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§ XLVI. About ancient idols If, in addition to all this, I present to your gaze the statues themselves, then, having examined them properly, you will discover that your customs are absurd, that you turn with prayer to the insensitive works of human hands. Previously, the Scythians worshiped a short sword, akinak, the Arabs - a stone, the Persians - a river; Even more ancient people installed logs that were clearly visible from everywhere, and erected stone columns. They were called “xoans”, which means “hewn”, because they were hewn out of one material or another. The idol of Artemis on the island of Icarus was an unprocessed log, Hera of Cithaeron in Thespia was a felled stump, and Hera of Samos, as Aetlius says, was at first a board, but later, under the Archon Procleus, it acquired a human form. When the xoans began to be made in the image and likeness of a person, they received the name “brets” from the word βροτοί - “mortals”. In Rome, in ancient times, the xoan of Ares was a spear, as the writer Varro says, since artisans had not yet practiced the art of making beautiful-looking evil. When art began to flourish, error also increased. § XLVII. Stories of famous statues It is already clear from what has been said that they made stones and logs, in short, matter, like statues of people, before which you, slandering the truth, feign reverence. However, one should not neglect a question that requires some illustration. It is obvious to everyone that Phidias made Zeus in Olympia and Athena Polyas, the Guardian of the city, from gold and ivory. The Xoan of Hera on Samos, as Olympichus tells in the Samian Histories, was made by Smilidas, the son of Euclid. There is no reason to doubt that two of the goddesses, called the Venerable by the Athenians, were created by Scopas from a stone called lychnid. Kalos is the one between them. I can refer to Polemon, who talks about this in the fourth book of Timaeus. Do not doubt that the statues of Zeus and Apollo in Patras, a city in Lycia, were sculpted by the same Phidias, just like the lions dedicated to the god with them. If, as some say, this is Briaxide’s work, I do not argue: you also have such a sculptor. Attribute authorship to whichever one you want. The work of the Athenian Telesius, according to Philochorus, are the statues of Poseidon and Amphitrite, ten cubits in size, revered on Tenos. Demetrius, in the second book of the History of Argolis, writes that the xoan of Hera in Terinth was made from the Argom pear tree. Many may be surprised to learn that Palladium, called "the one who fell from heaven," which Diomedes and Odysseus are said to have stolen from Ilium and given to Demophon for safekeeping, was made from the bones of Pelops, just as Olympian Zeus was made from other bones - the Indian elephant. As a witness, I will present Dionysius, who talks about this in the fifth part of the Cyclus. Apellas, in his Delphic History, states that there were two Palladiums, both made by men. But lest anyone suppose that I have unknowingly omitted this, I will add that the statue of Dionysus Morichus, which is in Athens, is made of a stone called fellate; and it is the work of Sicon, son of Eupalamus, as Polemon says in a certain letter. If my memory serves me right, there were also two other Cretan sculptors (their names were Scyllidas and Dipenes). They made statues of the Dioscuri in Argos, a figure of Hercules in Tiryns, and a xoan of Artemis Munychia in Sikyon. § XLVIII. History of the Sarapis statue But why am I wasting time on this, if I can show you what the great demon himself was like, who, as we hear, is revered by everyone more than others, about whom they dared to say that he was not made by hands - the Egyptian Sarapis? After all, some say that he was sent by the inhabitants of Sinope as a gift of gratitude to Ptolemy Philadelphus, the Egyptian king, who, tormented by hunger and having sent them to Egypt for bread, made them his debtors. This Xoan was the image of Pluto. Ptolemy, having accepted the statue, installed it on the cape, which is now called Rakotis, where the revered church of Sarapis is located; There is a site dedicated to him next to him. Blista, a concubine who died in Kanob, was transferred by Ptolemy and buried in the indicated church. Others say that Sarapis is a Pontic idol, which was solemnly transferred to Alexandria. Only Isidore says that the statue was delivered to the inhabitants of Seleucia, which is not far from Antioch, when Ptolemy helped them, who were experiencing a shortage of bread. I don’t know what