Be Prepared « BellesHeures's Weblog

Be Prepared « BellesHeures's Weblog

Be Prepared

Be Warned

Marian and other Apparitions

What most people don’t know about all the apparitions is that up to and including the time of Msgr. Ottaviani’s holding the reigns of the Holy Office is that there was a ban on all of them. That ban was removed (illicitly and without any doctrinal basis) by the Satanist Antipope Paul VI in 1969. In 1952 Msgr. Ottaviani as prelate in charge of the Holy Office even issued another warning about them. The original beginning of the modern apparitions was in Rue du Bac in Paris, France in 1830. Catherine Laboure, a nun with heavy Masonic influences in her life, had the first of the modern apparitions and included in the setting she was in a pyramid painted over the chapel altar. This is Freemasonry symbolism and idolatry.

Have you noticed that in the apparitions Mary is always telling girls secrets? Girls like to tell one another secrets. There is just no doctrinal basis for any of it.

“St. Anthony of the desert (St. Athanasius’ teacher in the Catholic faith) said that demonic apparitions are never to be heeded because, although there may be some or appear to be some factual truth in them, because of their origin they will always be false and heeding them or turning aside after them in any way will only help the Devil to carry out whatever scheme that the evil one is attempting.” –

Also, St. Anthony said that true apparitions given by the true God will always bring peace and joy and never terror. He said terror in an apparition means the apparition is always from the evil one. Also, he said that God brings healing and not disease and death. Remember Portugal and many other of the “apparitions” – terror, disease and death. St. Anthony also said when there is any doubt at all, ask “who and whence” of the apparition with firm faith and if it is false it will not be able to claim that it is God. Some of the seers tried this and instead of an immediate and straightforward affirmation that it was truly from God they got evasive answers. Remember the devil in the garden of Eden, evasive. There is no doubt that God walked with St. Anthony for many miracles of healing and deliverance from demonic oppression were given him to do by God. St. Anthony also was the founding stone by which the coenobitic monastic movement had its beginning (prior to St. Pachomius) and from that movement spread the Gospel in the 4th century and continued on through the centuries, including such notables as St. Benedict of Nursia/Umbria and St. Patrick and St. Columban of Ireland etc. Also, St. Irenaeus’ (180 A.D.) teaching on visions given by God is the same as St. Anthony’s. The council of Trent taught that nothing can be declared doctrine unless it has the full consensus of the Church Fathers (last of the Fathers in the west is St. Isadore of Seville, 636 A.D. and last in the East is St. John Damascene, mid 8th century) to support it.

The Coming Persecution

Jn:12:25
25 …He that loveth his life shall lose it and he that hateth his life in this world keepeth it unto life eternal. (DRV)

Rv:13:

1 ¶ (12-18 ) And he stood upon the sand of the sea. (13-1) And I saw a beast coming up out the sea, having seven heads and ten horns: and upon his horns, ten diadems: and upon his heads, names of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like to a leopard: and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his own strength and great power.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were slain to death: and his death’s wound was healed. And all the earth was in admiration after the beast.
4 And they adored the dragon which gave power to the beast. And they adored the beast, saying: Who is like to the beast? And who shall be able to fight with him?
5 And there was given to him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies: and power was given to him to do, two and forty months.
6 Andhe opened his mouth unto blasphemies against God, to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And power was given him over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth adored him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb which was slain from the beginning of the world.
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
10 He that shall lead into captivity shall go into captivity: he that shall kill by the sword must be killed by the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
11 ¶ And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth: and he had two horns, like a lamb: and he spoke as a dragon.
12 And he executed all the power of the former beast in his sight. And he caused the earth and them that dwell therein to adore the first beast, whose wound to death was healed.
13 And he did great signs, so that he made also fire to come down from heaven unto the earth, in the sight of men.
14 And he seduced them that dwell on the earth, for the signs which were given him to do in the sight of the beast: saying to them that dwell on the earth that they should make the image of the beast which had the wound by the sword and lived.
15 And it was given him to give life to the image of the beast: and that the image of the beast should speak: and should cause that whosoever will not adore the image of the beast should be slain.
16 And he shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and bondmen, to have a character in their right hand or on their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, but he that hath the character, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man: and the number of him is six hundred sixty-six.
(DRV)

“Dura-Europos”

Dura europos is simply the house churches that the early Church met in. In each of these as the Didache (written 49 A.D.) tells us people selected their own bishops. St. Clement of Rome (Apostolic Father), in his epistle, tells us the same — he rebuked a small group in Corinth for not honoring the bishop that the whole local congregation had selected.
The Church began in small house churches and she will great her Lord when He returns from the same with all the faithful in all the faithful churches of every size. Praying with Christ and His saints remade in His Image and Likeness

Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ gave us the word of God in St. Matthew’s Gospel the 5th through the 7th Chapters.

