Saying to a stock: Thou art my father: and to a stone: thou hast begotten me: they have turned their back to me, and not their face: and in the time of their affliction they will say: Arise, and deliver us.
Clement of Alexandria
It is adultery, if you abandon the ecclesiastical and true knowledge and the opinion about God, and consent to false and incompatible opinion, either by deifying any created object or by making an idol of anything that does not exist, so as to overstep, or rather step away from, knowledge.… For this reason, the noble apostle calls one of the kinds of fornication, idolatry. In following the prophet says, "My people have committed fornication with wood and stone. They have said to the wood, 'you are my father' and to the stone, 'you have begotten me.' "
Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.