Exhortation to the Greeks 4.51

And if they think the statues have sense, why do they set them up as doorkeepers? The Romans, who ascribe their greatest successes to Fortune and think her the greatest goddess, carried her into a latrine and set her up there, assigning the privy to the goddess as a worthy temple. But senseless stone and wood and precious gold care nothing at all for the savor of burnt flesh, nor for blood, nor for smoke, by which they are honored and smoked and blackened; nor for honor, nor for insult. The statues are more worthless than any animal. How senseless things have come to be deified leaves me at a loss, and I pity those who wander in this folly as wretched. For even if some animals do not have all the senses, such as worms and caterpillars, and those that appear maimed from their very birth, like moles and the shrew-mouse, which Nicander calls “blind and dreadful,” yet they are better than these xoana and statues, which are completely dumb; for they have at least one sense, hearing, say, or touch, or one corresponding to smell or taste; but the statues share in not a single sense. There are many animals that have neither sight nor hearing nor even a voice, such as the race of oysters; yet they live and grow, and are even affected by the moon. But the statues are idle, inactive, and senseless; they are bound, nailed, and fastened on; they are cast, filed, sawed, polished, and carved. The sculptors dishonor the dumb earth, changing it from its proper nature and by their art persuading people to worship it; and the god-makers worship, to my mind at least, not gods and daemons, but earth and art, which is what statues are. For a statue is truly dead matter shaped by a craftsman's hand; but for us the image is not something perceptible made of perceptible matter, but something perceived by the mind. God, the only true God, is perceived by the mind, not by the senses.