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| How the Gentiles abandoned Idol Worship, and turned to the Knowledge of God.
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Chapter LVII.—How the
Gentiles abandoned Idol Worship, and turned to the Knowledge of
God.
Hence it was that, of those who had been the slaves of superstition,
when they saw with their own eyes the exposure of their delusion, and
beheld the actual ruin of the temples and images in every place, some
applied themselves to the saving doctrine of Christ; while others,
though they declined to take this step, yet reprobated the folly which
they had received from their fathers, and laughed to scorn what they
had so long been accustomed to regard as gods. Indeed, what other
feelings could possess their minds, when they witnessed the thorough
uncleanness concealed beneath the fair exterior of the objects of their
worship? Beneath this were found either the bones of dead men or dry
skulls, fraudulently adorned by the arts of magicians,3292
| 3292 Through another reading translated by Val., 1709, Bag.,
“stolen by impostors.” Stroth has “impiously employed
for magicians arts.” | or filthy rags full of abominable
impurity, or a bundle of hay or stubble. On seeing all these things
heaped together within their lifeless images, they denounced their
fathers’ extreme folly and their own, especially when neither in
the secret recesses of the temples nor in the statues themselves could
any inmate be found; neither demon, nor utterer of oracles, neither god
nor prophet, as they had heretofore supposed: nay, not even a dim and
shadowy phantom could be seen. Accordingly, every gloomy cavern, every
hidden recess, afforded easy access to the emperor’s emissaries:
the inaccessible and secret chambers, the innermost shrines of the
temples, were trampled by the soldiers’ feet; and thus the mental
blindness which had prevailed for so many ages over the gentile world
became clearly apparent to the eyes of all.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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