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embrace the word of the dispensation and do not fail to obtain the most lovely and thrice-desired salvation.

7.t CONCERNING SACRIFICES.

7.1 For the most part, the majority of men are fond of play and fond of laughter; and pleasing to them is not the serious and intense life, but the relaxed and dissolute life. Whence, indeed, the all-wicked demon has most easily mastered them. For he did not command them to walk that steep and narrow and rough and difficult and uphill way, but the one that is sloping and downhill and smooth and easy. 7.2 For neither did he command them to practice temperance and justice, but he permitted them to be licentious without fear and to be wanton and to dare every lawlessness with impunity. For this reason, indeed, he very easily enslaved the majority. For fleeing the toil of virtue and escaping the sweat of the divine laws, they readily deserted to the one who legislates the easiest and 7.3 most pleasant things. Having therefore enslaved them in this way, he first erased the beliefs about the God of all things, which nature had inscribed in them from the beginning; and then he taught the wicked dogmas of the falsely-named gods and taught them to worship the great crowd of those who are not, instead of the One who is, laying this down beforehand as a base and foundation for a corrupt 7.4 life. For when men sin, they are bitten—for reason pricks them from within and does not allow the pleasure of sin to remain unmixed, but mixes it with most bitter pain; and one might see this happening to the one who dares to rob a corpse and the one who dares to commit adultery, and indeed also to the housebreaker and the clothes-stealer and the traitor and the one doing anything else of the forbidden things,—such a drug for insensibility did the sophist of wickedness 7.5 devise for them. For he taught them wicked opinions about the so-called gods; for he revealed them to be intemperate and most lustful and pederasts and plotters against marriages and patricides and matricides, and mixing with mothers and sisters, and certainly with daughters with impunity, and plundering one another's beds and being caught, and being bound by those they wronged, but being laughed at with impunity by the others, and these things are dared, as they themselves say, by the celestial gods in heaven and on earth, by the marine gods in the sea and on earth, and by the so-called nymphs on mountains and in glens and ravines. 7.6 And these most shameful and abominable myths he instilled not only in poets, but also in theologians and philosophers, preparing his error in a very manifold way and using many teachers of his deceit. But since not all are knowledgeable in letters nor able to partake of the words of poets and philosophers, he prepared other traps for those who were not able to learn these things. 7.7 For he taught painters and bronzesmiths and the makers of stone and wooden statues to paint and sculpt and fashion such images of the so-called gods, as the mythologers described in their tales, so that those who are unable to partake of words might have archetypes of licentiousness and not miss the accursed teaching; and he has filled not only their sacred precincts with these images, but also the marketplaces and the streets, and indeed the houses of the wealthy. 7.8 For everywhere one can find the so-called gods loving and raging and copulating, and the father of the gods represented as an eagle and a bull and a swan and in this way mixing with his beloveds, and the eloquent Hermes becoming a goat and begetting the goat-legged and goat-horned Pan. 7.9 And what need is there to speak of the love of the Pythian and of the maiden's

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τῆς οἰκονομίας ἀσπάσησθε λόγον καὶ τῆς ἀξιεράστου καὶ τριποθήτου μὴ διαμάρτητε σωτηρίας.

7.t ΠΕΡΙ ΘΥΣΙΩΝ.

