Hippolytus tells the story that Apsethus of Libya trained parrots to fly over North Africa crying out “Apsethus is a god,” and Libyans were taken in and began to offer sacrifices to him.
Then a “clever Greek” caught one of the parrots, and retrained it to cry out: “Apsethus, having caged us, compelled us to say Apsethus is a god.” Betrayed, the Libyans burned Apsethus at the stake.
All you can say is, that’s some parrot.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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