Minucius Felix — Octavius 22
Who then doubts that the crowd prays to and publicly cultivates the consecrated images of these, while the opinion and mind of the unskilled is deceived by art’s finish, dazzled by gold’s gleam, dulled by silver’s shine and ivory’s white? But if anyone brings to mind by what torments and machines every likeness is formed, he will blush to fear matter mocked by a craftsman so he might make a god. For a wooden god — perhaps a portion of a pyre or unlucky stump — is hung, cut, hewn, planed; and a bronze or silver god is melted from a filthy little vessel, as often happened for an Egyptian king, beaten with hammers and shaped on anvils; and a stone god is cut, carved, and smoothed by an impure man, and does not feel the injury of its birth, just as afterward it does not feel the worship from your veneration.
Unless perhaps it is not yet a god while still rock or wood or silver. When then is this one born? See: it is cast, fabricated, sculpted — not yet a god; see: it is soldered, built, raised — still not a god; see: it is adorned, consecrated, prayed to — then at last it is a god, when a human willed it and dedicated it. How much more truly do mute animals judge your gods by nature! Mice, swallows, kites know they do not sense: they gnaw, tread, sit on them, and unless you drive them off they nest in your god’s very mouth; spiders weave over his face and hang their threads from his very head. You wipe, clean, scrape, and you protect and fear those you make, while each of you does not think he ought to know God before he worships, while they rashly hurry to obey parents, while they prefer to become an accessory to another’s error rather than trust themselves, while they know nothing of what they fear. So avarice is consecrated in gold and silver; so the stamped form of empty statues; so Roman superstition was born.
Latin
XXII. "Quis ergo dubitat horum imagines consecratas vulgus orare et publice colere, dum opinio et mens imperitorum artis concinnitate decipitur, auri fulgore praestringitur, argenti nitore et candore eboris hebetatur? Quodsi in animum quis inducat, tormentis quibus et quibus machinis simulacrum omne formetur, erubescet timere se materiem ab artifice, ut deum faceret, inlusam. Deus enim ligneus, rogi fortasse vel infelicis stipitis portio, suspenditur, caeditur, dolatur, runcinatur; et deus aereus vel argenteus de immundo vasculo, ut saepius factum Aegyptio regi, conflatur, tunditur malleis et incudibus figuratur; et lapideus deus caeditur, scalpitur et ab impurato homine levigatur, nec sentit suae nativitatis iniuriam, ita ut nec postea de vestra veneratione culturam. "Nisi forte nondum deus saxum est vel lignum vel argentum. Quando igitur hic nascitur? Ecce funditur, fabricatur, sculpitur: nondum deus est; ecce plumbatur, construitur, erigitur: nec adhuc deus est; ecce ornatur, consecratur, oratur; tunc postremo deus est, cum homo illum voluit et dedicavit. "Quanto verius de diis vestris animalia muta naturaliter iudicant! Mures, hirundines, milvi non sentire eos sciunt: rodunt, inculcant, insident, ac nisi abigatis, in ipso dei vestri ore nidificant; araneae vero faciem eius intexunt et de ipso capite sua fila suspendunt. Vos tergetis, mundatis, eraditis et illos, quos facitis, protegitis et timetis, cum unusquisque vestrum non cogitat prius se debere deum nosse quam colere, dum inconsulte gestiunt parentibus oboedire, dum fieri malunt alieni erroris accessio quam sibi credere, dum nihil ex his quae timent norunt.
Sic in auro et argento avaritia consecrata est, sic statuarum inanium consignata forma, sic nata Romana superstitio. "Quorum ritus si percenseas, ridenda quam multa, quam multa etiam miseranda sunt! Nudi cruda hieme discurrunt, alii incedunt pilleati, scuta vetera circumferunt, pelles caedunt, mendicantes vicatim deos ducunt: quaedam fana semel anno adire permittunt, quaedam in totum nefas visere: est quo viro non licet et nonnulla absque feminis sacra sunt, etiam servo quibusdam caerimoniis interesse piaculare flagitium est: alia sacra coronat univira, alia multivira, et magna religione conquiritur quae plura possit adulteria numerare. Quid? qui sanguine suo libat et vulneribus suis supplicat, non profanus melius esset quam sic religiosus? aut cui testa sunt obscena demessa, quo modo deum violat qui hoc modo placat, cum si eunuchos deus vellet, posset procreare, non facere? "Quis non intellegat male sanos et vanae et perditae mentis in ista desipere et ipsam errantium turbam mutua sibi patrocinia praestare? Hic defensio communis furoris est furentium multitudo.