4. Chapter III. Or, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry, or ἐθελοθρησκείας [Will-worship] — Chapter I
Chapter III. Or, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry, or ἐθελοθρησκείας [Will-worship] — Chapter I T he beginnings of idolatry most uncertain — The diversity of opinions concerning them — The causes of a new investigation — Adamic idolatry in paradise — The apostasy and superstition of Cain — The Enoshite reformation of the church — Before the flood, no idolatry properly so called — The "golden age" after the flood — In it no traces of idolatry
— Why men were called μέροπες [men of divided speech] — The time of the division of languages and the dispersion of the human race — The builders of the tower of Babel: what manner of men they were — What purpose they had in building it — Among them the beginnings of idolatry are to be sought.
I. That no clear traces of the origins and occasions of idolatry exist — we saw this before, and the fruitless endeavours of investigators have placed it beyond controversy. That it had an origin is evident from the outcome. The times, rationales, causes, authors, and all the beginnings of its origin must be investigated by conjecture. Here indeed:
[The best prophet is he who guesses well] — Euripides, Frag. inc.
CXXVIII.
So Cicero renders that saying from Euripides. Some think that idolatry occupied the world before the flood. In this opinion are most of the Jews, especially Maimonides, at the beginning of his work On the Worship of the Stars, whom Selden follows in the Prolegomena to his Syntagma on the Syrian Gods. Others think that Satan sprinkled this poison on those who came out of the ark. The Targumists heap this wickedness specifically upon Ham. To others it seems that no certain traces or express monuments of arbitrary and profane worship can be found before the construction of the tower of Babel — which the contumacious and proud Noachides attempted to build as a memorial for eternity. Here therefore the foot must be planted for a moment; and the sources of this Nile — most productive of monsters, from which "the monsters of gods of every kind, and barking Anubis" came forth — must be investigated. This is a field most rich in the monuments of ancient times; and though great intellects have cultivated it, yet, as is wont to happen in investigating the most obscure beginnings of things — of which "scarcely the thin breath of report glides across to us" — there remains in it much room for others to exercise themselves long and much.
The reader will easily perceive from what we are about to contribute to this place that, after the most abundant vintage-gatherings of others, there was no lack of reasons for offering these gleanings of ours. For if we cannot bring new light to the things themselves — that is, to the most darknesscovered beginnings of foreign worship — we are at least brought to some hope that we shall set out for the reader things not unwelcome and lending some light to a most obscure truth: at least what relation those beginnings bore to the worship of God, by what tricks the most ancient deceiver
practised illusion upon the human race and led it into fraud; and other things tacitly passed over by the learned men who have cultivated this place with very great erudition. It is our intention, however, to touch only upon the chief heads of matters, so that I may freely satisfy the proposed work and keep to the road laid out.
II. We showed above that God implanted in man — created for his glory — an ἔμφυτον [innate] law of obedience, embracing all those things that necessarily follow upon his nature, condition, and ultimate end. He never, however, permitted that law to be the full rule and revelation of all divine worship. To it, in the state of creation before the entrance of sin, he added the institution concerning not eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In that institution, with respect to the external act, the rational creature made the beginning of defection from God. But it laid the foundation of defection in moral worship. For in giving credence to the serpent against the threatening of God, it held him to that extent in the place of God. And this was a certain species of idolatry — indeed the worst — which still flourishes among all those who, setting aside the authority of the divine promises and threatenings, render themselves obedient to Satan. But this is not the idolatry properly so called whose beginnings we are investigating.
III. After the entrance of sin, God restored the natural theology — amplified by new revelations and the institution of sacrifices and consecrated to new ends. In the instituted worship, sin was immediately committed again with unbelief going before. We set out the nature and outcome of that sin above. We also showed that Cain, cursed by God, defected entirely from his solemn worship. It is probable indeed that he and the Henochite citizens over whom he presided, Gen. 4, repudiated that
worship — namely, of sacrifices — from which he had drawn the first stain of evil, and usurped new rites by his own discretion, practising ἑθελοθρησκοῦντα [will-worship] and procuring ֱא ֹלִהים ֲחָד ִׁשים [new gods] for himself — as Scripture speaks, Judg. 5:8. There are many things, however, which prevent us from believing this. For it was not possible for Cain to put off his humanity to the extent of devising other gods for himself — after that express and open communion which had passed between him and Jehovah, the creator of all.
