117. Thus let the followers of Arius and Photinus speak. “I deny Thy Godhead.” To whom the Lord will make answer: “‘The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God’ Ps. xiv. 1; liii. 1. These words mean, not so much that a man says “There is no God” because he is a fool, because he is wanting in intelligence, but rather that when a man has left off to behave himself wisely and to do good—i.e. does foolishly, that is to say, wickedly—it is because he has said in his heart, “There is no God.” Of whom, think you, is this said?—of Jew or Gentile, or of the devil. Whosoever he be of whom it is said, O disciple of Photinus, he is more to be borne with, who held his peace; The “fool” (i.e. wicked man) has only said in his heart, secretly, “No God”—he has not ventilated his atheism. thou, nevertheless, hast dared to lift up thy voice to utter it, that thou mightest be proved more foolish than the fool. Thou deniest My Godhead, whereas I said, ‘Ye are gods, and ye are all the children of the Most Highest?’ Ps. lxxxii. 6; S. John x. 34 ff. And thou deniest Him to be God, Whose godlike works thou seest around thee.”