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Chapter XXXIX.—Argument for Polytheism.
Then Simon said: “I shall make use of
assertions from the law of the Jews only. For it is manifest to
all who take interest in religion, that this law is of universal
authority, yet that every one receives the understanding of this law
according to his own judgment. For it has so been written by Him
who created the world, that the faith of things is made to depend upon
it. Whence, whether any one wishes to bring forward truth, or any
one to bring forward falsehood, no assertion will be received without
this law. Inasmuch, therefore, as my knowledge is most fully in
accordance with the law, I rightly declared that there are many gods,
of whom one is more eminent than the rest, and incomprehensible, even
He who is God of gods. But that there are many gods, the law
itself informs me. For, in the first place, it says this in
the passage where one in the figure of a serpent speaks to Eve, the
first woman, ‘On the day ye eat of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, ye shall be as gods,’631
that is, as those who made man; and after they have tasted of the tree,
God Himself testifies, saying to the rest of the gods, ‘Behold,
Adam is become as one of us;’632 thus,
therefore, it is manifest that there were many gods engaged in the
making of man. Also, whereas at the first God said to the other
gods, ‘Let us make man after our image and
likeness;’633 also His saying,
‘Let us drive him out;’634 and again,
‘Come, let us go down, and confound their
language;’635 all these things
indicate that there are many gods. But this also is written,
‘Thou shalt not curse the gods, nor curse the chief of thy
people;’636 and again this
writing, ‘God alone led them, and there was no strange god with
them,’637 shows that there
are many gods. There are also many other testimonies which might
be adduced from the law, not only obscure, but plain, by which it is
taught that there are many gods.638
638 [Compare Homily
XVI. 6.—R.] | One
of these was chosen by lot, that he might be the god of the Jews.
But it is not of him that I speak, but of that God who is also his God,
whom even the Jews themselves did not know. For he is not their
God, but the God of those who know him.”
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