimical this insane and most wretched custom is to
godliness. For a boon so great, the greatest ever given by God to the human
race, would never have been hated and rejected, had not you been carried
away by custom, and then shut your ears against us; and just as
unmanageable horses throw off the reins, and take the bit between their
teeth, you rush away from the arguments addressed to you, in your eager
desire to shake yourselves clear of us, who seek to guide the chariot of
your life, and, impelled by your folly, dash towards the precipices of
destruction, and regard the holy word of God as an accursed thing. The
reward of your choice, therefore, as described by Sophocles, follows:--

   "The mind a blank, useless ears, vain thoughts."

And you know not that, of all truths, this is the truest, that the good and
godly shall obtain the good reward, inasmuch as they held goodness in high
esteem; while, on the other hand, the wicked shall receive meet punishment.
For the author of evil, torment has been prepared; and so the prophet
Zecharias threatens him: "He that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee; lo, is
not this a brand plucked from the fire?"(2) What an infatuated desire,
then, for voluntary death is this, rooted in men's minds! Why do they flee
to this fatal brand, with which they shall be burned, when it is within
their power to live nobly according to God, and not according to custom?
For God bestows life freely; but evil custom, after our departure from this
world, brings on the sinner unavailing remorse with punishment. By sad
experience, even a child knows how superstition destroys and piety saves.
Let any of you look at those who minister before the idols, their hair
matted, their persons disgraced with filthy and tattered clothes; who never
come near a bath, and let their nails grow to an extraordinary length, like
wild beasts; many of them castrated, who show the idol's temples to be in
reality graves or prisons. These appear to me to bewail the gods, not to
worship them, and their sufferings to be worthy of pity rather than piety.
And seeing these things, do you still continue blind, and will you not look
up to the Ruler of all, the Lord of the universe? And will you not escape
from those dungeons, and flee to the mercy that comes down from heaven? For
God, of His great love to man, comes to the help of man, as the mother-bird
flies to one of her young that has fallen out of the nest; and if a serpent
open its mouth to swallow the little bird, "the mother flutters round,
uttering cries of grief over her dear progeny;"(3) and God the Father seeks
His creature, and heals his transgression, and pursues the serpent, and
recovers the young one, and incites it to fly up to the nest.

   Thus dogs that have strayed, track out their master by the scent; and
horses that have thrown their riders, come to their master's call if he but
whistle. "The ox," it is said, "knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's
crib; but Israel hath not known Me."(4) What, then, of the Lord? He
remembers not our ill desert; He still pities, He still urges us to
repentance.

And I would ask you, if it does not appear to you monstrous, that you men
who are God's handiwork, who have received your souls from Him, and belong
wholly to God, should be subject to another master, and, what is more,
serve the tyrant instead of the rightful King--the evil one instead of the
good? For, in the name of truth, what man in his senses turns his back on
good, and attaches himself to evil? What, then, is he who flees from God to
consort with demons? Who, that may become a son of God, prefers to be in
bondage? Or who is he that pursues his way to Erebus, when it is in his
power to be a citizen of heaven, and to cultivate Paradise, and walk about
in heaven and partake of the tree of life and immortality, and, cleaving
his way through the sky in the track of the luminous cloud, behold, like
Elias, the rain of salvation? Some there are, who, like worms wallowing in
marshes and mud in the streams of pleasure, feed on foolish and useless
delights--swinish men. For swine, it is said, like mud better than pure
water; and, according to Democritus, "doat upon dirt."

