Why Christians and Jews refuse images
Just as this one act, abstaining from adultery, seems to be one thing yet is found to be many, according to the different doctrines and intentions behind it, so it is with those who will not tolerate worshipping the divine at altars, temples and images. The Scythians, the nomads of Libya, the godless Seres and the Persians do this from doctrines other than those from which Christians and Jews will not tolerate what is taken to be such service of the divine. None of those peoples refuses to tolerate altars and images because he shrinks from dragging down and lowering the worship of the divine to matter shaped in this way; nor because he has come to understand that demons haunt such shapes and places, either installed there by certain sorceries or able in some other way to seize places for themselves beforehand, where, greedily partaking of the fumes of the sacrifices, they will hunt after lawless pleasure and lawless men.
Christians and Jews, by contrast, act because of the words, “You shall fear the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve” (Deuteronomy 6:13), and “You shall have no other gods besides me” (Exodus 20:3; Deuteronomy 5:7), and “You shall not make for yourself an idol, nor a likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them, nor serve them” (Exodus 20:4–5), and again, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve” (Matthew 4:10; Luke 4:8), and many other sayings like these. Because of them they not only turn away from temples, altars and images, but go readily even to death, when they must, so as not to defile by any such transgression the conception they hold of the God of the universe.
Greek
Ὥσπερ οὖν τὸ ἓν τοῦτο πρᾶγμα, ἡ τῆς μοιχείας ἀποχὴ, ἓν εἶναι δοκοῦσα πολλὰ ἁλίσκεται τυγχάνουσα παρὰ τὰ διάφορα δόγματα καὶ τὰς προθέσεις, οὕτως καὶ τῶν μὴ ἀνεχομένων παρὰ βωμοῖς καὶ ναοῖς καὶ ἀγάλμασι σέβειν τὸ θεῖον Σκύθαι μὲν ἢ Λιβύων οἱ Νομάδες ἢ Σῆρες οἱ ἄθεοι ἢ Πέρσαι ἀπὸ δογμάτων τοῦτο πράττουσιν ἄλλων, ἢ ὧν Χριστιανοὶ καὶ Ἰουδαῖοι οὐκ ἀνέχονται τῆς τοιαύτης ὑπολαμβανομένης εἰς τὸ θεῖον θεραπείας· οὐδεὶς ἐκείνων διὰ τὸ ἐκκλίνειν καὶ κατασπᾶν καὶ κατάγειν τὴν περὶ τὸ θεῖον θρησκείαν ἐπὶ τὴν τοιαύτην ὕλην οὑτωσὶ ἐσχηματισμένην οὐκ ἀνέχεται βωμῶν καὶ ἀγαλμάτων οὐδὲ διὰ τὸ διειληφέναι περὶ δαιμόνων ὅτι τοιοῖσδε παρακαθέζονται σχήμασι καὶ χωρίοις, ἤτοι ὑπό τινων μαγγανειῶν κατακλιθέντες ἢ καὶ ἄλλως δυνηθέντες προκαταλαβεῖν ἑαυτοῖς τόπους, ἐν οἷς τῆς τῶν θυομένων ἀποφορᾶς λίχνως μεταλαμβάνοντες παράνομον ἡδονὴν καὶ παρανόμους θηράσονται· Χριστιανοὶ δὲ καὶ Ἰουδαῖοι διὰ τὸ „κύριον τὸν θεόν σου φοβηθήσῃ καὶ αὐτῷ μόνῳ λατρεύσεις“ (καὶ) διὰ τὸ „οὐκ ἔσονταί σοι θεοὶ ἕτεροι πλὴν ἐμοῦ“ καὶ „οὐ ποιήσεις σεαυτῷ εἴδωλον οὐδὲ παντὸς ὁμοίωμα, ὅσα ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ (ἄνω) καὶ ὅσα ἐν τῇ γῇ κάτω καὶ ὅσα ἐν τῷ ὕδατι ὑποκάτω τῆς γῆς· οὐ προσκυνήσεις αὐτοῖς οὐδὲ μὴ λατρεύσεις αὐτοῖς“ καὶ διὰ τὸ „κύριον τὸν θεόν σου προσκυνήσεις καὶ αὐτῷ μόνῳ λατρεύσεις“ καὶ ἄλλα πλείονα τούτοις παραπλήσια οὐ μόνον ἐκτρέπονται νεὼς καὶ βωμοὺς καὶ ἀγάλματα, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ ἀποθνῄσκειν, ὅτε δεῖ, ἑτοίμως ἔρχονται ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ μολῦναι τὴν περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ τῶν ὅλων ὑπόληψιν διά τινος τοιούτου παρανομήματος.