Against the Heathen 11–21

These and similar inventions of idol-madness Scripture taught long beforehand, saying: “The devising of idols is the beginning of sexual immorality, and the invention of them the corruption of life. For they did not exist from the beginning, nor will they exist forever. For through the vainglory of human beings they came into the world, and therefore their speedy end was planned. For a father, worn down by untimely grief, made an image of the child quickly taken from him, and honored as living the one who was then a dead man, and handed on mysteries and rites to his dependents. Then in time the impious custom, grown strong, was kept as law. And by the commands of tyrants carved images were worshiped: when people could not honor rulers in their presence because they lived far off, they imagined the distant appearance and made a visible image of the honored king, so that by their zeal they might flatter the absent one as though he were present. And the ambition of the craftsman urged on even those who did not know him to intensify their worship; for he, perhaps wishing to please the ruler, forced the likeness by his art into something finer; and the multitude, drawn by the charm of the work, now reckoned as an object of worship the one who shortly before had been honored as a man. And this became a snare to life, because people, enslaved to misfortune or to tyranny, bestowed on stones and wood the name that cannot be shared.” Since, then, the invention of idols began and was fashioned among human beings in this way, as Scripture testifies, it is now time to show you the refutation of it as well, taking the proofs not so much from outside as from what these people themselves think about their gods. For if one were to take up the deeds of those they call gods (to begin first with these, the lowest), one will find not only that they are not gods but that they were the most shameful of human beings. What a thing it is to see the loves and the licentiousness of Zeus in the poets! What a thing to hear of him carrying off Ganymede and committing stealthy adulteries, yet afraid and fearful lest the walls of the Trojans be destroyed against his will! What a thing to see him grieved at the death of his son Sarpedon, wishing to help him and unable; plotted against by the other so-called gods, I mean Athena, Hera, and Poseidon, and helped by Thetis, a woman, and by the hundred-handed Aegaeon; overcome by pleasures, a slave to women, and for their sake running risks in the guise of irrational animals, four-footed and winged; and again, himself hidden because of his father’s plot, and Cronus bound by him, and him in turn mutilating his father! Is it right, then, to suppose this one a god, who has done such things and is charged with things that even the common laws of the Romans do not permit mere human beings to do?

To mention only a few of many, because of their number: who, seeing his lawless dealings with and corruption of Semele, Leda, Alcmene, Artemis, Leto, Maia, Europa, Danae, and Antiope; or who, seeing his attempt and daring against his own sister, in that he had the same woman as sister and wife, would not mock him and judge him worthy of death? For he not only committed adultery, but also deified and set up as gods the children born to him from adultery, contriving the appearance of deification as a cover for his lawlessness; among them are Dionysus, Heracles, the Dioscuri, Hermes, Perseus, and Soteira. Who, seeing the irreconcilable strife of the so-called gods among themselves at Ilium for the sake of the Greeks and the Trojans, will not condemn their weakness, since through their rivalry with one another they also stirred up human beings? Who, seeing Ares and Aphrodite wounded by Diomedes, Hera and Aidoneus, whom they call the god of the underworld, by Heracles, Dionysus by Perseus, Athena by the Arcadian, and Hephaestus thrown down and lamed, will not condemn their nature and turn away from calling them gods any longer; and, hearing that they are corruptible and subject to suffering, will not recognize them as nothing but human beings, and weak ones at that, and admire those who wounded them rather than those who were wounded? Or who, seeing the adultery of Ares with Aphrodite, and the trap that Hephaestus set for both, and the other so-called gods called by Hephaestus to view the adultery, coming and looking at their licentiousness, would not laugh and condemn their baseness? Or who would not laugh at seeing the drunken madness and profligacy of Heracles with Omphale? Their deeds of pleasure, their unnatural loves, and the god-making in gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, need no earnest refutation, since the facts carry their own loathsomeness and show by themselves the mark of error; for these things above all one would pity those who are deceived by them. For while they hate the man who violates their own wife, they are not ashamed to deify the teachers of adultery; and though they themselves would not do such things with their sisters, they worship those who have done this; and while they confess that the corruption of boys is evil, they worship those accused of it; and what the laws do not permit even among human beings, they do not blush to attribute to those whom they name gods.

