This is no small proof of their real godlessness. Since the gods differ and multiply from city to city and country to country, and one people destroys another’s god, all of them are destroyed by all. For beings considered gods by some become sacrifices and libations to the gods of others, while the sacrifices of some are, conversely, the gods of others.
The Egyptians revere the ox and Apis, a calf, while others sacrifice these animals to Zeus. Even if they do not sacrifice the very individual animals that others have consecrated, by sacrificing others of the same kind they appear to offer the same thing. The Libyans have as a god a sheep they call Ammon, while others slaughter such animals in sacrifice to many gods.
The Indians worship Dionysus, symbolically calling him “wine”; others pour out this very wine as a libation to other gods.
Others honor rivers and springs, and the Egyptians above all give special honor to water and proclaim these waters gods. Yet others—and even the Egyptians who worship these waters—use them to wash away other people’s filth and their own, then throw away what remains with contempt.
Indeed, nearly the entire Egyptian system of making idols consists of things that are sacrifices to the gods of other peoples. Thus they could be mocked even by those peoples themselves, because they make gods not of gods, but of things that among others, and even among themselves, are offerings meant to avert evil and sacrifices.