   Let us not then be enslaved or become swinish; but, as true children of
the light, let us raise our eyes and look on the light, lest the Lord
discover us to be spurious, as the sun does the eagles. Let us therefore
repent, and pass from ignorance to knowledge, from foolishness to wisdom,
from licentiousness to self-restraint, from unrighteousness to
righteousness, from godlessness to God. It is an enterprise of noble daring
to take our way to God; and the enjoyment of many other good things is
within the reach of the lovers of righteousness, who pursue eternal life,
specially those things to which God Himself alludes, speaking by Isaiah:
"There is an inheritance for those who serve the LORD."(1) Noble and
desirable is this inheritance: not gold, not silver, not raiment, which the
moth assails, and things of earth which are assailed by the robber, whose
eye is dazzled by worldly wealth; but it is that treasure of salvation to
which we must hasten, by becoming lovers of the Word. Thence praise-worthy
works descend to us, and fly with us on the wing of truth. This is the
inheritance with Which the eternal covenant of God invests us, conveying
the everlasting gift of grace; and thus our loving Father--the true Father-
-ceases not to exhort, admonish, train, love us. For He ceases not to save,
and advises the best course: "Become righteous," says the Lord.(2) Ye that
thirst, come to the water; and ye that have no money, come, and buy and
drink without money.(3) He invites to the layer, to salvation, to
illumination, all but crying out and saying, The land I give thee, and the
sea, my child, and heaven too; and all the living creatures in them I
freely bestow upon thee. Only, O child, thirst for thy Father; God shall be
revealed to thee without price; the truth is not made merchandise of. He
gives thee all creatures that fly and swim, and those on the land. These
the Father has created for thy thankful enjoyment. What the bastard, who is
a son of perdition, foredoomed to be the slave of mammon, has to buy for
money, He assigns to thee as thine own, even to His own son who loves the
Father; for whose sake He still works, and to whom alone He promises,
saying, "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity," for it is not destined
to corruption. "For the whole land is mine;" and it is thine too, if thou
receive God. Wherefore the Scripture, as might have been expected,
proclaims good news to those who have believed. "The saints of the Lord
shall inherit the glory of God and His power." What glory, tell me, O
blessed One, which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered
into the heart of man;"(4) and "they shall be glad in the kingdom of their
Lord for ever and ever! Amen." You have, O men, the divine promise of
grace; you have heard, on the other hand, the threatening of punishment: by
these the Lord saves, teaching men by fear and grace. Why do we delay? Why
do we not shun the punishment? Why do we not receive the free gift? Why, in
fine. do we not choose the better part, God instead of the evil one, and
prefer wisdom to idolatry, and take life in exchange for death? "Behold,"
He says, "I have set before your face death and life."(5) The Lord tries
you, that "you may choose life." He counsels yon as a father to obey God.
"For if ye hear Me," He says, "and be willing, ye shall eat the good things
of the land:"(6) this is the grace attached to obedience. "But if ye obey
Me not, and are unwilling, the sword and fire shall devour you:"(7) this is
the penalty of disobedience. For the mouth of the Lord--the law of truth,
the word of the Lord--hath spoken these things. Are you willing that I
should be your good counsellor? Well, do you hear. I, if possible, will
explain. You ought, O men, when reflecting on the Good, to have brought
forward a witness inborn and competent, viz, faith, which of itself, and
from its own resources, chooses at once what is best, instead of occupying
yourselves in painfully inquiring whether what is best ought to be
followed. For, allow me to tell you, you ought to doubt whether you should
get drunk, but you get drunk before reflecting on the matter; and whether
you ought to do an injury, but you do injury with the utmost readiness. The
only thing you make the subject of question is, whether God should be
worshipped, and whether this wise God and Christ should be followed: and
this you think requires deliberation and doubt, and know not what is worthy
of God. Have faith in us, as you have in drunkenness, that you may be wise;
have faith in us, as you have in injury, that you may live. But if,
acknowledging the conspicuous trustworthiness of the virtues, you wish to
trust them, come and I will set before you in abundance, materials of
persuasion respecting the Word. But do you--for your ancestral customs, by
which your minds are preoccupied, divert you from the truth,--do you now
hear what is the real state of the case as follows.

   And let not any shame of this name preoccupy you, which does great harm
to men, and seduces them from salvation. Let us then openly strip for the
contest, and nobly strive in the arena of truth, the holy Word being the
judge, and the Lord of the universe prescribing the contest. For 'tis no
insignificant prize, the guerdon of immortality which is set before us. Pay
no more regard, then, if you are rated by some of the low rabble who lead
the dance of impiety, and are driven on to the same pit by their folly and
insanity, makers of idols and worshippers of stones. For these have dared
to deify men,--Alexander of Macedon, for example, whom they canonized as
the thirteenth god, whose pretensions Babylon confuted, which showed him
dead. I admire, therefore, the divine sophist. Theocritus was his name.
After Alexander's death, Theocritus, holding up the vain opinions
entertained by men respecting the gods, to ridicule before his fellow-
citizens, said: "Men, keep up your hearts as long as you see the gods dying
sooner than men." And, truly, he who worships gods that are visible, and
the promiscuous rabble of creatures begotten and born, and attaches himself
to them, is a far more wretched object than the very demons. For God is by
no manner of means unrighteous, as the demons are, but in the very highest
degree righteous; and nothing more resembles God than one of us when he
becomes righteous in the highest possible degree:--

   "Go into the way, the whole tribe of you handicrafts-men,
   Who worship Jove's fierce-eyed daughter,(1) the working goddess,
   With fans duly placed, fools that ye are"--

