On the Vanity of Idols: Showing that the Idols are Not Gods, and that God is One, and that Through Christ Salvation is Given to Believers.

 1. That those are no gods whom the common people worship, is known from this. They were formerly kings, who on account of their royal memory subsequen

 2. Melicertes and Leucothea are precipitated into the sea, and subsequently become sea-divinities. The Castors die by turns, that they may live. Æscul

 3. From this the religion of the gods is variously changed among individual nations and provinces, inasmuch as no one god is worshipped by all, but by

 4. But why do you think that the gods can avail on behalf of the Romans, when you see that they can do nothing for their own worshipers in opposition

 5. Kingdoms do not rise to supremacy through merit, but are varied by chance. Empire was formerly held by both Assyrians and Medes and Persians and w

 6. Of all these, however, the principle is the same, which misleads and deceives, and with tricks which darken the truth, leads away a credulous and f

 7. These spirits, therefore, are lurking under the statues and consecrated images: these inspire the breasts of their prophets with their afflatus, an

 8. Therefore the one Lord of all is God. For that sublimity cannot possibly have any compeer, since it alone possesses all power. Moreover, let us bor

 9. He cannot be seen—He is too bright for vision nor comprehended—He is too pure for our discernment nor estimated—He is too great for our perceptio

 10. But that Christ is, and in what way salvation came to us through Him, after this manner is the plan, after this manner is the means. First of all,

 11. Moreover, God had previously foretold that it would happen, that as the ages passed on, and the end of the world was near at hand, God would gathe

 12. And the Jews knew that Christ was to come, for He was always being announced to them by the warnings of prophets. But His advent being signified t

 13. Therefore when Christ Jesus, in accordance with what had been previously foretold by the prophets, drove out from men the demons by His word, and

 14. That they would do this He Himself also had foretold and the testimony of all the prophets had in like manner preceded Him, that it behoved Him t

 15.  And that the proof might not be the less substantial, and the confession of Christ might not be a matter of pleasure, they are tried by tortures,

12. And the Jews knew that Christ was to come, for He was always being announced to them by the warnings of prophets. But His advent being signified to them as twofold—the one which should discharge the office and example of a man, the other which should avow Him as God—they did not understand the first advent which preceded, as being hidden in His passion, but believe in the one only which will be manifest in power.15    [See Treatise xii. book ii. secs. 13 and 28, infra.] But that the people of the Jews could not understand this, was the desert of their sins. They were so punished by their blindness of wisdom and intelligence, that they who were unworthy of life, had life before their eyes, and saw it not.

XII. Sciebant et Judaei Christum esse venturum. Nam hic illis semper, Prophetis admonentibus, annuntiabatur. Sed significato duplici ejus adventu, uno qui exercitio et exemplo hominis fungeretur, altero qui Deum fateretur , non intelligendo primum adventum, qui in passione praecessit occultus, unum tantum credunt qui erit in potestate manifestus. Quod autem hoc Judaeorum populus intelligere non potuit, delictorum meritum fuit. Sic erant sapientiae et intelligentiae coecitate mulctati, ut qui vita indigni essent haberent vitam ante oculos nec viderent.