“Oh! into what wretched plight the understanding of men has fallen!  For if it is reckoned the greatest folly to fear the dead, what shall we judge of those who fear something that is worse than the dead are?  For those images are not even to be reckoned among the number of the dead, because they were never alive.  Even the sepulchres of the dead are preferable to them, since, although they are now dead, yet they once had life; but those whom you worship never possessed even such base life as is in all, the life of frogs and owls.  But why say more about them, since it is enough to say to him who adores them:  Do you not see that he whom you adore sees not, hear that he whom you adore hears not, and understand that he understands not?—for he is the work of man’s hand, and necessarily is void of understanding.  You therefore worship a god without sense, whereas every one who has sense believes that not even those things are to be worshipped which have been made by God and have sense,⁷⁶³

763 It was a very prevalent opinion among the ancient philosophers, that the heavenly bodies have some kind of life and intelligence.

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