The Deeds of Zeus

Scripture taught us long ago, beforehand, about these and similar inventions of idolatrous madness, when it said: “The devising of idols was the beginning of sexual immorality, and the invention of them the corruption of life. For they did not exist from the beginning, and they will not exist forever. Through the empty glory of men they came into the world, and therefore they will soon come to an end. For a father, worn down by untimely grief, made an image of his child who had been quickly taken away, and now honored as a god one who had then been a dead man, and handed down to those under him rites and sacrifices. Then in the course of time an ungodly custom, grown strong, was kept as a law, and carved images were worshiped by the commands of kings. “When people could not honor someone in person because he lived far off, they copied his features from afar and made a visible image of the king they honored, so that by their eagerness they might flatter the absent one as though he were present. The extraordinary diligence of the craftsman also helped to urge the ignorant on to more superstition. For he, wishing perhaps to please someone in authority, forced all his skill to make the likeness as fine as it could be. And so the crowd, drawn by the grace of the work, now took for a god the one who a little before had been honored as a man. And this became a trap for the world, because people, enslaved either to misfortune or to tyranny, gave to stones and blocks of wood the Name that cannot be shared with another.” [a]

Since the beginning and devising of the invention of idols was, as Scripture testifies, of this sort, it is now time to show you its refutation, by proofs drawn not so much from outside as from these men’s own opinions about the idols. To begin at the lowest point: if one were to take the actions of those they call gods, one would find that they were not only no gods, but had been the most contemptible even of men. For what a thing it is to see the loves and debauched doings of Zeus in the poets! What a thing to hear of him, on the one hand carrying off Ganymede and committing adulteries in secret, and on the other in panic and alarm that the walls of the Trojans might be destroyed against his intentions! What a thing to see him grieving at the death of his son Sarpedon, wanting to help him and unable to do it! When the other so-called gods, namely Athena, Hera and Poseidon, plotted against him, he was rescued by Thetis, a woman, and by Aegaeon of the hundred hands. He was overcome by pleasures, a slave to women, and for their sakes he went on adventures disguised as beasts, creeping things and birds. And again, he was in hiding because of his father’s designs on him; Cronos was bound by him; and he in turn mutilated his father! Is it fitting, then, to regard as a god one who has done such deeds, and who stands accused of things that not even the public laws of the Romans allow to those who are merely men?