16

Libyans have a sheep, which they call Ammon, as a god; and this is slaughtered by many as a sacrifice on behalf of others. Indians worship Dionysus, symbolically calling him wine; and others pour this out as a libation to the others. others rivers and springs, and most of all the Egyptians have held water in the highest honor, and proclaim them gods; and yet others, and even the Egyptians themselves who worship these things, wash off the filth of others, and their own, with water, and cast away the remainder with dishonor. And nearly all the idolatry of the Egyptians is the sacrifice of the gods among others; so that they would be mocked even by those very people, because they deify not gods, but what are still among others, and even among themselves, abominations and sacrifices.

25

And some have already been carried away into such impiety and madness, as even to slaughter human beings themselves, of whom the idols are types and forms, and to offer them as sacrifices to their false gods. And the wretched ones do not see that the victims being slaughtered are archetypes of the gods fashioned and worshiped by them, and to whom they offer human beings. For they offer nearly like to like, or rather, the better to the lesser. For they sacrifice animate beings to inanimate things, and offer rational beings to motionless ones. For the Scythians called Tauri offer up as sacrifices to the one called the Virgin among them those from shipwrecks and as many of the Greeks as they can capture, acting so impiously against their fellow human beings, and thus exposing the cruelty of their own gods; because those whom Providence saved from dangers at sea, they themselves slaughter, all but setting themselves against Providence; because they obscure her beneficence by their own beast-like soul. And others, to Ares, whenever they return from wars and bring victories, then dividing the captives into hundreds, and taking one from each, they slaughter as many as they select from each hundred. And not only do the Scythians, because of the savagery innate to them among barbarians, do such abominable things, but this deed is characteristic of the evil of idols and demons. For Egyptians, too, long ago used to sacrifice such victims to Hera; and Phoenicians and Cretans used to propitiate Cronus with their own child-sacrifices. And the ancient Romans also worshipped the one called Jupiter Latiaris with human sacrifices; and others in other ways, and all simply polluted and were polluted. They were polluted, on the one hand, themselves by doing the murderous deeds; and they polluted, on the other hand, their own temples by filling them with the smoke of such sacrifices. From these things, then, evils reached the people in abundance; for seeing in these things the demons among them taking pleasure, they immediately imitated their own gods in such trespasses, considering the imitation of those they themselves consider better to be their own good achievement. From this, people were overcome by murders and child-killings and all licentiousness. For nearly every city is full of all licentiousness, becoming so through the similarity of the ways of the gods among them; and there is no one temperate among the idols, unless it be the very one among them who is noted for licentiousness.

26

At any rate, women in the idol-temples of Phoenicia long ago used to sit in front, offering to the gods there the hire of their own bodies as first-fruits, believing that by their prostitution they were propitiating their goddess, and by these means bringing her to goodwill. But men, denying their nature and no longer wishing to be male, fashion for themselves the nature of women, as if by these things making offerings pleasing to the heart and honor to the mother of their so-called gods. And all together live by the most shameful things, and compete with each other in what is worse; and as the holy servant of Christ, Paul, said: For even their females exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature. Likewise also the males, leaving the natural use of the female,

16

Λίβυες πρόβατον, ὃ καλοῦσιν Ἄμμωνα, θεὸν ἔχουσι· καὶ τοῦτο πολλοῖς παρ' ἑτέρων εἰς θυσίαν σφάζεται. Ἰνδοὶ τὸν ∆ιόνυσον θρησκεύουσι, συμβολικῶς οἶνον αὐτὸν ὀνομάζοντες· καὶ τοῦτον τοῖς ἄλλοις σπένδουσιν ἕτεροι. ἄλλοι ποταμοὺς καὶ κρήνας, καὶ πάντων μάλιστα Αἰγύπτιοι τὸ ὕδωρ προτετιμήκασι, καὶ θεοὺς ἀναγορεύουσι· καὶ ὅμως ἄλλοι, καὶ αὐτοὶ δὲ οἱ ταῦτα θρησκεύοντες Αἰγύπτιοι, τοὺς τῶν ἄλλων ῥύπους, καὶ τοὺς ἑαυτῶν ἀπονίπτονται τοῖς ὕδασι, καὶ τὸ λείψανον μετὰ ἀτιμίας ἐκρίπτουσι. σχεδὸν δὲ πᾶσα ἡ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων εἰδωλοποιία τῶν παρ' ἄλλοις θεῶν ἐστι θυσία· ὥστ' ἂν αὐτοὺς καὶ παρ' αὐτῶν ἐκείνων χλευάζεσθαι, ὅτι μὴ θεούς, ἀλλὰ τὰ τῶν ἄλλων ἔτι τε καὶ παρ' αὐτοῖς ἀποτροπιάσματα καὶ θυσίας ὄντα θεοποιοῦσιν.

