Against idol worship

We do not honor with many sacrifices and garlands of flowers those things that human beings have fashioned, set up in temples, and called gods, since we know they are lifeless and dead and do not have the form of God. We do not think God has the kind of form that some claim to imitate in his honor. Rather, these images bear the names and forms of the evil demons who have appeared. Why should we tell you, when you know it already, what craftsmen do to the material—carving it, cutting it, melting it, and hammering it? Often they take worthless vessels, change only their shape through their craft, fashion them into an image, and call them gods. We consider this not only irrational but insulting to God, who has inexpressible glory and form, yet whose name is attached to corruptible objects that themselves require care. And you know very well that the craftsmen who make them are sexually immoral and, not to catalogue everything, practice every kind of vice; they even corrupt the slave girls who work with them. What madness! Sexually immoral men are said to fashion and remake gods for worship, and such men are appointed guardians of the temples where the images are dedicated, without recognizing that it is unlawful even to think or say that human beings are guardians of gods.