fashioners of stones, and worshippers of them. Let your Phidias, and
Polycletus, and your Praxiteles and Apelles too, come, and all that are
engaged in mechanical arts, who, being themselves of the earth, are workers
of the earth. "For then," says a certain prophecy, "the affairs here turn
out unfortunately, when men put their trust in images." Let the meaner
artists, too--for I will not stop calling--come. None of these ever made a
breathing image, or out of earth moulded soft flesh. Who liquefied the
marrow? or who solidified the bones? Who stretched the nerves? who
distended the veins? Who poured the blood into them? Or who spread the
skin? Who ever could have made eyes capable of seeing? Who breathed spirit
into the lifeless form? Who bestowed righteousness? Who promised
immortality? The Maker of the universe alone; the Great Artist and Father
has formed us, such a living image as man is. But your Olympian Jove, the
image of an image, greatly out of harmony with truth, is the senseless work
of Attic hands. For the image of God is His Word, the genuine Son of Mind,
the Divine Word, the archetypal light of light; and the image of the Word
is the true man, the mind which is in man, who is therefore said to have
been made "in the image and likeness of God,"(2) assimilated to the Divine
Word in the affections of the soul, and therefore rational; but effigies
sculptured in human form, the earthly image of that part of man which is
visible and earth-born, are but a perishable impress of humanity,
manifestly wide of the truth. That life, then, which is occupied with so
much earnestness about matter, seems to me to be nothing else than full of
insanity. And custom, which has made you taste bondage and unreasonable
care, is fostered by vain opinion; and ignorance, which has proved to the
human race the cause of unlawful rites and delusive shows, and also of
deadly plagues and hateful images, has, by devising many shapes of demons,
stamped on all that follow it the mark of long-continued death. Receive,
then, the water of the word; wash, ye polluted ones; purify yourselves from
custom, by sprinkling yourselves with the drops of truth.(3) The pure must
ascend to heaven. Thou art a man, if we look to that which is most common
to thee and others--seek Him who created thee; thou art a son, if we look
to that which is thy peculiar prerogative--acknowledge thy Father. But do
you still continue in your sins, engrossed with pleasures? To whom shall
the Lord say, "Yours is the kingdom of heaven?" Yours, whose choice is set
on God, if you will; yours, if you will only believe, and comply with the
brief terms of the announcement; which the Ninevites having obeyed, instead
of the destruction they looked for, obtained a signal deliverance. How,
then, may I ascend to heaven, is it said? The Lord is the way; a strait
way, but leading from heaven, strait in truth, but leading back to heaven,
strait, despised on earth; broad, adored in heaven.

   Then, he that is uninstructed in the word, has ignorance as the excuse
of his error; but as for him into whose ears instruction has been poured,
and who deliberately maintains his incredulity in his soul, the wiser he
appears to be, the more harm will his understanding do him; for he has his
own sense as his accuser for not having chosen the best part. For man has
been otherwise constituted by nature, so as to have fellowship with God.
As, then, we do not compel the horse to plough, or the bull to hunt, but
set each animal to that for which it is by nature fitted; so, placing our
finger on what is man's peculiar and distinguishing characteristic above
other creatures, we invite him--born, as he is, for the contemplation of
heaven, and being, as he is, a truly heavenly plant--to the knowledge of
God, counselling him to furnish himself with what is his sufficient
provision for eternity, namely piety. Practise husbandry, we say, if you
are a husbandman; but while you till your fields, know God. Sail the sea,
you who are devoted to navigation, yet call the whilst on the heavenly
Pilot.(1) Has knowledge taken hold of you while engaged in military
service? Listen to the commander, who orders what is right. As those, then,
who have been overpowered with sleep and drunkenness, do ye awake; and
using your eyes a little, consider what mean those stones which you
worship, and the expenditure you frivolously lavish on matter. Your means
and substance you squander on ignorance, even as you throw away your lives
to death, having found no other end of your vain hope than this. Not only
unable to pity yourselves, you are incapable even of yielding to the
persuasions of those who commiserate you; enslaved as you are to evil
custom, and, clinging to it voluntarily till your last breath, you are
hurried to destruction: "because light is come into the world, and men have
loved the darkness rather than the light,"(2) while they could sweep away
those hindrances to salvation, pride, and wealth, and fear, repeating this
poetic utterance:--

   "Whither do I bear these abundant riches? and whither
    Do I myself wander?"(3)

If you wish, then, to cast aside these vain phantasies, and bid adieu to
evil custom, say to vain opinion:--

   "Lying dreams, farewell; you were then nothing."

