On the Remembrance of Divinity

[sdi]

For divinity, indeed, the father and fabricator of all things, is more ancient than the sun and the heavens, more excellent than time and eternity, and every flowing nature, and is a legislator without law, ineffable by voice, and invisible by the eyes. Not being able to comprehend his essence, we apply for assistance to words and names, to animals and figures of gold, and ivory and silver, to plants and rivers, to the summits of mountains, and to streams of water; desiring, indeed, to understand his nature, but through imbecility calling him by the names of such things as appear to us to be beautiful. And in thus acting we are affected in the same manner as lovers, who are delighted with surveying the images of the objects of their love, and with recollecting the lyre, the dart, and the seat of these, the circus in which they ran, and every thing, in short, which excites the memory of the beloved object.

What then remains for me to investigate and determine respecting statues? only to admit the subsistence of deity. But if the art of Phidias excites the Greek to the recollection of divinity, honour to animals the Egyptians, a river others, and fire others, I do not condemn the dissonance: let them only know, let them only love, let them only be mindful of the object they adore.

(Maximus Tyrius, Diss. XXXVIII "Whether Statues Should be Dedicated to the Gods," as translated by Thomas Taylor)

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Now concerning things offered to idols: we know that we all have knowledge; knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he has not yet learned what he ought. But if anyone loves God, then God knows him.

(Paul the Apostle, 1 Cor. 8)

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Citizens of the country of Love have a religion apart from all the others: God alone is their religion.

(a probably badly mis-remembered Sufi quote that I cannot now source)