Praeparatio Evangelica 5 part 1/4

The evidence already set forth is sufficient to establish that those honored as gods among the nations, city by city and country by country, were neither gods nor good daemons, but everything quite to the contrary; yet it does no harm, out of abundance, to confirm the same thesis still further, with more numerous and more abundant proofs, this demonstration displaying the freedom from the evils of old that has been procured for all men through the evangelical teaching of our Savior.

Hear, then, the Greeks themselves confessing that their oracles have failed, at no other time from the beginning of the ages than after the time when the saving and evangelical teaching caused the knowledge of the one God, King of all and Maker of all things, to rise upon all men like light.

Indeed, we shall very soon demonstrate that after his manifestation, deaths of the daemons were also recorded, and the oracles once so marvelous and loudly proclaimed have ceased.

It has already been shown earlier, too, that the human sacrifices formerly performed savagely and pitilessly among all the nations received a cessation of these evils at no time earlier than after the evangelical teaching. To this it is good, for the present, to add that not only from that time did the superstitions belonging to daemon-worship die out, but also those belonging to the multiple rule of the nations.

For formerly it was possible to see, in almost every city and village, kings and tyrants, local rulers and potentates, ethnarchies and multiple governments, on account of which men, constantly rushing into wars against one another, were forever and continually engaged in devastating lands and cities, in sieges, enslavements, and the taking captive of their neighbors, being goaded on to war against one another by their own daemons.

Since things stood thus, in what manner of confusion of evils and successive calamities the whole of life was then held fast, I leave to you yourself to consider.

Since, then, all these things together, along with the polytheistic error, were removed out of the way at no other time than after the sojourn of our Savior among men, how must one not marvel exceedingly at the great mystery of the truly saving and evangelical demonstration, through which, all at once, throughout the whole inhabited world of men, houses of prayer and temples dedicated to the King of all and Maker of all things, the only God, were established in cities and villages and even among barbarian nations in the deserts; and books and readings, and all manner of teachings and instructions containing precepts concerning the highest virtue and the manner of true piety, have been handed down for men and women and children alike to hear, while all the oracles and divinations from daemons have become dead?

Nor is any man now so mad, from the time when the divinely-inspired and evangelical power of our Savior shone forth upon all like light, as to dare to propitiate the murderous, blood-loving, man-hating, and inhuman daemons by the murder of one most dear and by the slaughters performed through human sacrifices -- the very things it was truly pleasing to those anciently 'wise men' and kings, possessed by daemons, to do.

And concerning the fact that the base daemons are no longer able to do anything or to have any power after the coming of our Savior among men, even the very advocate of the daemons against us, in his attack composed against us, bears witness somewhere, speaking in this manner:

'And now they wonder that pestilence has held the city fast for so many years, since the presence of Asclepius and of the other gods is no longer to be found among them. For while Jesus is honored, no one has perceived any public benefit from any of the gods.'

These are the very words of Porphyry. If, then, according to this confession, while Jesus was honored no one perceived any public benefit from any of the gods, the presence of Asclepius and of the other gods being no longer found, whence, then, henceforth is the doctrine concerning them as gods and heroes to be derived?

For why should not the things of the gods and of Asclepius rather prevail over the power of Jesus? If indeed the one is a mortal man, as they would say -- and perhaps they would even say a deceiver -- while the others are saviors and gods, why then have they all together fled from Asclepius himself, turning their backs on the mortal one, and have they all in succession handed over the whole of mankind subject to him who, as they themselves would say, no longer exists?

But he, even after death, continues to be honored day by day, unceasingly, among all the nations, plainly demonstrating to those able to perceive it the manifest and divine reality of life after death.

But he, though being one, and, as one might suppose, alone, drives out the multitude of gods throughout the whole inhabited world, and, setting aside their honors, prevails, so that these gods no longer exist, nor act, nor appear anywhere, nor sojourn among cities as they once were accustomed to do -- because they were not gods, but evil daemons -- while for him alone, and for the God of all who sent him, the honors increase day by day, and progress is made toward a greater virtue throughout the whole of humanity.

Whereas, on the contrary, it was fitting that the gods, if indeed there truly were any such guardians of things on earth, should have utterly removed this error, if error there was, and should themselves have supplied their services and benefits ungrudgingly to all.

But as things now stand, this very thing has often been attempted, through the rulers of various periods who made war upon the most mighty teaching of our Savior; yet they found the outcome of their undertaking to be fruitless, since the divinely-inspired power of our Savior always triumphs over all, overthrowing every uprising of the evil daemons against his teaching, and driving them off -- daemons who are truly base, though falsely reputed to be gods or even good daemons.