For what, think you, O men, is the Hermes of Typho, and that of Andocides,
and that of Amyetus? Is it not evident to all that they are stones, as is
the veritable Hermes himself? As the Halo is not a god, and as the Iris is
not a god, but are states of the atmosphere and of the clouds; and as,
likewise, a day is not a god, nor a year, nor time, which is made up of
these, so neither is sun nor moon, by which each of those mentioned above
is determined. Who, then, in his right senses, can imagine Correction, and
Punishment, and Justice, and Retribution to be gods? For neither the
Furies, nor the Fates, nor Destiny are gods, since neither Government, nor
Glory, nor Wealth are gods, which last [as Plutus] painters represent as
blind. But if you deify Modesty, and Love, and Venus, let these be followed
by Infamy, and Passion, and Beauty, and Intercourse. Therefore Sleep and
Death cannot reasonably any more be regarded as twin deities, being merely
changes which take place naturally in living creatures; no more will you
with propriety call Fortune, or Destiny, or the Fates goddesses. And if
Strife and Battle be not gods, no more are Ares and Enyo. Still further, if
the lightnings, and thunderbolts, and rains are not gods, how can fire and
water be gods? how can shooting stars and comets, which are produced by
atmospheric changes? He who calls Fortune a god, let him also so call
Action. If, then, none of these, nor of the images formed by human hands,
and destitute of feeling, is held to be a God, while a providence exercised
about us is evidently the result of a divine power,(4) it remains only to
acknowledge this, that He alone who is truly God, only truly is and
subsists. But those who are insensible to this are like men who have drunk
mandrake or some other drug. May God grant that you may at length awake
from this slumber, and know God; and that neither Gold, nor Stone, nor
Tree, nor Action, nor Suffering, nor Disease, nor Fear, may appear in your
eyes as a god. For there are, in sooth, "on the fruitful earth thrice ten
thousand" demons, not immortal, nor indeed mortal; for they are not endowed
with sensation, so as to render them capable of death, but only things of
wood and stone, that hold despotic sway over men insulting and violating
life through the force of custom. "The earth is the LORD'S," it is said,
"and the fulness thereof."(5) Then why darest thou, while luxuriating in
the bounties of the Lord, to ignore the Sovereign Ruler? "Leave my earth,"
the Lord will say to thee. "Touch not the water which I bestow. Partake not
of the fruits of the earth produced by my husbandry." Give to God
recompense for your sustenance; acknowledge thy Master. Thou art God's
creature. What belongs to Him, how can it with justice be alienated? For
that which is alienated, being deprived of the properties that belonged to
it, is also deprived of truth. For, after the fashion of Niobe, or, to
express myself more mystically, like the Hebrew woman called by the
ancients Lot's wife, are ye not turned into a state of insensibility? This
woman we have heard, was turned into stone for her love of Sodore. And
those who are godless, addicted to impiety, hard-hearted and foolish are
Sodomites. Believe that these utterances are addressed to you from God. For
think not that stones, and stocks, and birds, and serpents are sacred
things, and men are not; but, on the contrary, regard men as truly
sacred,(1) and take beasts and stones for what they are. For there are
miserable wretches of human kind, who consider that God utters His voice by
the raven and the jackdaw, but says nothing by man; and honour the raven as
a messenger of God. But the man of God, who croaks not, nor chatters, but
speaks rationally and instructs lovingly, alas, they persecute; and while
he is inviting them to cultivate righteousness, they try inhumanly to slay
him, neither welcoming the grace which, comes from above, nor fearing the
penalty. For they believe not God, nor understand His power, whose love to
man is ineffable; and His hatred of evil is inconceivable. His anger
augments punishment against sin; His love bestows bless-rags on repentance.
It is the height of wretchedness to be deprived of the help which comes
from God. Hence this blindness of eyes and dulness of hearing are more
grievous than other inflictions of the evil one; for the one deprives them
of heavenly vision, the other robs them of divine instruction. But ye, thus
maimed as respects the truth, blind in mind, deaf in understanding, are not
grieved, are not pained, have had no desire to see heaven and the Maker of
heaven, nor, by fixing your choice on salvation, have sought to hear the
Creator of the universe, and to learn of Him; for no hindrance stands in
the way of him who is bent on the knowledge of God. Neither childlessness,
nor poverty, nor obscurity, nor want, can hinder him who eagerly strives
after the knowledge of God; nor does any one who has conquered(2) by brass
or iron the true wisdom for himself choose to exchange it, for it is vastly
preferred to everything else. Christ is able to save in every place. For he
that is fired with ardour and admiration for righteousness, being the lover
of One who needs nothing, needs himself but little, having treasured up his
bliss in nothing but himself and God, where is neither moth,(3) robber, nor
pirate, but the eternal Giver of good. With justice, then, have you been
compared to those serpents who shut their ears against the charmers. For
"their mind," says the Scripture, "is like the serpent, like the deaf
adder, which stoppeth her ear, and will not hear the voice of the
charmers."(4) But allow yourselves to feel the influence of the charming
strains of sanctity, and receive that mild word of ours, and reject the
deadly poison, that it may be granted to you to divest yourselves as much
as possible of destruction, as they s have been divested of old age. Hear
me, and do not stop your ears; do not block up the avenues of hearing, but
lay to heart what is said. Excellent is the medicine of immortality! Stop
at length your grovelling reptile motions.(4) "For the enemies of the
Lord," says Scripture, "shall lick the dust."(6) Raise your eyes from earth
to the skies, look up to heaven, admire the sight, cease watching with
outstretched head the heel of the righteous, and hindering the way of
truth. Be wise and harmless. Perchance the Lord will endow you with the
wing of simplicity (for He has resolved to give wings to those that are
earth-born), that you may leave your holes and dwell in heaven. Only let us
with our whole heart repent, that we may be able with our whole heart to
contain God. "Trust in Him, all ye assembled people; pour out all your
hearts before Him."(7) He says to those that have newly abandoned
wickedness, "He pities them, and fills them with righteousness." Believe
Him who is man and God; believe, O man. Believe, O man, the living God, who
suffered and is adored. Believe, ye slaves,(8) Him who died; believe, all
ye of human kind, Him who alone is God of all men. Believe, and receive
salvation as your reward. Seek God, and your soul shall live. He who seeks
God is busying himself about his own salvation. Hast thou found God?--then
thou hast life. Let us then seek, in order that we may live. The reward of
seeking is life with God. "Let all who seek Thee be glad and rejoice in
Thee; and let them say continually, God be magnified."(9) A noble hymn of
God is an immortal man, established in righteousness, in whom the oracles
of truth are engraved. For where but in a soul that is wise can you write
truth? where love? where reverence? where meekness? Those who have had
these divine characters impressed on them, ought, I think, to regard wisdom
as a fair port whence to embark, to whatever lot in life they turn; and
likewise to deem it the calm haven of salvation: wisdom, by which those who
have betaken themselves to the Father, have proved good fathers to their
children; and good parents to their sons, those who have known the Son; and
good husbands to their wives, those who remember the Bridegroom; and good
masters to their servants,(1) those who have been redeemed from utter
slavery. Oh, happier far the beasts than men involved in error! who live in
ignorance as you, but do not counterfeit the truth. There are no tribes of
flatterers among them. Fishes have no superstition: the birds worship not a
single image; only they look with admiration on heaven, since, deprived as
they are of reason, they are unable to know God. So are you not ashamed for
living through so many periods of life in impiety, making yourselves more
irrational than irrational creatures? You were boys, then striplings, then
youths, then men, but never as yet were you good. If you have respect for
old age, be wise, now that you have reached life's sunset; and albeit at
the close of life, acquire the knowledge of God, that the end of life may
to you prove the beginning of salvation. You have become old in
superstition; as young, enter on the practice of piety. God regards you as
innocent children. Let, then, the Athenian follow the laws of Solon, and
the Argive those of Phoroneus, and the Spartan those of Lycurgus: but if
thou enrol thyself as one of God's people, heaven is thy country, God thy
lawgiver. And what are the laws? "Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not
commit adultery; thou shalt not seduce boys; thou shalt not steal; thou
shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt love the Lord thy God."(2) And the
complements of these are those laws. of reason and words of sanctity which
are inscribed on men's hearts: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;
to him who strikes thee on the cheek, present also the other;"(3) "thou
shalt not lust, for by lust alone thou hast committed adultery."(4) How
much better, therefore, is it for men from the beginning not to wish to
desire things forbidden, than to obtain their desires! But ye are not able
to endure the austerity of salvation; but as we delight in sweet' things,
and prize them higher for the agreeableness of the pleasure they yield,
while, on the other hand, those bitter things which are distasteful to the
palate are curative and healing, and the harshness of medicines strengthens
people of weak stomach, thus custom pleases and, tickles; but custom pushes
into the abyss, while truth conducts to heaven. Harsh it is at first, but a
good nurse of youth; and it is at once the decorous place where the
household maids and matrons dwell together, and the sage council-chamber.
Nor is it difficult to approach, or impossible to attain, but is very near
us in our very homes; as Moses, endowed with all wisdom, says, while
referring to it, it has its abode in three departments of our constitution-
-in the hands, the mouth, and the heart: a meet emblem this of truth, which
is embraced by these three things in all--will, action, speech. And be not
afraid lest the multitude of pleasing objects which rise before you
withdraw you from wisdom. You yourself will spontaneously surmount the
frivolousness of custom, as boys when they have become men throw aside
their toys. For with a celerity unsurpassable, and a benevolence to which
we have ready access, the divine power, casting its radiance on the earth,
hath filled the universe with the seed of salvation. For it was not without
divine care that so great a work was accomplished in so brief a space by
the Lord, who, though despised as to appearance, was in reality adored, the
expiator of sin, the Saviour, the clement, the Divine Word, He that is
truly most manifest Deity, He that is made equal to the Lord of the
universe; because He was His Son, and the Word was in God, not disbelieved
in by all when He was first preached, nor altogether unknown when, assuming
the character of man, and fashioning Himself in flesh, He enacted the drama
of human salvation: for He was a true champion and a fellow-champion with
the creature. And being communicated most speedily to men, having dawned
from His Father's counsel quicker than the sun, with the most perfect ease
He made God shine on us. Whence He was and what He was, He showed by what
He taught and exhibited, manifesting Himself as the Herald of the Covenant,
the Reconciler, our Saviour, the Word, the Fount of life, the Giver of
peace, diffused over the whole face of the earth; by whom, so to speak, the
universe has already become an ocean of blessings.(5)