Let us not only read but live the sermon on the mount, St. Matthew’s Gospel Chapters 5 though 7.

Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

PRAYING WITH GOD AND HIS CHRIST AND THE HOLY SPIRIT MATINS (MIDNIGHT OR ON RISING) THE HOUR OF THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST WHO IS THE FIRST BORN OF GOD AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY ON EARTH, AND WHO IS OUR ONLY SAVIOUR BY HIS MOST HOLY CROSS, AND THE FIRSTBORN FROM THE DEAD IN THE FLESH AT HIS SACRED RESURRECTION

PRAYER:

KEEP US O LORD FROM USELESS FIGHTING WITH WORDS AND GRANT THAT WE ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH, PRESERVE US IN THE FAITH, TRUE AND UNDEFILED, SO THAT WE MAY ALWAYS HOLD ON TO WHAT WE PROFESSED WHEN WE WERE BAPTISED IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. GRANT THAT WE MAY HAVE YOU FOR OUR FATHER AND THAT WE LIVE IN YOUR ONLY SON JESUS CHRIST AND IN THE COMMUNION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT OUR PARACLETE THROUGH THE SAME JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD

LAUDS (3 AM OR ON RISING AFTER MATINS ABOVE) THE HOUR OF THE RESURRECTION

PRAYER:

O GRACIOUS AND HOLY FATHER, GIVE US WISDOM TO PERCEIVE YOU, INTELLIGENCE TO UNDERSTAND YOU, DILIGENCE TO SEEK YOU, PATIENCE TO WAIT FOR YOU, EYES TO BEHOLD YOU, A HEART TO MEDITATE ON YOU, AND A LIFE TO PROCLAIM YOU THROUGH WITH AND IN YOUR BELOVED AND ONLY BEGOTTEN FIRST BORN FROM THE DEAD IN THE FLESH YOUR SON JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR IN THE POWER AND UNITY OF YOUR HOLY SPIRIT OUR PARACLETE

PRIME (6 AM) THE HOUR OF THE EPIPHANY AND ALSO THE RESURRECTION

PRAYER:

O GOD, TO SAVE US YOU GAVE YOUR BELOVED AND ONLY BEGOTTEN SON TO A MOST PAINFUL AND BITTER DEATH ON THE MOST HOLY CROSS CLEANSING THE WATERS, AND BY HIS GLORIOUS RESURRECTION IN THE FLESH DELIVERED US FROM ALL THE POWER OF THE ENEMY AND ALL IT’S MINIONS. GRANT US TO DIE DAILY TO SIN SO THAT WE MAY LIVE CLOSER TO HIM IN THE JOY OF THE RESURRECTION THROUGH THE SAME JESUS CHRIST IN THE UNITY AND POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT OUR PARACLETE

TERSE (9 AM) THE HOUR OF THE COMING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AT PENTECOST

PRAYER:

OPEN OUR HEARTS, O LORD AND ENLIGHTEN US BY THE GRACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT THATWE MAY SEEK WHAT IS PLEASING TO YOUR WILL AND SO ORDER OUR LIVES ACCORDING TO YOUR COMMANDMENTS THAT WE MAY BE FOUND WORTHY TO ENTER YOUR UNENDING JOYS THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR ONLY LORD AND MOST LOVING SAVIOUR, WHO WE BESEECH TO REVEAL YOURSELF TO US WHO ASK YOU, SO THAT KNOWING YOU WE MAY LOVE YOU ALONE BY DAY AND BY NIGHT AND EVER HOLD YOU IN OUR THOUGHTS. FILL US WITH YOUR LOVE AS IS FITTING FOR YOU TO BE LOVED AND HONOURED AS OUR GOD, SO THAT LOVE MAY FILL THE INNER DEPTHS OF OUR BEING AND YOUR LOVE MAY OWN US ALL AND YOUR AFFECTION MAY FILL ALL OUR SENSES SO THAT WE MAY KNOW NO OTHER LOVE APART FROM YOU, THE FOUNTAIN OF THE WATER OF LIFE ALWAYS TO BE DESIRED AND DRUNK, SPRINGING UP TO ETERNAL LIFE UNTO THE ENDLESS AGES OF AGES TO COME