These beings, then, being certain terrestrial and subterranean spirits, roaming about the heavy and murky air above the earth, and condemned to have their dwelling-place in what is dark and earthy -- for reasons we shall render later -- haunting the tombs and monuments of the dead and all foul and unclean matter, delighting in blood and gore and the bodies of all kinds of animals, and in the exhalation and vapor rising up from the earth; and their rulers, being certain aerial spirits, or subterranean powers, when they observed the human race groveling below in the deification of dead men, laboring with all zeal in sacrifices and the savor of burnt fat especially pleasing to themselves, were present close at hand as accomplices and collaborators in the deception, reveling luxuriously in the evils of men, and easily deceiving the foolish in soul by movements of images -- which indeed had been dedicated by the ancients in honor of departed men -- and by illusions produced through oracles, and by cures of bodies which they themselves secretly injured through their own activity, and then again, through relaxing these same afflictions, let go free of their sufferings.

By these means they drove the superstitious all the more headlong over precipices, so that these people came to believe them to be, at one time, heavenly powers and certain true gods, and, at another, the souls of heroes who had been deified.

From this point onward, then, the notion of the polytheistic error was already reckoned by the many to be something greater and more venerable, as their understanding shifted from the visible things to the unseen realm of what lay hidden within the images, thereby confirming the error all the more powerfully.

Thus, then, henceforth the terrestrial daemons, and those world-rulers of the air, the spiritual forces of wickedness, and the one who presides over all of them in evil, came to be reckoned by everyone as the greatest of the gods; and the memory of the long-dead was deemed worthy of the greater service.

Of these dead, the forms of their bodies were thought to be borne by the images consecrated to them in the various cities, while the base daemons, through much wonder-working, feigned to represent their souls and their divine and incorporeal powers; and, since those already engaged in serving and priesthood over them constantly led the vain conceit arising from this fantasy to an ever greater degree, and indeed contrived most of it by wicked sorcerous devices, it was again the base daemons themselves who first instructed those who served them in these very practices. These beings, then, became the authors of the mischief-originating sorcery for the whole of human life, just as the argument set forth before has already demonstrated.

Since, then, these depraved and terrestrial daemons, and the aerial and subterranean spirits -- whom the divine oracles call 'world-rulers' and 'spiritual forces, principalities, and powers of wickedness' -- at one time pretended to be good daemons, at another time fashioned themselves into heavenly gods, and again at other times transformed themselves into heroes, while there are also places where they plainly revealed the proof of their depravity through their very deeds, it was natural that error should come upon men still more, some declaring some of them to be gods, others confessing some to be heroes and daemons but not gods, and, among the daemons, calling some good and others evil -- yet nevertheless maintaining that even the evil ones must be propitiated because of the harm they inflicted; so that the whole business of their deification fell into several distinct kinds.

First, the kind derived from the luminaries appearing in heaven, which they say were proclaimed as the first gods on account of their 'running' (theein, which means 'to run'), and because they are the cause of beholding visible things; second, the kind honored on account of benefits conferred, as they say, upon common life, which they themselves confess to have been born from men, citing as examples the so-called heroes -- Heracles and the Dioscuri, Dionysus, and their counterparts among the barbarians.

And separating out and distinguishing from these the more shameful things recorded concerning the same beings, they posited a third kind of deification, calling it 'mythical.' And being ashamed of this -- although it happens to be true and most ancient -- they have, as they say, transformed it into something more 'physical' by means of rather figurative allegories, having ingeniously devised certain theories.

But not even at this point of error was it sufficient for them to stop; rather, having cast down to the level of their own passions the revered and worshipful name of God, they further devised a fourth mode of deification, not even worthy of refutation, since its shame is manifestly evident of itself.

For indeed, having proclaimed Eros and Aphrodite and Pothos — their own shameful and unrestrained desires — to be gods, and having named speech 'Hermes' and reasoning 'Athena,' they have admitted these also into their own theology, thus fashioning a fifth kind out of things that occur among men.

For having turned warlike and technical activities into idols, they assigned them to gods — the warlike activities to Ares and Athena, and the technical ones to Hephaestus and certain others.

In addition to all these, a sixth and seventh kind was introduced to them — the demonic — being truly manifold and many-shaped, at one time impersonating gods, at another the souls of the dead, contributing nothing whatsoever to the virtue of the soul, but always mocking and driving every superstitious person over precipices through deceptive error.

