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The Church Fathers · c. 247
On the Vanity of Idols
De Idolorum Vanitate
Cyprian of Carthage · c. 210–258
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What it is
A brisk argument that the gods were once men, that demons animate their images, and that the one God is known through Christ — much of it condensed from Tertullian and Minucius Felix.
Why it lasted
A compact summary of the standard Latin case against paganism, useful precisely because it is unoriginal.
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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