SEXT (NOON) THE HOUR OF THE CRUCIFIXION AND HELP FOR THE NEEDY OF CHRIST

PRAYER:

WE BRING BEFORE YOU LORD GOD OUR FATHER THE TROUBLE AND DANGERS OF PEOPLE AND NATIONS; THE SIGHING OF PRISONERS, THE SORROWS OF THE BEREAVED, THE NECCESSITIES OF STRANGERS, THE DEPENDENCY OF THE WEARY, THE FAILING POWERS OF THE AGED, LORDDRAW NEAR TO EACH FOR THE SAKE OF AND THROUGH YOUR BELOVED AND ONLY SON JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, COME O HOLY SPIRIT OUR PARACLETE CONSOLATION OF THE SORROWFUL, DOWN TO US AT THIS TIME WITH YOUR MIGHTY POWER INTO THE DEPTHS OF OUR HEARTS. GLADDEN THERE WITH YOUR BRIGHTNESS EVERY DARK CORNER AND MAKE ALL RICH WITH YOUR COMFORT. GIVE US INNER WARMTH THAT OUR PRAYERS AND PRAISES MAY GO UP TO YOU, OUR GOD, THROUGH YOUR BELOVED AND ONLY BEGOTTEN SON JESUS CHRIST

NONE (3 PM) THE HOUR OF THE END OF OUR LORD’S PASSION THE END OF HIS CRUCIFIXION

PRAYER:

THANKS TO YOU, OUR ONLY LORD ANDSAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, FORALL THE GIFTS YOUR HAVE WON FOR US, FOR ALL THE PAINS AND INSULTS YOU HAVE BORN FOR US. O MERCIFUL REDEEMER, FRIEND AND BROTHER, MAY WE KNOW YOU MORE CLEARLY, LOVE YOU MORE DEARLY, AND FOLLOW YOU MORE NEARLY, WHO REIGNS WITH THE FATHER AND THE HOLY SPIRIT, UNTO THE ENDLESS AGES OF AGES TO COME

VESPERS (6 PM) THE HOUR OF THE END OF THE DAY AND THE BEGINNING OF THE NEXT DAY AS GOD INDEED CREATED THE EARTH IN ONE DAY AND IN THE REST OF THE FIRST SIX DAYS FINISHED THE FORMATION THEREOF AND RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY

PRAYER:

WATCH O LORD WITH THOSE WHO WAKE OR WATCH OR WEEP TONIGHT, AND GIVE YOUR ANGELS CHARGE OVER THOSE WHO WAKE OR SLEEP. TEND YOUR SICK ONES, O LORD CHRIST JESUS OUR ONLY LORD AND SAVIOUR BELOVED AND ONLY SON OF THE LIVING GOD, O HOLY FATHER ALMIGHTY, IN THE UNITY AND POWER OF YOUR HOLY SPIRIT OUR PARACLETE, O WELCOME COMFORTER; REST YOUR WEARY ONES; BLESS YOUR DYING ONES; SOOTHE YOUR SUFFERING ONES; PITY YOUR AFFLICTED ONES; SHIELD YOUR JOYOUS ONES; AND ALL FOR YOUR LOVE’S SAKE; AND HAVE US DO THE SAME FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR MOST HOLY NAME BLESSED LORD JESUS CHRIST OUR ONLY RIGHTEOUSNESS UNCEASINGLY IN THE HUMBLE JOY OF YOUR WILLING SERVANTS TO LIFE EVERLASTING UNTO THE ENDLESS AGES TO COME

COMPLINE (9 PM) THE HOUR OF EARLY NIGHT PRAYER THE EIGHTH HOUR OF DAILY PRAYER AS INDEED ALL MEN WILL RISE TO ETERNAL JUDGEMENT, UNTO THE EIGHTH DAY, THE ENDLESS AGES OF AGES, THAT IS, AT THE PAROUSIA OF CHRIST, HIS RETURN FROM HEAVEN WITH THE ELECT ANGELS AT THE END OF THIS AGE OF GRACE