CHAP. XI.--HOW GREAT ARE THE BENEFITS CONFERRED ON MAN THROUGH THE ADVENT
OF

   Contemplate a little, if agreeable to you, the divine beneficence. The
first man, when in Paradise, sported free, because he was the child of God;
but when he succumbed to pleasure (for the serpent allegorically signifies
pleasure crawling on its belly, earthly wickedness nourished for fuel to
the flames), was as a child seduced by lusts, and grew old in disobedience;
and by disobeying his Father, dishonoured God. Such was the influence of
pleasure. Man, that had been free by reason of simplicity, was found
fettered to sins. The Lord then wished to release him from his bonds, and
clothing Himself with flesh--O divine mystery!--vanquished the serpent, and
enslaved the tyrant death; and, most marvellous of all, man that had been
deceived by pleasure, and bound fast by corruption, had his hands unloosed,
and was set free. O mystic wonder! The Lord was laid low, and man rose up;
and he that fell from Paradise receives as the reward of obedience
something greater [than Paradise]--namely, heaven itself. Wherefore, since
the Word Himself has come to us from heaven, we need not, I reckon, go any
more in search of human learning to Athens and the rest of Greece, and to
Ionia. For if we have as our teacher Him that filled the universe with His
holy energies in creation, salvation, beneficence, legislation, prophecy,
teaching, we have the Teacher from whom all instruction comes; and the
whole world, with Athens and Greece, has already become the domain of the
Word.(1) For you, who believed the poetical fable which designated Minos
the Cretan as the bosom friend of Zeus, will not refuse to believe that we
who have become the disciples of God have received the only true wisdom;
and that which the chiefs of philosophy only guessed at, the disciples of
Christ have both apprehended and proclaimed. And the one whole Christ is
not divided: "There is neither barbarian, nor Jew, nor Greek, neither male
nor female, but a new man,"(2) transformed by God's Holy Spirit. Further,
the other counsels and precepts are unimportant, and respect particular
things,--as, for example, if one may marry, take part in public affairs,
beget children; but the only command that is universal, and over the whole
course of existence, at all times and in all circumstances, tends to the
highest end, viz., life, is piety,(3)--all that is necessary, in order that
we may live for ever, being that we live in accordance with it. Philosophy,
however, as the ancients say, is "a long-lived exhortation, wooing the
eternal love of wisdom;" while the commandment of the Lord is far-shining,
"enlightening the eyes." Receive Christ, receive sight, receive thy light,

