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On the Vanity of Idols

Cyprian of Carthage

On the Vanity of Idols: Showing that the Idols are Not Gods, and that God is One, and that Through Christ Salvation is Given to Believers.

About this work

Author: Cyprian of Carthage

Treatise VI.

On the Vanity of Idols: Showing that the Idols are Not Gods, and that God is One, and that Through Christ Salvation is Given to Believers.

Argument.—This Heading Embraces the Three

Section 1 ›

Leading

Divisions

of

This

Treatise

.

The

Writer

First

of

All

Shows

that

They

in

Whose

Honour

Temples

Were

Founded

,

Statues

Modelled

,

Victims

Sacrificed

,

and

Festal

Days

Celebrated

,

Were

Kings

and

Men

and

Not

Gods

;

And

Therefore

that

Their

Worship

Could

Be

of

No

Avail

Either

to

Strangers

or

to

Romans

,

and

that

the

Power

of

the

Roman

Empire

Was

to

Attributed

to

Fate

Rather

Than

to

Them

,

Inasmuch

as

It

Had

Arisen

by

a

Certain

Good

Fortune

,

and

Was

Ashamed

of

Its

Own

Origin

.

Notes

1
[Written a.d. 247. Compare vol. ii. pp. 79, 136, 184, etc.]
2
Moreover, that it was manifest from their deceitful results, that nothing could be referred to auspices or auguries; nay, even those who acknowledged both one God and the demons, allowed that these illusions were the work of the demons, according to the testimony of the poets themselves, and Socrates, Plato, Trismegistus, and Hostanes. The second point, that God is one, he makes evident in a few words, as well from the greater dignity of a monarchy than of other forms of government, as from the very expressions of the heathen and of the common people—“O God!” and the like. Finally, he treats of Christ more at large, from the Jewish prophets and from the evangelical history.