Works, Treatise · Chapter 4
CHAP. IV.
The Gentiles Doctrine concerning the Original of Daemons, viz. That they were the Souls of men Deified or Canonized after death. This proved out of Hesiod, Plato, Trismegist, Philo Byblius the translator of Sanchuniathon, Plutarch, Tully. Baal or Bel or Belus the first Deified King: Hence Daemons are called in Scripture Baalim. Daemons and Heroes how they differ. Daemons called by the Romans Penates, Lares, as also Dii Animales Soul-Gods. Another and an higher kind of Daemons, such as never dwelt in Bodies: These answer to Angels, as the other (viz. the Soul-Daemons) answer to Saints.
AND thus have I shewed you (though but briefly, in regard of the abundance the argument would afford) the Nature and Office of these Daemons according to the Doctrine of the Gentiles. I come now unto another part of this Doctrine, which concerns the Original of Daemons, whom you shall find to be the Deified Souls of men after death. For the Canonizing of the Souls of deceased Worthies is not now first devised among Christians, but was an Idolatrous Idololatria pqtent …. species. Tertul. de sp…ctaculis, cap. 12.trick even from the days of the elder world; so that the Devil, when he brought in this Apostatical doctrine amongst Christians, swerved but little from his ancient method of seducing mankind.
Let Hesiod speak in the first place, as being of the most known the most ancient. He tells us that when those happy men of the First and Golden age of the world were departed this life, great Iupiter promoted them to be Daemons, that is, Keepers and Protectors or Patrons of earthly mortals, and Overseers of their good and evil works, Givers of riches, &c. and this, saith he, is the Kingly Royalty given them. But hear his own words;
foreign,
foreign,
foreign,
foreign,
foreign,
foreign.
And hence it is that Oenomaus, quoted by Eusebius, calleth these Daemon-gods foreign Hesiod's gods.
The next shall be Plato, who in his Cratylus says, That Hesiod and a great number of the rest of the Poets speak excellently, when they affirm that good men when they die attain great honour and dignity, and become foreign, which is (saith he) as much to say as foreign, that is, Wise ones; for Wise ones (saith he) are only Good ones, and all Good ones are of Hesiod's Golden generation.
The same Plato Lib. 5. de Repub. would have all those who die valiantly in the field to be accounted of the Golden kind, and foreign; effici, to be made Daemons, and the Oracle to be consulted how they should be buried and honoured, and accordingly ever afterwards foreign, i. e. their Sepulchres to be served and adored as the Sepulchres of Daemons. In like manner should be done unto all who in their life-time excelled in vertue, whether they died through age or otherwise. This place Eusebius quotes (Lib. 13. Praep. Evang.) to parallel with it the then harmless practice of Christians, in honouring the memory of Martyrs, by holding their assemblies at their Sepulchres; to the end that he might shew the Gentiles, that Christians also honoured their Worthies in the worthiest fashion. But it had been well if in the next Ages after, this custom of Christians (then but resembling) had not proved the very same Doctrine of Daemons which the Gentiles practised.
But I go on, and my next Author shall be Hermes Trismegistus, whose antiquity is said to be very near the time of Moses. I will translate you his words out of his Asclepius which Apuleius made Latine. There, having named AEsculapius, Osiris, and his Grandfather Hermes, who were (as he saith) worshipped for Daemons in his own time, he adds further, That the AEgyptians call them (namely the Daemons) Sancta animalia, and that amongst them (namely the AEgyptians) per singulas Civitates coli eorum animas, quorum sunt consecratae virtutes, Through every city their Souls are worshipped, whose Vertues are deified. And here note by the way, that some are of opinion that the AEgyptian Serapis, whose Idol had a bushel upon his head, was Ioseph, whose Soul the AEgyptians had canonized for a Daemon after his death.
