No More Learning

For as those who reverence the images of kings,
who are not in want of any such reverence, at the same time attract to
themselves their benevolence; thus, also, those who venerate the statues
of the gods, who are not in want of any thing, persuade the gods by
this veneration to assist and be favourable to them. For alacrity in the
performance of things in our power is a document of true sanctity;
and it is very evident that he who accomplishes the former, will in a
greater degree possess the latter. But he who despises things in his
power, and afterwards pretends to desire impossibilities, evidently does
not pursue the

* Meaning those divine bodies the celestial orbs, which in
consequence of participating a divine life from the
incorporeal powers from which they are suspended, may be
very properly called secondary gods.

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latter, but overlooks the former. For though divinity is not in want
of any thing, it does not follow that on this account nothing is to be
offered to him. For neither is he in want of celebration through the
ministry of _words_. What then? Is it, therefore, reasonable that he
should also be deprived of this? By no means. Neither, therefore, is he
to be deprived of the honour which is paid him through _works_; which
honour has been legally established, not for three or for three thousand
years, but in all preceding ages, among all nations of the earth.

"But [the Galilaeans will say], O! you who have admitted into your
soul every multitude of dæmons, whom, though according to you they are
formless and unfigured, you have fashioned in a corporeal resemblance,
it is not fit that honour should be paid to divinity through such works.
How, then, do we not consider as wood and stones those statues which
are fashioned by the hands of men? O more stupid than even stones
themselves! Do you fancy that all men are to be drawn by the nose as
you are drawn by execrable dæmonss, so as to think that the artificial
resemblances of the gods are the gods themselves?
Looking, therefore, to
the resemblances of the gods, we do not think them to be either stones
or wood; for neither do we

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think that the gods are these resemblances; since neither do we say that
royal images are wood, or stone, or brass, nor that they are the kings
therefore, but the images of kings. Whoever, therefore, loves his king,
beholds with pleasure the image of his king; whoever loves his child is
delighted with his image; and whoever loves his father surveys his image
with delight. Hence, also, he who is a lover of divinity gladly surveys
the statues and images of the gods; at the same time venerating and
fearing with a holy dread the gods who invisibly behold him*. If,
therefore, some

* The Catholics have employed similar arguments in defence
of the reverence which they pay to the images of the men
whom they call saints. But the intelligent reader need not
be told, that it is one thing to venerate the images of
those divine powers which proceed from the great first Cause
of all things, and eternally subsist concentrated and rooted
in him, and another to reverence the images of men, who when
living were the disgrace of human nature. In addition to
what is said by Julian on this subject, the following
extract from the treatise of Sallust, on the Gods, and the
World, is well worthy the attentive perusal of the reader:
"A divine nature is not indigent of any thing; but the
honours which we pay to the gods are performed for the sake
of our advantage. And since the providence of the gods is
everywhere extended, a certain habitude or fitness is all
that is requisite, in order to receive their beneficent
communications. But all habitude is produced through
imitation and similitude. Hence temples imitate the
heavens, but altars,. . .

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one should fancy that these ought never to be corrupted, because they
were once called the images of the gods, such a one appears to me to
be perfectly void of intellect. For if this were admitted, it is also
requisite that they should not be made by men. That, however, which
is produced by a wise and good man may be corrupted by a depraved and
ignorant man. But the gods which circularly revolve about the heavens,
and which are living statues, fashioned by the gods themselves as
resemblances of their unapparent essence,--these remain for ever. No
one, therefore, should disbelieve in the gods, in consequence of seeing
and hearing that some persons have behaved insolently towards statues
and temples.