Against the errors of the profane religions

The Persians and all the Magi who dwell in the confines of the Persian land give their preference to fire and think it ought to be ranked above all the other elements. So they divide fire into two potencies, relating its nature to the potency of the two sexes, and attributing the substance of fire to the image of a man and the image of a woman. The woman they represent with a triform countenance, and entwine her with snaky monsters. This they do so as not to disagree in any way with their sponsor, the devil; they want to have their goddess be sprouting all over with snakes and thus be adorned with the devil’s polluted insignia.

The male they worship as a cattle rustler, and his cult they relate to the potency of fire, as his prophet handed down the lore to us, saying: Μύστα βουκλοπῆς, συνδέξιε πατρὸς ἀγανοῦ. (Initiate of cattle-rustling, companion by handclasp of an illustrious father). Him they call Mithra, and his cult they carry on in hidden caves, so that they may be forever plunged in the gloomy squalor of darkness and thus shun the grace of light resplendent and serene.

O true consecration of a divinity! O repulsive inventions of a barbaric code! Him whose crimes you acknowledge you think to be a god. So you who declare it proper for the cult of the Magi to be carried on by the Persian rite in these cave temples, why do you praise only this among the Persian customs? If you think it worthy of the Roman name to serve the cults of the Persians, the laws of the Persians, who, armed with a shield and protected by a cuirass, is consecrated on the pinnacle of the Acropolis.

Serie y volumen: Ancient Christian Writers, vol. 37.

Título: The Error of the Pagan Religions (traducción de De errore profanarum religionum), trad. Clarence A. Forbes.

Editorial y año: Newman Press, 1970 (Nueva York).

Paginación: v + 251 pp. (22 cm). Bibliografía en pp. 123–128.

ISBN: 0809100398 / 9780809100392.