Cyprian

Footnotes

^[3701] The Oxford edition here adds, “in the place of gods.”

1. That idols are not gods, and that the elements are not to be worshipped in the place of gods.

^[3702] [The astronomical idols seem to have been the earliest adopted (Job xxxi. 27), and so the soul degraded itself to lower forms and to mere fetichism by a process over and over again repeated among men. Rom. i. 21, 23.]

^[3703] Ps. cxxxv. 15-18; cxv. 4-8.

^[3704] Wisd. xv. 15-17.

^[3705] Ex. xx. 4.

^[3706] Pamelius and others read here, “the gods who rule over the world,” apparently taking the words from the thirteenth chapter of the book of Wisdom, and from the Testimonies, iii. 59, below, where they are quoted.

^[3707] Wisd. xiii. 1-4.

2. That God alone must be worshipped.

^[3708] Deut. vi. 13; x. 20.

^[3709] Ex. xx. 3.

^[3710] Deut. xxxii. 39.

^[3711] Rev. xiv. 6, 7.

^[3712] Mark xii. 29-31.

^[3713] Matt. xxii. 37-40.

^[3714] John xvii. 3.

3. What is God’s threatening against those who sacrifice to idols?

^[3715] Ex. xxii. 20.

^[3716] Deut. xxxii. 17.