Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VI/Chapter XI

11. You laugh because in ancient times the Persians worshipped rivers, as is told in the writings which hand down these things to memory; the Arabians an unshapen stone; the Scythian nations a sabre; the Thespians a branch instead of Cinxia; the Icarians an unhewn log instead of Diana; the people of Pessinus a flint instead of the mother of the gods; the Romans a spear instead of Mars, as the muses of Varro point out; and, before they were acquainted with the statuary&#8217;s art, the Samians a plank instead of Juno, as A&#235;thlius relates: and you do not laugh when, instead of the immortal gods, you make supplication to little images of men and human forms&#8212;nay, you even suppose that these very little images are gods, and besides these you do not believe that anything has divine power. What say you, O ye&#8212;! Do the gods of heaven have ears, then, and temples, an occiput, spine, loins, sides, hams, buttocks, houghs, ankles, and the rest of the other members with which we have been formed, which were also mentioned in the first part of this book a little more fully, and cited with greater copiousness of language? Would that it were possible to look into the sentiments and very recesses of your mind, in which you revolve various and enter into the most obscure considerations: we should find that you yourselves even feel as we do, and have no other opinions as to the form of the deities. But what can we do with obstinate prejudices? what with those who are menacing us with swords, and devising new punishments against us? In your rage you maintain a bad cause, and that although you are perfectly aware of it; and that which you have once done without reason, you defend lest you should seem to have ever been in ignorance; and you think it better not to be conquered, than to yield and bow to acknowledged truth.