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The Egyptian Hermes, whom they call Trismegistus, had a different
opinion concerning those demons. Apuleius, indeed, denies that they
are gods; but when he says that they hold a middle place between the
gods and men, so that they seem to be necessary for men as mediators
between them and the gods, he does not distinguish between the worship
due to them and the religious homage due to the supernal gods. This
Egyptian, however, says that there are some gods made by the supreme
God, and some made by men. Any one who hears this, as I have
stated it, no doubt supposes that it has reference to images, because
they are the works of the hands of men; but he asserts that visible and
tangible images are, as it were, only the bodies of the gods, and
that there dwell in them certain spirits, which have been invited to
come into them, and which have power to inflict harm, or to fulfil the
desires of those by whom divine honors and services are rendered to
them. To unite, therefore, by a certain art, those invisible
spirits to visible and material things, so as to make, as it were,
animated bodies, dedicated and given up to those spirits who inhabit
them, this, he says, is to make gods, adding that men have received
this great and wonderful power. I will give the words of this
Egyptian as they have been translated into our tongue: "And, since
we have undertaken to discourse concerning the relationship and
fellowship between men and the gods, know, O Æsculapius, the power
and strength of man. As the Lord and Father, or that which is
highest, even God, is the maker of the celestial gods, so man is the
maker of the gods who are in the temples, content to dwell near to
men." And a little after he says, "Thus humanity, always mindful
of its nature and origin, perseveres in the imitation of divinity; and
as the Lord and Father made eternal gods, that they should be like
Himself, so humanity fashioned its own gods according to the likeness
of its own countenance." When this Æsculapius, to whom especially
he was speaking, had answered him, and had said, "Dost thou mean
the statues, O Trismegistus?", "Yes, the statues," replied
he, "however unbelieving thou art, O Æsculapius, the statues,
animated and full of sensation and spirit, and who do such great and
wonderful things, the statues prescient of future things, and
foretelling them by lot, by prophet, by dreams, and many other
things, who bring diseases on men and cure them again, giving them joy
or sorrow according to their merits. Dost thou not know, O
Æsculapius, that Egypt is an image of heaven, or, more truly, a
translation and descent of all things which are ordered and transacted
there, that it is, in truth, if we may say so, to be the temple of
the whole world? And yet, as it becomes the prudent man to know all
things beforehand, ye ought not to be ignorant of this, that there is
a time coming when it shall appear that the Egyptians have all in
vain, with pious mind, and with most scrupulous diligence, waited on
the divinity, and when all their holy worship shall come to nought,
and be found to be in vain."
Hermes then follows out at great length the statements of this
passage, in which he seems to predict the present time, in which the
Christian religion is overthrowing all lying figments with a vehemence
and liberty proportioned to its superior truth and holiness, in order
that the grace of the true Saviour may deliver men from those gods
which man has made, and subject them to that God by whom man was
made. But when Hermes predicts these things, he speaks as one who is
a friend to these same mockeries of demons, and does not clearly
express the name of Christ. On the contrary, he deplores, as if it
had already taken place, the future abolition of those things by the
observance of which there was maintained in Egypt a resemblance of
heaven, he bears witness to Christianity by a kind of mournful
prophecy. Now it was with reference to such that the apostle said,
that "knowing God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were
thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish
heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise, they became
fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the
likeness of the image of corruptible man," and so on, for the whole
passage is too long to quote. For Hermes makes many such statements
agreeable to the truth concerning the one true God who fashioned this
world. And I know not how he has become so bewildered by that
"darkening of the heart" as to stumble into the expression of a desire
that men should always continue in subjection to those gods which he
confesses to be made by men, and to bewail their future removal; as if
there could be anything more wretched than mankind tyrannized over by
the work of his own hands, since man, by worshipping the works of his
own hands, may more easily cease to be man, than the works of his
hands can, through his worship of them, become gods. For it can
sooner happen that man, who has received an honorable position, may,
through lack of understanding, become comparable to the beasts, than
that the works of man may become preferable to the work of God, made
in His own image, that is, to man himself. Wherefore deservedly is
man left to fall away from Him who made Him, when he prefers to
himself that which he himself has made.
For these vain, deceitful, pernicious, sacrilegious things did the
Egyptian Hermes sorrow, because he knew that the time was coming when
they should be removed. But his sorrow was as impudently expressed as
his knowledge was imprudently obtained; for it was not the Holy
Spirit who revealed these things to him, as He had done to the holy
prophets, who, foreseeing these things, said with exultation, "If
a man shall make gods, lo, they are no gods; and in another place,
"And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that I
will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no
more be remembered." But the holy Isaiah prophesies expressly
concerning Egypt in reference to this matter, saying, "And the
idols of Egypt shall be moved at His presence, and their heart shall
be overcome in them," and other things to the same effect. And with
the prophet are to be classed those who rejoiced that that which they
knew was to come had actually come, as Simeon, or Anna, who
immediately recognized Jesus when He was born, or Elisabeth, who in
the Spirit recognized Him when He was conceived, or Peter, who
said by the revelation of the Father, "Thou art Christ, the Son
of the living God." But to this Egyptian those spirits indicated
the time of their own destruction, who also, when the Lord was
present in the flesh, said with trembling, "Art Thou come hither to
destroy us before the time?" meaning by destruction before the time,
either that very destruction which they expected to come, but which
they did not think would come so suddenly as it appeared to have done,
or only that destruction which consisted in their being brought into
contempt by being made known. And, indeed, this was a destruction
before the time, that is, before the time of judgment, when they are
to be punished with eternal damnation, together with all men who are
implicated in their wickedness, as the true religion declares, which
neither errs nor leads into error; for it is not like him who, blown
hither and thither by every wind of doctrine, and mixing true things
with things which are false, bewails as about to perish a religion,
which he afterwards confesses to be error.
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