Exhortation to the Greeks 2.25

Atheism and superstition, then, are the two extremes of ignorance, and we must make every effort to keep clear of both. Do you not see Moses, the hierophant of the truth, commanding that one who is crushed or castrated shall not enter the assembly, nor the son of a harlot? By the first two he hints at the godless way of life, deprived of divine and fruitful power; and by the third, the one who claims many falsely named gods instead of the only God who is, just as the son of a harlot claims many fathers because he does not know his true father. Yet there was in human beings an innate and ancient fellowship with heaven, darkened by ignorance, but at times suddenly leaping out of the darkness and shining forth, as in the saying of one poet: “Do you see this boundless ether on high, which holds the earth around in its moist embrace?” and “O you who carry the earth and have your seat upon the earth, whoever you are, hard to guess and to behold,” and all the other sayings of this kind that the sons of the poets sing.