Philo Byblius, the translator of Sanchuniathon that ancient Phoenician Historian, who lived before the times of Troy, and wrote the Acts of Moses and the Iews (saith Eusebius) very agreeably to the Scripture, and (saith he) learned his Story of Ierom-baal a Priest of the God IEVO;Praepar. Evang. lib. 1. cap 9. Philo Byblius (I say) in a Preface to his Translation of this Author, setteth down what he had observed and learned out of the same Story, and might serve to help their understanding who should read it: namely, That all the Barbarians, chiefly the Phoenicians and AEgyptians, of whom the rest had it, accounted of those for Dii Maximi, who had found out any thing profitable for the life of men, or had deserved well of any Nation; and that they worshipped these as Gods, erecting Statues, Images and Temples unto them. And more especially they gave the Names of their Kings (as to the Elements of the world, so also) to these their reputed Gods: for they esteemed the natural Deities of the Sun, Moon and Planets, and those which are in these, to be only and properly Gods: so that they had two sorts of Gods; some were Immortals, and others were (as we may term them) Mortallists.
Thus saith Philo Byblius out of the Phoenician History. From which Testimony we may borrow some more light concerning those Baalims in Scripture.*Hieron. in cap. 23. Ezech. Idolum autem Baal, sive, Bel, Assyriorum religio est, consecrata a Nino Belis filio in honorem patris. Idem in Hos. cap. 2. Ninus in tantam pervenit gloriam, ut patrem suum Belum referret is Deum, qui Hebraice dicitur foreign, & in mulu Prophetis, maxíméque in Daniele; & juxta Theodorionem sub Idolo Babylonis hoc appellatur nomine: Hunc Sid…nii & Ph…nices appellant foreign For Baal or Belus, whose worship Iezabel, the daughter of Ithobaal King of Tyre, brought into Israel, was a deified Phoenician King of that name, as Virgil will tell us in that verse concerning the Phoenician Queen Dido,
Implevítque mero pateram, quam Belus & omnes
A Belo soliti—
Nay Baal, or in the Chaldee Dialect Bel, (for all is one) was the first King of Babel after Nimrod; and the first*Eusebii Chron. Chronicon Ale…andrin. seu Fasti Siculi. Hieron. paulò post locum proximè citatum; Didici…aus, inquit, exordium Daemonis, imò Hominis in Daemonem consecrati: Omnia …nim Idola ex mortuorum …rro…e …reverunt. Idem in c. 46. Isa. Quem (i. e. Baal) Graeci Belum, Latini Satu…num dicun…; cujustanta fuit apud ve…eret religio, ut ei von solùm bumana… hostia… captivorum ignobil…mque mortalium, sed & suos liberos immolarent. Cyrillus contra Iulianum Lib. 3. ver…ù… finem, Primus (inquit) regnavit in Assrriorum terra [foreign] vir superbus & arregans Belus, qui & primus hominum dicitur à subditis no…n Die…atis accepisse: Hîc interpres vitiose tra…s…ert Arbilus; & ubi mox sequitur, foreign, Interpres, Arbeli, &c. Lactant. De fals. Relig. c. 23. & ult. originem Idololatriae ad Belum…efert. (as is written) that ever was deified and reputed a God after death; whence afterward they called all other Daemons Baalim: even as because the first Roman Emperor was called Caesar, thence were all the Emperors after him styled Caesares. And it may be this is part of that which Philo Byblius out of Sanchuniathon would tell us; That the Barbarians, especially the Phoenicians, &c. gave names from their Kings to such as were canonized after death: For so we see here that the Babylonians, and the neighbouring Countries, which spake the Hebrew tongue or some Dialect thereof, called all Daemons Baalim, of the first Daemon or deified King in the world, Baal or Belus. For at that time when Belus reigned in Babel, was Phoenicia with the neighbour people under the Kingdom of Babel: Whence may seem also to have come their community of language and ceremonies. And here note a wonderful mystery, That old Babel, the first Pattern in the world of ambitious Dominion, was also the Foundress of Idols*Ier. 50. 38. Isa. 47. 12., and the Mother of the fornication and abominations of the earth.
