For being mortal, he worketh a dead thing with wicked hands: for he himself is better than the things which he worshippeth: whereas he lived once, but they never.
All Commentaries on Wisdom of Solomon 15:17 Go To Wisdom of Solomon 15
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
You say that your god lies, but that that object that you have made convinces you of the truth. By the fact, however, that it convinces you of the truth, it does not follow that it is superior to you. Even if you say what is false and he what is true, even if you say that it is a god and he a piece of wood, it is not for that reason superior to you. You have no reason, therefore, to worship it, almost as though it were superior to you. You in fact have sensible faculties, whereas he does not. You hear, whereas he does not hear. You see, whereas he does not see. You walk, whereas he does not walk. You live, whereas of him, I cannot even say that he is dead, since he has never been alive. You, therefore, are superior to the image you have made. Well then, worship one who is superior to you, that is, the One who created you! It would be an insult to you if someone considered you as equal to that object you have made. You ask what the one you worship is like? If someone were to say to you out of ill will, "If only you were like that thing there," you would be beside yourself with rage. And yet you adore what you would abhor to be, and adoring it you become in some way similar to that object, not, of course, changing into wood and ceasing to be a person but rendering your interior person almost similar to the bodily effigy you have made.