IV. As time advanced and some of the Sethites also lapsed into the ways of the Cainites, the pious Enoshites — together with a reformation of divine worship, in order to preserve it pure the better and longer for rightly calling upon the name of God — established separate assemblies, and were thence called "sons of God," Gen. 4 (last verse): "Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord." That some wrongly think the origin of foreign worship is noted by those words, we also showed above. For it is not the profanation of the divine name but the reformation of the church that the Holy Spirit hints at.
V. God himself laments that before the flood all flesh corrupted its way.
Nor is there any doubt that the apostates openly declared war on God and religion. But that they were bound by this crime — namely, idolatry — no testimony exists, no probable foundation for conjecture. Since, however, we demonstrated this above with clear arguments, I am unwilling to do here what is already done. The antediluvian ages, therefore, we are necessarily obliged to pass over in this investigation. For the opinion of Justin Martyr does not please me — who interprets the sons of God who, seized with love for the daughters of men, associated them with themselves, as angels; and
who says that daemons were born from them, who immediately devoted their efforts to the advancing of idolatry: Apology to the Roman Senate.
VI. What the Targumists and other Jews foolishly rave about concerning the idolatry of Ham, his magic incantations, and the nature of that wickedness, does not belong to this place. That age, which came between the Deluge and the διασποράν [dispersion] of the nations— rendered διαβόητον [famous] at Babylon—left very few, or indeed no traces at all of itself in the surviving monuments of history. Whatever that space of time was, Noah, as a great patriarch, held the whole human race descended from him under a pious and paternal rule. That was the golden age of which the ancient mythmakers say so much. 1
Virgil, Georgics I, 125:
"Before Jupiter, no farmers subdued the fields:
Nor was it lawful even to mark or divide the field by boundary:
They sought all things in common; and the earth itself More freely, with no one asking, bore all things."
And Martial, Epigrams, Bk. XII:
"Great king of the ancient Pole, and of the former world, Under whom was sluggish rest, and no labour,
Nor too regal a thunderbolt, nor earth worthy of the thunderbolt, Nor cleft open to the shades, but rich of itself."
Both refer to Saturn from Hesiod; for he says, Works and Days, 111:
Οἱ μὲν ἐπὶ Κρόνου ἦσαν, ὅτ' οὐρανῷ ἐμβασίλευεν· Ὡς τε θεοὶ δ' ἔζωον, ἀκηδέα θυμὸν ἔχοντες,
[Those who lived in the time of Kronos,
when he held sway in heaven, lived as gods, with hearts free from care, apart from toil and grief.]
"When Saturn held sway and ruled in heaven, men lived like gods," etc.
And Tibullus, Bk. I, 3:
"How well they lived when Saturn was king of old, Before the earth was opened up to long journeys.
No house had a door; no stone fixed in the fields To mark the boundaries and govern the land.
The oaks themselves gave honey," etc.
Lucian has similar things in Letters to Saturn, ch. 7, where he introduces Saturn speaking: καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἁπανταχοῦ κρίτος, καὶ ᾠδὴ, καὶ παιδιὰ, καὶ ἰσοτιμία πᾶσι, καὶ δούλοις, καὶ ἐλευθέροις, οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἐπ' ἐμοῦ δοῦλος ἦν
[And therefore everywhere is merriment, singing, play, and equality for all — both slaves and free; for in my time no one was a slave] — all referring to the paternal governance of Noah and the undivided earth. From this flowed the licence of slaves at the Roman Saturnalia, as Plutarch narrates in the Life of Numa.
VII. For Noah was Saturn. He was the greatest δικαιοσύνης κήρυξ [herald of righteousness] among the antediluvians, 2 Pet. 2:5, whose warnings were met with contempt by the dreadful πανωλεθρία [utter destruction] of the human race. As long therefore as his sons and grandsons either respected his authority or showed themselves obedient to his sayings and sermons, it is not fair for us to suppose that they admitted this wickedness into themselves.