COMPLINE

FIERY CREATOR OF FIRE,
LIGHT GIVER OF LIGHT,
LIFE AND AUTHOR OF LIFE,
SALVATION AND BESTOWER OF SALVATION,
IN CASE THE LAMPS SHOULD ABANDON
THE JOYS OF THIS NIGHT,
YOU WHO DO NOT DESIRE OUR DEATH,
GIVE LIGHT TO OUR BREAST.
TO THOSE WANDERING FROM EGYPT,
YOU BESTOW THE DOUBLE GRACE,
YOU SHOW THE VEIL OF CLOUD,
AND GIVE THE NOCTURNAL LIGHT.
WITH A PILLAR OF CLOUD IN THE DAY,
YOU PROTECT THE PEOPLE AS THEY GO,
WITH A PILLAR OF FIRE AT EVENING,
YOU DISPEL THE NIGHT WITH LIGHT.
YOU CALL OUT TO YOUR SERVANT FROM THE FLAME,
YOU DO NOT SPURN THE BUSH OF THORNS,
AND THOUGH YOU ARE CONSUMING FIRE,
YOU DO NOT BURN WHAT YOU ILLUMINE.
NOW IT IS TIME THAT THE CLOUDY BEE-BREAD
SHOULD BE CONSUMED, ALL IMPURITY BOILED AWAY, AND THE WAXEN FLESH SHOULD SHINE
WITH THE GLOW OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
YOU STORE NOW IN THE RECESSES OF THE COMB THE SWEET FOOD OF THE DIVINE HONEY,
AND PURIFYING THE INMOST CELLS OF THE HEART,
YOU HAVE FILLED THEM WITH YOUR WORD;
THAT THE SWARM OF THE NEW BROOD,
CHOSEN BY YOUR MOUTH AND SPIRIT,
MAY LEAVE THEIR BURDENS AND WIN HEAVEN
ON WINGS NOW FREE FROM CARE.
MAY YOUR HOLY ANGELS, O CHRIST JESUS, SON OF THE LIVING GOD,
TEND OUR SLEEP, OUR REST, OUR BRIGHT BED.
LET THEM REVEAL TRUE VISIONS TO US IN OUR SLEEP, O HIGH PRINCE OF THE UNIVERSE, O GREAT AND MYSTERIOUS KING.
MAY NO DEVILS, NO DEMONS, NO SPIRITS OF SORCERY OR MAGIC, NO EVIL SPIRITS OF ANY SORT VISIBLE OR INVISIBLE, NO INJURY OR TERRIFYING DREAMS DISTURB OUR REST, OUR PROMPT AND SWIFT REPOSE.
MAY OUR WAKING, OUR WORK, AND OUR LIVING BE HOLY; OUR SLEEP, OUR REST, WITHOUT HINDRANCE OR HARM.
O HOLY LORD GOD OF CREATION, WE INVOKE YOU. YOU ARE OUR GRACIOUS COUNSELOR. DO YOU TURN YOUR FACE TOWARD OUR ENEMIES, FOR YOU ARE OUR JUDGEMENT WITHOUT BETRAYAL.
YOU ARE OUR KING. YOU ARE OUR LAW. YOURS ARE OUR SPIRITS, SOULS, BODIES, WE LOVE YOU, BLESSED CHRIST JESUS, FOR OUR SPIRITS SOULS BODIES ARE YOURS TONIGHT, TOMORROW AND AT ALL TIMES UNCEASINGLY AND NOW AND UNTO THE ENDLESS AGES OF AGES TO COME.
O HOLY KING. KEEP US IN YOUR ROYAL DWELLING ALL OUR DAYS. EATING THE FEAST FROM YOUR TABLE. KEEP US IN YOU,
O HOLY JESUS,
GENTLE FRIEND,
MORNING STAR,
MIDDAY SUN ADORNED,
BRILLIANT FLAME OF RIGHTEOUNESS, LIFE EVERLASTING AND ETERNITY,
FOUNTAIN EVER-NEW, EVER-LIVING, EVER-LASTING,
HEART’S DESIRE OF PATRIARCHS, ESPECIALLY ST. ENOCH IN THE FLESH,
LONGING OF PROPHETS, ESPECIALLY ST. ELIJAH IN THE FLESH, WITH ST. ENOCH, YOUR HOLY PROPHETS YET TO RETURN,
BELOVED MASTER OF ST. MICHAEL AND ST. GABRIEL, YOUR LOYAL WARRIORS, HOLY ARCHANGELS,
MASTER OF APOSTLES AND DISCIPLES,
GIVER OF THE LAW,
PRINCE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT,
SAVIOUR OF THE SAVED,
JUDGE OF DOOM,
SON OF THE MERCIFUL FATHER WITHOUT MOTHER IN HEAVEN,
SON OF THE TRUE VIRGIN MARY, WITHOUT FATHER ON EARTH,
TRUE AND LOVING BROTHER,
KEEP US IN YOU O HOLY GOD AT ALL TIMES UNCEASINGLY AND NOW AND UNTO THE ENDLESS AGES OF AGES TO COME,
BLESSED VIRGIN WHO BORE GOD AND TOOK CARE OF HIM WITH TENDER LOVE,
BRIGHT, WITH GOODNESS FULL,
MARY MIRACLE, THE LION’S PRECIOUS LOVE,
VIRGIN ONCE, MOTHER OF CHRIST JESUS OLS AND VIRGIN STILL, ALL YE ELECT ANGELS AND SAINTS OF GOD, THE SAME, PRAY FOR AND WITH US UNCEASINGLY, BARUCH ADONAI YAHWEH ELOHIM OLAM eth ABBA OUR FATHER AND THE SON JCOLS AND THE HOLY SPIRIT OUR PARACLETE DELIVER US UNCEASINGLY WITH AND BY THE PRAYER AND COMPANY OF ALL YOUR ELECT ANGELS AND SAINTS FOR AND WITH US UNCEASINGLY+AND NOW AND ALWAYS AND UNTO THE ENDLESS AGES OF AGES TO COME.