And this too, though wholly base in itself, they divided into two — into the harmful and the beneficial — and have given them the names of good and bad.

Since matters stand thus, it seems necessary to me, having set forth what needs no refutation, to examine next the connected argument concerning demonic activity — which, having considered in part already in the treatise before this one, we shall now complete in what remains.

Come, then, let us now proceed to the proofs themselves. I shall set forth first those from the writing of Plutarch, which he composed On the Obsolescence of Oracles; where, concerning the fact that the divinations and oracles among the nations belong to wicked demons, he writes in this manner:

Well then, those are right who say that Plato, having discovered the element underlying the qualities that come into being — which they call matter — freed philosophers from many great difficulties; but to me it seems that those who set the race of demons in the middle between gods and men, and discovered a way that in some manner draws together and joins our fellowship into one, resolved more and greater difficulties — whether this doctrine belongs to the magi around Zoroaster, or is Thracian, from Orpheus, or Egyptian, or Phrygian, as we may conjecture from seeing, mingled in the rites on both sides, many mortal and mournful elements amid the celebrations and sacred rites performed. Among the Greeks, Homer appears to use both names in common, at times calling even the gods 'demons.' But Hesiod was the first to set forth clearly and distinctly four races of rational beings: gods, then demons, then heroes, and last of all, men; from which he seems to make his transformation — the golden race becoming many good demons, and the demigods, once separated off, becoming heroes.

Then next he says: 'But concerning these things it is not necessary for us to dispute with Demetrius. For whether the time be longer or shorter, fixed or unfixed, during which the soul of a demon or the life of a hero changes, none the less it will be shown, for whoever wishes, with wise and ancient witnesses, that there are certain natures that, as it were on the border between gods and men, receive mortal passions and necessary changes — whom it is right, according to ancestral law, to regard and name as demons and to revere.' After other matters he adds: 'That it is not gods but demons, servants of the gods, who preside over the oracles — gods who ought properly to be free from earthly affairs — this does not seem to me to be badly esteemed; but to suppose that these demons, taking as it were their fee straight out of the verses of Empedocles, bring on sins and blights and god-driven wanderings, and finally impose deaths as though upon men, I consider more reckless and more barbarous.'

And again he adds these words to what has been said: 'For there are, as among men, so also among demons, differences of virtue; and of the passionate and irrational element, in some there remains but a weak and faint residue, as it were a remnant, while in others there is much of it, and hard to quench — traces and tokens of which are preserved and guarded in many places, scattered among sacrifices and rites and mythologies. Concerning the mystic rites, in which one may find the greatest indications and revelations of the truth about demons, let my lips, following Herodotus, remain sealed; but as for festivals and sacrifices — like ill-omened and gloomy days, in which there are eatings of raw flesh and tearings apart, fastings and beatings of the breast, and often again shameful speech near the sacred places, and other frenzies stirred up with head-tossing and tumult — I would say that these are performed as propitiatory rites, not for the sake of any god, but for the aversion of wicked demons. And as for the human sacrifices made of old, it is not credible that gods either demanded or accepted them, nor would kings and generals have accepted them in vain, giving up and consecrating and slaughtering their own children, but rather to avert the wrath and heavy displeasure of harsh and ill-tempered avenging spirits, and to satisfy them, and in some cases the mad passions of certain beings unable and unwilling to consort with bodies and through bodies. But just as Heracles besieged Oechalia for the sake of a maiden, so often strong and violent demons, demanding a human soul contained in a body, bring plagues upon cities and barrenness upon the land, and stir up wars and civil strife, until they obtain and attain what they desire.'

By these words the aforementioned philosopher clearly establishes that the things mentioned above were performed in all the cities for wicked demons. But if there were also among these, as they say, some good by nature, or even gods, why should one have needed to serve the base ones, when it was fitting that these be driven away by the good?

For if indeed they had some good protectors, then, taking courage in these, they surely ought not to have troubled themselves at all about the worse ones, and ought to have averted the opposing powers through chaste words and prayers, and not through shameful speech.

But since they did none of these things, but with a shameful and unrestrained life, with indecent words, with the eating of raw flesh and the tearing apart of bodies, and with human sacrifices, they made supplication to the wicked demons — how could it have been possible for men doing such things, and performing what pleases the base, to become akin to the God over all, or to the divine powers under him, or to any good beings whatsoever?

