Works, Treatise · Chapter 6
CHAP. VI.
A Recapitulation or Summary of the Doctrines of Daemons. How the Severals thereof are revived and resembled in the Apostate Christian Church. That the word foreign is sometime in Scripture taken according to the Theology of the Gentiles, and not always for an Evil Spirit. That it is so to be taken in the Text was the judgment of Epiphanius: an observable passage quoted out of him to this purpose.
AND thus have you seen the Theology of Daemons; 1. For their Nature and degree, to have been supposed by the Gentiles an inferiour and middle sort of Divine Powers between the Sovereign and Heavenly Gods and mortal men: 2. Their Office, to be as Mediators and Agents between these Sovereign Gods and men: 3. Their Original, to be the Deified Souls of worthy men after death; and some of an higher degree, which had no beginning, nor ever were imprisoned in mortal bodies: 4. The way to worship them, to find and receive benefits from them, namely, by consecrated Images and Pillars, wherein to have and retain their presence at devotions to be given them: 5. To adore their Reliques, and to Temple them.
Now therefore judge impartially whether S. Paul's Prophecy be not fulfilled already amongst Christians, who foretold that the time should come that they should Apostatize and revive again foreign, Doctrines of Daemons; whether the deifying and worshipping of Saints and Angles, whether the bowing down to Images, whether of men or other things visible, breaden Idols, and Crosses like new Daemon-Pillars, whether the adoring or templing of Reliques, whether these make not as lively an image of the Gentiles Theologie of Daemons [foreign] as possibly could be expressed; and whether these two words comprehend not the whole pith and marrow of Christian Apostasie, which was to consist in Spiritual fornication or Idolatry, as appears by that name and denomination thereof given by S. Iohn in his Revelation, The Whore of Babylon. Is not she rightly termed the Babylonish whore, which hath revived and replanted the Doctrines of Daemons first founded in the ancient Babel? And is not this now fulfilled which S. Iohn foretells us, Apoc. 11. That the second and outmost Court of the Temple (which is the second state of the Christian Church) together with the holy City should be trodden down and overtrampled by the Gentiles (that is, overwhelmed with the Gentiles Idolatry) forty two months?
But perhaps I am yet too forward in my Application; some things in our way must first be cleared: For howsoever the resemblance indeed be evident, yet First the Text seems not to intend or mean it, because the word foreign is in the Scripture never taken in the better or indifferent sense, howsoever prophane Authors do so use it, but always in an evil sense, for the Devil or an Evil Spirit. Now the signification of words in Scripture is to be esteemed and taken only according to the Scripture's use, though other Writers use them otherwise. Secondly, For the charge of Idolatry; though much of that wherein we have instanced may be granted to be justly suspected for such indeed, yet nevertheless that whereupon this Application mainly relieth, namely, The praying to Saints glorified, as Mediators and Agents for us with God, should not seem to deserve so foul a name. For suppose it were a needless, yea and a fruitless Ceremony, yet what reason can be given why this should be more tainted with Idolatry, than is the like honour given to Saints and holy men whilst they live on earth, whom then to desire to mediate and pray to God for us was never accounted so much as an unlawful matter? When these two Scruples are answered, I will return to continue my former Application.
To the First therefore, for the use of the word foreign in Scripture, I say, That because those which the Gentiles took for Daemons and for Deified Souls of their Worthies were indeed no other than Evil Spirits, counterfeiting the Souls of men deceased, and masking themselves under the names of such supposed Daemons, under that colour to seduce mankind; therefore the Scripture useth the name Daemons for that they were indeed, and not for what they seemed to be. For no blessed Soul or good Angel would admit any honour which did derogate from the honour of the only true God who made them: neither do the glorified Saints in heaven, or the blessed Angels, though Apostate Christians now invocate and worship them, accept of this honour, hear their prayers, or condescend to their devotions, by any sign or act whatsoever; but whatsoever is made seem to be done by them, is done by the self-fame wicked Spirits which heretofore were masked under the names of Daemons; and therefore in this regard the one may as well bear the names of Daemons as the other, and be as likely to be intended by the use of that word.
Secondly, though the Scripture often useth this word in the worst sense, yet follows it not it always should do so. Because the word foreign it self, which the Scripture hath appropriated to signifie Satan the Prince of hell-hounds, following therein the Seventy, (who first gave it this notion nowhere else sampled in any Greek Author) yet is this word foreign in the New Testament it self, three several times used in the common sense for a Slanderer or False accuser, and that in three several Epistles, in both to Timothy, and that to Titus: 1 Tim. 3. 11.And why should the like seem improbable for the word foreign or foreign?2 Tim. 3. 3. Nay, most certain it is so, as I now come to make manifest.T…. 2. 3.
