(100) And they who worship stones, and grave images of gold and silver and wood 〈and stone〉 and clay, and those who worship impure spirits and demons, and all kinds of idols not according to knowledge, shall get no manner of help from them.

(48) But of us mortals, many erring far In heart, as solace for our woes, have raised Images of gods - of stone, or else of brass, Or figures wrought of gold or ivory; And sacrifices and vain festivals To these appointing, deem ourselves devout."

(2) For they are immediately formed by the accession of fumigations from exhaling vapours; but when the fumigation is mingled with, and diffused through, the whole air, then the idol is likewise immediately dissolved, and is not naturally adapted to remain for the smallest portion of time. Why, therefore, should the man who is a lover of truth, pay attention to these useless delusions? I, indeed, do not think them to be of any value. For if the makers of these images know that the fictions about which they are busily employed, are nothing more than the formations of passive matter, the evil arising from an attention to them will be simple. But in addition to this, these idol-makers are similar to the images in which they confide. And if they pay attention to these idols as if they were Gods, the absurdity will be so great, as neither to be effable by words, nor to be endured in deeds. For a certain divine splendour never illuminates a soul of this kind, because it is not adapted to be imparted to things which are entirely repugnant to it; neither have those things which are detained by dark phantasms a place for its reception. This delusive formation, therefore, of phantasms, will be conversant with shadows, which are very remote from the truth.

(100) Through these they shall become godless and fearful; For they shall have wrought all their work in a lie, And shall have worshiped a stone: Therefore in an instant shall they perish.

(1) Fools laud and magnify the mosque, But the former is mere form, the latter spirit and truth. The mosque that is built in the hearts of the saints Is the place of worship of all, for God dwells there. So long as the hearts of the saints are not afflicted, Our forefathers lifted their hands against the prophets; Seeing their bodies, they took them for ordinary men. In you also abide the morals of those men of old; How can you avoid fearing that you will act like them? The morals of those unthankful ones dwell in you, Seeing that all these bad symptoms are seen in you, And that you are one with those men, how can you escape?

(1) Why, therefore, does the maker of images, who effects these things, desert himself, though he is better than these images, and consists of things of a more excellent nature, and confide in inanimate idols, which are inspired with the representation alone of life, contain a renovated harmony, and which is externally multiform, and are in reality diurnal? Shall we say that something genuine and true is inherent in them? Nothing, however, which is fashioned by human art is genuine and pure. But you will say, that simplicity and uniformity of energy predominate in the whole of their composition. This is very far from being the case. For the idol, according to its visible composition, is mingled from all-various and contrary qualities. Shall we say then, that a certain pure and perfect power is manifest in them? By no means. For a thing of this kind possesses an adventitious multitude of effluxions, collected from many places, and which shows itself to be imbecile and evanescent. But if these particulars, which we have enumerated, are not found to take place in images, is stability present with them, as it is said to be [by the patrons of these images]? By no means, likewise, is this the case. For these idols are extinguished with much greater rapidity than the images which are seen in mirrors.

(182) Ho! seek aid of Him, not of another than Him Seek water in the ocean, not in a dried-up channel. On cleansing the inward temple of the heart from self-conceit and reliance on carnal reason. When the body bows in worship, the heart is a temple, And where there is a temple, there bad friends are weeds When a liking for bad friends grows up in you, Flee from them, and avoid converse with them. Root up those weeds, for, if they attain full growth, O beloved, this weed is deviation from the "right way," You crawl crookedly, like infants unable to walk.

(63) Hitherto the Honour of Invocation [or Worship] has been paid and afforded to the Virgin Mary, and other Saints, [or holy People,] that have been here [in this Life;] whereas yet (in the Ground of the Light of Nature) this Command or Law was not known at all, and it is most highly necessary to be known, that the Ground thereof has been taken in the confused Babel, when Men were weary of the poor Christ, who in this World had not whereon to lay his Head. Then they did as Israel with Moses, who made themselves a Calf to be their God, and said; Behold, Israel, these are thy Gods, which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt; and they made a calvish Worship of God, for their voluptuous Life, and looked no more after Moses, but said; We know not what is become of this Man Moses; and they said to Aaron. Make thou us Gods which may go before us, and he made them the Calf; but when Moses came and saw it, then he was wroth, and took the Tables of God, and broke them, and threw them away, and said; Hearken, you that belong unto the Lord, gird every Man his Sword to his Side, and slay his Brother, the Worshippers of the Calf.

