considered as words merely complimental and adulatory; they being utterly inconsistent with the accounts which the same persons give of his origin and history. They are like the titles with which earthly potentates are saluted by their flatterers, when styled fathers of their country, absolute lords of earth and ocean. De la Motte's reply to Madam Dacier", is here very apposite: "What! Could Homer se "riously believe Jupiter to be the creator of gods " and men? Could he think him the father of his

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own father Saturn, whom he drove out of heaven, "or of Juno his sister, and his wife; of Neptune "and Pluto his brothers, or of the nymphs, who "had the charge of him in his childhood; or of "the giants who made war upon him, and would "have dethroned him if they had been then arrived "at the age of manhood? How well his actions justify the Latin epithets, optimus, maximus, so "often given him, all the world knows." Jupiter has, therefore, no right to be held an exception, but is, with strict propriety, comprehended in the name Sauovia attributed, by the Apostle, to all the heathen gods. But Sayuoviov, as we have seen, is one thing, and o Staßoλos is another. Now, if a supposed resemblance, in disposition, between the heathen gods and the devil, were a sufficient foundation for what is affirmed in the common version; any vicious person of whom mention is made in history, such as Cain, Ham, Jezebel, in whom one

23 De la Critique; seconde partie. Des Dieux.

might fancy a likeness in character or actions to some divinities of the heathen, might, with equal propriety as the devil, be called the objects of their adoration.

15. THERE are two passages in the Old Testament, one in the Pentateuch 24, the other in the Psalms 25, to which, particularly the first, the Apostle had doubtless an allusion. In both, the term used by the Septuagint is Sayuovia: the Hebrew term is not the same in both places, but in neither is it a word which is ever translated daßo20s, by the Seventy. In the Psalm referred to, the term in the original, is that which is commonly rendered idols. Now, in regard to idols, the Apostle had said in the same Epistle", that an idol is nothing in the world; in other words, is the representation of no real existence in the universe, though it may be the representation of an imaginary being. It is as much as to say, Jupiter, and Juno, and Saturn, and all the rest of the heathen gods, as delineated by the poets and mythologists, are nonentities, the mere creatures of imagination. Now, if an idol represent no real being, it does not represent the devil, whose existence is, on the Christian hypothesis, beyond a question. But, I am aware of the objection that, if idols represent no real beings, they either do not represent demons, or demons are not real beings. I answer, it is true, that no individual demons, actually existPsal. xcvi. 5. 26 1 Cor. viii. 4.

Deut. xxxii. 17. ·

ing, are properly represented by their idols; nevertheless, these may, with strict justice, be said to represent the genus or kind, that is, beings interme. diate between God and man, less than the former, greater than the latter. For to all who come under this description, real or imaginary, good or bad, the name demons is promiscuously given. The reality of such intermediate orders of beings, revelation every where supposes, and rational theism does not contradict. Now, it is to the kind expressed in the definition now given, that the pagan deities are represented as corresponding, and not individually, to particular demons actually existing. To say, therefore, that the Gentiles sacrifice to demons, is no more than to say, that they sacrifice to beings which, whether real or imaginary, we perceive, from their own accounts of them, to be below the supreme. "What are men?" says a dialogist in Lucian "7. swer is, "Mortal gods. What are gods? Immortal men." In fact, immortality was almost the only distinction between them.

27

The an

§ 16. THIS leads directly to the examination of the justness of the sentiment, that the Gentiles sacrifice to devils, in the second view of it that was suggested, or considered in relation to the ideas and intentions of the worshippers themselves, to which alone, in my apprehension, the Apostle here alludes. First then, we may justly say, that their sacrifices

27 Vitarum auctio. Τι δαι οι ανθρωποι; θεοι θνητοι· τι δαι ἀι θεοι ή ανθρωποι αθανατοι.

28

were not offered to God; for, however much they might use the name of God, the intention is to be judged, not by the name, but by the meaning affixed to it. Now, such a being as the eternal, unoriginated, immutable, Creator and Ruler of the world, they had not in all their system, and therefore did not adore. For this reason, they are not unjustly termed, by the same Apostle, adeo, atheists without God, that is, without the knowledge, and, consequently, the belief and worship, of him who alone is God. But their sacrifices and devotions were presented to beings, to whom they themselves ascribed a character infinitely inferior to what we know to belong to the true God, of whom they were ignorant.

29

A late philosopher, who will not be suspected of partiality to the sentiments of an Apostle, or of the weakness of a bias in favour of Christianity, has, nevertheless, in this instance, adopted the ideas of the sacred author, and has not hesitated to pronounce the pagans a kind of superstitious atheists, who acknowledged no being that corresponds to our idea of a deity. Besides, a great part of the heathen worship was confessedly paid to the ghosts of departed heroes, of conquerors, and potentates, and of the inventors of arts, whom popular superstition, after disguising their history with fables and absurdities, had blindly deified. Now, to all such beings, they themselves, as well as the Jews, assigned the

28 Eph. ii. 12.

VOL. I.

92 Natural History of Religion, Sect. IV.

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name Saquovia. Further, it deserves our notice, that δαιμονια. the Apostle is not writing here to Hebrews, but to Greeks; and that he himself, being a native of a Grecian city, knew perfectly the sense that was affixed by them to the word dauovia. If, therefore, he had intended to suggest, that they were all malignant beings to whom their devotions were addressed, he would never have used the general term, which he knew they commonly understood in a more favourable sense. In that case, he would have said xaxodaμooi Sve, or something equivalent.

17. HOWEVER much, therefore, the gentiles might have disputed the truth of the first part of the Apostle's assertion, that they did not offer sacrifice to God, because they were not sensible of their own ignorance, on this article; the latter part of the assertion they would have readily admitted, that they sacrificed to demons, such as the spirits of heroes and heroines deceased, and other beings conceived superior to mere mortals. This charge they themselves would not have pretended to be either injurious or untrue. The very passage formerly quoted from the Acts, where they call Jesus and the resurrection strange demons, Eeva dayuovia, shews, that there were known demons, γνώριμα δαιμονια, to whose service they were accustomed. We cannot worship whom we do not mean to worship. There is an inconsistency in the ideas. They could, therefore, no more be said to have worshipped the devil, as we Christians understand the term, than they could be