As to images let us take courage that every work done in God’s name is good and holy. Now as to idols and statues, beware, they are all bad, both the things and their makers. An image of a holy prophet is one thing, a statue or carved figure of Saturn or Venus, the sun or the moon, quite another. As man was made after God’s image, he is worshipped; but the serpent as the image of the devil, is unclean and execrable. Tell me, O Jew, if you reject man’s handiwork, what is left on earth to be worshipped which is not the work of his hand? Was not the ark made by hands, and the altar, the propitiatory and the cherubim, the golden urn containing the manna, the table and the inner tabernacle, and all that God ordered to be put in the holy of Holies? Were not the cherubim the images of angels made by hands? Do you call them idols? What do you say to Moses who worshipped them and to Israel? Worship is symbolical of honour, and we sinners worship God, and glorify Him by the divine worship of latreia which is due to Him, and we tremble before Him as our Creator. We worship the angels and servants of God for His sake, as creatures and servants of God. An image is a name and likeness of him it represents. Thus both by writing and by engraving we are ever mindful of our Lord’s sufferings, and of the holy prophets in the old law and in the new. St Leontius of Naples, in Cyprus, against the Jews—Book v. Enter then heartily into our apology for the making of sacred images, so that the mouths of foolish people speaking injustice may be closed. This tradition comes from the old law, not from us. Listen to God’s command to Moses that he should make two cherubim wrought in metal to overshadow the propitiatory. And again, God showed the temple to Ezechiel, with its carved faces of lions, forms of palms and men from floor to ceiling. The command is truly awe-inspiring. God, who enjoins Israel not to make any graven thing, likeness or image of anything in heaven or on earth, also orders Moses to make carved cherubim. God shows the temple to Ezechiel, full of images and sculptured likenesses of lions, palms, and men. And Solomon, in conformity to the law, filled the temple with metal figures of oxen, palms, and men, and God did not reproach him for it. Now, if you wish to reproach _me_ concerning images, you condemn God, who ordered these things to be made that they might remind us of Himself. The same, from the 3rd Book. Again, atheists mock at us concerning the Holy Cross and the worship of divine images, calling us idolators and worshippers of wooden gods. Now, if I am a worshipper of wood, as you say, I am a worshipper of many, and, if so, I should swear by many, and say, ‘By the gods,’ just as you at the sight of one calf said, ‘These are thy gods, O Israel.’ You could not maintain that Christian lips had used the expression, but the adulterous and unbelieving synagogue is wont ever to cast infamy upon the all-wise Church of Christ. The same.