Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book III/Chapter II

by Arnobius

2. Let us now return to the order from which we were a little ago compelled to diverge, that our defence may not, through its being too long broken off, be said to have given our detractors cause to triumph in the establishing of their charge. For they propose these questions: If you are in earnest about religion, why do you not serve and worship the other gods with us, or share your sacred rites with your fellows, and put the ceremonies of the different religions on an equality? We may say for the present: In essaying to approach the divine, the Supreme Deity^[1] suffices us,—the Deity, I say, who is supreme, the Creator and Lord of the universe, who orders and rules all things: in Him we serve all that requires our service; in Him we worship all that should be adored,—venerate^[2] that which demands the homage of our reverence. For as we lay hold of the source of the divine itself from which the very divinity of all gods whatever is derived,^[3] we think it an idle task to approach each personally, since we neither know who they are, nor the names by which they are called; and are further unable to learn, and discover, and establish their number.

Footnotes

1. Deus primus, according to Nourry, in relation to Christ; but manifestly from the scope of the chapter, God as the fountain and source of all things.
2. Lit., “propitiate with venerations.”
3. So the ms., reading ducitur; for which Oberthür, followed by Orelli, reads dicitur—“is said.”