"The custom which was in those days general among all men, and the general mode of worship in which the Israelites were brought up, consisted in sacrificing animals in those temples which contained certain images to bow down to those images, and to burn incense before them; religious and ascetic persons were in those days the persons that were devoted to the service in the temples erected to the stars... It was in accordance with the wisdom and plan of God, as displayed in the whole Creation, that He did not command us to give up and to discontinue all these manners of service, for to obey such a commandment it would have been contrary to the nature of man, who generally cleaves to that to which he is used... By this Divine plan it was effected that the traces of idolatry were blotted out, and the truly great principle of our faith, the existence and Unity of God, was firmly established; this result was thus obtained without deterring or confusing the minds of the people by the abolition of the service to which they were accustomed and which alone was familiar to them."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Maimonides, in Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), [[s:The Guide for the Perplexed (1904)|as translated by] Michael Friedlander (1904), Vol. III, Ch. 32
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Idolatry
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Idolatry
88 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Idolatry →
Related Quotes
"You are fifty years old and would worship a day old statue!"
"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an …"
"The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not…"
"God tells us men fucking men is a terrible thing, but a father offering his two daughters, vestal virgins no less, to…"
"The 'I', the 'self' of the child of God, is born in the midst of the ruins of repented idolatry."
"Islam came out as the enemy of the 'But'. The word 'But' as everybody knows, is the Arabic word and m…"
"For Egypt, the greatest horror was the destruction or abduction of the cult images. In the eyes of the Israelites, th…"
"To glorify man in his natural and unmodified self is no less surely, even if less obviously, idolatry than actually t…"
"There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine. That is to say, between …"
"For the purpose of effecting Israel's redemption God did not disdain to appear in a place where there were images of …"