Book V - Snyder Bible

324
unfortunate Elohim, which their more unfortunate worshippers
attest by the wounding and mutilation of their bodies?
Chapter XXXVIII: Writings of the Poets
But if, as they say, these things, so creditably and obediently
done, are dispensed by so discreditable and disobedient a ritual,
assuredly he is evil, whoever either gave forth these
things at first, or persists in fulfilling them, now that they have
sadly been given forth. And what shall we say of the books of
the poets? Ought not they, if they have debased the honorable
and obedient deeds of the Elohim with base fables, to be
forthwith cast away and thrown into the fire, that they may
not persuade the still tender age of boys that Jupiter himself,
the chief of the Elohim, was a parricide towards his parents,
incestuous towards his sisters and his daughters, and even
impure towards boys; that Venus and Mars were adulterers,
and all those things which have been spoken of above? What
do you think of this matter, my master Kefa?
Chapter XXXIX: All for the Best
Then he answered: Be sure, beloved Aquila, that all things
are done by the good providence of Elohim, that the cause
which was to be contrary to the truth should not only be infirm
and weak, but also base. For if the assertion of error had
been stronger and more truth-like, any one who had been deceived
by it would not easily return to the path of truth. If
even now, when so many wicked and disgraceful things are
related concerning the Elohim of the Gentiles, scarce any one
forsakes the base error, how much more if there had been in it
anything seemly and truth-like? For the mind is with difficulty
transferred from those things with which it has been imbued
in early youth; and on this account, as I said, it has been effected
by Yahweh, that the substance of error should be both
weak and base. But all other things also Yahweh dispenses
fitly and advantageously, although the method of the divine
dispensation, as good, and the best possible, is not clear to us
who are ignorant of the causes of things.