   "In order that you may know well both God and man."(4)

   "Sweet is the Word that gives us light, precious above gold and gems;
it is to be desired above honey and the honey-comb."(5)

For how can it be other than desirable, since it has filled with light the
mind which had been buried in darkness, and given keenness to the "light-
bringing eyes" of the soul? For just as, had the sun not been in existence,
night would have brooded over the universe notwithstanding the other
luminaries of heaven; so, had we nor known the Word, and been illuminated
by Him; we should have been nowise different from fowls that are being fed,
fattened in darkness, and nourished for death. Let us then admit the light,
that we may admit God; let us admit the light, and become disciples to the
Lord. This, too, He has been promised to the Father: "I will declare Thy
name to my brethren; in the midst of the Church will I praise Thee."(6)
Praise and declare to me Thy Father God; Thy utterances save; Thy hymn
teaches(7) that hitherto I have wandered in error, seeking God. But since
Thou leadest me to the light, O Lord, and I find God through Thee, and
receive the Father from Thee, I become "Thy fellow-heir,"(8) since Thou
"weft not ashamed of me as Thy brother."(9) Let us put away, then, let us
put away oblivion of the truth, viz., ignorance; and removing the darkness
which obstructs, as dimness of sight, let us contemplate the only true God,
first raising our voice in this hymn of praise:(10) Hail, O light! For in
us, buried in darkness, shut up in the shadow of death, light has shone
forth from heaven, purer than the sun, sweeter than life here below. That
light is eternal life; and whatever partakes of it lives. But night fears
the light, and hiding itself in terror, gives place to the day of the Lord.
Sleepless light is now over all, and the west has given credence to the
east. For this was the end of the new creation. For "the Sun of
Righteousness," who drives His chariot over all, pervades equally all
humanity, like "His Father, who makes His sun to rise on all men," and
distils on them the dew of the truth. He hath changed sunset into sunrise,
and through the cross brought death to life; and having wrenched man from
destruction, He hath raised him to the skies, transplanting mortality into
immortality, and translating earth to heaven--He, the husbandman of God,

   "Pointing out the favourable signs and rousing the nations
   To good works, putting them in mind of the true sustenance;"(11)

having bestowed on us the truly great, divine, and inalienable inheritance
of the Father, deifying man by heavenly teaching, putting His laws into our
minds, and writing them on our hearts. What laws does He inscribe? "That
all shall know God, from small to great;" and, "I will be merciful to
them," says God, "and will not remember their sins."(1) Let us receive the
laws of life, let us comply with God's expostulations; let us become
acquainted with Him, that He may be gracious. And though God needs nothing
let us render to Him the grateful recompense of a thankful heart and of
piety, as a kind of house-rent for our dwelling here below.

   "Gold for brass,
   A hundred oxen's worth for that of nine;"(2)