came over Athenodorus, son of Sandon, when he, wanting to attribute antiquity to Sarapis, proved that it was a man-made statue. He claims that Sesostris, the Egyptian king, having conquered numerous Greek tribes and returned to Egypt, brought with him good craftsmen. He ordered them to produce, sparing no expense, his ancestor Osiris. Briaxides (not an Athenian, but another who bore the same name) took up this matter. He used a variety of materials to work. He had gold, silver, copper, iron and lead filings, as well as tin. He did not lack Egyptian stones either: there were fragments of sapphire, hematite, emerald and topaz. So, having crushed it all and mixed it, he tinted it with blue glaze, which is why the color of the statue became blacker. Adding to this the remedy left over from the burial of Osiris and Apis, he fashioned Sarapis, whose name alludes to a connection with funerals and to the making of that which had to do with the grave—composed of "Osiris" and "Apis" and becoming "Osyrapis." The Roman emperor reverently proclaimed in Egypt and, one might say without much of a stretch, also in Hellas another new god of his favorite - the beautiful and flourishing Antinous, whom he consecrated in the same way as Zeus Ganymede. For it is not easy to resist lust that is not accompanied by fear. Nowadays people honor the nights dedicated to Antinous, the shame of which was known to the lover who was awake with him. Why do you classify among the gods someone who has received honor for fornication? Why did you order him to be mourned like a son? Why are you talking about his beauty? Beauty ruined by outrage is shameful. Do not, O man, tyrannize over beauty, do not mock the blooming youth; keep your beauty pure so that it is genuine; be a king over her, not a tyrant! Let her be free! Then I recognize your beauty, for you have kept your image pure; Then I will bow to beauty when it is the true prototype of the beautiful. There is already a tomb of the favorite, there is a church of Antinous, there is a city. I believe that just like churches, graves evoke wonder: pyramids, mausoleums and labyrinths: these are the churches of the dead, those are the tombs of the gods. § L. Sibyl about pagan temples; gatekeeper gods I will offer you the prophetess Sibyl as a mentor, The will not of Phoebus, who spoke the deceitful, alien to the truth (Insane people called him God and prophet), But Almighty God, Whose hand of man She was not sculptured from stone, like all silent idols. This same Sibyl calls the churches ruins, predicting that the church of Artemis of Ephesus will be swallowed up by the abyss during an earthquake: And Ephesus will weep, prostrate on the high shore; He will look for his church, which has now disappeared without a trace... About the church of Isis and Sarapis in Egypt he says that it will be demolished and burned: You sit alone, O Isis, by the Nile streams, Three times unhappy, as on the coastal sand of Acheron, You, who are built from many snow-white stones, Sarapis, you will lie in ruins on the tearful land of Egypt. If you do not listen to the prophetess, listen to your philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, who decries the insensibility of statues: And to these statues they pray, as if someone were talking to houses. Isn’t it amazing to see those who pray to stones, and then, however, place them, as if they have some kind of power, at the gate; who worships Hermes as a god and makes the Guardian of the roads and streets his gatekeeper? After all, if they are insulted as insensitive, why are they worshiped as gods? If they think that they have feelings, why make them gatekeepers? § LI. Idols are more insignificant than any living creature The Romans, who attribute their greatest successes to Fortune and believe that she is the greatest deity, placed it in a landfill, giving the goddess a latrine as a church. But dead stone, wood and abundant gold do not care at all about the child of burned fat, about blood and smoke, fumigated with which for the sake of honor - they are covered with soot: they do not care about honors, nor about reproach. Statues are more insignificant than any animal. I have to wonder how the inanimate is deified, and feel sorry for the unfortunate ones who foolishly fell into error. After all, if some living creatures do not have all the senses, such as worms and caterpillars, or those that seem crippled from birth, such as moles and the shrew, which Nikander calls blind and terrible, they are still better than these completely deaf xoans and statues. Living beings have at least one sense, be it