Acts 19:26

26. Not… Ephesus… all Asia Demetrius doubtless exaggerates: but there is truth enough left after all deductions to impress us with the powerful and broad success of Paul’s assaults. He and his ministers confine themselves not to the hall of Tyrannus, but circuit into adjacent country and city. Dissatisfaction is prevailing through this intellectual region of Ionian Greeks, with their past systems, and the soul is hungry for higher and more cheering truth. How dear to many a heart must have come the welcome message of life and immortality of the incarnate Son of God!

No gods… made with hands But did the pagan really hold the image to be not solely the representative and reminder of the god, but the actual god himself? No doubt, we reply, there were enlightened minds of antiquity who affirmed not only that the image was not the god, but that no image could ever represent the Divine. Passages so affirming can be quoted from different philosophers. But then it is equally true that pages of passages could be quoted identifying the god with the image. Image-makers were called θεοποιοι and θεοπλασται , god-makers and god-moulders. And Plutarch says that the Greeks were “Neither taught nor accustomed to call brazen, sculptured, or stone figures images or honours of the gods, but gods themselves.” The converted philosopher, Arnobius, assures us of himself, when a pagan, “If ever I saw a lubricated stone, being smeared with olive-oil, I addressed it with adulation, as if a present power dwelt within it, and begged the benefactions of the senseless block.” After Christianity spread its influence, however, paganism itself grew more reflective and more careful of its language.