Deuteronomy 32:17

Then I said again, “Would you suppose, sirs, that we could ever have understood these matters in the Scriptures, if we had not received grace to discern by the will of Him whose pleasure it was? in order that the saying of Moses might come to pass, ‘They provoked me with strange [gods], they provoked me to anger with their abominations. They sacrificed to demons whom they knew not; new gods that came newly up, whom their fathers knew not. Thou hast forsaken God that begat thee, and forgotten God that brought thee up. And the Lord saw, and was jealous, and was provoked to anger by reason of the rage of His sons and daughters: and He said, I will turn My face away from them, and I will show what shall come on them at the last; for it is a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. …

In Exodus: “He that sacrificeth unto any gods but the Lord only, shall be rooted out.” Also in Deuteronomy: “They sacrificed unto demons, and not to God.” In Isaiah also: “They worshipped those which their fingers have made; and the mean man was bowed down, and the great man was humbled: and I will not forgive them.” And again: “To them hast thou poured out drink-offerings, and to them thou hast offered sacrifices. For these, therefore, shall I not be angry, saith the Lord?” In Jeremiah also: “Walk ye not after other gods, to serve them; and worship them not, and provoke me not in the works of your hands, to destroy you.” In the Apocalypse too: “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, he shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in the cup of His wrath, and shall be punished with fire and brimstone before the …

In Exodus the people said to Aaron: “Arise and make us gods which shall go before us: because as for this man Moses, who brought us out of Egypt, we know not what has become of him.” In the same place also Moses says to the Lord: “O Lord, I pray thee, this people have sinned a great sin. They have made to themselves gods of gold and silver. And now, if thou wilt forgive them their sin, forgive; but if not, blot me out of the book which Thou hast written. …

58. Thus does divine Scripture recognise the difference between the Offspring and things made, and shew that the Offspring is a Son, not begun from any beginning, but eternal; but that the thing made, as an external work of the Maker, began to come into being. John therefore delivering divine doctrine about the Son, and knowing the difference of the phrases, said not, ‘In the beginning has become’ or ‘been made,’ but ‘In the beginning was the Word;’ that we might understand ‘Offspring’ by ‘was,’ and not account of Him by intervals, but believe the Son always and eternally to exist. …

There is too another evil sort of vexation which would not be worth mentioning were it not that we know it is allowed by some of the brethren who, when they have been vexed or enraged actually abstain persistently from food, so that (a thing which we cannot mention without shame) those who when they are calm declare that they cannot possibly put off their refreshment to the sixth or at most the ninth hour, when they are filled with vexation and rage do not feel fasts even for two days, and support themselves, when exhausted by such abstinence, by a surfeit of anger. …