But indeed it is evident to all that he who performs what is pleasing to the base could never become dear to the good. Therefore the persons in question were serving not gods, nor good demons, but only the base ones.

Plutarch confirms this argument still further where he says that the mythical narratives told as if about gods are in fact certain accounts concerning demons, and that the tales of giants and Titans sung among the Greeks are demonic narratives, so as to suggest a rather novel interpretation.

Might it not be, then, that such were the things said in the divine Scripture concerning the giants before the flood, and concerning those who begot them, of whom it is said: 'And the angels of God, seeing the daughters of men, that they were fair, took for themselves wives of all whom they chose; from whom were born the giants who were of old, men of renown'?

For one might say that these are the same beings, and that their spirits were deified by the men who came after them, and that their battles, their dissensions with one another, and their wars are the very things that are mythologized as if concerning gods. Plutarch, then, in the treatise he composed On Isis and the Gods of the Egyptians, says the following in his own words:

Better, then, do those judge who consider that the things related concerning Typhon and Osiris and Isis are not the sufferings either of gods or of men, but of great demons — whom Plato and Pythagoras and Xenocrates and Chrysippus, following the ancient theologians, say to have been stronger than men, and far surpassing our nature in power, yet not having the divine element unmixed or unalloyed, but sharing also in the nature of soul and the perception of body, receptive of pleasure and pain, and of all the affections that arise from such changes, disturbing some more, others less. For there occur, as among men, so also among demons, differences of virtue and vice. For the tales of giants and Titans sung among the Greeks, and many lawless deeds, and the oppositions of Python against Apollo, the flights of Dionysus, and the wanderings of Demeter, leave nothing to be desired in comparison with the Osirian and Typhonian tales, which it is permitted to hear recounted openly by all as myths; and whatever things are preserved as unspeakable and unseen in the mystic rites, told as myths in initiations, bear a like relation with respect to the gods.

And he adds, saying next: 'Empedocles says that the demons also pay penalties for whatever sins and offenses they commit: for the force of aether pursues them into the sea; the sea spits them out upon the surface of the earth; the earth casts them into the rays of the unwearied sun; and the sun hurls them into the eddies of aether; one receives them from another, and all abhor them — until, having been punished, they recover again their proper place and rank according to nature.' They say that things akin to these and such as these are told concerning Typhon — that he did terrible deeds out of envy and malice, having thrown all things into confusion, and filled the whole earth and sea alike with evils; and then he paid the penalty.

Plutarch, having set forth these things in the aforementioned treatise, and having elaborated the argument at greater length, relates similar things also in his On the Obsolescence of Oracles, in this manner: 'That man, then, traced divination back to demons, and held Delphi in the highest esteem, and was ignorant of none of the things said and the sacred rites performed there concerning Dionysus, but affirmed that these too were great sufferings of demons, and indeed those concerning the Pythia as well. As for the one who slew the serpent, his exile was neither of nine years, nor to Tempe; rather, having been cast out, he went to another world; and afterward, from there, after nine great-year cycles, having become pure, Phoebus himself, truly having come down, took possession of the oracle, which until then had been guarded by Themis. And he held that both the Typhonic and the Titanic tales were battles of demons against demons, then flights of the defeated, or penalties inflicted by a god upon those who had sinned — such as Typhon is said to have sinned against Osiris, and Cronus against Uranus — whose honors among us have grown dim, or have utterly failed, since they have removed to another world. Since I also hear that the Solymi, the neighbors of the Lycians, honor Cronus above all; and that when he had killed their founders, Arsalus and Arytus and Tosibis, he fled, and departed to some place or other — for this they cannot say — that he was thereafter neglected, while those around Arsalus were called the 'sciroi' gods, and that the Lycians make curses upon them both publicly and privately. Many things similar to these, then, can be gathered from the myths. And if we call certain demons by the customary names of the gods, this is not to be wondered at, said the stranger. For from whomever each is assigned, and whose power he has a share in, from that he is accustomed to be named; for indeed, among us, one man is called Dios, another Athenaios, another Apollonios, or Dionysios, or Hermaios. But some were rightly named by chance, while the majority acquired surnames of gods that in no way belonged to them, but were misapplied.'

So much, then, does Plutarch say in the work he composed with care, On the Obsolescence of Oracles, establishing, among other things, that the demons also die — a point which I shall myself set forth at the fitting time.

