Chapter 9: The Origin of Images and the Deification of the Dead

OR, ON THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY.—CHAP. VII.

The further progress of idolatry — Polytheism ending in the worship of human beings as gods — What Hellenism is — Its origins uncertain and obscure — The opinion of the author of the book called the Wisdom of Solomon — Gods and goddesses arising from flattery — The mother of Demetrius worshipped by Adimantus, and Lamia, the harlot of Poliorcetes, by the Athenians and Thebans — The taunt of Demetrius against the Athenians — The opinion of Lactantius and of Eusebius — The rationale of apotheosis — The Jews fabricate that Terah, the father of Abraham, was the first maker of idols.

The origin of the fable — The agreement of ancient Christians regarding it — The testimony of Epiphanius, Suidas, and John of Antioch — Haran died before his father — He was not the first to die since the creation of the world, as Epiphanius maintained — Terah a holy man — Pindar ascribes the invention of statues to the Rhodians; Isidore to Prometheus; several others to Daedalus — Why he is said to have made statues that moved of themselves — The statue of Memnon in Philostratus — And many other things.

Satan had not yet brought to its final outcome what he was wickedly contriving against God and men. Emboldened by the success previously described, a more fierce and exalted desire to occupy the throne of God pressed upon him. In Hellenism — that is, in the worship of deceased men — he attains his wish. Under pretext of that superstition, without any circuitous approach, he presented himself openly as the object of religious worship to miserable little men. And so polytheism ends in the worship of human beings as gods. Yet this summit of impiety and spiritual wickedness was not reached until after the passage of many years, and perhaps of many centuries. For the human race did not immediately, from the first defection, furnish itself with gods in human form. In the worship of such beings Hellenism consisted. Wearied with the heavenly bodies, which, moved by an inviolable law, could not satisfy the vanity and fickleness of the human mind, men chose gods like themselves — easy of access, propitious — whose morals they might imitate and whose honors they might share. Although, therefore, by the term Hellenism, that summary of false religions, a certain confusion in the worship of heaven, the sun, and other heavenly bodies, of demons, of deceased men, of images, and of fictitious phantoms — in short, the whole ancient mania of idolatry — may rightly be understood; nevertheless, we shall here consider it separately from Sabaism, or the superstition of worshipping the heavenly bodies, insofar as it introduced the religion of deceased men and of images fashioned in the likeness of the human face.

All acknowledge that the origins of this superstition are doubtful, indeed most uncertain. After we have set forth the opinions of others — opinions which either the authority of their authors or their own plausibility has brought into prominence — we shall add certain things which still seem to be lacking for drawing the truth up out of the well.

Well known is the opinion of the author of the book called the Wisdom of Solomon, chap. xiv. 13-20. For he says: "For it was not from the beginning, nor will it continue forever. For the vanity of men entered the world, and therefore a swift end was devised for them. For a father, consumed by untimely grief for a son taken away too soon, made an image of the child who was then dead, and now honored as a god what was once a dead man, and transmitted to those under him mysteries and sacred rites. Then in time the impious custom grew strong and was observed as law, and graven images were worshipped at the command of tyrants." He adds much more to this effect. And indeed what happened afterward lends credence to this opinion. Flattery created innumerable gods and goddesses. Let us bring forward one or two examples: the flatterers of King Demetrius around Adimantus of Lampsacus built a temple and erected statues in Thryum, under the title of Venus Phila, and named the place Philaea after Phila, the mother of Demetrius, as Leonidas of Tarentum reports. These are the words of Athenaeus, bk. vi: "Among the flatterers of King Demetrius, Adimantus of Lampsacus built a temple and placed statues in Thryum under the title of Venus Phila, and named the place Philaea from Phila, the mother of Demetrius." Moreover, Demochares the historian, the cousin of Demosthenes, wrote that the entire people of Athens consecrated temples to Lamia, the harlot of Demetrius Poliorcetes, and paid her divine honors; and the Thebans likewise — while Demetrius himself detested the shameful flattery and openly declared that "among the shades below, no Athenian citizen of great and lofty spirit would ever be found."

IV. There are those, therefore, who think that human affection first placed images for the dead, lest they be buried in oblivion along with the common multitude, and that from this, in the course of time, some seized an occasion for superstition in their worship; there are others who think that the same superstition first enrolled them in the number of the gods, and then at last placed images for them. Lactantius traces the beginning of erecting images and worshipping dead men with divine honors to the zeal of foolish peoples for their dead kings — so that to place an image for someone and to enroll him in the number of the gods appears to be one and the same thing. Eusebius, in the Chronicle against the Preparations, narrates things plausibly consistent with this: "From the race of Iapetus there came Cecrops, (which we have noted above as a forerunner,) who was the first author of Hellenism and the founder of idolatry; for both he himself and those of his generation who came after him — whether warriors, rulers, or those who had performed deeds of justice or merit worthy of remembrance — honored them with human ancestral steles (we have shown above that idolatrous stelae were erected long before it entered anyone's mind to pay divine honors to dead men), and worshipped them as gods and sacrificed to them. But those who came after, ignorant of the intention of their forebears — namely, that they had honored them with mere memorial rites as ancestors and benefactors — revered them as heavenly gods." What he adds there regarding the rationale and form of apotheosis is most worthy of consideration — things which the ecclesiastical diptychs record, and the corrupt superstition which emanated from them: "For the manner of the apotheosis," he says, "was as follows: in their sacred books the names of those who had died were enrolled, and at that season they held a festival in their honor, saying that their souls had gone to the isles of the blessed and would no longer be judged or burned by fire." Having inserted the names of the dead into the sacred books, they established annual memorial festivals, believing that their souls had been received into the abodes of the blessed and were not tormented by purgatorial fire.

