Chapter XXI.—“If I Be a Father, Where is My Fear?”

“But tell me, how do you love your parents?  If, indeed, you do it as always regarding what is right, I congratulate you; but if you love them as it happens, then not so, for then you may on a small occasion become their enemies.  But if you love them intelligently, tell me, what are parents?  You will say they are the sources of our being.  Why, then, do ye not love the source of the being of all things, if indeed you have with right understanding elected to do this?  But you will now say again, we have not seen Him.  Why, then, do ye not seek for Him, but worship senseless things?  But what?  If it were even difficult for you to know what God is, you cannot fail to know what is not God, so as to reason that God is not wood, nor stone, nor brass, nor anything else made of corruptible matter.