7.1 Φιλοπαίγμονες ὡς ἐπίπαν καὶ φιλογέλωτες τῶν ἀνθρώπων οἱ πλεῖστοι· καὶ θυμήρης αὐτοῖς οὐχ ὁ σπουδαῖος καὶ ξύντονος, ἀλλ' ὁ ὑγρὸς καὶ ἀνειμένος βίος. Ὅθεν δὴ καὶ ῥᾷστα κεκράτηκεν αὐτῶν ὁ παμπόνηρος δαίμων. Οὐ γάρ τοι τὴν ὄρθιον ἐκείνην καὶ στενὴν καὶ τραχεῖαν καὶ δύσπορον καὶ προσάντη βαίνειν ἐκέ λευσεν, ἀλλὰ τὴν πρανῆ καὶ κατάντη καὶ λείαν καὶ εὔπορον. 7.2 Οὐδὲ γὰρ σωφροσύνης αὐτοὺς καὶ δικαιοσύνης ἐπιμελεῖσθαι προσ έταξεν, ἀλλ' ἀκολασταίνειν αὐτοὺς ἀδεῶς καὶ ἀσελγαίνειν καὶ πᾶσαν τολμᾶν ἀνέδην παρανομίαν ἐπέτρεψεν. Τῷ τοι καὶ μάλα ῥᾳδίως τοὺς πλείστους ἐξηνδραπόδισεν. Τό τε γὰρ ἐπίπονον τῆς ἀρετῆς ἀποφυγγάνοντες καὶ τῶν θείων νόμων τοὺς ἱδρῶτας δια διδράσκοντες, ηὐτομόλησαν εὐπετῶς πρὸς τὸν τὰ ῥᾷστα καὶ 7.3 θυμήρη νομοθετοῦντα. Τόνδε δὴ οὖν τὸν τρόπον αὐτοὺς δουλω σάμενος, πρῶτον μὲν τὰς περὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῶν ὅλων, ἃς ἡ φύσις αὐτοῖς ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἐνέγραψεν, ἐξήλειψε δόξας· ἔπειτα δὲ τὰ πονηρὰ τῶν ψευδωνύμων θεῶν ἐξεπαίδευσε δόγματα καὶ τὸν πολὺν τῶν οὐκ ὄντων ὅμιλον ἀντὶ τοῦ ὄντος ἐδίδαξε προσκυνεῖν, ταύτην ὑποβάθραν καὶ κρηπῖδα τῆς διεφθαρμένης προκαταβαλλόμενος 7.4 βιοτῆς. Ἐπειδὴ γὰρ πλημμελοῦντες οἱ ἄνθρωποι δάκνονται -κεντεῖ γὰρ αὐτοὺς ὁ λογισμὸς ἔνδοθεν καὶ οὐκ ἐᾷ τῆς ἁμαρ τίας ἀκραιφνῆ μεῖναι τὴν ἡδονήν, ἀλλ' ὀδύνῃ ταύτην πικροτάτῃ κεράννυσι· καὶ τοῦτο ἴδοι τις ἂν πάσχοντα καὶ τὸν νεκροσυλίαν καὶ τὸν μοιχείαν τολμῶντα, καὶ μέντοι καὶ τοιχωρύχον καὶ λωπο δύτην καὶ τὸν προδότην καὶ τὸν ἄλλο τι τῶν ἀπειρημένων δρῶντα, -τοιόνδε φάρμακον αὐτοῖς ἀναλγησίας ὁ τῆς κακίας 7.5 ἐμηχανήσατο σοφιστής. Περὶ γὰρ δὴ τῶν καλουμένων θεῶν πονηρὰς αὐτοὺς ἐξεπαίδευσε δόξας· ἀκολάστους γὰρ αὐτοὺς ἀπέ φηνε καὶ λαγνιστάτους καὶ παιδοπίπας καὶ γάμων ἐπιβούλους καὶ πατραλοίας καὶ μητραλοίας καὶ μητράσι καὶ ἀδελφαῖς, καὶ μέντοι καὶ θυγατράσιν ἀνέδην μιγνυμένους καὶ τὰς εὐνὰς τὰς ἀλλήλων λῃστεύοντας καὶ ἁλισκομένους, καὶ παρὰ μὲν τῶν ἠδικημένων δεσμουμένους, παρὰ δὲ τῶν ἄλλων ἀνέδην γελωμένους, καὶ ταῦτα παρὰ μὲν τῶν οὐρανίων, ὡς αὐτοὶ λέγουσιν, ἐν οὐρανῷ τολμᾶσθαι καὶ γῇ, παρὰ δὲ τῶν ἐναλίων ἐν θαλάττῃ καὶ γῇ, παρὰ δὲ τῶν καλουμένων νυμφῶν ἐν ὄρεσι καὶ νάπαις καὶ φάραγξιν. 7.6 Τούτους δὲ τοὺς αἰσχροτάτους καὶ βδελυρωτάτους μύθους οὐ μόνον ποιηταῖς, ἀλλὰ καὶ θεολόγοις καὶ φιλοσόφοις ἐνήχησε, ποικίλως μάλα κατασκευάζων τὸν πλάνον καὶ πλείοσι τῆς ἐξα πάτης χρώμενος διδασκάλοις. Ἐπειδὴ δὲ οὐχ ἅπαντές εἰσι γραμμάτων ἐπιστήμονες οὐδέ γε ποιητικῶν καὶ φιλοσόφων λόγων μεταλαχεῖν ἱκανοί, ἕτερα ἄττα τοῖς ταῦτα μαθεῖν οὐ δυναμένοις 7.7 κατεσκεύασε θήρατρα. Τοὺς γάρ τοι ζωγράφους καὶ χαλκοτύπους καὶ τοὺς τῶν λιθίνων καὶ ξυλίνων ἀγαλμάτων δημιουργοὺς τοιαύ τας τῶν καλουμένων θεῶν γράφειν καὶ γλύφειν καὶ διαπλάττειν εἰκόνας ἐδίδαξεν, ὁποίας οἱ μυθολόγοι τοῖς λόγοις διέγραψαν, ἵνα ἔχωσιν ἀκολασίας ἀρχέτυπα καὶ τῆς ἐπαράτου διδασκαλίας μὴ διαμάρτωσιν οἱ λόγων μεταλαχεῖν οὐ δυνάμενοι· καὶ τῶνδε τῶν ἰνδαλμάτων οὐ μόνον τὰ τούτων τεμένη πεπλήρωκεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰς ἀγορὰς καὶ τὰς ἀγυιάς, καὶ μέντοι καὶ τῶν εὐπόρων τὰς 7.8 οἰκίας. Πανταχῇ γὰρ ἔστιν εὑρεῖν τοὺς καλουμένους θεοὺς ἐρῶν τας καὶ λυττῶντας καὶ θορνυμένους, καὶ τὸν μὲν πατέρα τῶν θεῶν ἀετῷ καὶ ταύρῳ καὶ κύκνῳ προσεικασμένον καὶ τόνδε τὸν τρόπον ταῖς ἐρωμέναις μιγνύμενον, τὸν δὲ λόγιον Ἑρμῆν τρά γον γινόμενον καὶ τὸν τραγοσκελῆ καὶ αἰγόκερων Πάνα παιδο 7.9 ποιοῦντα. Καὶ τί δεῖ λέγειν τοῦ Πυθίου τὸν ἔρωτα καὶ τῆς παρ θένου τὴν