And that first, Acts 17. 18. where S. Paul our Apostle, having at Athens preached Iesus risen from the dead, the Philosophers thus encountred him, saying, This fellow foreign, which we translate, He seemeth to be a setterforth of strange gods, namely, Daemon-gods: For hearing of one Iesus after death to become a Lord and Saviour, and to be adored with divine worship, they took him presently (according to their own principles in that kind) to be some new or forein Daemon; for so it follows in the Text, that they said thus, Because he preached unto them Iesus and the Resurrection. Upon the same ground Celsus in Origen lib. 8. cont. Cels. calls the same Christ our Saviour the Christians Daemon; for whereas the Christians said, that they without hurt and danger blasphemed and reproached the Gentiles Gods, Celsus replies,*foreign; Nonne vides, bone vir, quòd etiam tuo Daemoni opponens se quispiam non solùm convitiatur, sed terrâ marique illum exigit? Do you not see (good Sir) that some opposing your Daemon, do not only reproach him, but proclaim him unworthy to be at all in the world? Where Origen answers Celsus, aforeign.Qui nullos scit malos Daemones, nescio quomodo sui oblitus, Iesum vocârit Daemonem; He that acknowledges no evil Daemons, I know not how he came to forget himself, calling Iesus a Daemon. But S. Paul thus charged by the Philosophers, coming to make his Apology in the Areopagus, retorts their accusation; Ye men of Athens (saith he) I see you in all things foreign too full of Daemons already. I shall not need bring any more amongst you. (For thus the word foreign by Etymology signifies a worshipper of Daemon-gods, and was anciently used in this sense; and so you shall find it often in Clemens Alexandrinus his Protrepticon bEt Strom. l. …. p. 504. foreign …actant. l. 4. Instit. D… …. ait, Superstitiosi vocantus aut…ii qui sup…stitem memoriam defunctorum colunt: aut qui parentibus suis supers…ises, celebrant Imagines eorum domi, tanquam D…os Penates. Nam qui novos sibirit… assumebant, ut Deorum vice mortuos homorarent, quorex hominibus in coelum recepros putabant, hos Supershtiosos vocabant: Eos verò que publicos & antiquos Deos colerent, Religiosos n…minaba…t; unde Virgilius, Vana superstitio veterúmque ignara Deorum. Martin. Lex quem …lteriùs vide., not to speak of others; though afterwards from signifying foreign, as Budaeus speaks, it came to be applied to those who were too precise and anxious in their devotions.) But I (saith our Apostle) preach no new Daemon unto you, but that Sovereign and Celestial God who made the world and all things therein; who being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not (as your Daemon-gods do) in Temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with mens hands, as though he needed any thing, (as you conceive of your Daemons,) seeing he giveth to all life and breath, and all things: This God I preach unto you. And this place I take to be so unanswerable for the indifferent and common acception of the word foreign, that I care not now though the rest should fail me: but let us see what they are.
In Revel. 9. 13, &c. the sixth Trumpet from Euphrates brings an huge army upon the Christian world, which destroyeth a third part of men; and yet those which remained repented not of those sins (verse 2.) for which these plagues came upon the earth, viz. That they should not worship foreign and Idols of gold, silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood, which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk. Is not this a Comment upon the Apostle's Prophecy in my Text? The time which it concerns must needs fall in the last times; for it is the last Trumpet save one. The place must be the Roman Empire, or Christian world; for that is the Stage of all the Seals and Trumpets: And how could it be otherwise, seeing S. Iohn at Pathmos saw them coming from the great River Euphrates? whatsoever comes from thence, must needs fall upon the Territory of the Roman Empire. To hold you no longer, the best Expounders make it the Ottoman or Turkish, invasion, which hath swallowed so great a part of Christendom. But what people are they who in the Roman Territory do in these latter times worship Idols of gold, silver, brass, and stone, and wood? Are they Ethnicks? there is none such. Are they Iews? they cannot endure the sight of them. Are they Mahumetans? nay, they abhor it also. Then must they needs be Christians; and then must Christians too worship foreign; for both are spoken of the same men. But what Christians do, or ever did worship Devils formally? But Daemon-gods (alas!) they do and long have done. Here therefore foreign is again taken in the common and Philosophical sense, or at least, which is all one, for Evil Spirits worshipped under the names of Daemons and deceased Souls.
