Arnobius shares how the pagans could possibly have wooed opinion for their pantheon if they had not contrived ridiculous natures for them. Believers need to take the same amount of care when testifying of the triune God and the saving work of Christ. Give attention to accuracy as best you can.
1 Peter 3:15
But in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you
And yet let no one think that we are perversely determined not to submit to the other deities, whoever they are! For we lift up pious minds, and stretch forth our hands in prayer, and do not refuse to draw near whithersoever you may have summoned us; if only we learn who those divine beings are whom you press upon us, and with whom it may be right to share the reverence which we show to the king and prince who is over all.…You might, perhaps, have been able to attract us to the worship of these deities you mention, had you not been yourselves the first, with foul and unseemly fancies, to devise such tales about them as not merely to stain their honor, but, by the natures assigned to them, to prove that they did not exist at all.
1 Peter 3:15
But in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you
And yet let no one think that we are perversely determined not to submit to the other deities, whoever they are! For we lift up pious minds, and stretch forth our hands in prayer, and do not refuse to draw near whithersoever you may have summoned us; if only we learn who those divine beings are whom you press upon us, and with whom it may be right to share the reverence which we show to the king and prince who is over all.…You might, perhaps, have been able to attract us to the worship of these deities you mention, had you not been yourselves the first, with foul and unseemly fancies, to devise such tales about them as not merely to stain their honor, but, by the natures assigned to them, to prove that they did not exist at all.
Arnobius of Sicca, The Case against the Pagans, Book III, cap. 6
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