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| Chapter XVII
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Chapter
XVII.
Celsus then proceeds to say that “we shrink
from raising altars, statues, and temples; and this,” he thinks,
“has been agreed upon among us as the badge or distinctive mark
of a secret and forbidden society.” He does not perceive
that we regard the spirit of every good man as an altar from which
arises an incense which is truly and spiritually sweet-smelling,
namely, the prayers ascending from a pure conscience. Therefore
it is said by John in the Revelation, “The odours are the prayers
of saints;”4874
and by the
Psalmist, “Let my prayer come up before Thee as
incense.”4875
And the
statues and gifts which are fit offerings to God are the work of no
common mechanics, but are wrought and fashioned in us by the Word of
God, to wit, the virtues in which we imitate “the First-born of
all creation,” who has set us an example of justice, of
temperance, of courage, of wisdom, of piety, and of the other
virtues. In all those, then, who plant and cultivate within their
souls, according to the divine word, temperance, justice, wisdom,
piety, and other virtues, these excellences are their statues they
raise, in which we are persuaded that it is becoming for us to honour
the model and prototype of all statues: “the image of the
invisible God,” God the Only-begotten. And again, they who
“put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man,
which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that hath created
him,” in taking upon them the image of Him who hath created them,
do raise within themselves a statue like to what the Most High God
Himself desires. And as among statuaries there are some who are
marvellously perfect in their art, as for example Pheidias and
Polycleitus, and among painters, Zeuxis and Apelles, whilst others make
inferior statues, and others, again, are inferior to the second-rate
artists,—so that, taking all together, there is a wide difference
in the execution of statues and pictures,—in the same way there
are some who form images of the Most High in a better manner and with a
more perfect skill; so that there is no comparison even between the
Olympian Jupiter of Pheidias and the man who has been fashioned
according to the image of God the Creator. But by far the most
excellent of all these throughout the whole creation is that image in
our Saviour who said, “My Father is in Me.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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