But for now, let us gather together whatever else, concerning the power and activity of the demons he calls 'good,' is set forth again by the one who composed the attack against us, in the work he entitled On Philosophy from Oracles. For I shall now, as indeed often before, make use of him especially as a witness and refutation of the error concerning those they suppose to be gods, so that they may be put to shame, being struck as it were by their own arrows and darts.

For thus the proof of the matter before us will come to us, complete and irrefutable, from the very men who are held dear to the gods and are indeed reckoned pious, and who have examined with precision the doctrine concerning their own affairs.

The aforementioned writer says these things in the work he entitled On Philosophy from Oracles, where he calls to witness that he is not disclosing the secret things of the gods, himself swearing an oath, and instructing others to keep secret and not to divulge to the many the things about to be said.

Now what were these things? He says that Pan is the attendant of Dionysus, and that this Pan, being one of the good demons, once appeared to some farmers working the land. What, then, ought a good being to have provided, if not altogether the presence of something good, to those deemed worthy of the divine manifestation of the good one?

Did, then, something good come to those who beheld the good demon, or have they, by the actual experience, perceived that they had obtained an evil demon? At any rate, this admirable witness says that those deemed worthy of this good vision suffered sudden death all together, speaking as follows:

Already, indeed, in other cases too some have been shown to be attendants of certain gods, as Pan is of Dionysus; and Apollo of Branchidae has made this clear through the following: for nine men were found dead; and when those who dwelt in that district inquired the cause, the god gave this oracle: 'The golden-horned attendant of grim Dionysus, Pan, walking over the wooded mountains, held in his mighty hand a staff, and with the other seized a shrill-breathing hollow pipe, and charmed the hearts of the Nymphs; and having piped a shrill tune, he terrified all the woodcutting men; astonishment held those who beheld the chill body of the raging god as he rushed. And now the end of chill death would have seized them all, had not Artemis the huntress, holding dread wrath in her breast, checked the force of his mighty fury — she whom you must also entreat, that she may become your helper.'

You have heard from Apollo of Branchidae what sort of form and deeds belong to this demon whom he calls good; behold now also the noble achievements of the rest, for the sake of which, having abandoned their heavenly abode, they exchanged it for a life among men.

Surely they ought by all means to have taken the lead in prudence, and to have suggested to men things profitable and beneficial. But of these they did nothing at all; hear instead what things are disclosed by the one who has investigated the most secret of secret things, and been deemed worthy of the knowledge of the hidden mysteries.

So then, he says that some of these good demons at times are devoted to erotic pleasures; others, again, delight in drums and pipes and the clamor of women; others again exult in battles and wars; that Artemis delights in hunting, and Deo in the fruits of the earth; that Isis still even now mourns Osiris, and that Apollo practices divination. Such, then, are the benefits, as they say, that these good demons confer upon men. Receive now also the proofs of these things.

Never among the immortal gods has divine Hecate spoken anything vain or unfulfilled to her wise prophet-interpreters; but descending from her all-powerful, paternal mind, she ever shines forth in truth, and her steadfast counsel abides firmly fixed upon unbreakable oracles. Bind me, then, with your spell — for you are leading captive so great a goddess as I, one sufficient to give soul to the loftiest universe.

And perhaps it is for this reason that the soul too is three-formed and three-parted; of it one part is the spirited, another the appetitive — whence it is also invoked for matters of love. These are not my own words, do not by any means suppose so; you have heard them from the aforementioned writer, whose also are these next words:

It greatly troubles me how, though invoked as superiors, they are commanded as inferiors; and though they require that the one who invokes them, their servant, be just, they themselves, when commanded, submit to doing unjust things; and while they would not obey one who calls upon them if he is not pure from sexual intercourse, they themselves do not hesitate to lead ordinary people into unlawful sexual acts.

You would find these things also in the same author's Letter to Anebo the Egyptian. In the aforementioned treatise, On Philosophy from Oracles, he adds to what has been said, speaking thus: 'And indeed, what has been assigned to each, they themselves have made clear, as the Didymean did through the following — the question was whether one ought to swear to him who imposes the oath:'

To the mother of the blessed ones, Titanian Rhea, belong the flutes and the clatter of drums and the throng of women; to well-helmeted Pallas belong the tumults and the strife of Enyo, and to the daughter of Leto, to drive with swift hounds over the deep-glened crags the mountain-roaming beasts; to loud-sounding Hera belongs the soft outpouring of moist air; to Deo belongs the tending of the thriving, grain-bearing cornfields; and to Pharian Isis, beside the fertile streams of the Nile, belongs the seeking, in maddened longing, of her tender husband Osiris.