that is, for your little faith He gives you the earth of so great extent to
till, water to drink and also to sail on, air to breathe, fire to do your
work, a world to dwell in; and He has permitted you to conduct a colony
from here to heaven: with these important works of His hand, and benefits
in such numbers, He has rewarded your little faith. Then, those who have
put faith in necromancers, receive from them amulets and charms, to ward
off evil forsooth; and will you not allow the heavenly Word, the Saviour,
to be bound on to you as an amulet, and, by trusting in God's own charm, be
delivered from passions which are the diseases of the mind, and rescued
from sin?--for sin is eternal death. Surely utterly dull and blind, and,
like moles, doing nothing but eat, you spend your lives in darkness,
surrounded with corruption. But it is truth which cries, "The light shall
shine forth from the darkness." Let the light then shine in the hidden part
of man, that is, the heart; and let the beams of knowledge arise to reveal
and irradiate the hidden inner man, the disciple of the Light, the familiar
friend and fellow-heir of Christ; especially now that we have come to know
the most precious and venerable name of the good Father, who to a pious and
good child gives gentle counsels, and commands what is salutary for His
child. He who obeys Him has the advantage in all things, follows God, obeys
the Father, knows Him through wandering, loves God, loves his neighbour,
fulfils the commandment, seeks the prize, claims the promise. But it has
been God's fixed and constant purpose to save the flock of men: for this
end the good God sent the good Shepherd. And the Word, having unfolded the
truth, showed to men the height of salvation, that either repenting they
might be saved, or refusing to obey, they might be judged. This is the
proclamation of righteousness: to those that obey, glad tidings; to those
that disobey, judgment. The loud trumpet, when sounded, collects the
soldiers, and proclaims war. And shall not Christ, breathing a strain of
peace to the ends of the earth, gather together His own soldiers, the
soldiers of peace? Well, by His blood, and by the word, He has gathered the
bloodless host of peace, and assigned to them the kingdom of heaven. The
trumpet of Christ is His Gospel. He hath blown it, and we have heard. "Let
us array ourselves in the armour of peace, putting on the breastplate of
righteousness, and taking the shield of faith, and binding our brows with
the helmet, of salvation; and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of
God,"(3) let us sharpen. So the apostle in the spirit of peace commands.
These are our invulnerable weapons: armed with these, let us face the evil
one; "the fiery darts of the evil one" let us quench with the sword-points
dipped in water, that, have been baptized by the Word, returning grateful
thanks for the benefits we have received, and honouring God through the
Divine Word. "For while thou art yet speaking," it is said, "He will say,
Behold, I am beside thee."(4) O this holy and blessed power, by which God
has fellowship with men! Better far, then, is it to become at once the
imitator and the servant of the best of all beings; for only by holy
service will any one be able to imitate God, and to serve and worship Him
only by imitating Him. The heavenly and truly divine love comes to men
thus, when in the soul itself the spark of true goodness, kindled in the
soul by the Divine Word, is able to burst forth into flame; and, what is of
the highest importance, salvation runs parallel with sincere willingness--
choice and life being, so to speak, yoked together. Wherefore this
exhortation of the truth alone, like the most faithful of our friends,
abides with us till our last breath, and is to the whole and perfect spirit
of the soul the kind attendant on our ascent to heaven. What, then, is the
exhortation I give you? I urge you to be saved. This Christ desires. In one
word. He freely bestows life on you. And who is He? Briefly learn. The Word
of truth, the Word of incorruption, that regenerates man by bringing him
back to the truth--the goad that urges to salvation t He who expels
destruction and pursues death--He who builds up the temple of God in men,
that He may cause God to take up His abode in men. Cleanse the temple; and
pleasures and amusements abandon to the winds and the fire, as a fading
flower; but wisely cultivate the fruits of self-command, and present
thyself to God as an offering of first-fruits, that there may be not the
work alone, but also the grace of God; and both are requisite, that the
friend of Christ may be rendered worthy of the kingdom, and be counted
worthy of the kingdom.

CHAP. XII.--EXHORTATION TO ABANDON THEIR OLD ERRORS AND LISTEN TO THE
INSTRUCTIONS OF CHRIST.

   Let us then avoid custom as we would a dangerous headland, or the
threatening Charybdis, or the mythic sirens. It chokes man, turns him away
from truth, leads him away from life: custom is a snare, a gulf, a pit, a
mischievous winnowing fan.

   "Urge the ship beyond that smoke and billow."(1)

Let us shun, fellow-mariners, let us shun this billow; it vomits forth
fire: it is a wicked island, heaped with bones and corpses, and in it sings
a fair courtesan, Pleasure, delighting with music for the common ear.

   "Hie thee hither, far-famed Ulysses, great glory of the Achaeans;
   Moor the ship, that thou mayest hears diviner voice."(2)

She praises thee, O mariner, and calls the eillustrious; and the courtesan
tries to win to herself the glory of the Greeks. Leave her to prey on the
dead; a heavenly spirit comes to thy help: pass by Pleasure, she beguiles.

   "Let not a woman with flowing train cheat you of your senses,
   With her flattering prattle seeking your hurt."

Sail past the song; it works death. Exert your will only, and you have
overcome ruin; bound to the wood of the cross, thou shalt be freed from
destruction: the word of God will be thy pilot, and the Holy Spirit will
bring thee to anchor in the haven of heaven. Then shalt thou see my God,
and be initiated into the sacred mysteries, and come to the fruition of
those things which are laid up in heaven reserved for me, which "ear hath
not heard, nor have they entered into the heart of any."(3)

   "And in sooth methinks I see two suns,
   And a double Thebes,"(4)

said one frenzy-stricken in the worship of idols, intoxicated with mere
ignorance. I would pity him in his frantic intoxication, and thus frantic I
would invite him to the sobriety of salvation; for the Lord welcomes a
sinner's repentance, and not his death.

   Come, O madman, not leaning on the thyrsus, not crowned with ivy; throw
away the mitre, throw away the fawn-skin; come to thy senses. I will show
thee the Word, and the mysteries of the Word, expounding them after thine
own fashion. This is the mountain beloved of God, not the subject of
tragedies like Cithaeron, but consecrated to dramas of the truth,--a mount
of sobriety, shaded with forests of purity; and there revel on it not the
Maenades, the sisters of Semele, who was struck by the thunderbolt,
practising in their initiator rites unholy division of flesh, but the
daughters of God, the fair lambs, who celebrate the holy rites of the Word,
raising a sober choral dance. The righteous are the chorus; the music is a
hymn of the King of the universe. The maidens strike the lyre, the angels
praise, the prophets speak; the sound of music issues forth, they run and
pursue the jubilant band; those that are called make haste, eagerly
desiring to receive the Father.

