what source he knew that the superstitions of Egypt were to be
abolished._
The Egyptian Hermes, whom they call Trismegistus, had a different
opinion concerning those demons. Apuleius, indeed, denies that they
are gods; but when he says that they hold a middle place between the
gods and men, so that they seem to be necessary for men as mediators
between them and the gods, he does not distinguish between the
worship due to them and the religious homage due to the supernal
gods. This Egyptian, however, says that there are some gods made by
the supreme God, and some made by men. Any one who hears this, as I
have stated it, no doubt supposes that it has reference to images,
because they are the works of the hands of men; but he asserts that
visible and tangible images are, as it were, only the bodies of the
gods, and that there dwell in them certain spirits, which have been
invited to come into them, and which have power to inflict harm, or
to fulfil the desires of those by whom divine honours and services
are rendered to them. To unite, therefore, by a certain art, those
invisible spirits to visible and material things, so as to make, as
it were, animated bodies, dedicated and given up to those spirits
who inhabit them,--this, he says, is to make gods, adding that men
have received this great and wonderful power. I will give the words
of this Egyptian as they have been translated into our tongue: "And,
since we have undertaken to discourse concerning the relationship
and fellowship between men and the gods, know, O Æsculapius, the
power and strength of man. As the Lord and Father, or that which is
highest, even God, is the maker of the celestial gods, so man is
the maker of the gods who are in the temples, content to dwell near
to men."[315] And a little after he says, "Thus humanity, always
mindful of its nature and origin, perseveres in the imitation of
divinity; and as the Lord and Father made eternal gods, that they
should be like Himself, so humanity fashioned its own gods according
to the likeness of its own countenance." When this Æsculapius, to
whom especially he was speaking, had answered him, and had said,
"Dost thou mean the statues, O Trismegistus?"--"Yes, the statues,"
replied he, "however unbelieving thou art, O Æsculapius,--the
statues, animated, and full of sensation and spirit, and who do
such great and wonderful things,--the statues, prescient of future
things, and foretelling them by lot, by prophet, by dreams, and
many other things, who bring diseases on men and cure them again,
giving them joy or sorrow according to their merits. Dost thou
not know, Æsculapius, that Egypt is an image of heaven, or, more
truly, a translation and descent of all things which are ordered and
transacted there,--that it is, in truth, if we may say so, to be the
temple of the whole world? And yet, as it becomes the prudent man to
know all things beforehand, ye ought not to be ignorant of this, that
there is a time coming when it shall appear that the Egyptians have
all in vain, with pious mind, and with most scrupulous diligence,
waited on the divinity, and when all their holy worship shall come to
nought, and be found to be in vain."
Hermes then follows out at great length the statements of this
passage, in which he seems to predict the present time, in which
the Christian religion is overthrowing all lying figments with
a vehemence and liberty proportioned to its superior truth and
holiness, in order that the grace of the true Saviour may deliver
men from those gods which man has made, and subject them to that
God by whom man was made. But when Hermes predicts these things, he
speaks as one who is a friend to these same mockeries of demons,
and does not clearly express the name of Christ. On the contrary,
he deplores, as if it had already taken place, the future abolition
of those things by the observance of which there was maintained in
Egypt a resemblance of heaven,--he bears witness to Christianity
by a kind of mournful prophecy. Now it was with reference to such
that the apostle said, that "knowing God, they glorified Him not as
God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations,
and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be
wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible
God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man,"[316] and so
on, for the whole passage is too long to quote. For Hermes makes
many such statements agreeable to the truth concerning the one true
God who fashioned this world. And I know not how he has become so
bewildered by that "darkening of the heart" as to stumble into the
expression of a desire that men should always continue in subjection
to those gods which he confesses to be made by men, and to bewail
their future removal; as if there could be anything more wretched
than mankind tyrannized over by the work of his own hands, since man,
by worshipping the works of his own hands, may more easily cease to
be man, than the works of his hands can, through his worship of them,
become gods. For it can sooner happen that man, who has received
an honourable position, may, through lack of understanding, become
comparable to the beasts, than that the works of man may become
preferable to the work of God, made in His own image, that is, to man
himself. Wherefore deservedly is man left to fall away from Him who
made him, when he prefers to himself that which he himself has made.
For these vain, deceitful, pernicious, sacrilegious things did the
Egyptian Hermes sorrow, because he knew that the time was coming when
they should be removed. But his sorrow was as impudently expressed
as his knowledge was imprudently obtained; for it was not the Holy
Spirit who revealed these things to him, as He had done to the holy
prophets, who, foreseeing these things, said with exultation, "If
a man shall make gods, lo, they are no gods;"[317] and in another
place, "And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that
I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they
shall no more be remembered."[318] But the holy Isaiah prophesies
expressly concerning Egypt in reference to this matter, saying, "And
the idols of Egypt shall be moved at His presence, and their heart
shall be overcome in them,"[319] and other things to the same effect.
And with the prophet are to be classed those who rejoiced that that
which they knew was to come had actually come,--as Simeon, or Anna,
who immediately recognised Jesus when He was born, or Elisabeth, who
in the Spirit recognised Him when He was conceived, or Peter, who
said by the revelation of the Father, "Thou art Christ, the Son of
the living God."[320] But to this Egyptian those spirits indicated
the time of their own destruction, who also, when the Lord was
present in the flesh, said with trembling, "Art Thou come hither to
destroy us before the time?"[321] meaning by destruction before the
time, either that very destruction which they expected to come, but
which they did not think would come so suddenly as it appeared to
have done, or only that destruction which consisted in their being
brought into contempt by being made known. And, indeed, this was a
destruction before the time, that is, before the time of judgment,
when they are to be punished with eternal damnation, together with
all men who are implicated in their wickedness, as the true religion
declares, which neither errs nor leads into error; for it is not like
him who, blown hither and thither by every wind of doctrine, and
mixing true things with things which are false, bewails as about to
perish a religion which he afterwards confesses to be error.