Then, while worshiping stones and wood, they do not see that they tread underfoot and burn things just like them, while calling parts of these gods; and what shortly before they had for use, they carve in their madness and revere, not seeing or reckoning at all that what they worship is not gods but the art of the carver. For as long as the stone is unhewn and the material unworked, they tread on them and often use them for their own service, even the less honorable kinds; but when the craftsman applies to them the proportions of his own skill and stamps on the material the form of a man or a woman, then, giving thanks to the craftsman, they worship them as gods, having bought them from the carver for a price. Often the image-maker himself, as if forgetting what he made, prays to his own works; and what shortly before he was scraping and cutting, after his art he calls gods. Yet if these things deserved admiration, they ought to approve the art of the skilled man, and not prefer what he fashioned to the one who made it. For it was not the material that adorned and deified the art, but the art the material. It would be much more just, then, for them to worship the craftsman rather than what he made, since he existed before the gods made by art, and they came to be just as he wished. But as it is, thrusting justice aside and dishonoring the skill and the art, they worship what was made by skill and art; and while the man who made them dies, they honor what he produced as immortal, things which, if they do not receive daily care, will certainly perish in time because of their nature. How could one not pity them for this too, that they who see worship things that do not see, and they who hear pray to things that do not hear; that human beings, by nature living and rational, call gods things that do not move at all but are lifeless; and, most remarkable of all, that those whom they themselves guard and keep under their power they serve as masters? And do not think that I say these things … is possible for those who wish to see such things.

Better testimony on these matters comes from the divine Scripture, which teaches beforehand from of old and says: “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of human hands. They have eyes and will not see; they have a mouth and will not speak; they have ears and will not hear; they have noses and will not smell; they have hands and will not handle; they have feet and will not walk; they will not cry out with their throat. May those who make them become like them.” Nor is prophetic blame of them lacking; there too is the refutation of them, as the Spirit says: “Those who fashion a god and carve vain things shall all be put to shame, and all from whom they came are dried up; and let the deaf from among human beings all be gathered and stand together, and be confounded and put to shame together. For the craftsman sharpened iron and worked it with an adze, and shaped it with a borer, and set it up with the arm of his strength; and he will hunger and grow weak and will not drink water. For a carpenter chose wood, set it up by measure, and shaped it with glue, and made it like the form of a man and like the beauty of a human being, to set it up in a house: wood that he cut from the forest, which the Lord planted and the rain made grow, so that it might be for people to burn. And taking some of it he warmed himself, and they burned it and baked loaves on it, and the rest they made into gods and worshiped them; half of it they burned in the fire. And on half of it he roasted meat and ate and was filled; and having warmed himself he said, ‘How pleasant for me, for I am warm and have seen the fire.’ And the rest he worshiped, saying, ‘Deliver me, for you are my god.’ They did not know how to understand, for they have been blinded so as not to see with their eyes and to understand with their heart; and he did not reason in his heart, nor reckon in his soul, nor know with understanding that he burned half of it in the fire, and baked loaves on its coals, and roasted meat and ate it, and made the rest of it an abomination, and they worship it. Know that their heart is ashes, and they go astray, and no one can deliver their soul. See, and you will not say, ‘There is a lie in my right hand.’” How then would they not be judged godless by all, those who even by the divine …

Would that the craftsman had fashioned their gods for them without any shape, so that they might have a plain proof of their senselessness! For the idols might have stolen the belief of the simple that they have sense, if they did not have the symbols of the senses, eyes, noses, ears, hands, and mouth, lying motionless as regards the use of sense and the perception of sensible things. But as it is, having they do not have, standing they do not stand, and sitting they do not sit. For they do not have the activity of these, but remain lying as the one who fashioned them wished, giving no evidence of God, but appearing wholly lifeless, set up by human art alone. And would that the heralds and seers of such false gods, I mean the poets and writers, had simply written that they are gods, and had not also recorded their deeds, convicting them of godlessness and a shameful way of life! For by the mere name of deity they could have stolen the truth away, or rather led the many astray from the truth. But as it is, by narrating the loves and licentiousness of Zeus, the corruption of boys by the others, their jealousies over the pleasure of females, their fears and cowardice and their other vices, they convict themselves of nothing else than that they are telling not of gods, nor even of respectable human beings, but are telling myths of shameful beings, far from the good.

