to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities" (ib. xxxii. 21):" For the Lord thy God is a jealous God" (ib. vi. 15):" Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities?" (Jer. viii. 19):" Because of the provoking of his sons and of his daughters" (Dent. xxxii. 19):" For a fire is kindled in mine anger" (ib. 22):" The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies" (Nah. i. 2):" And repayeth them that hate Him" (Deut. vii. 10):" Until He hath driven out His enemies from before Him (Num. xxxii. 2 1):" Which the Lord thy God hateth" (Deut. xvi. 22): For every abomination to the Lord, which He hateth, have they done unto their gods" (ib. xii. P). Instances like these are innumerable; and if you examine all the examples met with in the holy writings, you will find that they confirm our view.
The Prophets in their writings laid special stress on this, because it concerns errors in reference to God, i.e., it concerns idolatry. For if any one believes that, e.g., Zaid is standing, while in fact he is sitting, he does not deviate from truth so much as one who believes that fire is under the air, or that water is under the earth, or that the earth is a plane, or things similar to these. The latter does not deviate so much from truth as one who believes that the sun consists of fire, or that the heavens form a hemisphere, and similar things: in the third instance the deviation from truth is less than the deviation of a man who believes that angels cat and drink, and the like. The latter again deviates less from truth than one who believes that something besides God is to be worshipped; for ignorance and error concerning a great thing, i.e., a thing which has a high position in the universe, are of greater importance than those which refer to a thing which occupies a lower place; by "error" I mean the belief that a thing is different from what it really is: by "ignorance," the want of knowledge respecting things the knowledge of which can be obtained.
If a person does not know the measure of the cone, or the sphericity of the sun, it is not so important as not to know whether God exists, or whether the world exists without a God; and if a man assumes that the cone is half (of the cylinder), or that the sun is a circle, it is not so injurious as to believe that God is more than One. You must know that idolaters when worshipping idols do not believe that there is no God besides them: and no idolater ever did assume that any image made of metal, stone, or wood has created the heavens and the earth, and still governs them. Idolatry is founded on the idea that a particular form represents the agent between God and His creatures. This is plainly said in passages like the following:" Who would not fear thee, O king of nations?" (Jer. x. 7)" And in every place incense is offered unto my name" (Mal. i. 11): by my name" allusion is made to the Being which is called by them [i.e., the idolaters]" the First Cause." We have already explained this in our larger work (Mishneh Torah, I. On Idolatry, chap. i.), and none of our co-religionists can doubt it.
The infidels, however, though believing in the existence of the Creator, attack the exclusive prerogative of God, namely, the service and worship which was commanded, in order that the belief of the people in His existence should be firmly established, in the words," And you shall serve the Lord," etc. (Exod. xxiii. 25). By transferring that prerogative to other beings, they cause