hearing, touch, or something that corresponds to smell or taste; the statues have none. There are many living creatures that have neither sight nor voice, such as oysters, which nevertheless live, reproduce and, in addition, are influenced by the moon. Statues are inactive, useless, insensitive; they are tied, nailed, nailed down, smelted, ground, sawn, hewn, hollowed out. Sculptors dishonor the dumb earth by changing its true nature, inducing others through their art to worship it. The creators of the gods themselves worship not gods and demons, as it seems to me, but the earth and art - what the statue is. Indeed, a statue is dead matter, transformed by the hand of a master. We have, however, an image not perceived through the senses, made from matter comprehended by the senses, but intelligible; God, Who alone is truly God, is known only by the mind, but not by the senses. § LII. On the insensibility of idols Again and again, in difficult circumstances, superstitious people who worship stones, having actually learned not to revere dead matter, submitting to necessity itself, perish because of superstition: despising statues, but not wanting to appear to completely despise them, they are caught in this by the very gods to whom the statues are dedicated. After all, the tyrant Dionysius the Younger, having removed the golden himation from Zeus in Sicily, ordered to put a woolen one on him, saying wittily that it was better than gold, being lighter in summer and warmer in frost. Antiochus the Cyzician, in need of money, ordered the golden statue of Zeus, fifteen cubits high, to be melted down and replaced in its place by a similar one made of a different, cheaper material, decorated with gold plates. Swallows and many other birds, when flying, drop droppings on these same statues, not caring in the least whether it is Olympian Zeus, Asclepius of Epidaurus, Athena Polyadas or Egyptian Sarapis. Even thanks to them, you cannot understand that the statues are insensitive! But there are also robbers or enemies invading the country, who, out of greed, devastated the churches, plundered the offerings and melted down the statues themselves. And if some Cambyses or Darius or other madman did something like that, and if someone killed the Egyptian Apis, I find it funny that he could kill their god, but I am indignant if he committed this crime for the sake of self-interest. § LIII. About the destruction of churches in fire and about people who posed for idol makers So, I will gladly disdain this villainy, considering it rather a matter of greed than a proof of the weakness of idols. But fire and earthquakes are not at all selfish, but they are no more afraid and ashamed of demons and statues than waves are of pebbles scattered on the seashore. I know that fire exposes superstitions and cures them. If you want to get rid of madness, fire will lead you to the light. He burned both the church in Argos along with the priestess Chrysis, and the church of Artemis in Ephesus, second after the Amazons; it often covered the Capitol in Rome. He did not spare the church of Sarapis in Alexandria. In Athens, he destroyed the church of Dionysus Eleutherius; and in Delphi the church of Apollo was first destroyed by a hurricane, then destroyed by wise fire. All this is shown to you as a kind of preface to what the flame promises. Do not the makers of statues evoke in the souls of those of you who have reason a contempt for matter? The Athenian Phidias wrote on the finger of Olympian Zeus: “Pantark is handsome,” for him it was not Zeus who was beautiful, but his favorite. Praxiteles, as Poseidippus says in the book “On Cnidus,” when creating a statue of Aphrodite of Cnidus, made her look like his beloved Cratina, so that unfortunate madmen could worship Praxiteles’ girlfriend. When the hetaera Phryne of Thespiae flourished, all artists, depicting Aphrodite, reproduced the beauty of Phryne, just as the stonemasons in Athens made Hermes according to Alcibiades. It remains for you to decide whether you want to worship hetaeras. § LIV. About people who proclaimed themselves gods Prompted, I think, by these circumstances, the ancient kings, despising this kind of myths, openly, because they were not afraid of people, proclaimed themselves gods, thus showing that they too became immortal thanks to their glory. Keik, the son of Aeolus, was declared by Zeus to be his wife Alcyone, and Alcyone was declared her husband by Hero. Ptolemy IV was called Dionysus. Mithridates of Pontus was also called Dionysus. And Alexander wanted to touch Ammon with his son and be sculpted by sculptors