A Plea for the Christians 13

Most of those who charge us with atheism have not even dreamed of what God is; they are ignorant of natural and theological reasoning and have never studied it, and they measure piety by the rule of sacrifices. They accuse us of not offering sacrifice and of not recognizing the same gods as the cities. So consider with me, emperors, both charges, as follows; and first, our not sacrificing. The Creator and Father of this universe needs no blood, nor the smell of burnt fat, nor the fragrance of flowers and incense, since he himself is the perfect fragrance, lacking nothing and needing nothing. The greatest sacrifice to him is that we should know who stretched out and vaulted the heavens and set the earth in place like a center, who gathered the water into seas and divided the light from the darkness, who adorned the sky with stars and made the earth send up every seed, who made the animals and formed the human being. When we hold that God the Creator sustains and oversees all things with the knowledge and art by which he guides them, and lift up holy hands to him, what further need has he of a hecatomb? “With sacrifices and gentle prayers, with libation and the smell of burnt fat, men turn them aside with entreaty, whenever anyone transgresses and sins.” What are whole burnt offerings to me, which God does not need? And yet we must offer a bloodless sacrifice and present our reasonable worship.