(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.

(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.

(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.

(38) This is followed by the command respecting adultery. Now it is adultery, if one, abandoning the ecclesiastical and true knowledge, and the persuasion respecting God, accedes to false and incongruous opinion, either by deifying any created object, or by making an idol of anything that exists not, so as to overstep, or rather step from, knowledge. And to the Gnostic false opinion is foreign, as the true belongs to him, and is allied with him. Wherefore the noble apostle calls one of the kinds of fornication, idolatry, in following the prophet, who says: " [My people] hath committed fornication with stock and stone. They have said to the stock, Thou art my father; and to the stone, Thou hast begotten me."

(92) And all the idols of the heathen shall be abandoned, And the temples burned with fire, And they shall remove them from the whole earth, And they (i.e. the heathen) shall be cast into the judgement of fire, And shall perish in wrath and in grievous judgement for ever.

(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.

(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.

(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) 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.

(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.

(37) Why do you not oppose all the commandments? For he says, "Increase and multiply."1 you who are opposed to him ought to abstain from sexual relations altogether. And if he says, "I have given you all things for food and enjoyment,"2 you ought to enjoy nothing at all. Moreover, he says, " An eye for an eye." you ought not, therefore, to repay opposition with opposition. If he tells the thief to restore fourfold, you ought even to give something to the thief. Similarly again, you who oppose the command "Thou shalt love the Lord" ought not to love the God of the universe at all. And if he says, "Thou shalt not make any graven or molten image," it follows that you ought to bow down to graven images. Are you not blasphemous, therefore, when you oppose, as you say, the Creator, and endeavour to do the same as fornicators and adulterers? Do you not perceive that you make him all the greater whom you regard as weak if what is taking place is what he wishes and not what the good God wills? For, on the contrary, your father, as you call him, is shown to be weak by you yourselves.

(3) But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.

(70) And as Jeroboam's Calves were an Abomination to God, which he yet with earnest Zeal set up to serve the true God thereby, only that he might preserve his worldly Kingdom, that the People might not fall from him, when they were to go up to Jerusalem to offer Sacrifice; and God rejected him and his whole House for it; and as Moses came (in Wrath) because of their divine Service before the Calf, and broke the Tables of the divine Law, and took his Sword, and one Brother must slay the other, because of their Abominations and Sins of false Worshipping of God; so also (thou blind World in Babel of Confusion) seeing thou art fallen away from the omnipresent, omniscient, all-seeing, all-hearing, all-smelling, and all-feeling Heart, Jesus Christ, and set upon thy own conceited Ways, and dost not desire to see the gracious Countenance itself of Jesus Christ, and wilt not lay aside thy Shame and Whoredom, thy appearing Show of Holiness of Hypocrisy, thy self-conceited wilful Pride, Might, Authority, Pomp and State, but livest in thy invented Holiness, for thy Pleasure, in Covetousness, Gormandizing, Gluttony, and Drunkenness, and in mere exalting of thyself in Honour; therefore the second Moses (who was promised by the first, and whom Men should hear) has broken the Tables of his Law, whereupon his precious Incarnation, suffering Death, Resurrection, and entering into Heaven stood, and has stopt their Entering into thy Ears; and has sent thee strong Delusions (out of the Spirit of thy own invented Show of Holiness) as St. Paul says; so that thou believest the Spirit of Lying, and livest according to thy fleshly Lust, that so thy own invented Show of Holiness with thy false Key (which does not open the Suffering and Dying of Jesus Christ in his Death) deceives thyself.

(7) And again, "Don't wear a ring, nor engrave on it the images of the gods," enjoins Pythagoras; as Moses ages before enacted expressly, that neither a graven, nor molten, nor moulded, nor painted likeness should be made; so that we may not cleave to things of sense, but pass to intellectual objects: for familiarity with the sight disparages the reverence of what is divine; and to worship that which is immaterial by matter, is to dishonour it by sense.

(10) Get thee behind me, Satan; get thee hence: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

(21) For it was full of idolatry, and was a house of demons, through doing what was opposed to God."

(65) And a command has gone forth from the presence of the Lord concerning those who dwell on the earth that their ruin is accomplished because they have learnt all the secrets of the angels, and all the violence of the Satans, and all their powers--the most secret ones--and all the power of those who practice sorcery, and the power of witchcraft, and the power of those who make molten images for the whole earth:

(61) If you take counsel with your lust, Even though it enjoin prayers and fasting, It is treacherously laying a snare for you.' You must abandon and ignore your own knowledge, Whatever seems profitable, flee from it, Contemn whatever praises you, Lend to paupers your wealth and profits! Quit your sect and be a subject of aversion, Cast away name and fame and seek disgrace!" If you seek the explanation of God's love and favor,

(46) And the tenth is the command respecting all lusts. As, then, he who entertains unbecoming desires is called to account; in the same way he is not allowed to desire things false, or to suppose that, of created objects, those that are animate have power of themselves, and that in-animate things can at all save or hurt. And should one say that an antidote cannot heal or hemlock kill, he is unwittingly deceived. For none of these operates except one makes use of the plant and the drug; just as the axe does not without one to cut with it, or a saw without one sawing with it. And as they do not work by themselves, but have certain physical qualities which accomplish their proper work by the exertion of the artisan; so also, by the universal providence of God, through the medium of secondary causes, the operative power is propagated in succession to individual objects.

(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.