as a cuckold, taking pains to disfigure the man’s beautiful face with a horn. And not only kings, but also private individuals exalted themselves with divine titles, such as the doctor Menecrates, who called himself Zeus. Why should I talk about Alexarchus (he, by profession a grammarian, as Arist says, pretended to be Helios)? Why mention Nicagoras (he was from Zeleia, lived in the time of Alexander; he called himself Hermes and, as he himself testifies, used the attire of this god), when entire nations and cities with their entire population, under the guise of flattery, belittle myths about the gods? When pompous and vain people pretend to be godlike and establish excessive honors for themselves? Either they accept the law of the Macedonian from Pella, Philip, the son of Amyntas, to honor on Cynosarges the very one who was with a broken collarbone, a mutilated hip and a gouged out eye, then they even proclaim Demetrius as a god, and where he dismounted from his horse, entering Athens, there is a church of Demetrius Katebates, i.e. Descending; Altars to him have been erected everywhere. The Athenians arranged his marriage with Athena, but he despised the goddess; not being able to marry the statue, he took the hetera Lamia, ascended the acropolis and made love on the bed of Athena, showing the old maid the movements of a young harlot. §LV. Gods are dead people and demons There is no need to be indignant at Hippo, who immortalized his own death. This Hippo ordered an elegiac couplet to be written on his monument: This is the tomb of Hippo, who was equal to the immortals Moira made it to the gods after his death. Well, O Hippo, you show us human error. For if they did not believe what you said, let them at least become disciples of a dead man. Before us is the oracle of Hippo, let’s think about it. Those you worship were once human and then died. Myth and time gained them fame and honor. After all, for some reason there is a habit of treating the present with disdain, while the past, separated from momentary reproaches by the veil of time, is honored through fiction. They don’t believe in the present, they marvel at the past. Therefore, the ancient dead, exalted by the error rooted in centuries, were ranked among the gods by those living after them. Confirmation of this is your mysteries and panegyrias - the bonds, wounds and lamentations of the gods: Woe is me, for Sarpedon, beloved above all Moira killed her son by the hand of Patroclus - Menoetius. The will of Zeus has been overcome, and he, defeated, grieves over Sarpedon. You yourself, with sufficient justification, called them ghosts and demons, for Homer called Athena herself and the other gods demons, rewarding them with this inglorious nickname: ... rose to Olympus as a shield holder Zeus is the abode of other numerous hosts of demons. How can ghosts and demons, after all this, be gods, being truly vile and unholy spirits, recognized by everyone as base and unclean, gravitating towards the earth, wandering near graves and tombstones, around which they appear as vague and indistinct shadow-like ghosts? § LVI. About the veneration of matter Here are your gods: ghosts, shadows, and also these lame and wrinkled, squinting-eyed Prayers, daughters of Thersites rather than Zeus. Therefore, it seems to me that Bion wittily said: “Is it fair that people ask Zeus for parental happiness, which he could not give to himself?” What godlessness! You bury the incorruptible essence as much as you can, keep the holy and immaculate in graves, depriving the Divinity of His true nature. Why did you give divine privileges to the undivine, why, having left heaven, began to revere the earth? What else is this if not earth and what comes from the earth - gold, silver, adamant, iron, copper, ivory and precious stones? Isn’t all that you see the fruits of one mother earth? Why did you, O foolish and vain-wise (I will repeat this again), having committed blasphemy in relation to the supracelestial region, have thrown piety under your feet? Why, inventing gods for yourself from the dust and following the born creature instead of the unborn God, did you rush into total darkness? Parian marble is beautiful, but it is not yet Poseidon; ivory is beautiful, but it is not yet Olympian Zeus. Matter always needs art, but God is self-sufficient. Art is added - matter is put into form, and an expensive substance that can bring profit becomes revered thanks to its form alone. Your statue is gold, wood, stone - earth, if you turn your mind's eye to the very beginning, which received its form from the master. I was taught to