As for their second and supposedly deeper defense, one might reasonably say this as well: If these things were made by you, Greeks, not so that God Himself might appear through them but so that angels might be present there, why do you make the images by which you invoke these powers greater than and superior to the very powers invoked? For although, as you say, you carve the forms in order to apprehend God, you confer on the carvings themselves the honor and title of God. In this you do something impious.
You acknowledge that God’s power far surpasses the smallness of the images, and for that reason you do not dare to invoke God through them, but invoke lesser powers. Yet you then pass over those powers yourselves and give to stones and wood the title of the One whose presence you feared. You call and worship as gods what are really stones and works of human art.
Even if, as you falsely claim, these are like letters directing your contemplation toward God, it is not right to honor the signs above what they signify. If someone wrote the emperor’s name, he could not safely honor the writing above the emperor. He would incur death as his penalty, while the writing itself was shaped by the writer’s skill.
In the same way, if your reasoning were sound, you would not bring down so great a sign of the Godhead into matter, nor would you honor the carving above the human being who carved it. For if these things really do indicate the manifestation of God like letters, and because they signify God they are worthy of deification, then much more should the one who carved and engraved them—the craftsman, I mean—be deified, since he is far more powerful and more divine than they are: they were carved and fashioned according to his will. If the letters are worthy of admiration, much more does the one who wrote them surpass them as an object of wonder because of his art and the skill of his mind.
If, then, it is not right to regard the images as gods for this reason, one must question them again about their madness concerning idols and demand from them the reason for giving the idols such forms.
As for their second and supposedly deeper defense, one might reasonably say this as well: If these things were made by you, Greeks, not so that God Himself might appear through them but so that angels might be present there, why do you make the images by which you invoke these powers greater than and superior to the very powers invoked? For although, as you say, you carve the forms in order to apprehend God, you confer on the carvings themselves the honor and title of God. In this you do something impious.
You acknowledge that God’s power far surpasses the smallness of the images, and for that reason you do not dare to invoke God through them, but invoke lesser powers. Yet you then pass over those powers yourselves and give to stones and wood the title of the One whose presence you feared. You call and worship as gods what are really stones and works of human art.
Even if, as you falsely claim, these are like letters directing your contemplation toward God, it is not right to honor the signs above what they signify. If someone wrote the emperor’s name, he could not safely honor the writing above the emperor. He would incur death as his penalty, while the writing itself was shaped by the writer’s skill.
In the same way, if your reasoning were sound, you would not bring down so great a sign of the Godhead into matter, nor would you honor the carving above the human being who carved it. For if these things really do indicate the manifestation of God like letters, and because they signify God they are worthy of deification, then much more should the one who carved and engraved them—the craftsman, I mean—be deified, since he is far more powerful and more divine than they are: they were carved and fashioned according to his will. If the letters are worthy of admiration, much more does the one who wrote them surpass them as an object of wonder because of his art and the skill of his mind.
If, then, it is not right to regard the images as gods for this reason, one must question them again about their madness concerning idols and demand from them the reason for giving the idols such forms.