On Idolatry 11

If we reconsider the rest of the offenses from their origins: first covetousness, the root of all evils, by which some have been ensnared and have suffered shipwreck concerning the faith (and covetousness has twice been called idolatry by the same apostle); then lying, covetousness's servant (I say nothing of perjury, since not even swearing is permitted): is trade suited to the servant of God? Besides, if covetousness departs, what reason is there for acquiring? When the reason for acquiring ceases, there will be no need to trade. Suppose now some justice in gain, secure from any charge of covetousness and lying: I think it falls into the crime of idolatry, if it deals in what concerns the very soul and spirit of idols, what fattens every demon. Is not that the chief idolatry? Let them see to it whether the same wares, I mean incense and the other foreign goods for the sacrifice of idols, are also of use to men for medicinal ointments, and to us besides for the comfort of burial. Certainly when the processions, the priesthoods, and the sacrifices of idols are furnished by your risks, your losses, your inconveniences, your plans, your journeys and trading, what else are you shown to be but the idols' agent? Let no one argue that in this way a case can be raised against every trade. The graver an offense is, the more it widens the care of our watchfulness in proportion to the danger, so that we withdraw not only from the offenses themselves but also from the means by which they are done. For though a thing is done by others, it makes no difference if it is done through me. In nothing ought I to be necessary to another when he does what is unlawful for me. From the very fact that I am forbidden to do something, I ought to understand that I must take care it is not done through me. In short, in another case of no lighter guilt I observe this rule. For since debauchery is forbidden me, I give others neither help nor connivance in it. For since I have kept my own flesh away from brothels, I recognize that I cannot practise pimping or that kind of gain on another's behalf. So too the prohibition of murder shows me that a trainer of gladiators is also barred from the church: he will not fail to do himself what he supplies for another to do. Here is a still closer precedent. If a contractor for the public sacrificial victims comes to the faith, will you allow him to remain in that business? Or if one who is already a believer has undertaken it, will you think he should be kept in the church? I think not, unless someone will also turn a blind eye to the incense-seller. The supplying of blood, no doubt, goes to some, and of odors to others! If before there were idols in the world idolatry, still shapeless, was carried on with these wares; if even now the work of idolatry is performed, mostly without an idol, by burning odors; is not the incense-seller of even greater service to the demons? For idolatry is more easily carried on without an idol than without the incense-seller's wares. Let us question the conscience of faith itself. With what face will a Christian incense-seller, if he passes through the temples, spit on and blow out the smoking altars for which he himself has provided? With what consistency will he exorcise his own foster children, to whom he provides his house as a storeroom? If he does cast out a demon, let him not flatter himself on his faith, for he has not cast out an enemy. He should easily have won his request from one whom he feeds every day. So no art, no profession, no trade that ministers anything to the furnishing or forming of idols can be free from the charge of idolatry; unless we understand idolatry as something wholly other than the service of the idols that are to be worshipped.