Besides my Text, there is but one place more in all the Epistles of S. Paul where the word foreign is used, namely 1 Cor. 10. 21. where if there be any allusion to the Gentiles conceit of Daemons, then all the places of S. Paul's Epistles are bending that way. But some there are, saith Stephen in his Thesaurus, who think the Apostle in his foreign, or Cup of Daemons, alludes unto that poculum foreign used amongst the Gentiles. And further to strengthen this conceit of the Apostle's Allusion to the Heathenish notion of*See Tertul. De Specta…. cap. 13. Daemons, the words of the former verse make much; For the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, (saith he) to Daemons, and not to God. Now this was the very Tenet of the Gentiles, That the Sovereign and Celestial Gods were to be worshipped only purâ mente, and with hymns and praises, and that Sacrifices were only for Daemons. Vid. Porphy. in Euseb. Praep. Evang. Herm. Trismeg. in Asclepio, Apuleium de Daemonio Socratis. He therefore who had given his faith to that foreign One Lord, to the foreign the only Potentate, to the foreign, to the one and only Mediator Iesus Christ, must have no communion, have no part in the service of those many Mediators, Lords or Daemon-gods of the Nations; for Christ's Monarchical Mediation excludes all other Mediators and Daemons: not that the wooden Idol was ought of it self, but that the Gentiles supposed there dwelt some Daemon therein, who received their sacrifices, and to whom they intended their services. Thus may this place be expounded, and so the use of the word Daemon in the worst sense or directly for a Devil, will be almost confined to the Gospel; where the subject spoken of being men vexed with Evil spirits, could admit no other sense or use: and yet S. Luke, the best-languaged of the Evangelists, knowing the word to be ambiguous, and therefore as it were to distinguish it once for all, doth the first time he useth it, do it with an explication, Chapter 4. verse 33. There was (saith he) a man in the Synagogue foreign, having the spirit of an unclean Daemon.
Thus much of the word Daemonium foreign in Scripture; whereby I hope it appears, that this place of my Text is not the only place where the word is used according to the notion of the Gentiles and their Theologists.
But you will say, Did any of the Fathers or Ancients expound it thus in this place? If they had done so, the Mystery of iniquity could never have taken such footing; which because it was to come according to divine disposition, what wonder then if this were hidden from their eyes? Howsoever, it may seem that God left not his spirit without a witness: For, as I take it, Epiphanius, one of the most zealous of the Fathers of his time against Saint-worship then peeping, took foreign in my Text for a Doctrine of worshipping dead men. You may read him in the seventy eighth Heresie towards the conclusion, where, upon occasion of some who made a Goddess of the blessed Virgin, and offered a cake unto her as the Queen of Heaven, he quotes this place of my Text concerning them, saying, foreign which in English sounds thus, That also of the Apostle is fulfilled of these; Some shall apostatize from the sound Doctrine, giving heed to Fables and Doctrines of Daemons; for (saith he) they shall be worshippers of Dead men, as they were worshipped in Israel. Are not these last words for an Exposition of foreign? But what (will you say) doth he mean by the Dead worshipped in Israel? I suppose he means their Baalim, who (as is already shewed) were nothing else but Daemons or Deified Ghosts, of men deceased: yet he brings in two examples besides; one of the Sichemites in his time, who had a Goddess or Daemoness under the name of Iephtah's daughter; another of the AEgyptians, who worshipped Thermutis, that daughter of Pharaoh which brought up Moses. Some, as Beza, would have these words of Epiphanius to be a part of the Text it self in some copy which he used. But how is that likely, when no other Father once mentions any such reading? Nay it appears moreover, that Epiphanius intended to explain the words as he quoteth them, as he doth foreign the Faith by foreign the sound Doctrine, and foreign erroneous spirits by foreign Fables, and so foreign giving heed to Doctrines of Daemons by foreign worshipping Dead men. Otherwise we must say he used either a very corrupt copy, or quoted very carelesly. But grant that Epiphanius read so: Either this reading was true, and so I have enough; because then the Apostle with his foreign, &c. should expound himself by foreign to mean the Deifying of the dead: Or it was not the original reading, but added by some or other for explication sake; and so it will follow, that those who did it made no question but that the words there contained some such thing as worshipping of the dead. Therefore take it which way you will, it will follow, that some such matter as we speak of was in times past supposed to be in this Text and Prophecy.