But perhaps on this point the impious will take refuge in the license peculiar to poets, saying that it is the poets’ particular character to invent things that are not and to tell lies in myths for the pleasure of their hearers; and that, they will say, is why they composed the tales about the gods. But this pretext, more than any, will be shown to be stale by the opinion that they themselves hold and put forward about these beings. For if what is in the poets is fiction and falsehood, then the very naming of Zeus, Cronus, Hera, Ares, and the others would be false too. For perhaps, as they say, the names too are invented, and there is no Zeus at all, nor Cronus, nor Ares, but the poets fashion them as existing in order to deceive their hearers. But if the poets fashion things that do not exist, how do they worship them as existing? Or perhaps they will say, on the other hand, that the poets do not invent the names but tell lies about their deeds? But this too is no less unsafe as a defense. For if they lied about the deeds, they certainly lied about the names of those whose deeds they narrated; or if they tell the truth about the names, they necessarily tell the truth about the deeds as well. Besides, those who told in their myths that these are gods surely knew what gods ought to do, and would never have attached the notions of human beings to gods, just as no one would attribute the work of fire to water; for the one burns, while the other, on the contrary, has a cold nature. If, then, the deeds are worthy of gods, their doers would be gods; but if committing adultery and the deeds mentioned before belong to human beings, and to human beings who are not good, those who did them would be human beings and not gods. For deeds must correspond to natures, so that the doer may be attested by his activity and the deed may be known from the nature. Someone discussing water and fire and reporting their activities would not say that water burns and fire chills; nor, if someone were telling of the sun and the earth, would he say that the earth gives light and the sun makes plants and fruits sprout; and if he did say so, he would exceed all madness. So their writers, and above all the most eminent poet of all, if they had known that Zeus and the others were gods, would not have attached to them such deeds as prove that they are not gods but rather human beings, and human beings without self-control. Or if they lied as poets, and you are wronging them, why did they not lie about the courage of the heroes as well, and invent weakness instead of courage and courage instead of weakness? As with Zeus and Hera, so they should have falsely charged Achilles with cowardice and admired the strength of Thersites, slandered Odysseus as witless and invented folly for Nestor, and told myths of womanish deeds of Diomedes and Hector and of the courage of Hecuba. For in every case, as they themselves say, the poets ought to have invented and lied. But as it is, they kept the truth for human beings, yet were not afraid to tell lies against those called gods. One might also say this to them: “They lie in the deeds of the gods’ licentiousness; but in their praises, when they call Zeus father of the gods, the Most High, the Olympian, reigning in heaven, they do not invent but speak the truth.” Not I alone, but anyone would show that this argument tells against them. For again, by the first demonstrations, the truth will appear against them. The deeds prove that they are human beings, while the praises are beyond human nature; and the two are incompatible with each other: it is not proper to those in heaven to do such things, nor can anyone suppose that those who do such things are gods.

What remains to think, then, except that the praises are false and flattering, while the deeds are told truly against them? One may recognize that this is true from common practice. For no one who praises someone also accuses his way of life; rather, those whose deeds are shameful are the ones they exalt with praises, because of the blame those deeds bring, so that by deceiving the hearers with excessive praise they may hide their lawlessness. Suppose someone set out to praise a person, and because of the shame attaching to them could find no occasion for praise in his conduct or in the virtue of his soul, but exalted him in some other way, granting him things beyond him. So their admired poets, embarrassed at the shameful deeds of those they call gods, attached to them the name that is beyond human beings, not knowing that they will not overshadow the human things in them with superhuman notions, but will rather prove by their human defects that the notions of God do not fit them. And for my part I think that the passions and deeds of these gods were told even against the poets’ will. For since they were eager to bestow the name and honor of God, which, as Scripture said, cannot be shared, on those who are not gods but mortal men, and what they dared was great and impious, for this reason they were compelled by the truth, even against their will, to set forth their passions, so that to those who came after, these passions, lying in the writings about them as proof that they are not gods, might be plain to all.

What defense, then, what proof that these are gods, could those who are superstitious about them offer? From what was said a little before, the argument has shown that they are human beings, and not respectable ones. But perhaps they will turn to this and pride themselves on the things useful for life discovered by these beings, saying that they consider them gods for this reason, because they have been useful to human beings. For Zeus is said to have had the art of modeling, Poseidon that of the helmsman, Hephaestus smithing, Athena weaving, Apollo music, Artemis hunting, Hera dress, Demeter agriculture, and others other arts, as those who tell of them have explained. But these and similar sciences people ought to ascribe not to them alone but to the common nature of human beings, by looking at which human beings discover the arts. For even most people say that art is an imitation of nature. If, then, they became skilled in the arts they pursued, this is no reason to think them gods, but rather human beings. For the arts did not come from them; in these they too imitated nature. Since human beings are by nature capable of knowledge, according to the definition laid down for them, it is no wonder if they too, by human understanding, looked to their own nature, gained knowledge of it, and devised the arts. Or if they say that these deserve to be proclaimed gods because they discovered the arts, it is time to proclaim as gods the discoverers of the other arts as well, by the same reasoning by which those were thought worthy of such a name. For the Phoenicians discovered letters, Homer heroic poetry, Zeno of Elea dialectic, Corax of Syracuse the art of rhetoric, Aristaeus the produce of bees, Triptolemus the sowing of grain, Lycurgus of Sparta and Solon of Athens laws; Palamedes discovered the arrangement of letters, numbers, measures, and weights; and others made known other and various things useful to human life, according to the testimony of the historians. If, then, sciences make gods, and because of them carved images are gods, then those who discovered other things after them must also be gods, by their reckoning. Or if they do not think these worthy of the honor of God but acknowledge them to be human beings, it follows that Zeus too … prove that they are human beings.

