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After a long interval, Hermes again comes back to the subject of the
gods which men have made, saying as follows: "But enough on this
subject. Let us return to man and to reason, that divine gift on
account of which man has been called a rational animal. For the things
which have been said concerning man, wonderful though they are, are
less wonderful than those which have been said concerning reason. For
man to discover the divine nature, and to make it, surpasses the
wonder of all other wonderful things. Because, therefore, our
forefathers erred very far with respect to the knowledge of the gods,
through incredulity and through want of attention to their worship and
service, they invented this art of making gods; and this art once
invented, they associated with it a suitable virtue borrowed from
universal nature, and being incapable of making souls, they evoked
those of demons or of angels, and united them with these holy images
and divine mysteries, in order that through these souls the images
might have power to do good or harm to men." I know not whether the
demons themselves could have been made, even by adjuration, to confess
as he has confessed in these words: "Because our forefathers erred
very far with respect to the knowledge of the gods, through incredulity
and through want of attention to their worship and service, they
invented the art of making gods."
Does he say that it was a moderate degree of error which resulted in
their discovery of the art of making gods, or was he content to say
"they erred?"
No; he must needs add "very far," and say, "They erred very
far." It was this great error and incredulity, then, of their
forefathers who did not attend to the worship and service of the gods,
which was the origin of the art of making gods. And yet this wise man
grieves over the ruin of this art at some future time, as if it were a
divine religion. Is he not verily compelled by divine influence, on
the one hand, to reveal the past error of his forefathers, and by a
diabolical influence, on the other hand, to bewail the future
punishment of demons? For if their forefathers, by erring very far
with respect to the knowledge of the gods, through incredulity and
aversion of mind from their worship and service, invented the art of
making gods, what wonder is it that all that is done by this detestable
art, which is opposed to the divine religion, should be taken away by
that religion, when truth corrects error, faith refutes incredulity,
and conversion rectifies aversion?
For if he had only said, without mentioning the cause, that his
forefathers had discovered the art Of making gods, it would have been
our duty, if we paid any regard to what is right and pious, to
consider and to see that they could never have attained to this art if
they had not erred from the truth, if they had believed those things
which are worthy of God, if they had attended to divine worship and
service. However, if we alone should say that the causes of this art
were to be found in the great error and incredulity of men, and
aversion of the mind erring from and unfaithful to divine religion, the
impudence of those who resist the truth were in some way to be borne
with; but when he who admires in man, above all other things, this
power which it has been granted him to practise, and sorrows because a
time is coming when all those figments of gods invented by men shall
even be commanded by the laws to be taken away,-when even this man
confesses nevertheless, and explains the causes which led to the
discovery of this art, saying that their ancestors, through great
error and incredulity, and through not attending to the worship and
service of the gods, invented this art of making gods, what ought we
to say, or rather to do, but to give to the Lord our God all the
thanks we are able, because He has taken away those things by causes
the contrary of those which led to their institution? For that which
the prevalence of error instituted, the way of truth took away; that
which incredulity instituted, faith took away; that which aversion
from divine worship and service instituted, conversion to the one true
and holy God took away. Nor was this the case only in Egypt, for
which country alone the spirit of the demons lamented in Hermes, but
in all the earth, which sings to the Lord a new song, as the truly
holy and truly prophetic Scriptures have predicted, in which it is
written, "Sing unto the Lord a new song; sing unto the Lord, all
the earth." For the title of this psalm is, "When the house was
built after the captivity." For a house is being built to the Lord
in all the earth, even the city of God, which is the holy Church,
after that captivity in which demons held captive those men who,
through faith in God, became living stones in the house. For
although man made gods, it did not follow that he who made them was not
held captive by them, when, by worshipping them, he was drawn into
fellowship with them, into the fellowship not of stolid idols, but of
cunning demons; for what are idols but what they are represented to be
in the same ScriptUres, "They have eyes, but they do not see,"
and, though artistically fashioned, are still without life and
sensation? But unclean spirits, associated through that wicked art
with these same idols, have miserably taken captive the souls of their
worshippers, by bringing them down into fellowship with themselves.
Whence the apostle says, "We know that an idol is nothing, but
those things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons,
and not to God; and I would not ye should have fellowship with
demons." After this captivity, therefore, in which men were held by
malign demons, the house of God is being built in all the earth;
whence the title of that psalm in which it is said, "Sing unto the
Lord a new song; sing unto the Lord, all the earth. Sing unto the
Lord, bless His name; declare well His salvation from day to day.
Declare His glory among the nations, among all people His wonderful
things. For great is the Lord, and much to be praised: He is
terrible above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are demons:
but the Lord made the heavens."
Wherefore he who sorrowed because a time was coming when the worship of
idols should be abolished, and the domination of the demons over those
who worshipped them, wished, under the influence of a demon, that
that captivity should always continue, at the cessation of which that
psalm celebrates the building of the house of the Lord in all the
earth. Hermes foretold these things with grief, the prophet with
joyfulness; and because the Spirit is victorious who sang these things
through the ancient prophets, even Hermes himself was compelled in a
wonderful manner to confess, that those very things which he wished not
to be removed, and at the prospect of whose removal he was sorrowful,
had been instituted, not by prudent, faithful, and religious, but by
erring and unbelieving men, averse to the worship and service of the
gods. And although he calls them gods, nevertheless, when he says
that they were made by such men as we certainly ought not to be, he
shows, whether he will or not, that they are not to be worshipped by
those who do not resemble these image-makers, that is, by prudent,
faithful, and religious men, at the same time also making it manifest
that the very men who made them involved themselves in the worship of
those as gods who were not gods. For true is the saying of the
prophet, "If a man make gods, lo, they are no gods." Such gods,
therefore, acknowledged by such worshippers and made by such men, did
Hermes call "gods made by men," that is to say, demons, through
some art of I know not what description, bound by the chains of their
own lusts to images. But, nevertheless, he did not agree with that
opinion of the Platonic Apuleius, of which we have already shown the
incongruity and absurdity, namely, that they were interpreters and
intercessors between the gods whom God made, and men whom the same
God made, bringing to God the prayers of men, and from God the
gifts given in answer to these prayers. For it is exceedingly stupid
to believe that gods whom men have made have more influence with gods
whom God has made than men themselves have, whom the very same God
has made. And consider, too, that it is a demon which, bound by a
man to an image by means of an impious art, has been made a god, but a
god to such a man only, not to every man. What kind of god,
therefore, is that which no man would make but one erring,
incredulous, and averse to the true God? Moreover, if the demons
which are worshipped in the temples, being introduced by some kind of
strange art into images, that is, into visible representations of
themselves, by those men who by this art made gods when they were
straying away from, and were averse to the worship and service of the
gods, if, I say, those demons are neither mediators nor interpreters
between men and the gods, both on account of their own most wicked and
base manners, and because men, though erring, incredulous, and
averse from the worship and service of the gods, are nevertheless
beyond doubt better than the demons whom they themselves have evoked,
then it remains to be affirmed that what power they possess they possess
as demons, doing harm by bestowing pretended benefits, harm all the
greater for the deception, or else openly and undisguisedly doing evil
to men. They cannot, however, do anything of this kind unless where
they are permitted by the deep and secret providence of God, and then
only so far as they are permitted. When, however, they are
permitted, it is not because they, being midway between men and the
gods, have through the friendship of the gods great power over men;
for these demons cannot possibly be friends to the good gods who dwell
in the holy and heavenly habitation, by whom we mean holy angels and
rational creatures, whether thrones, or dominations, or
principalities, or powers, from whom they are as far separated in
disposition and character as vice is distant from virtue, wickedness
from goodness.
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