Against Celsus 7.62

Come, let us see the next passage too, in which he says this: “Let us leave that point. They cannot bear to see temples and altars and images. Neither can the Scythians, nor the Nomads of Libya, nor the godless Seres, nor other nations most unholy and lawless. That the Persians too think so, Herodotus relates in these words: ‘I know that the Persians have these customs: it is not their custom to set up images, altars, and temples, but they even charge those who do with folly; as it seems to me, because they did not think the gods to be of human form as the Greeks do.’ And indeed Heraclitus too declares somewhat as follows: ‘And they pray to these images, as if one were to chat with houses, not knowing at all who gods or heroes are.’ What wiser thing, then, do they teach us than Heraclitus? He at least hints, very enigmatically, that it is foolish to pray ‘to images’ if one does not know ‘who gods and heroes are.’ So Heraclitus; but they openly dishonour the images. If it is because stone, or wood, or bronze, or gold, which this or that man worked, would not be a god, their wisdom is laughable. For who, unless utterly childish, thinks these are gods, and not offerings and images of gods? But if it is because one must not suppose them to be images of the divine either, since God's form is different, as the Persians also think, they fail to notice that they refute themselves when they say that ‘God made man’ his own ‘image,’ and the form like himself. But they will agree that these things are for the honour of certain beings, whether like or unlike them in form, but that those to whom they are dedicated are not gods but demons, and that whoever worships God must not serve demons.”