VIII. Most think that the confusion of languages occurred in the one hundred and first or second year after the flood. Then men became μέροπες
[men of divided speech] and were so called: Γενεαὶ μερόπων ἀνθρώπων
[generations of men of divided speech], Homer, Iliad I, 250 — "generations of various-tongued men." Μερόπων — that is, μεμερισμένην τὴν φωνὴν ἐχόντων· ὅ ἐστι μεριζομένην εἰς συλλαβὰς καὶ ἔναρθρον ἐχόντων τὴν ὄπα, says Didymus — that is, "those men have their tongue divided and fitted for pronouncing syllables and use articulate speech"; since the voices of the other animals are ἄναρθροι [inarticulate]. Hesychius agrees with the scholiast: Μέροπες ἄνθρωποι διὰ τὸ μεμερισμένην ἔχειν τὴν ὄπα, ἤγουν τὴν φωνήν [Men are called meropes because they have a divided voice, that is, speech]. Eustathius cites the same opinion in first place; to which he adds δι' ἐπανορθώσιν [by way of correction]: οἱ μέντοι τῆς ἡμετέρας θείας αὐλῆς, μέροπας τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἐπικληθῆναι φασιν, ἀπὸ τοῦ μερισμοῦ ἤτοι διαμερισμοῦ τῆς ἐπὸς, ὃν ἔπαθον μετὰ τὸν τῆς Χαλάνης πύργον διαμερισθέντες ἁπανταχοῦ τῆς γῆς [Those of our holy court say that men were called meropes from the division — that is, the distribution — of speech which they suffered after the tower of Chalane, being dispersed everywhere throughout the earth] — "it was the common opinion of the ancient Christians that men were called μέροπες [those of divided speech] from that division of languages which they suffered in the building of the tower of Babel." 2 John of Antioch Malalas has similar things: Γλῶσσαι διεμερίσθησαν, διὸ καὶ μέροπες κέκληνται οἱ ἄνθρωποι διὰ τὸ μερισθῆναι αὐτῶν τὰς λαλιὰς εἰς πολλὰς γλώσσας καὶ φωνάς [The languages were divided, hence also men are called meropes because their speeches were divided into many languages and voices]. Now as men were called μέροπες
[those of divided speech] on account of the division of languages, so the place where that punishment was inflicted upon the rebels was called ָּבֶבל
[Babel] — as if one said ּבֹוא ֶהֶבל [confusion came]; or ָּבֶבל stands for ַּבְלֵּבל
[confusion], the middle Lamed being dropped to avoid cacophony. In the
one hundred and first year after the flood, Peleg was born. That name was given to him ִּכי ְבָיָמיו ִנְפְלָגה ָהָאֶרץ [because in his days the earth was divided],
Gen. 10:25. And the verb ָּפַלג is used in that sense elsewhere: Ps. 5:10, ַּפֵּלג
ְלׁשֹוָנם [divide their tongue]. Very many of the Jews affirm that this name was given to this son of Eber by prophetic inspiration. Cornelius à Lapide and Augustine Torniellus are of the same opinion — the former in his
Commentary on Genesis, the latter in his Annals at the year of the world 1931. So in the giving of the name of Noah, the pious parents appear to have had regard to things not to be fulfilled until six hundred years later.
The Jews therefore wish the tower of Babel to have been built in the two hundredth year of Peleg's life, led by arguments not altogether absurd.
Whatever pertains to understanding or rightly affirming that chronological dispute, the most distinguished Buxtorf the son has set out in a special dissertation on the origin of the several languages. Seth Calvisius in his
Chronology; Pererius, Paraeus, Rivet in their Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis; Torniellus in his Annals of the World; Masius in his Commentary on Joshua; Ussher in his Sacred Chronology; and very many others, both theologians and chronologists, have woven the same web.
IX. Those who assert that the division of languages occurred at the birth of Peleg and that his name was imposed from the event appear, in the opinion of some, to place the interval from the flood shorter than one in which men could have multiplied to that multitude which set about building the tower — for as we said, the birth of Peleg falls in the one hundred and first year after the flood. Those however who think the name was given to Peleg by prophetic inspiration and push the dispersion of the human race to the end of his life, and therefore to the year of the world 1996, are
compelled to place the arrival of Abraham in the land of Canaan at eightyeight years after that dispersion — which space seems too short for the erection of those kingdoms which sacred history narrates were founded in those times. Buxtorf therefore denies that Peleg was the firstborn of Eber or born in his father's seventy-fourth year, and pushes his birth — and therefore the division of languages — to another and far later time. But Johannes Temporarius demonstrates in his Second Chronological
Demonstration that from the stock of Noah within the space of 102 years 1,554,420 males and females could have been born. Half of that number
Ussher accepts, Sacred Chronology, ch. 5, where he most learnedly refutes the madness and notable audacity of Johannes Morin in rejecting the Hebrew chronology. Let us therefore grant that the building of the tower of Babel and the division of languages occurred in the year of the world 1757, or 101 or 102 years after the flood. That any traces, any monuments, any testimonies of idolatry existed or ever existed up to that time, there is nothing remaining to testify — at least no traces of it survive.
