Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
1| Everything that has a beginning also has an end. A beginning in time is called coming-into-being; and all things that come into being are perishable, and time dims their form. How, then, could beings born of a perishable coming-into-being be immortal? Yet among the unreasoning multitudes some such belief has spread abroad that marriages and the begetting of children were held to take place among the gods. But if those who are begotten are immortal, and they are forever being begotten, their race must overflow. And as the additions kept coming, what heaven, what earth could have held so great a swarm of gods springing up one after another? And what would anyone say of men who join heavenly brothers and sisters in the partnership of marriage and charge them with adultery and licentiousness? Let us say it boldly: the very honors paid them, and the tributes men offer them, are mixed with outrage and debauchery.
2| For someone practiced in letters composes hymns in verse, or even without meter, and a sculptor, having first conceived some form in his mind, fashions a work of craft, a plaything; and then, as though forgetfulness had come over him, he flatters his own creation, worshiping it as an immortal god, though he admits that he himself, the father and maker of the statue, is mortal.
3| They themselves point out the tombs and sepulchers of those incorruptible beings, and they honor the departed with immortal honors, not knowing that what is truly blessed and incorruptible has no need of honor from things that perish. For what is beheld by the mind and grasped by thought takes on neither form nor outline. All these things are done to gratify the departed; for they were human beings, when they lived and shared in a body.
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