For what other form do they give them when they carve them than that of men and women, and of creatures lower still than these and irrational by nature, birds of every kind, four-footed beasts tame and wild, and creeping things, all that land and sea and the whole realm of the waters produce? For human beings, having fallen into the irrationality of passions and pleasures, and seeing nothing beyond pleasures and the desires of the flesh, since they keep their minds among these irrational things, fashioned the Divine too in irrational things according to the variety of their own passions, and carved so many gods. For images of four-footed beasts, creeping things, and birds are found among them, as the interpreter of the divine and true religion says: “They became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened; claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things; therefore God also gave them up to dishonorable passions.” For having first had their souls affected by the irrationalities of pleasures, as I said before, they fell into this kind of god-making; and having fallen, as though given up because they turned away from God, they now wallow in these things, and liken God, the Father of the Word, to irrational creatures. Concerning these, those among the Greeks who are called philosophers and learned men, when refuted, do not deny that their visible gods are the forms and figures of men and of irrational creatures; but in their defense they say that they have them for this purpose, that through them the Divine may answer them and appear; for, they say, they could not otherwise know the invisible one except through such statues and rites. Others, still more philosophical than these and thinking that they say something deeper, say that these things were prepared and shaped for the invocation and appearing of divine angels and powers, so that, appearing through them, these may teach them about the knowledge of God; and that the images are like letters for human beings, by reading which they can learn to apprehend God from the appearing of the divine angels that takes place through them. So these people tell their myths; for they certainly do not do theology, far from it! But if anyone examines the argument carefully, he will find that the opinion of these too, no less than of those shown before, is false.

For one might come forward and say to them, with truth as judge: How does God answer, or become known, through these things? Is it through the material that surrounds them, or through the form in them? If through the material, what need is there of the form, and why did God not simply appear through all material before these were fashioned? And they have walled round their temples in vain, enclosing one stone or piece of wood or portion of gold, when the whole earth is full of the substance of these things. But if the form put upon them is the cause of the divine appearing, what need is there of the material of gold and the rest, and why does God not rather appear through the animals themselves that live by nature, of which the carvings are the forms? For by the same reasoning the opinion about God would have been nobler if he appeared through living animals, rational and irrational, and were not awaited in lifeless and motionless things. In this above all they commit impiety against themselves. For though they loathe and turn away from the living four-footed beasts, birds, and creeping things, either for their savagery or for their filth, they nevertheless carve their figures in stone, wood, and gold and make them gods. They ought rather to worship the living creatures themselves than to have their figures worshiped in these materials. Or perhaps neither of these, neither the form nor the material, is the cause of God’s presence, but only art joined with skill calls forth the Divine, since art is an imitation of nature. But if the Divine visits the carvings because of the skill, what need is there again of the material, since the skill is in human beings? For if God appears at all because of the art, and for this reason the carvings are worshiped as gods, then human beings, being the source of the art, ought to be worshiped and venerated, inasmuch as they are rational and have the skill in themselves.

Concerning their second and supposedly deeper defense, one might fittingly say this too: If these things have been made by you, Greeks, not for the appearing of God himself but for the presence of angels there, why do you make the statues through which you invoke the powers better than, and superior to, the very powers invoked? For while you carve the forms, as you say, for the sake of apprehending God, you bestow the honor and the name of God himself on the carvings themselves, and so do an impious thing. For while you confess that God’s power exceeds the smallness of the statues, and for this reason do not dare to invoke God through them but only the lesser powers, you yourselves pass beyond these powers and have bestowed on stones and wood the name of him whose presence you feared; and you name and worship as gods what are stones and human art. For even if these things are for you, as you falsely say, like letters leading to the contemplation of God, it is not right to prefer the signs to what they signify. Nor, if someone writes the king’s name, would he be safe if he preferred the writing to the king; rather, such a person suffers death as his penalty, while the writing is shaped by the skill of the one who wrote it. So you too, if you had sound reasoning, would not have brought down so great a mark of deity to matter, nor would you have preferred the carving to the man who carved it. For even if they do signify the appearing of God, like letters, and for this reason, as signifying God, deserve deification, then surely the one who carved and engraved them, I mean again the craftsman, ought much more to have been deified, as being more powerful and more divine than they, inasmuch as they were carved and shaped according to his will. If, then, the letters deserve wonder, much more does the writer surpass them in wonder, because of his art and the skill of his soul. If, then, it is not right to think them gods for this reason, one might question them again about their madness for idols, asking to learn from them the reason for the form they give them.