trample the earth, and not to worship it. You can never trust the soulless hope of the soul. §LVII. On the “pandering” role of art It is necessary to get closer to the statues in order to expose the misconception associated with them, based on their appearance. After all, the character of demons is very clearly captured on the statues. In fact, if someone, walking around, looks at paintings and statues, he will immediately recognize your gods by their shameful, unbecoming appearance for gods: Dionysus by his attire, Hephaestus by the signs of his craft, Demeter by his suffering appearance, Ino by his headband, Poseidon by his trident, Zeus by his swan. The fire points to Hercules. And if anyone sees a woman depicted naked, he will recognize her as the golden Aphrodite. Thus, the Cypriot Pygmalion fell in love with an ivory statue that represented a naked Aphrodite. The Cypriot is conquered by the appearance and enters into a love affair with the statue, and Philostephanus tells about this in the book “About Cyprus”. Another Aphrodite on Cnidus, made of stone, was also beautiful. Another fell in love with her and married a stone, as Poseidippus says in the book “On Cnidus” - such great power is the art of deception, which has become a pimp for voluptuous people, dragging them into the abyss. Although craftsmanship is effective, it cannot mislead intelligent people who live in accordance with reason. Due to the similarity of the image, wild pigeons flew to the painted doves, and at the sight of the well-drawn mares, the horses neighed. They say that a girl fell in love with an idol, and a handsome young man fell in love with a Cnidus statue; but only the eyes of the beholders were deceived by art, for no one would have entered into a relationship with the goddess and would not have buried himself with the dead, and would not have loved the demon and the stone, being in his right mind. Art has deceived you, seducing you in a different way, inclining you, if not to passion, then to the veneration of statues and paintings. The drawing is similar to the original - let art be glorified, but let it not deceive by posing as the truth. The horse stands calmly, the dove sits motionless, the wing does not move; Daedalus's cow, made of wood, attracted a wild bull, and the confusing art forced the animal to cover the woman consumed by passion. §LVIII. About the insidiousness of art, sculptors and magicians This is the fury that insidious art causes among the foolish! Monkeys surprise those who feed and keep them, because none of the wax or clay effigies dressed like girls deceive them. You will be worse than monkeys by holding on to stone, wood, gold and bone statues and paintings. The creators of these toys of yours that bring death are stonemasons, sculptors, painters, builders and poets, introducing this large crowd: in the fields - satyrs and lords, in the forests - mountain and tree nymphs, in the waters, rivers and springs - naiads and in the seas - nereids. The magicians boast that demons are the assistants of their wickedness; they enlist them as their servants, making them forced slaves with the help of spells. The mentioned marriages, conceptions and births of the gods, the glorified adulteries and feasts depicted in comedies, and their laughter presented on stage over a glass of wine prompt me to exclaim, even if I want to remain silent: “Oh, godlessness! You have made the sky a stage, divine things have become drama for you, and you have brought the sacred into comedy under the masks of demons, and you have turned genuine piety into a parody with your superstition.” § LIX. About obscenity in Homer's poems Here, playing the forming, he began a beautiful song. Sing to us, O Homer, in a beautiful voice! Sang about Ares's love for Aphrodite, beautifully crowned, How they combined for the first time in the glorious house of Hephaestus Secretly. Gave many gifts, disgraced the master's bed Stop singing, Homer! It is bad, it teaches adultery. We refuse to even hear about depravity, for we, we bear the image of God in a living and moving statue - a man, an image that lives with us, gives advice, talks, eats with us, sympathizes with us, suffers for us. We have become an offering to God for the sake of Christ, “we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy tribe, a people taken as His own. ... Once we were not a people, but now we are the people of God” (1 Pet. 2:9-10), we who, according to John, were not from below, but learned everything from him who came from above; having comprehended the economy of God, they learned to walk in the new life. § LX. About