1 Samuel 15:22-23
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
Arnobius provides to the pagan worshipers a reminder of what true worship entails—obedience rather than sacrifice. Christians, those purchased by the precious, shed blood of Jesus Christ, have no less obligation. Let us fear lest we also become complacent and be like the Jews to whom was said:
For it is not he who is anxiously thinking of religious rites, and slays spotless victims, who gives piles of incense to be burned with fire, not he must be thought to worship the deities, or alone discharge the duties of religion. True worship and belief worthy of gods are in the heart; nor does it at all avail to bring blood and gore, if you believe about them things which are not only far remote from and unlike their nature, but even to some extent stain and disgrace both their dignity and virtue.
We wish, then, to question you, and invite you to answer a short question: Whether you think it a greater offense to sacrifice to them no victims, because you think that so great a being neither wishes nor desires these; or, with foul beliefs, to hold opinions about them so degrading, that they might rouse anyone’s spirit to a mad desire for revenge? If the relative importance of the matters be weighed, you will find no judge so prejudiced as not to believe it a greater crime to defame by manifest insults anyone’s reputation, than to treat it with silent neglect. For this, perhaps, may be held and believed from deference to reason; but the other course manifests an impious spirit, and a blindness despaired of in fiction. If in your ceremonies and rites neglected sacrifices and expiatory offerings may be demanded, guilt is said to have been contracted; or if by a momentary forgetfulness anyone has erred either in speaking or in pouring wine,…you all cry out immediately that something has been done contrary to the sacredness of the ceremonies;…and yet do you dare to deny that the gods are always being wronged by you in sins so grievous, while you confess yourselves that, in less matters, they are angry, often to your ruin?
- Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
- as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
- Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
- and to listen than the fat of rams.
- For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
- and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
Arnobius provides to the pagan worshipers a reminder of what true worship entails—obedience rather than sacrifice. Christians, those purchased by the precious, shed blood of Jesus Christ, have no less obligation. Let us fear lest we also become complacent and be like the Jews to whom was said:
“Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts?'" Malachi 3:13-14
For it is not he who is anxiously thinking of religious rites, and slays spotless victims, who gives piles of incense to be burned with fire, not he must be thought to worship the deities, or alone discharge the duties of religion. True worship and belief worthy of gods are in the heart; nor does it at all avail to bring blood and gore, if you believe about them things which are not only far remote from and unlike their nature, but even to some extent stain and disgrace both their dignity and virtue.
We wish, then, to question you, and invite you to answer a short question: Whether you think it a greater offense to sacrifice to them no victims, because you think that so great a being neither wishes nor desires these; or, with foul beliefs, to hold opinions about them so degrading, that they might rouse anyone’s spirit to a mad desire for revenge? If the relative importance of the matters be weighed, you will find no judge so prejudiced as not to believe it a greater crime to defame by manifest insults anyone’s reputation, than to treat it with silent neglect. For this, perhaps, may be held and believed from deference to reason; but the other course manifests an impious spirit, and a blindness despaired of in fiction. If in your ceremonies and rites neglected sacrifices and expiatory offerings may be demanded, guilt is said to have been contracted; or if by a momentary forgetfulness anyone has erred either in speaking or in pouring wine,…you all cry out immediately that something has been done contrary to the sacredness of the ceremonies;…and yet do you dare to deny that the gods are always being wronged by you in sins so grievous, while you confess yourselves that, in less matters, they are angry, often to your ruin?
Arnobius of Sicca, The Case against the Pagans, Book IV, cap. 30-31
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