XXIX. (94) Why, then, has this hierophant thought fit to introduce him as swearing? That he might demonstrate the weakness of the created being, and after he had demonstrated it, might comfort him: for we are not able at all times to have ready in our soul that principal fact which ought to be remembered concerning God, namely, that “God is not as a Man,”{45}{#nu 23:19.} So that we may rise above those assertions which are advanced concerning man; (95) but we, since we have the greatest share in what is mortal, and since we are not able to conceive any thing apart from ourselves, and have no power to go beyond or to escape our own calamities, but since we have got into mortality as snails have into their shells, and since we are revolved round and round ourselves in a ball, like so many hedgehogs, and have only the same opinions about the blessed and immortal God which we have about ourselves, avoiding all absurdity of assertion, such for instance as that God has the same form as man, but in reality being guilty of the impiety of attributing to him that he has the same passions as man; (96) we do on this account fashion for him in our minds hands and feet, a coming in and a going out, hatred, aversion, alienation, and anger; parts and passions very inconsistent with the character of the Cause of all things, an oath by which is often an assistant of our weakness. (97) “If God shall give thee the things which thou desirest,” says Moses, speaking very eloquently and accurately; for if he does not give them thou wilt not have them, since every thing belongs to him, both things external, and the body, and the outward sense, and the power of speech, and the mind, and the energies and essences of all the faculties. And not you, but all this world also, and whatever you cut off and divide from it, you will find does not belong to you; for you do not possess the earth, or the water, or the air, or the heaven, or the stars, or any of the kinds of animals or plants, whether perishable or immortal, as you own; so that, whatever from them you bring to offer to him as a sacrifice, you are bringing as the possession of God, and not as your own.
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