Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Idolatry stands as the chief offense of humankind, the foremost guilt of the present age, the entire basis on which judgment rests. For although every offense keeps its own particular shape, and each is assigned to judgment under its own name, in the crime of idolatry all are canceled out together. Set aside the labels; examine the deeds. The idolater is likewise a murderer. You ask whom he has killed? If it matters for the fullness of the indictment, not a stranger, not an enemy, but himself. By what treachery? His own error's. With what weapon? Offense against God. With how many wounds? As many as his acts of idolatry. Whoever denies that the idolater has perished will also deny that the idolater has committed murder. In the same way recognize adultery and fornication in him too; for whoever serves false gods is beyond doubt an adulterer against the truth, since every falsehood is adultery. So too he is drowned in fornication. For who walks unsoiled and unviolated as a partner of unclean spirits? And indeed the holy Scriptures use the very word 'fornication' in reproaching idolatry. The nature of fraud, I take it, is this: that someone seizes another's property, or denies what is owed him—and certainly, fraud committed against a man already bears the name of the gravest crime. But idolatry defrauds God, denying him his own honors and conferring them on others, so that it joins insult to the fraud. And if fraud, no less than fornication and adultery, brings death, then in these too idolatry is not acquitted of the charge of murder. After crimes so ruinous, so devouring of salvation, the rest of the vices too, each in its own way and set apart, nevertheless display their true condition within idolatry. In it is the world's covetousness—for what solemn rite of idolatry lacks the ambition of pomp and adornment? In it is wantonness and drunkenness, since these rites are thronged chiefly for the sake of feasting and the belly and lust. In it is injustice—for what is more unjust than that which does not even know the father of justice? In it too dwells emptiness, for its entire framework is hollow. In it dwells deceit, for its entire foundation is a fabrication. And so it happens that everything is found within idolatry, and idolatry within everything. But also, since all sins whatsoever savor of offense against God, and nothing that savors of offense against God fails to be credited to the demons and unclean spirits to whom idols are made over, it follows without doubt that whoever sins commits idolatry. For he does what belongs to the agents of idols.
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