6. Chapter V. Or, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry — Chapter III
Chapter V. Or, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry — Chapter III T he occasions of the origin of idolatry — The report of the dominion of the sun and moon — In what sense the sun and moon are the two great luminaries — The portentous fiction of the Targumist Jonathan — The rationale of dominion, wrongly transferred into worship — The vain reasonings of the idolaters, Rom. 1:21 — The influence and operations of the sun and moon upon earthly things, Jer. 44:17, 18; Acts 14:17 — God alone the author even of earthly good — The beauty, course, and glory of the stars as allurements — The God who is above — Some confine God to heaven; others assign παντοτοπίαν [omnipresence everywhere] to the human nature of Christ, Deut. 4:19 — The opinion of Lactantius and Diodorus Siculus on the occasions and beginnings of idolatry — The opinion of the philosopher Plotinus on the worship of the stars, Ps. 19:4 —
The Septuagint noted, and the Vulgate translator — The blunder of Marsilio Ficino — The ancient Syriac translation — The sum of the vain διαλογισμῶν [reasoning].
I. We set out the beginnings of idolatry in the worship of the sun and moon in the preceding chapter. Before we proceed to set out the advances which this error plainly made from the outcome, it is our pleasure to set out briefly in advance certain handles and occasions of the worship of the celestial stars which the first idolaters appear to have seized upon, and those vain reasonings by which they seduced themselves.
II. And first, it seems to me that a tradition of the dominion of day and night committed to the sun and moon had settled in men's minds. For it was necessary that they should believe those things to be constituted ἐν ὑπεροχῇ [in preeminence] which they worshipped. The report of those things spread abroad which in the first chapter of Genesis are now consecrated to eternal memory: ַוַּיַעׂש ֱא ֹלִהים ֵאת ְׁשֵני ַהְּמ ֹאֹרת ַהְּג ֹדִלים ֵאת ַהָּמאֹור ַהָּג ֹדל
ְלֶמ ְמ ֶׁש ֶלת ַהּיֹום ְוֶאת ַהָּמאֹור ַהָּק ֹטן ְלֶמ ְמ ֶׁש ֶלת ַהַּלְיָלה [And God made the two great lights, the greater light for the governance of the day and the lesser light for the governance of the night]. Dominion here is attributed to the sun and moon — that is, from the very origin of things. But all who hold dominion are to be honoured. Moreover, it was believed that the sun and moon are called two great luminaries not properly but by a certain συγκατάβασιν
[condescension] to the capacity and sense of the common people. Why so?
Because, that is, certain stars are larger than the moon. But is the moon therefore not to be called a great luminary, or not to preside in a peculiar manner over the governance of the night? Certainly the luminary is called great not with respect to its substance but to its light; which, however borrowed, is greater than that of all the stars combined. And to this knot — which is in reality no knot — the Jews apply the wedge of a most portentous fiction. "God made," says the Targum of Jonathan, "two great luminaries, and they were equal in glory for twenty-one years, lacking six
hundred and seventy-two parts of an hour" — so that we may know that he attained the truth here with the utmost precision! — "and afterwards the moon brought an accusation against the sun and was diminished; and he set the sun, the greater luminary, to rule the day, and the moon, which was the lesser luminary, to preside over the night." In such manner does this paraphraser almost everywhere defile the sacred page — as we have warned not once before; nor does he appear to have been born for any other end — so foul is everything that is peculiar to him. No one will come away from reading him either more learned or more virtuous. But it is probable that the report of this dominion became known to the nations. Satan made use of it as a lure to idolatry, even before all knowledge of the true God had been abolished. For what after God would they honour, except those things to which by God authority was committed over days and nights, and thus over the whole life of men? Hence the poet imagined even Juno herself a suppliant to Aeolus, who is said to have presided over the winds:
"Juno, suppliant, made use of these words:
Aeolus, for to you the father of gods and king of men Has given both to smooth the waves and to raise them with wind,
A race hostile to me" — etc. — Aeneid I, 64.
To serve absolute power with sacred worship is natural; to serve delegated power in this way is corrupt. But this very many who are called Christians do not yet understand.
III. This therefore was the first occasion of idolatry in the worship of the sun and the whole host of heaven for those men who had voluntarily cast away the true knowledge of God. The report of the dominion of day and night delegated to the sun and moon — corrupted by perverse traditions — lured into the fraud of error those who had cast off almost all religion of the
true God. Hence the Sun: king, ἄναξ [lord], ְֶמֶל [melek], and ַּבַעל [baal] — whatever in short denotes governance and dominion. Add to this that they were αὐτόπται [eyewitnesses] of the things they had heard by report; they saw that at the motion and course of the sun and moon the governance of days and nights — and therefore of all things measured by time — was regulated; so that all room for doubt seemed to have been removed.
IV. By other vain reasonings also they were led into this impious opinion.
For the apostle traces the beginning of idolatry to this: that vain men had become foolish ἐν τοῖς διαλογισμοῖς αὐτῶν [in their reasonings], Rom.