X. The Jerusalem Targum teaches that the builders of the tower of Babel had it in mind to set an image at the summit of that impious mass to receive religious worship: "They said," it declares, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower, the top of which shall reach to the heights of the heavens, and let us make something to worship at its top, and let us put a sword in its hand." Jonathan Ben Uzziel appends the same fable in almost the same words. That that tower endured for a long time after the confusion of languages is the common opinion of learned men. Nor indeed does it appear to be different from what Herodotus describes at length under the name of the temple of Bel, Bk. I, ch. 181. It consisted of eight towers, one placed upon another — of which the first at least, if not each one, was a stade in
height. Concerning the topmost he speaks thus: Ἐν δὲ τῷ τελευταίῳ πύργῳ νηὸς ἔπεστι μέγας· ἐν δὲ τῷ νηῷ κλίνη μεγάλη κέεται, etc. — "In the topmost tower there stands a great shrine, in which a splendidly furnished bed is laid," etc. Not much later therefore after the confusion of languages, that mad building was converted into the temple of an idol — that is, of the sun. But the Jews summon the origin of their opinion from another source
— they think that those words of Moses by which the builders exhorted one another to undertake the work hint at that purpose: ְוַנֲע ֶׂשה־ָלנּו ֵׁשם [and let us make ourselves a name] — that is, they say, "an idol of a great name." For they suppose that ֵׁשם [shem — name] is used absolutely to mean "some god" in that way. ַה ֵּׁשם [ha-shem — the Name] indeed is used emphatically to mean "God" in certain places — Lev. 24:11 — but absolutely nowhere, and never to mean an idol. If this were true, no one could find a more illustrious testimony of the origin of idolatry anywhere in the world. Nor would it have to be thought that this wickedness settled upon the world gradually and through various degrees and by various occasions seized upon — a deliberate defection of the human race from God would provide its origin. But this is a rabbinical delusion; and the words which the builders used look plainly in another direction. They had it in mind that, although mortals, subject to various chances — especially to dispersion into remote regions of the earth — they should become eternally famous for their reputation and glory. That purpose of mind they expressed in those words,
"Let us make ourselves a name" — that is, let us leave to our posterity a hereditary title of praise and glory. Nor is it credible that almost all the families of the whole world conspired as it were in a moment, as in a whirlwind, against the living God, and simultaneously resolved — having cast aside all reverence and worship of the Creator — to worship idols.
XI. That they built the tower therefore with the mind and purpose of worshipping new gods, no reason persuades; Holy Scripture narrates them to have had a very different resolution. It is probable indeed that these builders were a race of men stained with many crimes, who thought that the power they had obtained could not be exercised without wrong and oppression if it were light and without means. We showed above that they had rejected the warnings and governance of Noah. Hence, they were most ready for the commands of Satan and for performing all those things which the innate vanity of the mind had suggested.
XII. The speech of all having been confused and divided, the commerce of new languages cast them into various herds. God scattered them in that condition, by tribes and families, over the whole surface of the earth. There were indeed among the ancient Christians those to whom it was heresy to deny that Noah had distributed the world among his sons and grandsons and assigned their seats to each family. For after the designation of heresies had become arbitrary, there was scarcely anything said or written by anyone — however most true — which was not by certain persons placed in that category. For the rest, Scripture shows that it was by divine arrangement — not by Noahic assignment — that the sons of men occupied their new seats or were carried to the various shores of the world, Gen. 11:8. That any of the builders of the tower retained the primaeval language without any notable change cannot be proved by testimonies or arguments. We acknowledge that words from it remained in some use among almost all the nations; but they were very few — as Boxhorn rightly affirms, Origins of the Gauls, ch. 7. That along with the loss of the primaeval language, forgetfulness of very many instructions concerning divine things seized them, is not improbable. Among these therefore — that is, among the
builders of the tower of Babel, left to themselves, destitute of new revelations, forgetful of former ones, scattered and wandering here and there — the beginnings of idolatry are to be sought.
1. We relied on Gemini to translate this paragraph, as Claude struggled with the Greek words, which led to it misinterpreting the Latin.
2. We retained separate translations of the Greek and Latin here owing to the significant differences between them.