Book V - Snyder Bible

The Preaching of Simeon Kefa 317
and trees, and animals, and flowers, and birds, and fountains,
and rivers. And but that it might seem to be a waste of words, I
could even enumerate almost all the stars, and trees, and
fountains, and rivers, which they assert to have been made of
men; yet, by way of example, I shall mention at least one of
each class. They say that Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus,
was turned into a star; Daphne, the daughter of the river Lado,
into a tree; Hyacinthus, beloved of Apollo, into a flower; Callisto
into the constellation which they call Arctos; Progne and
Philomela, with Tereus, into birds; that Thysbe in Cilicia was
dissolved into a fountain; and Pyramus, at the same place, into
a river. And they assert that almost all the stars, trees, fountains,
and rivers, flowers, animals, and birds, were at one time
human beings.
Chapter XXVII: Inconsistency of Polytheists
But Kefa, when he heard this, said: According to them,
then, before men were changed into stars, and the other
things which you mention, the heaven was without stars and
the earth without trees and animals; and there were neither
fountains, nor rivers, nor birds. And without these, how did
those men themselves live, who afterwards were changed into
them, since it is evident that, without these things, men could
not live upon the earth? Then I answered: But they are not
even able to observe the worship of their own Elohim consistently;
for every one of those whom they worship has something
dedicated to himself, from which his worshippers ought
to abstain: as they say the olive is dedicated to Minerva, the
she-goat to Jupiter, seeds to Ceres, wine to Bacchus, water to
Osiris, the ram to Hammon, the stag to Diana, the fish and the
dove to the demon of the Syrians, fire to Vulcan; and to each
one, as I have said, is there something specially consecrated,
from which the worshippers are bound to abstain, for the
honor of those to whom they are consecrated. But were one
abstaining from one thing, and another from another, by doing
honor to one of the Elohim, they incur the anger of all the rest;
and therefore, if they would conciliate them all, they must ab-