14. We would here, as if all nations on the earth were present, make one speech, and pour into the ears of them all, words which should be heard in common:1434    [Isa. xl. 18–20; xliv. 9–20; xlvi. 5–8.] Why, pray, is this, O men! that of your own accord you cheat and deceive yourselves by voluntary blindness? Dispel the darkness now, and, returning to the light of the mind, look more closely and see what that is which is going on, if only you retain your right,1435    i.e., the faculty of discernment, which is properly man’s. and are not beyond the reach1436    Lit., “are in the limits of.” of the reason and prudence given to you.1437    The ms. reads his—“these”, emended, as above, vobis in the margin of Ursinus, Elm., and LB. Those images which fill you with terror, and which you adore prostrate upon the ground1438    Lit., “and humble.” in all the temples, are bones, stones, brass, silver, gold, clay, wood taken from a tree, or glue mixed with gypsum. Having been heaped together, it may be, from a harlot’s gauds or from a woman’s1439    i.e., a respectable woman. ornaments, from camels’ bones or from the tooth of the Indian beast,1440    i.e., the elephant’s tusk. from cooking-pots and little jars, from candlesticks and lamps, or from other less cleanly vessels, and having been melted down, they were cast into these shapes and came out into the forms which you see, baked in potters’ furnaces, produced by anvils and hammers, scraped with the silversmith’s, and filed down with ordinary files, cleft and hewn with saws, with augers,1441    So Salmasius, followed by Orelli, Hild., and Oehler, reading furfuraculis, and LB., reading perforaculis for the ms. furfure aculeis. with axes, dug and hollowed out by the turning of borers, and smoothed with planes. Is not this, then, an error? Is it not, to speak accurately, folly to believe that a god which you yourself made with care, to kneel down trembling in supplication to that which has been formed by you, and while you know, and are assured that it is the product1442    So the margin of Ursinus, Meursius (according to Orelli), Hild., and Oehler, reading part-u-m for the ms. -e-—“is a part of your labour,” etc. of the labour of your hands,1443    Lit., “of thy work and fingers.”—to cast yourself down upon your face, beg aid suppliantly, and, in adversity and time of distress, ask it to succour1444    So the ms., both Roman edd., Elm., and Orelli, reading numinis favore, for which LB. reads favorem—“the favour of the propitious deity to succour.” [Isaiah’s argument reproduced.]you with gracious and divine favour?

XIV. Libet in hoc loco, tamquam si omnes adsint terrarum ex orbe nationes, unam facere concionem, atque in aures haec omnium communiter audienda depromere. Quidnam est istud homines, quod ipsi vos ultro in tam promptis ac perspicuis rebus voluntaria fallitis et circumscribitis caecitate? Discutite aliquando caliginem, regressique ad lumen mentis intuemini propius, et videte istud, quod agitur, quale sit: si modo retinetis jus vestrum, atque in finibus his datae rationis consiliique versamini. Simulacra 1193B ista, quae vos terrent, quaeque templis in omnibus 1194A prostrati atque humiles adoratis, ossa, lapides, aera sunt, argentum, aurum, testa, lignum sumptum ex arbore, aut commixtum glutinum gypso: ex ornatibus fortasse meretriciis, aut ex muliebri mundo, camelinis ex ossibus, aut ex Indici animalis dente, ex caccabulis, ollulis, ex candelabris, et lucernis, aut ex aliis obscoenioribus vasculis congesta, conflata, in has species ducta sunt, atque in formas, quas cernitis, exierunt: fornacibus incocta figulinis, ex incudibus et malleis nata, grosfis rasa, descobinata de limis, serris, furfuraculis, asciis, secta, dolata, effossa terebrarum excavata vertigine, runcinarum levigata de planis. Ita iste non error est? non, ut proprie dicatur, amentia, deum credere, quem tute ipse formaris? 1194B supplicare tremebundum fabricatae abs te rei; 1195A et cum scias, et certus sis tui esse operis, et digitorum artem , pronum in faciem ruere, opem rogare suppliciter, adversisque in rebus, atque in temporibus asperis propitii numinis favore succurrere?