13. Chapter Xii. Or, On The Origin And Progress Of Idolatry.Chapter X.
CHAPTER XII. OR, ON THE ORIGIN
AND PROGRESS OF
IDOLATRY.CHAPTER X.
K nowledge of the true God — he who alone can be known was called unknown — the well-known δεισιδαιμονία [superstitiousness] of the city of Athens — the city's division according to the names and worship of idols — a twofold superstition among the Jews — what πάγος [hill] signifies — most nations acknowledge one natural God — Antisthenes, the Brahmins — Sophocles — Menander — the books of Numa found, and burned — Valerius Soranus — Orpheus — Homer — Prudentius — the name of seven letters.
I. Amid this darkness, and this confusion of all things and all religions, it is plain that very many retained some knowledge and memory of the one true God — infinitely removed from all those fictitious gods whom they superstitiously worshipped. This the writings of almost all the historians and philosophers teach. For how few of the ancient sages are there who do not celebrate some divine nature, existing above all things, ruling all, preserving all, and disposing all things at its own pleasure? Yet although this true God alone displays τὸ γνωστόν [that which is knowable] of himself
in all things — to such a degree that he alone can be known, because he alone truly is, and can in no way be wholly unknown, because he is God — nevertheless, because men did not think fit to retain the knowledge of this one true God, he alone was called ἄγνωστος [unknown]. Whence, whenever mention had to be made of the God of the Jews, it was customary to add,
Ὅστις ποτε οὗτός ἐστιν [whoever he finally is] — as in Dio, History, book 36. And, Νὴ τὸν ἄγνωστον ἐν Ἀθήναις. [By the unknown god at Athens.]
— in Lucian's Philopatris. Καὶ ταῦτα Ἀθήνῃσιν, οὗ ἀγνώστων δαιμόνων βωμοὶ ἵδρυνται [And this at Athens, where altars to unknown deities have been set up] — as in Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, book VI, chapter 2:
"And this at Athens, where altars have been set up to unknown gods." The inscription had "gods" (θεῶν); Philostratus substituted "spirits" (δαιμόνων), after the manner of the Pythagoreans. The rise of this cult is attributed to Socrates, who, as Justin attests, First Apology, "exhorted the Athenians" πρὸς θεοῦ τοῦ ἀγνώστου αὐτοὺς διὰ λόγου ζητήσεως ἐπίγνωσιν προυτρέπετο — "he exhorted them to the knowledge of that unknown God, through the inquiry of reason."
II. But whatever Socrates did, it is most certain that Paul seized his occasion, from the inscription of the Altar of Epimenides — which, among others, was dedicated θεῷ ἀγνώστῳ [to the unknown god] — for proclaiming the true God. And this was at Athens, where there was scarcely anything but the sacred, since the city itself was ὅλη βωμός, ὅλη θῦμα θεοῖς, καὶ ἀνάθεμα [wholly an altar, wholly a sacrifice to the gods, and a votive offering] — as Xenophon attests, On the Constitution of the Athenians. For they divided the whole city into parts distinguished by the names of the gods: 1. Κρόνου Πάγος [the Hill of Cronos]; 2. Πᾶνος Πάγος
[the Hill of Pan]; 3. Ποσειδῶνος Πάγος [the Hill of Poseidon]; 4. Ἄρειος
Πάγος [the Hill of Ares, the Areopagus]; 5. Ἑρμοῦ Πάγος [the Hill of Hermes] — thus they constituted the city. Now πάγος among the Greeks does not signify a Latin pagus [village], but a rock. The quarters of the city were so named because upon each was set some stone (that is, a pillar or stele) consecrated to this or that idol; whence the use of the word was first extended to signify some part of the city. The same thing was done at Jerusalem as at Athens: Jeremiah 11:13, "For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to that shameful thing, altars to burn incense unto Baal."
III. Nor were altars to the unknown God set up at Athens alone: Πρὸς αὐτῷ δὲ ἐστὶν ἀγνώστων θεῶν βωμός [Near it also is an altar of the unknown gods] — Pausanias, in his Eliaca. That this unknown God was one alone, they have sometimes confessed. "The nations have many gods, but one natural God," said Antisthenes, in Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods. "That great living thing, and the soul of the world," said the Pythagoreans. To this God all assigned, at the very least, the supreme place in the heavens. So the Brahmins instruct Apollonius, in Philostratus, book
III, chapter 11: Τὴν μὲν γὰρ δὴ πρώτην καὶ τελειωτάτην ἕδραν ἀποδοτέον θεῷ γενέτορι τοῦδε τοῦ ζώου, τοῖς δὲ ὑπ' ἐκείνῃ θεοῖς, οἱ τὰ μέρη αὐτοῦ κυβερνῶσι. [For the first and most perfect seat must be given to the god who is the begetter of this living creature; and the second to the gods beneath him, who govern its parts.] IV. Indeed, some, under the guidance and auspices of reason, went so far as to think that, for the sake of this one Maker-God, all idolatrous worship ought to be cast aside. Excellently Sophocles — see the Fragments:
Εἷς ταῖς ἀληθείαισιν, εἷς ἐστιν θεός, etc. [In truth there is one, one only God, etc.] — that is:
"There is one God, who alone built the fabric of heaven, the dark-blue back of the sea, and the unbridled winds.
