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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: the sea, whence, as fable telleth, was born Aphrodite. So Zeus
bound his own father, and cast him into Tartarus. Dost thou mark
the delusion and lasciviousness that they allege against their
gods? Is it possible then that one who was prisoner and
mutilated should be a god? What folly? What man in his senses
could admit it?
"Next they introduce Zeus, who, they say, became king of the
gods, and would take the shape of animals, that he might defile
mortal women. They show him transformed into a bull, for Europa;
into gold, for Danae; into a swan, for Leda; into a satyr, for
Antiope; and into a thunder-bolt, for Semele. Then of these were
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