Wisdom

¹Again, another, thinking to sail, and beginning to make his voyage through the raging waves, calls upon a piece of wood more fragile than the wood that carries him. ↗

²For this is what desire has contrived to be acquired, and the craftsman has formed its understanding. ↗

³But your providence, O Father, governs, because you have provided for both a way in the sea and a very reliable path among the waves, ↗

⁴revealing that you are able to save out of all things, even if someone were to go to sea without skill. ↗

⁵But, so that the works of your wisdom might not be empty, therefore, men trust their souls even to a little piece of wood, and, crossing over the sea by raft, they are set free. ↗

⁶But, from the beginning, when the proud giants were perishing, the hope of the world, fleeing by boat, gave back to future ages a seed of birth, which was governed by your hand. ↗

⁷For blessed is the wood through which justice is made. ↗

⁸But, through the hand that makes the idol, both it, and he who made it, is accursed: he, indeed, because it has been served by him, and it, because, though it is fragile, it is called ‘god.’ ↗

⁹But the impious and his impiety are similarly offensive to God. ↗

¹⁰For that which is made, together with him who made it, will suffer torments. ↗

¹¹Because of this, and according to the idolatries of the nations, there will be no refuge, for the things created by God have been made into hatred, and into a temptation to the souls of men, and into a snare for the feet of the foolish. ↗

¹²For the beginning of fornication is the search for idols, and from their invention comes corruption of life. ↗

¹³For they neither existed from the beginning, nor will they exist forever. ↗

¹⁴For by the great emptiness of men they came into the world, and therefore their end is soon discovered. ↗

¹⁵For a father, embittered with the suffering of grief, made an image of his son, who had been suddenly taken away from him, and then, he who had died as a man, now begins to be worshiped as if a god, and so rites and sacrifices are established among his servants. ↗

¹⁶Then, in the course of time, iniquity gains strength within this erroneous custom, so that this error has been observed as if it were a law, and this figment has been worshiped at the command of tyrants. ↗

¹⁷And those, whom men could not openly honor because they were far off, a likeness of them was carried from far off, and from it they made a similar image of the king that they wanted to honor, so that, by their solicitude, they might worship he who was absent, just as if he were present. ↗

¹⁸Yet, it passes into their care, and those whom they did not know, they love because of the excellence of the artist. ↗

¹⁹For he, wishing to please the one who hired him, embellished his art, so as to fashion a better likeness. ↗

²⁰But the multitude of men, brought together by the beauty of the work, now considered him to be a god, whom they had formerly honored as a man. ↗

²¹And this was the deception of human life: that men, serving either their own inclination or their kings, assigned the unutterable name to stones and wood. ↗

²²And it was not enough for them to go astray concerning the knowledge of God, but also, while living in a great war of ignorance, they call so many and such great evils ‘peace.’ ↗

²³For either they sacrifice their own sons, or they make dark sacrifices, or they hold vigils full of madness, ↗

²⁴so that now they neither protect life, nor preserve a clean marriage, but one kills another through envy, or grieves him by adultery. ↗

²⁵And all things are mixed together: blood, murder, theft and fraud, corruption and infidelity, disturbances and perjury, disorder within good things, ↗

²⁶forgetfulness of God, pollution of souls, alteration of procreation, inconstancy of marriage, unnatural adultery and homosexuality. ↗

²⁷For the worship of unspeakable idols is the cause, and the beginning and the end, of all evil. ↗

²⁸For they either act with madness while happy, or they insistently speak wild lies, or they live unjustly, or they are quick to commit perjury. ↗

²⁹For, while they trust in idols, which are without a soul, vowing evil, they hope not to be harmed themselves. ↗

³⁰Therefore, from both sides it will fittingly happen, because they have thought evil of God, paying attention to idols, and because they have sworn unjustly, in guile despising justice. ↗

³¹For swearing is not virtue, but sinning always comes around to a punishment according to the transgression of the unjust. ↗