Chapter XXVII.—An Argument Urging It Upon the Remnant of Idolaters that They Should at Length Become Servants of This True God, Who Everywhere is Subverting Idols.

42. Let them now give their answer with respect to the God of Israel, to whom, as teaching and enjoining such things, witness is borne not only by the books of the Christians, but also by those of the Jews. Regarding Him, let them ask the counsel of their own deities, who have prevented the blaspheming of Christ. Concerning the God of Israel, let them give a contumelious response if they dare. But whom are they to consult? or where are they to ask counsel now? Let them peruse the books of their own authorities. If they consider the God of Israel to be Jupiter, as Varro has written (that I may speak for the time being in accordance with their own way of thinking), why then do they not believe that the idols are to be destroyed by Jupiter? If they deem Him to be Saturn,122    Reading Si Saturnum putant. Others read, Si Saturnum Deum putant = if they deem Saturn to be God, etc. why do they not worship Him? Or why do they not worship Him in that manner in which, by the voice of those prophets through whom He has made good the things which He has foretold, He has ordained His worship to be conducted? Why do they not believe that images are to be destroyed by Him, and the worship of other gods forbidden? If He is neither Jove nor Saturn (and surely, if He were one of these, He would not speak out so mightily against the sacred rites of their Jove and Saturn), who then is this God, who, with all their consideration for other gods, is the only Deity not worshipped by them, and who, nevertheless, so manifestly brings it about that He shall Himself be the sole object of worship, to the overthrow of all other gods, and to the humiliation of everything proud and highly exalted, which has lifted itself up against Christ in behalf of idols, persecuting and slaying Christians? But, in good truth, men are now asking into what secret recesses these worshippers withdraw, when they are minded to offer sacrifice; or into what regions of obscurity they thrust back these same gods of theirs, to prevent their being discovered and broken in pieces by the Christians. Whence comes this mode of dealing, if not from the fear of those laws and those rulers by whose instrumentality the God of Israel discovers His power, and who are now made subject to the name of Christ. And that it should be so He promised long ago, when He said by the prophet: “Yea, all kings of the earth shall worship Him: all nations shall serve Him.”123    Ps. lxxii. 11.

CAPUT XXVII. Urget idololatrarum reliquias, ut demum serviant vero Deo idola ubique subvertenti.

42. De Deo Israel respondeant, quem docere ista et jubere, non tantum Christianorum, sed et Judaeorum Libri testantur: de ipso consulant deos suos, qui Christum blasphemari prohibuerunt; de Deo Israel, si audent, aliqua contumeliosa respondeant. Sed quos consulant? aut ubi jam consulant? Libros suorum legant. Si Deum Israel Jovem putant, sicut Varro scripsit (ut interim secundum eorum opinionem loquar), cur ergo Jovi non credunt idola esse delenda? Si Saturnum putant , cur eum non colunt? Aut cur non sic colunt, quemadmodum se coli per eos vates praecepit, per quos ea quae praedixit, implevit? Cur ei non credunt simulacra evertenda esse, et alios deos colendos non esse? Si nec Jovis , nec Saturnus est (quia si unus eorum esset, contra sacra Jovis et Saturni eorum tanta non diceret); quis ergo 1062 est, qui propter deos alios solus ab istis non colitur, et eversis diis aliis, tam evidenter efficit ut solus colatur, humiliata omni superba altitudine, quae se adversus Christum erexerat pro idolis, persequens interficiensque Christianos? Nunc certe quaerunt, ubi se abscondant, cum sacrificare volunt; vel ubi deos ipsos suos retrudant , ne a Christianis inveniantur atque frangantur. Unde hoc, nisi a timore legum atque regum, per quos Deus Israel suam exserit potestatem, jam subditos Christi nomini? sicut longe ante promisit, dicens per Prophetam: Et adorabunt eum omnes reges terrae; omnes gentes servient illi (Psal. LXXI, 11).