the debauchery associated with idolatry But many people do not think so: casting aside shame and fear, they depict demons possessed by unnatural passions in their homes; They decorated the bedrooms with some painted pictures placed under the ceiling, devoting themselves entirely to debauchery, considering unbridledness to be piety. Lying on the bed, amid loving embraces, they look at the naked Aphrodite, caught in bonds during intercourse and, approving of the images that pamper the soul, a lustful bird flying around Leda, they carve on stones to use as a suitable signet a print depicting Zeus's debauchery. § LXI. On the corruption associated with idolatry (continued) Here are examples of your voluptuousness, here is blasphemous theology, here is the teaching of the gods who are engaged in fornication with you, because everyone believes in what he wants, according to the Athenian orator. The same is true of your other paintings: some paniskas, naked girls, drunken satyrs and tense limbs, presented, despite being condemned for immorality, naked. You openly, without embarrassment, examine all sorts of figures of shamelessness drawn in plain sight. You cherish even more those that are dedicated to the gods; like the images of your gods, you consecrate obscene memorial pillars in your houses, equally depicting the poses of Philaenides and the labors of Hercules. We preach not only refusal to use these things, but even forgetting their appearance and stories about them. Your ears indulged in debauchery, your eyes fornicated, and, what is most amazing, your eyes committed adultery before bodily intercourse. You, who have raped human nature and driven away divine inspiration with shameful statues, you believe in absolutely nothing in order to indulge freely in your passions. Relying on idols, diligently imitating their depravity, you do not trust God, failing to maintain chastity. And so, you hated the best, but gave honor to the worst; Having become only spectators of virtue, you strive in the field of vice. § LXII. Happy is he who has rejected idols We can say that, according to the unanimous opinion of everyone, happy are only those who The church, how many of them there are, looking around with its gaze, will reject And the altars - they were erected from soulless stones in vain, Stone idols and all man-made sculptures, Sacrificial, beating from the wounds, they are covered with the blood of bipeds, Four-legged animals, wild animals, swift-winged birds, as the Sibyl says. We are clearly forbidden to practice this deceitful craft. “Do not,” says the prophet, “make any likeness of what is in heaven above and on earth below (Ex. 20:4). Shall we consider Demeter or Praxiteles and Corus and Iacchus, whose name is proclaimed in the mysteries, to be gods, or the art of Lysippus and the hands of Apelles, who gave matter a god-like appearance? But you insist that the statues be made as beautiful as possible, but do not care about not becoming like statues because of insensibility. The word of the prophet very clearly and briefly denounces this custom: “All the gods of the pagans are idols of demons; God created the heavens” (Ps. 96:5) and what is in the sky. § LXIII. God is not nature, but its Creator So some, having fallen here, I don’t know how, are deluded, worshiping not God, but the works of Divine art - the sun, the moon and a host of stars, absurdly considering them - instruments of time - to be gods. “By His word they are strengthened, and by the spirit of His mouth are all their hosts” (Ps. 32:6). Man creates houses, ships, cities and pictures. How can I tell you what God creates? Look at the whole cosmos, this is His work: the sky, the sun, the angels, and people are the works of His fingers. How great is the power of God! The creation of the world lies in His will alone, for God alone created everything, since He is the only true God. By a simple desire He creates, and His will alone is followed by its fulfillment. Here all philosophers are tempted, on the one hand, who recognize that man is born to contemplate the sky - this is wonderful; on the other hand, those who worship what is visible in the sky and comprehended by sight, although the heavenly bodies were not created by man, and let none of you worship the sun, but strive for the Creator of the Sun; deifies the cosmos, but seeks the Creator of the cosmos. There remains, it seems, only one shelter for those intending to reach the gates of salvation - divine wisdom - in it, as in some holy and inviolable refuge, a person striving for salvation becomes beyond the control of any demon.