And because we have fallen upon the naming of Daemons, let us observe another mystery of names, out of Plutarch (De defect. Orac.) which may help us out of, or prevent some difficulties, namely, That Daemons are sometimes called by the names of those Celestial Gods whose Ministers and Proctors they are, and from whom they receive their power and Divinity: as Apollo's Daemon, Apollo; Iupiter's Daemon, Iupiter; and so the rest: foreign … Like as here among us men, one is called Iovius from Iupiter, another Athenaeus from foreign, i. Minerva, another Dionysius from foreign, i. Bacchus, &c. Thus Plutarch; which Cleombrotus there saith he learned of a wonderful and profound AEgyptian Eremite, who lived about the red Sea, &c. To which is agreeable what Eusebius, Praepar. Evang. lib. 3. cap. 3. quotes out of Diodorus, viz. That the AEgyptians affirmed such as had been great Benefactors where they lived, to be Deified after their death, and some of them foreign, to be called by the very names of the Celestial Gods.
The same Plutarch in the same place doth acquaint us with this pretty conceit, which being to the purpose I will not omit; namely, That the Souls of men took degrees after death: First they commenced Heroes, who were as Probationers to a Daemonship; then after a time sufficient, Daemons; and after that, if they deserved well, to a more sublime degree. Howsoever it be, Daemons and Heroes differed but in more and less antiquity; the more ancient Heroes being called Daemons, and the younger Daemons Heroes.
But that we may return again more close to the matter in hand, This order of Daemons, or*Dii Animales; de quibus Labeo libros scripserat, in quibus aiebat (verba Servii in AEn. l. 3.) esse quaedam sacra quibus Anima vertantur in Deos qui appellantur A…na…, quòd de Ani…bus fiant. Soul-gods, as I may call them, found place in the Religion of the elder Romans, who called them Penates,*Vid. Lex. Martin. verbo La…, & quae habet ex Varrone. Lares, and Manti Dii; and when once they began to Canonize their deceased Emperors, (which was from the time of Augustus) they called them Divi, which word before that time was more general. Tully in his second Book De Legibus shall be my witness, that his countrey-men acknowledged this distinction of Sovereign Gods and Soul-deified powers; for there you shall find this Law, Divos, & eos qui Coelestes semper habiti, colunto: & ollos quos in coelum merita vocaverint; Let them worship the Gods; both those who were ever accounted Celestial, and those whom their own merits have advanced to heaven. And again, Deorum Manium jura sancta sunto. Hos letho datos Divos habento; Let the Rights of separate Souls be kept unviolable, and let them account the deceased Worthies as Gods. Would God the present Christian Romans had not renewed this Law.
Yea so strongly was this Doctrine embraced amongst the Gentiles, that some of their latter Theologists thought, That even the Souls of wicked men and Tyrants had a power after death, and that of these came mali Daemones, which hurt men; and yet to these they ordained Temples, and Sacrifices to keep them from hurting them, as well as to the good Daemons for helping them. But the Ancients gave this honour to the Souls of vertuous men only.
Thus have you heard the Original of Daemons according to the ancient and general opinion of the Gentiles. But besides these Daemons, whose Original you have heard, (I mean besides Soul-Daemons and Canonized mortals) their Theologists bring in another kind of Daemons more high and sublime, *Plutarch. de defect. Orac. in the person of Ammonius the Philosopher, makes two sorts of Daemons. foreign, Soul… separate from Bodies, or such at never dwelt i… Bodies at all. Though both these sorts have the name of Daemons given them in common, yet are those which were the Souls of men otherwhile for distinction sake called Heroes, (Plutarch. de Plac. Philos. Lib. 1. cap. 8) though some extend not this name is general to all, but only to such as are either of an inferior rank, or but Novices, not yet promoted to the Office of Daemoni, as Puni… not yet called to the Bar.which never had been the Souls of men, nor ever were linkt to a mortal body, but were from the beginning, or without beginning, always the same. So Apuleius tells us in his De Deo Socratis; Est & superius aliud augustiúsque Daemonum genus, qui semper à corporis compedibus & nexibus liberi, certis potestatibus procurentur. Ex hac sublimiori Daemonum copia autumat Plato singulis hominibus in vita agenda testes & custodes singulos additos. This sort of Daemons doth fitly answer and parallel that sort of spiritual Powers which we call Angels, as the former of Soul-Daemons doth those which with us are called Saints.