Quantum igitur de deis vestris, nomina solummodo video quorundam veterum mortuorum et fabulas audio et sacra de fabulis recognosco: quantum autem de simulacris ipsis, nihil aliud reprehendo quam materias sorores esse vasculorum instrumentorumque communium vel ex isdem vasculis et instrumentis quasi fatum consecratione mutantes licentia artis transfigurante, et quidem contumeliosissime et in ipso opere sacrilege, ut revera nobis maxime, qui propter ipsos deos plectimur, solatium poenarum esse possit quod eadem et ipsi patiuntur ut fiant.
So, as to your gods, I see merely the names of certain dead men of the past; I hear their stories; from their stories I understand their rituals. As to their actual images, I find nothing beyond material akin to what is in ordinary pots and tools. Or else the matter of those same pots and tools experiences in consecration a change of destiny, as the free hand of art transforms it'and (let me say) does it with the maximum of insult, yes! and sacrilege, while the work is proceeding. So it really might be a consolation to us in our pains, when we are tortured because of these gods, that they too suffer the same, to become gods.
final_alignments\Tertullian_Apology.json