{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/008/0080176.htm","path":"chr/ecf/008/0080176.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/008/0080176.htm","text":"Chapter XXXIX.\u2014Argument for Polytheism.\nThen Simon said: \u201cI shall make use of assertions from the law of the Jews only. For it is manifest to all who take interest in religion, that this law is of universal authority, yet that every one receives the understanding of this law according to his own judgment. For it has so been written by Him who created the world, that the faith of things is made to depend upon it. Whence, whether any one wishes to bring forward truth, or any one to bring forward falsehood, no assertion will be received without this law. Inasmuch, therefore, as my knowledge is most fully in accordance with the law, I rightly declared that there are many gods, of whom one is more eminent than the rest, and incomprehensible, even He who is God of gods. But that there are many gods, the law itself informs me. For, in the first place, it says this in the passage where one in the figure of a serpent speaks to Eve, the first woman, \u2018On the day ye eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, ye shall be as gods,\u2019 631 that is, as those who made man; and after they have tasted of the tree, God Himself testifies, saying to the rest of the gods, \u2018Behold, Adam is become as one of us;\u2019 632 thus, therefore, it is manifest that there were many gods engaged in the making of man. Also, whereas at the first God said to the other gods, \u2018Let us make man after our image and likeness;\u2019 633 also His saying, \u2018Let us drive him out;\u2019 634 and again, \u2018Come, let us go down, and confound their language;\u2019 635 all these things indicate that there are many gods. But this also is written, \u2018Thou shalt not curse the gods, nor curse the chief of thy people;\u2019 636 and again this writing, \u2018God alone led them, and there was no strange god with them,\u2019 637 shows that there are many gods. There are also many other testimonies which might be adduced from the law, not only obscure, but plain, by which it is taught that there are many gods. 638 One of these was chosen by lot, that he might be the god of the Jews. But it is not of him that I speak, but of that God who is also his God, whom even the Jews themselves did not know. For he is not their God, but the God of those who know him.\u201d","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol VIII: Pseudo-Clementine Literature.: Chapter XXXIX","type":"page"}