   Come thou also, O aged man, leaving Thebes, and casting away from thee
both divination and Bacchic frenzy, allow thyself to be led to the truth. I
give thee the staff [of the cross] on which to lean. Haste, Tiresias;
believe, and thou wilt see. Christ, by whom the eyes of the blind recover
sight, will shed on thee a light brighter than the sun; night will flee
from thee, fire will fear, death will be gone; thou, old man, who saw not
Thebes, shalt see the heavens. O truly sacred mysteries! O stainless light!
My way is lighted with torches, and I survey the heavens and God; I become
holy whilst I am initiated. The Lord is the hierophant, and seals while
illuminating him who is initiated, and presents to the Father him who
believes, to be kept safe for ever. Such are the reveries of my mysteries.
If it is thy wish, be thou also initiated; and thou shall join the choir
along with angels around the unbegotten and indestructible and the only
true God, the Word of God, raising the hymn with us.(5) This Jesus, who is
eternal, the one great High Priest of the one God, and of His Father, prays
for and exhorts men.

   "Hear, ye myriad tribes, rather whoever among men are endowed with
reason, both barbarians and Greeks. I call on the whole race of men, whose
Creator I am, by the will of the Father. Come to Me, that you may be put in
your due rank under the one God and the one Word of God; and do not only
have the advantage of the irrational creatures in the possession of reason;
for to you of all mortals I grant the enjoyment of immortality. For I want,
I want to impart to you this grace, bestowing on you the perfect boon of
immortality; and I confer on you both the Word and the knowledge of God, My
complete self. This am I, this God wills, this is symphony, this the
harmony of the Father, this is the Son, this is Christ, this the Word of
God, the arm of the Lord, the power of the universe, the will of the
Father; of which things there were images of old, but not all adequate. I
desire to restore you according to the original model, that ye may become
also like Me. I anoint you with the ungent of faith, by which you throw off
corruption, and show you the naked form of righteousness by which you
ascend to God. Come to Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek
and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest to your souls. For My yoke is
easy, and My burden light."(1)

   Let us haste, let us run, my fellowmen--us, who are God-loving and God-
like images of the Word. Let us haste, let us run, let us take His yoke,
let us receive, to conduct us to immortality, the good charioteer of men.
Let us love Christ. He led the colt with its parent; and having yoked the
team of humanity to God, directs His chariot to immortality, hastening
clearly to fulfil, by driving now into heaven, what He shadowed forth
before by riding into Jerusalem. A spectacle most beautiful to the Father
is the eternal Son crowned with victory.(2) Let us aspire, then, after what
is good; let us become God-loving men, and obtain the greatest of all
things which are incapable of being harmed--God and life. Our helper is the
Word; let us put confidence in Him; and never let us be visited with such a
craving for silver and gold, and glory, as for the Word of truth Himself.
For it will not, it will not be pleasing to God Himself if we value least
those things which are worth most, and hold in the highest estimation the
manifest enormities and the utter impiety of folly, and ignorance, and
thoughtlessness, and idolatry. For not improperly the sons of the
philosophers consider that the foolish are guilty of profanity and impiety
in whatever they do; and describing ignorance itself as a species of
madness, allege that the multitude are nothing but madmen. There is
therefore no room to doubt, the Word will say, whether it is better to be
sane or insane; but holding on to truth with our teeth, we must with all
our might follow God, and in the exercise of wisdom regard all things to
be, as they are, His; and besides, having learned that we are the most
excellent of His possessions, let us commit ourselves to God, loving the
Lord God, and regarding this as our business all our life long. And if what
belongs to friends be reckoned common property, and man be the friend of
God-for through the mediation of the Word has he been made the friend of
God--then accordingly all things become man's, because all things are
God's, and the common property of both the friends, God and man.

   It is time, then, for us to say that the pious Christian alone is rich
and wise, and of noble birth, and thus call and believe him to be God's
image, and also His likeness,(3) having become righteous and holy and wise
by Jesus Christ, and so far already like God. Accordingly this grace is
indicated by the prophet, when he says, "I said that ye are gods, and all
sons of the Highest."(4) For us, yea us, He has adopted, and wishes to be
called the Father of us alone, not of the unbelieving. Such is then our
position who are the attendants of Christ.

   "As are men's wishes, so are their words;
   As are their words, so are their deeds;
    And as their works, such is their life."

Good is the whole life of those who have known Christ.

   Enough, methinks, of words, though, impelled by love to man, I might
have gone on to pour out what I had from God, that I might exhort to what
is the greatest of blessings--salvation.(5) For discourses concerning the
life which has no end, are not readily brought to the end of their
disclosures. To you still remains this conclusion, to choose which will
profit you most--judgment or grace. For I do not think there is even room
for doubt which of these is the better; nor is it allowable to compare life
with destruction.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 2, Roberts and Donaldson). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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