“Pardon me; but I was minded from Vivian’s testimony concerning thy broad philosophy, that thou didst no longer devote thyself to the leanness of the single tribal god of thy people. Behold how much more free and abundant is homage to all the gods!”
“Thou sayest well that the Hebrew ideal of God is narrow, mean, and selfish! He is not great enough to regard any but themselves! With all their sincerity, they worship a false god. But the gods of the Greeks and Romans are also false. They have the same passions, weaknesses, and changeableness that belong to men; they are but magnified images of their worshippers!”
Marcius was so struck by the truth of the statement that he uttered no protest, and Serenus continued,—
“The one true God is supreme over all. Through his perfect economy he ordereth all nations and tribes, yea, and everything seen and unseen. He loveth all, for he is Love. He is the eternal and omnipresent Spirit, who hath no local habitation, for he filleth all space. In him we have our breath and life, for he is the source of all being. We, being his children, and made in his image, are spirits, as he is Spirit, even while wearing fleshly garments.”
Marcius was silent, and listened with rapt attention.
“The Father of all things hath everything orderly in his dealings with the world and the children of men. He hath from the beginning ordained powers and laws which are unchangeably perfect in their operation; and man, by acquainting himself with their methods and beneficent regularity, may command their ministry. Through an understanding of them he may even grow to be Godlike. Behold, man reckoneth himself to be a creature of the dust and of short duration; and by an inner law which he knoweth not of he hath completely filled the measure of his thought. It is an unchangeable, divine behest, that man grows into the likeness of what he believes he is. Behold, the Greeks and Romans desire good in their worship, but in their craving to discern God,—the Unseen,—they have, in low degree, personified his laws and forces to their hurt. Hence many gods of many names! They have mistakenly tried to bring God down to their level, instead of lifting their thought towards him—the Perfect and Unchangeable. This is because their minds are fixed wholly upon the things that are seen, and therefore they count their bodies to be themselves.”
Marcius was visibly moved.
“Thou hast faithfully drawn my likeness. I had always believed that the body, or rather the head, which is a part of it, did the thinking, until the vision of Alethea. Then I perceived that thinking was possible without a seen body. I was beholden to believe what I saw, but knew not how it could be.”
“Of a verity, it is the real self that thinks and knows; the body being only its instrument of manifestation. Can a harp play of itself, without a harper?”
“Thine interpretation is good! And now, as thou hast set forth the gods of the Greeks and Romans, tell me more fully of the God of the Hebrews. Surely they worship not such an one as thou hast commended?”