1:21. For since the minds of men were altogether empty of spiritual and heavenly things, and turned away from God, they burned with excessive desire for earthly things. They would never have worshipped unless they had first loved κτίσιν παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα [the creature rather than the Creator]. But how great a moment they thought resided in the operations and influence of the sun and moon for earthly things to succeed prosperously and happily, they supposed themselves to perceive clearly.
They thought no conjectures were needed here — they were αὐτόπται [eyewitnesses]. And they easily persuaded themselves that whatever was above them and could aid those things of whose care they were most occupied, was God. By no other διαλογισμῷ [reasoning] did the idolatrous
Israelites fall into the worship of the host of heaven and the queen — that is, the moon and the stars — than because from their religion they experienced all earthly things going well for them: Jer. 44:17, 18, "When," they say, "we burned offerings to the queen of heaven, we were satisfied with food and were cheerful, and we saw no evil. But since we stopped burning offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything." God therefore, about to bring that people
back to better fruitfulness and to his worship, recalls to their minds that the vanities of the nations could not give rains, Jer. 14:22. And the apostle Paul, sharply reproving the Gentiles themselves for their nefarious idolatries and charging them with folly, asserts that the one true God, creator of all, gave to men from heaven ὑετοὺς καὶ καιροὺς καρποφόρους [rains and fruitful seasons], Acts 14:17 — indicating clearly enough that the nations had been lured into the worship of idols by hope and expectation of βιωτικῶν
[earthly things]. And this was the second fountain of the most pernicious error.
V. Furthermore, the Psalmist affirms that the beauty of the heavens, the course of the stars, and the order of the celestial bodies declare the glory of God, Ps. 19:1, and the apostle at Rom. 1:20. All that glory, snatched from the Creator, the apostates assigned to the creatures themselves. They thought the beauty which was from God to be God. There is also an innate persuasion in the human mind that the divine power which is to be worshipped is in the heavens and above itself. Hence, for those placed in danger — where the presence of God is needed — it was always the custom to stretch their hands doubled toward the stars. God therefore in Hesiod is ὃς ὑπέρτατα δώματα ναίει [who inhabits the highest dwellings]. Our Lord
Jesus Christ also taught us to invoke our Father in heaven — where, that is, he makes his glory manifest in a manner plainly special. But absurdly for that reason the Socinian Biddle circumscribes and confines God to the heavens in his Catechism — which utterly overthrows the divine nature.
While others, assigning to the human nature of Christ — which heaven contains — πολυτοπίαν [presence in many places] unto the restoration of all things, and others παντοτοπίαν [omnipresence], do away with it no less effectively — that is, among the very many compulsive disputings of those
called Christians. For those therefore who were not pleased to be wise above what the senses reach, the sun above all appeared to occupy the place of God in the heavens. The Holy Spirit himself indicates this origin and lure of the worship of the stars, Deut. 4:19: "Lest perhaps," he says, "you lift up your eyes to heaven, and see the sun and moon and stars, with the whole host of heaven, and being drawn away you adore them." The impulse of the heart toward idolatry follows the sight of the eyes. Allured by the beauty, glory, order, and motion of the stars, and carried away by excessive admiration — since they did not know how to learn from them the glory of the true God which they declare, having already cast aside the knowledge of him — they were gradually impelled into the worship of them. Lest the same should happen to the Israelites, this and other cautions were given.
VI. Lactantius long ago uncovered this fountain of error, On the Origin of Error, Bk. II, ch. 24: "Since," he says, "in Egypt on account of the delightful constitution of the land they rarely kept themselves within their houses and huts, they spent the whole night sleeping under a serene sky subject to no harmful impressions; and from frequent sight of the celestial bodies and the constant law of the stars in their courses, they gradually came to the opinion that the stars were gods and the preservers of the universe, whom they venerated with various rites and ceremonies."
Diodorus Siculus narrates similarly, Library, Bk. I, ch. 11, near the beginning: Τοὺς δ' οὖν κατ' Αἴγυπτον ἀνθρώπους τὸ παλαιὸν γενομένους, ἀναβλέψαντας εἰς τὸν κόσμον, καὶ τὴν τῶν ὅλων φύσιν καταπλαγέντας, καὶ θαυμάσαντας, ὑπολαβεῖν εἶναι θεοὺς ἀΐδιους τε καὶ πρώτους, τόν τε ἥλιον καὶ τὴν σελήνην, ὧν τὸν μὲν Ὄσιριν, τὴν δ' Ἶσιν ὀνομάσαι —
"Namely, the most ancient inhabitants of Egypt, contemplating the world above them and the nature of the universe, not without astonishment and
wonder, supposed that there were eternal and primary gods — the sun and moon — calling the former Osiris and the latter Isis." From which he himself pronounces the first and eternal gods to have been two: the sun and moon.