25 Ἤδη δέ τινες εἰς τοσαύτην ἀσέβειαν καὶ παραφροσύνην ἐξηνέ χθησαν, ὡς καὶ αὐτοὺς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, ὧν εἰσι τύποι καὶ μορφαί, τοῖς παρ' αὐτοῖς ψευδοθέοις κατασφάττειν καὶ θυσίας προσάγειν. καὶ οὐχ ὁρῶσιν οἱ κακοδαίμονες ὅτι τὰ σφαγιαζόμενα θύματα ἀρχέτυπά εἰσι τῶν ὑπ' αὐτῶν πλασθέντων καὶ προσκυνουμένων θεῶν, καὶ οἷς προσάγουσι τοὺς ἀνθρώπους. σχεδὸν γὰρ τὰ ὅμοια τοῖς ὁμοίοις ἢ μᾶλλον τὰ κρείττονα τοῖς ἐλάττοσι προσάγουσιν. ἔμψυχα γὰρ ἀψύχοις θύουσι, καὶ λογικὰ τοῖς ἀκινήτοις προσάγουσι. Σκύθαι γὰρ οἱ καλούμενοι Ταύρειοι τῇ παρ' αὐτοῖς Παρθένῳ καλου μένῃ τοὺς ἀπὸ ναυαγίων καὶ ὅσους ἂν λάβωσι τῶν Ἑλλήνων εἰς θυσίας ἀναφέρουσι, τοσοῦτον ἀσεβοῦντες κατὰ τῶν ὁμογενῶν ἀνθρώ πων, καὶ οὕτως ἐλέγχοντες τῶν θεῶν αὑτῶν τὴν ὠμότητα· ὅτι οὓς ἡ Πρόνοια ἀπὸ θαλάσσης ἐκ κινδύνων διέσωσε, τούτους αὐτοὶ κατα σφάττουσι, μονονουχὶ κατὰ τῆς Προνοίας γινόμενοι· ὅτι τὴν ἐκείνης εὐεργεσίαν τῇ ἑαυτῶν θηριώδει ψυχῇ κατακρύπτουσιν. ἄλλοι δὲ τῷ Ἄρει, ἐπειδὰν ἐκ πολέμων ἐπανέλθωσι καὶ νίκας φέρωσι, τὸ τηνι καῦτα εἰς ἑκατοντάδας διελόντες τοὺς ληφθέντας, καὶ ἀφ' ἑκάστης ἕνα λαμβάνοντες, τοσούτους κατασφάζουσιν, ὅσους ἂν κατὰ μίαν ἑκατοντάδα ἐκλέξωνται. οὐ μόνοι δὲ Σκύθαι διὰ τὴν ἐν βαρβάροις ἔμφυτον αὐτοῖς ἀγριότητα τὰ τοιαῦτα μυσαρὰ δρῶσιν, ἀλλ' ἴδιόν ἐστι τῆς τῶν εἰδώλων καὶ δαιμόνων κακίας τοῦτο τὸ δρᾶμα. καὶ γὰρ καὶ Αἰγύπτιοι ἔθυον μὲν πάλαι τῇ Ἥρᾳ τοιαῦτα σφάγια· Φοίνικες δὲ καὶ Κρῆτες τὸν Κρόνον ἐν ταῖς τεκνοθυσίαις ἑαυτῶν ἱλάσκοντο. καὶ οἱ πάλαι δὲ Ῥωμαῖοι τὸν καλούμενον Λατιάριον ∆ία ἀνθρωποθυσίαις ἐθρήσκευον· καὶ ἄλλοι ἄλλως, καὶ πάντες ἁπλῶς ἐμίαινον καὶ ἐμιαίνοντο. ἐμιαίνοντο μὲν αὐτοὶ δρῶντες τὰ φονικά· ἐμίαινον δὲ τοὺς ἑαυτῶν ναοὺς τοιαύταις καπνίζοντες θυσίαις. ἀπὸ δὴ τούτων τὰ κακὰ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις εἰς πλῆθος ἔφθασεν· ὁρῶντες γὰρ ἐν τούτοις τοὺς παρ' αὐτοῖς ἡδομένους δαίμονας, εὐθέως καὶ αὐτοὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις πλημμελήμασι τοὺς ἑαυτῶν θεοὺς ἐμιμήσαντο, ἴδιον ἡγού μενοι κατόρθωμα τὴν πρὸς τὰ κρείττονα, ὡς αὐτοὶ νομίζουσι, μίμησιν. ἔνθεν ἀνδροφονίαις καὶ τεκνοκτονίαις καὶ πάσαις ἀσελγεί αις ἡττήθησαν οἱ ἄνθρωποι. καὶ γὰρ σχεδὸν πᾶσα πόλις πάσης ἀσελγείας ἐστὶ μεστὴ δι' ὁμοιότητα τρόπων τῶν παρ' αὐτοῖς θεῶν γινομένη· καὶ οὐκ ἔστι σώφρων ἐν τοῖς εἰδώλοις, εἰ μὴ μόνος ὁ παρ' αὐτοῖς ἐπ' ἀσελγείᾳ μαρτυρούμενος.

26 Γυναῖκες γοῦν ἐν εἰδώλοις τῆς Φοινίκης πάλαι προεκαθέζοντο, ἀπαρχόμεναι τοῖς ἐκεῖ θεοῖς ἑαυτῶν τὴν τοῦ σώματος ἑαυτῶν μισθαρνίαν, νομίζουσαι τῇ πορνείᾳ τὴν θεὸν ἑαυτῶν ἱλάσκεσθαι, καὶ εἰς εὐμένειαν ἄγειν αὐτὴν διὰ τούτων. ἄνδρες δέ, τὴν φύσιν ἀρνού μενοι καὶ μηκέτι εἶναι θέλοντες ἄρρενες, τὴν γυναικῶν πλάττονται φύσιν, ὡς ἐκ τούτων καταθύμια καὶ τιμὴν τῇ μητρὶ τῶν παρ' αὐτοῖς λεγομένων θεῶν ποιοῦντες. πάντες δὲ ὁμοῦ τοῖς αἰσχίστοις βιοῦσι, καὶ τοῖς χείροσιν ἑαυτοῖς ἁμιλλῶνται· καὶ ὡς εἶπεν ὁ ἅγιος τοῦ Χριστοῦ διάκονος Παῦλος· Αἵ τε γὰρ θήλειαι αὐτῶν μετήλ λαξαν τὴν φυσικὴν χρῆσιν εἰς τὴν παρὰ φύσιν. ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ οἱ ἄρρενες, ἀφέντες τὴν φυσικὴν χρῆσιν τῆς θηλείας,