But we, poor wretches, wandering in heart, have fashioned for ourselves a solace for our calamities: images of the gods, of stone or wood, or wrought of molten gold, or of ivory; to these, while we sacrifice, while on the appointed day we render them solemn honours, we suppose ourselves pious."
And Justin, in his Apology to the Emperor: Τῷ δὲ καὶ μὴ δεῖν χειρῶν [ἔργα] ἀνθρώποις προσκυνεῖν, Μενάνδρῳ τῷ κωμικῷ καὶ τοῖς ταῦτα φήσασι, ταὐτὰ φράζομεν [That the works of men's hands ought not to be worshipped, we say the same as Menander the comic poet, and those who have said the like].
V. It is probable, too, that those books of Numa Pompilius, found beneath the Janiculum in the year 556 from the founding of the city, and ordered burned by the senate in a public assembly — since, upon their being read,
Quintus Petilius, the urban praetor, undertook an oath that they tended toward the dissolution of religion — taught the worship of one God, and that without images.
VI. Lactantius shows that the gentiles of their own time held that this one God ought to be called the supreme Jupiter. Hence Valerius Soranus:
"Jupiter almighty, begetter of kings, of things, and of gods, and mother of
the gods — one God, and all things." Concerning him is that most famous golden poem of Orpheus to Musaeus:
Μοῦνον δὲ ἐσόρα κόσμοιο ἄνακτα· Εἷς ἐστ', αὐτογενής· ἑνὸς ἔκγονα πάντα τέτυκται,
Ἐν δ' αὐτὸς περιγίγνεται· οὐδέ τις αὐτὸν Εἰσοράει θνητῶν, αὐτὸς δὲ γε πάντας ὁρᾶται.
[Worship him alone, the king of this world: he is one, existing of himself, who created all things, and himself subsists within them; never beheld by the light of any mortal's eye, he beholds all mortals].
And again: Εἷς Ζεύς, εἷς Ἀΐδης, εἷς ἥλιος εἷς Διόνυσος,Εἷς θεὸς ἐν πάντεσσι — that is: "Jupiter is one, Pluto is one, Bacchus too is one, the sun is one, one God in all things." This is he of whom Virgil, following Homer, so often solemnly sings: "The father of gods and king of men." They would also have him be Serapis, as in the epigram:
Ἑπτά με φωνήεντα θεὸν μέγαν ἄφθιτον αἰνεῖ Γράμματα, τῶν πάντων ἀκάματον πατέρα, Εἰμὶ δ' ἐγὼ πάντων χίλυς ἄφθιτος, ἢ τὰ λυρώδηἩρμοσάμην δίνης οὐρανίοιο μέλη.
[The seven vowel-letters proclaim me the great, imperishable god, the untiring father of all things;
I am the imperishable lyre of all things, who tuned the heavenly, whirling melodies.]
For Serapis is a name of seven letters (ἑπταγράμματον), and was so called, as Hesychius attests — unless one should think the name Jehovah is signified by the ἑπτὰ φωνήεντα [seven vowel-letters]. Rightly, then, does
Tertullian teach, Apology, chapter 17, that "even the worshippers of idols, when in straits, raise their eyes to heaven, and, forgetting their gods, call by nature upon the one God." Similar things are found in Justin's On the Monarchy of God and in his Apologies; in Athenagoras's Legation; in Clement, Stromata III; in Arnobius, Against the Gentiles, book II; in Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book XI, chapter 9; in Theodoret's On the Cure of Greek Maladies, book II. Excellently, in the Apotheosis, Prudentius, lines 268–277:
"Consult the ravings of bearded Plato; consult too the goatish Cynics, whatever they dream, and the nerves of argument which Aristotle has bound in twisted coils; all these, though a doubtful labyrinth and error, winding about them, leads them astray — though they too are wont to promise a hen, or a cock, as though some clinician-god should deign to show himself fair to the dying
— yet, when it comes at last to the rule of reason and of art, they draw their turbid perceptions, and their quarrelsome arguments, tangled in rugged measures, together into one single deity."
That all these notions of the one God, though held fast by the wisest of the nations, did not lead them to glorify him with worship and obedience as God, the apostle shows most clearly, Epistle to the Romans, chapter 1.