Come then, cleanse yourself of all the thoughts that preoccupy your mind, lay aside the habit that deceives you, and become as it were a new man from the beginning, since you are to be a hearer of a new teaching, as you yourself have confessed. Look—not only with your eyes but also with your understanding—of what substance or what form are those whom you call and consider gods.
Is not one of them stone, like that which is trodden underfoot; another bronze, no better than the vessels forged for our use; another wood, already rotting; another silver, needing a man to guard it lest it be stolen; another iron, corroded by rust; another earthenware, in no way more comely than that fashioned for the most menial service?
Are not all these of perishable matter, forged by iron and fire? Did not a stonemason make this one, a coppersmith that, a silversmith another, a potter yet another? Before being shaped by their crafts into these forms, was not each of them, even now, capable of being other than its present shape? Could not the vessels now made of the same matter, if it so happened, become like these at the hands of the same craftsmen?
And these things now worshiped by you—could they not, at the hands of men, become vessels like the rest? Are they not all dumb, all blind, without soul, without sense, without motion, all rotting, all decaying?
For you yourselves, who think and suppose that you are honoring them, do you not far more despise them? Do you not far more mock and insult them—revering the stone and earthenware ones unguarded, while the silver and gold ones you lock up by night and set guards over by day, lest they be stolen?
And by the honors you think to offer them—if they have perception, you are rather punishing them; but if they are without sense, you are convicting them by worshiping them with blood and burnt fat.
Let any one of you endure these things; let anyone allow such things to be done to himself! But not a single man would willingly submit to this punishment, for he has perception and reason. The stone, however, endures it, for it has no sense. Therefore you refute its very capacity for perception.
Now concerning the Christians not being enslaved to such gods, I could say many other things as well; but if these do not seem sufficient to anyone, I consider it superfluous to say more.