VII. From these things the reason of the divine caution mentioned above appears most plainly. For since very many nations had been impelled into the worship of the stars by the very sight, contemplation, and admiration of them, he severely warns the Israelites lest the same happen to his people.
And indeed, not without cause — Maimonides affirms that he learned to himself the rationale of many laws from the idolatrous worship of the Sabians, More Nevukhim, Pt. III, ch. 29; and he is above all others to be consulted by the reader devoted to these matters. But how great were the reasonings drawn from contemplation of the order and motion of the stars among men ignorant of the true God, for assigning a divine nature to them,
Plotinus shows many centuries later, Enneads II, lib. 9: Ἄστρα … τὰ ἐν τοῖς ὑποκάτω σφαίραις, τά τε ἐν τῷ ἀνωτάτῳ, διὰ τί οὐ θεοί, ἐν τάξει φερόμενα καὶ κόσμῳ περιίοντα — "But the stars that are in the lower spheres, and those that shine in the highest — why should they not be gods, seeing that they are carried in order and revolve in beauty?" Hence, after the Christian religion had scattered its rays far and wide, the followers of Platonic philosophy — who by a most absurd rivalry were attempting to oppose the authority of their own wisdom to it — having rejected the countless other fictitious gods of the ancient Gentiles, nevertheless contended that the Sun and other stars were to be adored, and accordingly attributed sight and hearing to them. The same Plotinus teaches us this,
Enneads IV, lib. 4: Νῦν δέ, he says, ἐπειδὴ μνήμας μὲν ἐν τοῖς ἄστροις περιττὰς εἶναι ἐθέμεθα, αἰσθήσεις δὲ ἔδομεν, καὶ ἀκούσεις πρὸς ὁράσεσι,
καὶ εὐχῶν δὴ κλύοντας ἃς πρὸς ἥλιον ποιούμεθα, καὶ δὴ καὶ πρὸς ἄστρα ἄλλοι τινὲς ἄνθρωποι, καὶ πεπίστευνται ὡς δι' αὐτῶν αὐτοῖς πολλὰ καὶ τελεῖται — "But now, since we have said that memory in the stars is superfluous, and have given them senses — sight and also hearing — and have granted them moreover to hear the prayers which we direct to the sun, and indeed which certain other men direct to other stars; for they believe that they obtain many things by prayer from them." To that idol-madness, that I may add this in passing, the most famous interpreter of Plotinus appears to lend his patronage by adducing that passage of the Psalmist to that end: "In the sun he has placed his tabernacle," Ps. 19:4. For in this manner the Vulgate translator reports the words of the Psalmist from the Greek translation so called of the Septuagint. But the Hebrew truth has a far different sense: ַל ֶּׁש ֶמׁש ָׂשם ֹאֶהל ָּבֶהם [For the sun he has set a tabernacle in them] — that is, as our translators render the words: "In them" — that is, in those heavens — "hath he placed a tabernacle for the sun." But that translation greatly vexed many of the ancients. Question 63 To the Orthodox is as follows: Ἐπειδὴ διαφόρως τινὲς ἑρμήνευσαν καὶ ἀσαφῶς τό, Ἐν τῷ ἡλίῳ ἔθετο τὸ σκήνωμα αὐτοῦ, τὴν σαφήνειαν αὐτοῦ δίδαξον
— "Since certain persons have interpreted variously and obscurely the words 'In the sun he placed his tabernacle,' teach us their plain meaning."
The most learned author of the solutions answers: Τό, ἐν τῷ ἡλίῳ ἔθετο τὸ σκήνωμα αὐτοῦ, ἵνα εἴπῃ τοὺς οὐρανοὺς ἔθετο σκήνωμα τοῦ ἡλίου· ἡ γὰρ ἐκ τῆς τῶν Σύρων γλώσσης μεταγωγὴ τῆς λέξεως οὕτω γεγένηται, ἐν αὐτοῖς ἔθετο τοῦ ἡλίου τὸ σκήνωμα — that is, "In the sun he placed his tabernacle" means to say "the heavens he placed as the tabernacle of the sun; for the translation from the Syriac language has come about in this manner: 'In them he placed the tabernacle of the sun.'" Which reading,
however, is not found in the Syriac version now extant, and which for other reasons also does not appear to be that ancient Syriac translation known to very many of the ancients.
VIII. And these were the chief heads of the most vain διαλογισμῶν [reasonings] by which the impious apostates seduced themselves into the worship of the stars. First, a perverse and corrupt tradition of the dominion of the sun and moon over days and nights took hold of their minds. Then they supposed themselves to perceive clearly that the proceeds of all earthly good things — τῶν βιωτικῶν [temporal things] — of whose care and pursuit alone they were occupied, depended chiefly on their influence.
Entangled and impeded by these vain opinions, when they contemplated the wonderful beauty of the heaven most full of august majesty, the course of all the stars, the splendour and efficacy of the sun, and the positioning of all in the heavens — they fell headlong into this idol-madness.