Gods Made by the Carpenter

… and let these too be cast down behind the glory of God. And if all the nations, he says, are as nothing and have been counted as nothing, “with what likeness have you likened Him?” (Isaiah 40:17-18). For what will be like Him and of equal weight with Him, whether in nature, or in weight, or even in the measure of glory? Is it by the arts of a carpenter and the skill of a woodworker? Is it by goldsmiths? Or has He been shaped, as in an image, to resemble any creature at all? That is, he says, has a statue in the form of a man been made? Not at all. For nothing could be equal to Him. Since He is God by nature, and there is no other beside Him, He will surely be above all things in every way.

Having shown, then, that He is beyond everything that has been made and called into being, he next laughs to scorn the making of idols, and says: “The carpenter chooses wood that does not rot, and wisely seeks how he will set up his image so that it may not totter” (Isaiah 40:20). So it would be the work of the carpenter's skill, by the measure of the intelligence he has, to construct a god for those in error as they see fit, and to secure it with the greatest care so that it may not totter and fall and be shattered. So the worshippers of idols would be short of gods if there were no carpenter's skill on earth! Nor would the handmade things, once made, have been kept safe, unless the craftsman had wisely sought the means by which they could stand and keep an unshaken seat.

One might say, I think, and very fittingly, what was spoken through the voice of David: “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of men's hands” (Psalm 135:15). And to this he adds: “May all who make them become like them, and all who trust in them” (Psalm 135:18).

Having laughed to scorn, then, the fashioning of idols, he turns his discourse to shame and correct those who have gone astray, and shows that their offence in this is without excuse, saying: “Will you not know? Will you not hear?” (Isaiah 40:21), instead of “Did you not know? Did you not hear?” “Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not known the foundations of the earth?” By the foundations of the earth he means its farthest parts and its ends. So you have known, he says, you who live from one end of it to the other. You have heard, and it has been told to you from the beginning.

And what has been told? That God, who is God by nature and in truth, is one and alone; but the things men craft into gods for us are wood and stones and nothing else. For the God-inspired Scripture has not kept silent; rather, the knowledge of the truth has been proclaimed from of old, through patriarchs, through the Law and the Prophets. For it was not when the only-begotten Word of God, having become like us, shone forth as man on those upon the earth, that they first fell under the gravest charge of going astray. No, as I said, the charge of idolatry was ancient. For He did not cease …