Sometimes we may be given to say “I wonder what it was like to live many centuries ago” or “we don’t really know what it was like” and other such things as men are wont to say when musing on things. We needn’t wonder. The Church Fathers give us a very clear account. When we read from St. Athanasius [feastday May 2] in his book Against the Heathen, we see the idolatry and depravity from which Jesus Christ redeemed us from to have no part in. St. Athanasius was the defender of the Church against Arianism, the attempt to return on the part of churchmen to a “reasonable” synthesis with paganism. In other words, apostasy. In fact if one looks at false ecumenism and the world wide return to paganism and moral depravity and the horror of the human sacrifice of abortion (according to Human Life International many abortion providers are training their people to offer the murdered babies to mother goddess Gaia via magic) then we are living in the time that St. Anthony of the Desert [feastday Jan. 17], in 335 A.D. foretold would happen when he thundered into Alexandria and denounced the Arians as the forerunner of the Antichrist. The question at hand is what is our duty to God in resisting heresy and sin?

From Fr. Alban Butler’s Lives of the Saints

May 2.-ST. ATHANASIUS, Bishop.

ATHANASIUS was born in Egypt towards the end of the third century, and was from his youth pious, learned, and deeply versed in the sacred writings, as befitted one whom God had chosen to be the champion and defender of His Church against the Arian heresy. Though only a deacon, he was chosen by his bishop to go with him to the Council of Nicaea, in 325, and attracted the attention of all by the learning and ability with which he defended the faith. A few months later, he became Patriarch of Alexandria, and for forty-six years he bore, often well-nigh alone, the whole brunt of the Arian assault. On the refusal of the Saint to restore Arius to Catholic communion, the emperor ordered the Patriarch of Constantinople to do so. The wretched heresiarch took an oath that he had always believed as the Church believes; and the patriarch, after vainly using every effort to move the emperor, had recourse to fasting and prayer, that God would avert from the Church the frightful sacrilege. The day came for the solemn entrance of Arius into the great church of Sancta Sophia. The heresiarch and his party set out glad and in triumph. But before he reached the church, death smote him swiftly and awfully, and the dreaded sacrilege was averted. St. Athanasius stood unmoved against four Roman emperors; was banished five times; was the butt of every insult, calumny, and wrong the Arians could devise, and lived in constant peril of death. Though firm as adamant in defense of the Faith, he was meek and humble, pleasant and winning in converse, beloved by his flock, unwearied in labors, in prayer, in mortifications, and in zeal for souls. In the year 373 his stormy life closed in peace, rather that his people (the monks of St. Anthony) would have it so than that his enemies were weary of persecuting him. He left to the Church the whole and ancient Faith, defended and explained in writings rich in thought and learning, clear, keen, and stately in expression. He is honored as one of the greatest of the Doctors of the Church.

