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| Chapter IV.—The Christians are Not Atheists, But Acknowledge One Only God.
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Chapter IV.—The Christians are Not Atheists, But Acknowledge One Only God.
As regards, first of all, the allegation that we are
atheists—for I will meet the charges one
by one, that we may not be ridiculed
for having no answer to give to those who make them—with reason
did the Athenians adjudge Diagoras guilty of atheism, in that he not only
divulged the Orphic doctrine, and published the mysteries of Eleusis and
of the Cabiri, and chopped up the wooden statue of Hercules to boil his
turnips, but openly declared that there was no God at all. But to us,
who distinguish God from matter,708
and teach that matter is one thing and God
another, and that they are separated by a wide interval (for that the
Deity is uncreated and eternal, to be beheld by the understanding and
reason alone, while matter is created and perishable), is it not absurd to
apply the name of atheism? If our sentiments were like those of Diagoras,
while we have such incentives to piety—in the established order, the
universal harmony, the magnitude, the colour, the form, the arrangement
of the world—with reason might our reputation for impiety, as well
as the cause of our being thus harassed, be charged on ourselves. But,
since our doctrine acknowledges one God, the Maker of this universe,
who is Himself uncreated (for that which is does not come to be, but
that which is not) but has made all things by the Logos which is from
Him, we are treated unreasonably in both respects, in that we are both
defamed and persecuted.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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