Alex’s Reviews > The Apology Of Aristides > Status Update

Continued:
"A single essence is proper to Him, since He is uniform in His nature and His essence; and He is not afraid of Himself. If then the nature of the gods is one, it is not proper that a god should either pursue or slay or harm a god. "

"Further their writers and their philosophers represent and declare that the nature of all their gods is one. And they have not apprehended God our Lord who while He is one, is in all. They err therefore. For if the body of a man while it is many in its parts is not in dread, one member of another, but, since it is a united body, wholly agrees with itself; even so also God is one in His nature."

"12. The Egyptians, moreover, because they are more base and stupid than every people that is on the earth, have themselves erred more than all."
Ouch.

"And again they say of Dionysos that he forsooth! Is a god, who arranges carousals by night, and teaches drunkenness, and carries off women who do not belong to him. And at length, they say, he went mad and dismissed his handmaidens and fled into the desert; and during his madness he ate serpents. And at last he was killed by Titanos."
Sure sounds like the Christians stole from Dionysos. Stupid argument...

"But it is impossible that a god should be a warrior or bound or an adulterer."
I wonder what word for warrior he used.

I'm at chapter 6 now (are these chapters?), and I find his arguments against worshipping the elements as gods excellent! His language is beautiful and moving. An excellent spiritual work, outdated in some ways in that no one worships the elements anymore (for which we can thank Christianity), but I can feel it enriching my heart.

"And the Barbarians did not observe that that which acts as guard is greater than that which is guarded, and that everyone who creates is greater than that which is created. If itbe, then, that their gods aretoo feeble to see to their own safety, how will they take thought forthe safety of men? Great then is the error into which theBarbarians wandered in worshipping lifeless images which can do nothing to help them."

"The Barbarians, then, as they did not apprehend God, went astray among the elements, and began to worship things created instead of their Creator; and for this end they made images and shut them up in shrines, and lo! They worship them, guarding them the while with much care, lest their gods be stolen by robbers."
Savage.

"Moreover the wind is obedient to God, and fire to the angels; the waters also to the demons and the earth to the sons of men."
Odd sentence, I must say. I wish I had an interpretation of this one somewhere.

The first two paragraphs are a beautiful exposition of the nature of God, and I think a great example of negative theology.