Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily X/Chapter 22

Chapter XXII.&#8212;Confutation of Idol-Worship.

&#8220;In the first place, indeed, if you worship them as being animated, why do you also worship the sepulchres of memorable men of old, who confessedly had no divine spirit?&#160; Thus you do not at all speak truth respecting this.&#160; But if your objects of worship were really animated, they would move of themselves; they would have a voice; they would shake off the spiders that are on them; they would thrust forth those that wish to surprise and to steal them; they would easily capture those who pilfer the offerings.&#160; But now they do none of these things, but are guarded, like culprits, and especially the more costly of them, as we have already said.&#160; But what?&#160; Is it not so, that the rulers demand of you imposts and taxes on their account, as if you were greatly benefited by them?&#160; But what?&#160; Have they not often been taken as plunder by enemies, and been broken and scattered? &#160;And do not the priests, more than the outside worshippers, carry off many of the offerings, thus acknowledging the uselessness of their worship?