:
1 But thou, O God, art gracious and true, longsuffering, and in mercy ordering all things, 2 For if we sin, we are thine, knowing thy power: but we will not sin, knowing that we are counted thine. 3 For to know thee is perfect righteousness: yea, to know thy power is the root of immortality. 4 For neither did the mischievous invention of men deceive us, nor an image spotted with divers colours, the painter's fruitless labour; 5 The sight whereof enticeth fools to lust after it, and so they desire the form of a dead image, that hath no breath. 6 Both they that make them, they that desire them, and they that worship them, are lovers of evil things, and are worthy to have such things to trust upon. 7 For the potter, tempering soft earth, fashioneth every vessel with much labour for our service: yea, of the same clay he maketh both the vessels that serve for clean uses, and likewise also all such as serve to the contrary: but what is the use of either sort, the potter himself is the judge. 8 And employing his labours lewdly, he maketh a vain god of the same clay, even he which a little before was made of earth himself, and within a little while after returneth to the same, out when his life which was lent him shall be demanded. 9 Notwithstanding his care is, not that he shall have much labour, nor that his life is short: but striveth to excel goldsmiths and silversmiths, and endeavoureth to do like the workers in brass, and counteth it his glory to make counterfeit things. 10 His heart is ashes, his hope is more vile than earth, and his life of less value than clay: 11 Forasmuch as he knew not his Maker, and him that inspired into him an active soul, and breathed in a living spirit. 12 But they counted our life a pastime, and our time here a market for gain: for, say they, we must be getting every way, though it be by evil means. 13 For this man, that of earthly matter maketh brittle vessels and graven images, knoweth himself to offend above all others. 14 And all the enemies of thy people, that hold them in subjection, are most foolish, and are more miserable than very babes. 15 For they counted all the idols of the heathen to be gods: which neither have the use of eyes to see, nor noses to draw breath, nor ears to hear, nor fingers of hands to handle; and as for their feet, they are slow to go. 16 For man made them, and he that borrowed his own spirit fashioned them: but no man can make a god like unto himself. 17 For being mortal, he worketh a dead thing with wicked hands: for he himself is better than the things which he worshippeth: whereas he lived once, but they never. 18 Yea, they worshipped those beasts also that are most hateful: for being compared together, some are worse than others. 19 Neither are they beautiful, so much as to be desired in respect of beasts: but they went without the praise of God and his blessing.
[AD 856] Rabanus Maurus on Wisdom 15:1
Our God is good, because love is ineffable. He is true because he deceives no one, and he is not deceived by anyone. He is patient, ordering all with mercy. In his goodness he waits patiently for us to turn to the good, because he wants no one to perish but all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. It is he who says through the prophet, “I do not delight in the death of the wicked.” If we sin, we cannot flee from his hand, since we are his creatures. If we cease from sin and persist in good works, we will receive a sure reward from him in whom the essence of every good act remains whole and entire. He knows everyone, and no secret is hidden from him.

[AD 856] Rabanus Maurus on Wisdom 15:6
Not only those who fabricate idols are criminals and traitors, but also those who love and worship them, putting their hope in them, since not only those who do evil deserve death but also those who agree with them. The psalmist shows the condition of those who put their hope in idols, “The idols of the nations are of silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths and do not speak, eyes and do not see, ears and do not hear, noses and do not smell. They have hands and do not feel, feet and do not walk. No sounds issue from their throats. Those who make them and trust in them will be like them.” Indeed, with wicked hands a mortal shapes something dead, and a fool worships what is beyond foolish. Speaking allegorically, this treats first of heretics, who devise and give shape to perverse opinions, while those who love and worship them are their followers and disciples. And all of them are condemned and destined to be lost. In fact, “they will all be amazed and confused together.” “The Lord will disperse the one who has acted thusly, the master and his disciple.” “Woe to the godless! He will be repaid according to the misdeeds of his hands.”

[AD 311] Methodius of Olympus on Wisdom 15:11
Perhaps someone among people, having little discernment and lacking in wisdom, might be able to convince them that the garment of the soul, that is, this body of flesh generated by human beings, is formed on its own impetus, outside of God’s decision. He will certainly not be believed if he teaches that the substance of the soul is sown together with the mortal body. In fact, only the Almighty breathes into human beings what is immortal and what does not decay, since he alone is Creator of all invisible and imperishable things. It says, “He breathed on his face a spirit of life, and the man became a living being.” Moreover, the Word, accusing precisely those artists who, to people’s hurt, make statues of human features while not acknowledging the Creator, says in Wisdom, full of virtue, “Their heart is ashes, their wisdom more vain than the earth and their life more vile than mud, because they did not recognize the One who made them, who inspired in them the soul that acts and blew into them the spirit of life.” The Creator of all people is therefore God. For this reason, according to the saying of the apostle, “He wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Wisdom 15:17
“And they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of the image of corruptible human beings.” Their heart was darkened to such a degree that they transferred the majesty of the invisible God, whom they knew from these works, not to human beings but, a worse and unpardonable crime, to the likeness of human beings. They thus call the image of the corruptible human being—the likeness of a person—god. In this way they attribute the glory that belongs to God to images of dead people, to whom they would not dare to give this name while they were alive. What dullness, what foolishness, calling themselves wise to their own condemnation. In their eyes, the image is more powerful than truth, and the dead are better than the living! Indeed, separating themselves from the living God, they serve the dead. In this category are those of whom it is written in the Wisdom of Solomon, “The dead person forms a dead work with his wicked hands.” The Wisdom of Solomon says this about this kind of person.

[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Wisdom 15:17
You say that your god lies, but that that object that you have made convinces you of the truth. By the fact, however, that it convinces you of the truth, it does not follow that it is superior to you. Even if you say what is false and he what is true, even if you say that it is a god and he a piece of wood, it is not for that reason superior to you. You have no reason, therefore, to worship it, almost as though it were superior to you. You in fact have sensible faculties, whereas he does not. You hear, whereas he does not hear. You see, whereas he does not see. You walk, whereas he does not walk. You live, whereas of him, I cannot even say that he is dead, since he has never been alive. You, therefore, are superior to the image you have made. Well then, worship one who is superior to you, that is, the One who created you! It would be an insult to you if someone considered you as equal to that object you have made. You ask what the one you worship is like? If someone were to say to you out of ill will, “If only you were like that thing there,” you would be beside yourself with rage. And yet you adore what you would abhor to be, and adoring it you become in some way similar to that object, not, of course, changing into wood and ceasing to be a person but rendering your interior person almost similar to the bodily effigy you have made.

[AD 856] Rabanus Maurus on Wisdom 15:18
Paganism was so disgusting that it not only worshiped as gods the image of human beings shaped in insensible material, but it also gave perverse cult to the images of other animals, being entirely without discretion in this regard. Indeed, according to the sense of the truth, the living are prior to the dead, and sensible things prior to inanimate and rational animals prior to the other animals. But it stands to reason that someone who ignored the Creator would be unable to adequately distinguish his creatures. He who neglected to bear within himself the praise and blessing of God showed himself capable of erring with respect to the nature and differences between animals.