(6) First of all, idols are to be rejected. Such, then, being the case, the Greeks ought by the Law and the Prophets to learn to worship one God only, the only Sovereign; then to be taught by the apostle, "but to us an idol is no, thing in the world," since nothing among created things can be a likeness of God; and further, to be taught that none of those images which they worship can be similitudes: for the race of souls is not in form such as the Greeks fashion their idols. For souls are invisible; not only those that are rational, but those also of the other animals. And their bodies never become parts of the souls themselves, but organs - partly as seats, partly as vehicles - and in other cases possessions in various ways. But it is not possible to copy accurately even the likenesses of the organs; since, were it so, one might model the sun, as it is seen, and take the likeness of the rainbow in colours.

(33) Or dost thou suppose hit was for nothing? It is most certain, that the Spirit of the great World has thus set him up in great Wonders, because the other were no better; and therefore it must stand in the Light of Nature in the Wonders, as a God of this World, and God was near the one as the other. Thy Symbols or Signs in the Testament of Christ which thou usest (which Christ left for a Covenant) stood in Controversy, and were in Disputation, and thou didst pervert them according to thy Pride, and thou didst bend them to thy Institution, Ordinances and Appointment; thou didst no more regard the Covenant of Christ, but the Custom of Celebration or Performance of it, the Custom must serve the Turn; whereas Wood that burns not is not Fire, though when it is kindled it comes to be Fire; so also the Custom without Faith is like Wood that burns not, which they will call a Fire.

(105) Be not godless in your hearts, and lie not and alter not the words of uprightness, nor charge with lying the words of the Holy Great One, nor take account of your idols; for all your lying and all your godlessness issue not in righteousness but in great sin.

(1) You adduce, however, as a thing by no means to be despised, “ the artificers of efficacious images .” But I should wonder if these were admitted by any one of the theurgists who survey the true forms of the Gods. For why should any one exchange truly existing beings for images, and descend from the first to the last of things? Or do we not know that all things effected by an adumbration of this kind, have an obscure subsistence, are the phantasms only of that which is true, and appear to be good, but in no respect are so? Other things, also, of this kind that accede, are borne along in a flowing condition of being; but obtain nothing genuine, or perfect, or manifest. But this is evident from the mode of their production: for not divinity, but man is the maker of them. Nor are they produced from uniform and intelligible essences, but from matter, which is assumed for this purpose. What good, therefore, can germinate from matter, and from the material and corporeal-formed powers which are in bodies? Or is not that which derives its subsistence from human art, more imbecile than men themselves, who impart existence to it? By what kind of art, likewise, is this image fashioned? For it is said, indeed, to be fashioned by demiurgic art; but this is effective of true essences, and not of certain images. Hence the image-producing art is distant by a great interval from the seminal production of realities. Besides, neither does it preserve a certain analogy with divine fabrication.

(8) And no one saith a statue or a picture comes to be without a sculptor or [without] a painter; doth [then] such workmanship as this exist without a Worker? What depth of blindness, what deep impiety, what depth of ignorance! See, [then] thou ne'er, son Tat, deprivest works of Worker! Nay, rather is He greater than all names, so great is He, the Father of them all. For verily He is the Only One, and this is His work, to be a father.

(21) The same people, who worship every stick and greasy stone, as the saying is, dreads tufts of tawny wool, and lumps of salt, and torches, and squills, and sulphur, bewitched by sorcerers, in certain impure rites of expiation. But God, the true God, recognises as holy only the character of the righteous man, - as unholy, wrong and wickedness.

(100) Woe to them who reject the measure and eternal heritage of their fathers And whose souls follow after idols; For they shall have no rest.

(2) It were indeed ridiculous, as the philosophers themselves say, for man, the plaything of God, to make God, and for God to be the plaything of art; since what is made is similar and the same to that of which it is made, as that which is made of ivory is ivory, and that which is made of gold golden. Now the images and temples constructed by mechanics are made of inert matter; so that they too are inert, and material, and profane; and if you perfect the art, they partake of mechanical coarseness. Works of art cannot then be sacred and divine.

(103) And this now is the earthly god of blind men, which they love and honour, and leave the living God, who stands hidden in the centre, sitting in his seat. For the dead flesh comprehendeth only a dead god, and longeth also only after such a dead god. But it is such a god as has thrown many men headlong into hell.

(58) For he shows that the Divinity cannot be captured by a mortal, or apprehended either with feet, or hands, or eyes, or by the body at all. "To whom have ye likened the Lord? or to what likeness have ye likened Him?" says the Scripture.

(100) Woe to you who work godlessness, And glory in lying and extol them: Ye shall perish, and no happy life shall be yours.

(21) Have a care lest one day they prevail over you! He in whose breast the leaf of true faith is grown Thou makest a mock of Iblis and the Devil, Because thou art a fine man in thy own sight; But when thy soul shall tell thy wretched faults, What lamentation thou wilt cause to the faithful! The sellers of base gold sit smiling in their shops, O Veiler of sins! strip not the veil from us; Lend us aid on the day of trial!