Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians 18

Some people claim that these statues are mere images, that the gods are the beings they represent, and that the honors and sacrifices offered to the images are actually transferred to those gods; they insist there is no other way to approach the gods, who appear harsh and unapproachable, and they point to the supposed miraculous powers of certain idols as proof. Let us examine, then, the power inherent in their names. Greatest Emperors, I ask you to pardon my frankness before I speak the truth; my purpose is not to accuse the idols, but, having been freed from slander, to present the reasoning behind our choice. You yourselves possess the heavenly kingdom to scrutinize; for just as all things have been entrusted to you, father and son, who received the kingdom from above — as the prophetic Spirit says, "The soul of a king is in the hand of God" — so all things have been subjected to the one God and His Word, the Son, understood as an unbroken unity. Consider this first, before all else. The gods did not exist from the beginning, as is claimed; rather, each came into being just as we are born. All their traditions agree on this. Homer says, "Ocean, the genesis of the gods, and their mother Tethys." Orpheus, who first invented their names, detailed their origins and deeds, and is regarded among them as the more truthful theologian — Homer himself follows Orpheus in most matters, especially concerning the gods — and Orpheus establishes their first origin from water: "Ocean, who has been generated as the genesis of all things." According to him, water was the beginning of all things; from water came mud, and from both was born a living dragon with a lion's head and, in the middle, a god's face, named Hercules and Chronos. This Hercules generated an enormous egg, which, filled by the force of its begetter, burst in two from friction; the upper half became heaven, the lower half earth. Then the goddess Earth emerged through a body; Heaven mingled with Earth and begot females — Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos — and males — the hundred-handed Cottys, Gyges, and Briareus, and the Cyclopes Brontes, Steropes, and Argos. He bound them and cast them into Tartarus, having learned he would be overthrown by his own children. Consequently, Earth in anger begot the Titans. The noble Earth brought forth the heavenly youths, whom they call Titans, because they avenged great starry Heaven.