Reflection.-The Catholic Faith, says St. Augustine, is more precious far than all the riches and treasures of earth; more glorious and greater than all its honors, all its possessions. This it is which saves sinners, gives light to the blind, restores penitents, perfects the just, and is the crown of martyrs.

St. Athanasius, Against the Heathen

§25. Human sacrifice. Its absurdity. Its prevalence. Its calamitous results.

But some have been led by this time to such a pitch of irreligion and folly as to slay and to offer in sacrifice to their false gods even actual men, whose figures and forms the gods are. Nor do they see, wretched men, that the victims they are slaying are the patterns of the gods they make and worship, and to whom they are offering the men. For they are offering, one may say, equals to equals, or rather, the higher to the lower; for they are offering living creatures to dead, and rational beings to things without motion. 2. For the Scythians who are called Taurians offer in sacrifice to their Virgin, as they call her, survivors from wrecks, and such Greeks as they catch, going thus far in impiety against men of their own race, and thus exposing the savagery of their gods, in that those whom Providence has rescued from danger and from the sea, they slay, almost fighting against Providence; because they frustrate the kindness of Providence by their own brutal character. But others, when they are returned victorious from war, thereupon dividing their prisoners into hundreds, and taking a man from each, sacrifice to Ares the man they have picked out from each hundred. 3. Nor is it only Scythians who commit these abominations on account of the ferocity natural to them as barbarians: on the contrary, this deed is a special result of the wickedness connected with idols and false gods. For the Egyptians used formerly to offer victims of this kind to Hera, and the Phœnicians and Cretans used to propitiate Cronos in their sacrifices of children. And even the ancient Romans used to worship Jupiter Latiarius, as he was called, with human sacrifices, and some in one way, some in another, but all without exception committed and incurred the pollution: they incurred it by the mere perpetration of the murderous deeds, while they polluted their own temples by filling them with the smoke of such sacrifices. 4. This then was the ready source of numerous evils to mankind. For seeing that their false gods were pleased with these things, they forthwith imitated their gods with like misdoings, thinking that the imitation of superior beings, as they considered them, was a credit to themselves. Hence mankind was thinned by murders of grown men and children, and by licence of all kinds. For nearly every city is full of licentiousness of all kinds, the result of the savage character of its gods; nor is there one of sober life in the idols’ temples [2] save only he whose licentiousness is witnessed to by them all ( i.e. among the licentious worshippers the lifeless image is the only one free from vice, although the worshippers credit him with divine attributes, and therefore, according to their superstition, with a licentious life.)

§26. The moral corruptions of Paganism all admittedly originated with the gods.

Women, for example, used to sit out in old days in the temples of Phœnicia, consecrating to the gods there the hire of their bodies, thinking they propitiated their goddess by fornication, and that they would procure her favour by this. While men, denying their nature, and no longer wishing to be males, put on the guise of women, under the idea that they are thus gratifying and honouring the Mother of their so-called gods. But all live along with the basest, and vie with the worst among themselves, and as Paul said, the holy minister of Christ: “For their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working unseemliness.” (Rom: 1: v. 26,27) 2. But acting in this and in like ways, they admit and prove that the life of their so-called gods was of the same kind. For from Zeus they have learned corruption of youth and adultery, from Aphrodite fornication, from Rhea licentiousness, from Ares murders, and from other gods other like things, which the laws punish and from which every sober man turns away. Does it then remain fit to consider them gods who do such things, instead of reckoning them, for the licentiousness of their ways, more irrational than the brutes? Is it fit to consider their worshippers human beings, instead of pitying them as more irrational than the brutes, and more soul-less than inanimate things? For had they considered the intellectual part of their soul they would not have plunged headlong into these things, nor have denied the true God, the Father of Christ.