V. The Jews fabricate that Terah, the father of Abraham, was the first maker of images and idols. This fable serves the equally fabulous story of Abraham cast into the fire for refusing to worship the image of Nimrod. It is remarkable, indeed, with what great consensus of the ancients this rotten fiction is confirmed. Epiphanius: "From Nachor was born Terah; from that time the making of idols from clay and potter's work arose —

222 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY. [BOOK III. — through the craft of Terah" — "From Nachor, Terah was born; from that time images from clay and pottery were invented, Terah being the craftsman." Similarly Suidas: "Terah was a maker of idols, fashioning images from various materials, and declaring that these both were gods and ought to be worshipped as the authors of good things" — "Terah was a maker of idols, fashioning images from diverse materials, and affirming that they were gods and ought to be worshipped as the sources of blessings." And John of Antioch Malalas, bk. i: "For Terah was a maker of idols, a sculptor, forming gods from stones and wood, and selling them, and he ensnared men in the superstitions of image-making and idolatry, through the craftsmanship of the ancients — especially of those who are said to have been the inventors of letters and arts" — "Terah was a sculptor who fashioned gods from stones and wood and offered them for sale. He entangled men in the superstitions of images and idolatrous worship, by the fabrication of images in memory of the ancestors, especially of those who had been the inventors of letters" (of whom in truth not one had yet existed anywhere at that time) "and of the arts."

VI. That Haran, the son of Terah, died before him, Scripture teaches us. But Epiphanius notes that this occurred at last — from the creation of the world — as a punishment upon his impious father. "Never," he says, "among the men of earlier times had any son died before his father; but fathers, surviving their children, left behind their sons as their successors" — Heresy, bk. i, chap. 1 — "Nor had any son among earlier men yet died before his father, but fathers, having outlived their children, left their sons behind them." He replies that, after the example of Abel, Haran was carried off by a violent death. But the learned man was manifestly deceived; for not only did Lamech, who lived before the flood, die some years before his own father, but the same thing also befell Peleg, the great-great-great-grandfather of Terah, who died about two hundred years before Heber his father. But this was the common opinion of the ancients. I have no doubt that a grievous wrong is done to the memory of a pious and holy man — who had left his homeland with the intention of going to Canaan (doubtless having been divinely instructed, Genesis xi. 31) — by these fables. For the accusation lacks any semblance of probability, and it is plainly a Jewish fiction. Pindar seems to ascribe to the Rhodians some particular skill in the making of statues, Olymp. Od. vii. v. 91-98.

By the skill of their hands they adorned all things with divine workmanship —

With all-skilled hands to work in gold. Their works, like living beings, walked the streets. Great was their fame.

"But lofty Minerva herself furnished them with skill, so that they surpassed all mortals in the excellence of their working hands; and their works bore a likeness to living animals and reptiles; and the glory was great." The Rhodians in-

The poet remarked that craftsmen of this kind were such that they were accustomed to produce lifelike images of living creatures and reptiles, so that they seemed to move as if in motion and in the act of running. Isidorus, in book vii., affirms that Prometheus first fashioned likenesses of men from clay, and that from him the art of erecting images and statues was born; and for this reason the poets invented the story that men were made by him.

VII. More celebrated is the opinion of those who ascribe this art to Daedalus. Hence the ancients called all images by the name Daedalic. Others write that he invented self-moving and self-acting images. These are also mentioned in the proverb "the works of Daedalus." Most of the ancients held this view. As Plato says: "Soc. Since you did not notice the statues of Daedalus, perhaps they are not found among you. Men. What do you mean by that? Soc. Because these, unless they are bound, run away and escape" — in the Meno. Hence the image of Hercules among the Tyrians, and of Bacchus among the Chians, were fastened to their bases with chains, because they were believed to be self-moving. Aristotle also mentions this, in the Politics, i.: "For if," he says, "it were possible for each instrument to perform its own work when commanded or even anticipating the command, as they say the statues of Daedalus do" — "If it could come about that each instrument, whether commanded or sensing its purpose in advance, would carry out its own work, just as they say the statues of Daedalus do." But they say he achieved this by pouring quicksilver into the statues; which the same Aristotle shows in On the Soul, book one; a certain Philippus said that someone made a wooden Venus that moved, by pouring in quicksilver.

"— that he fashioned a wooden Venus, which moved, by pouring quicksilver into it."

VIII. The occasion of the myth was undoubtedly the fact that Daedalus was the first among the Greeks to have fashioned images to the likeness of the face and human form, with the feet in particular separated, and one advanced beyond the line of the other, as if they were prepared to walk. Thus Tzetzes solves the riddle:

The statues before the time of Daedalus

were crafted without hands, without feet, without eyes; but Daedalus first gave them hands, feet, separated legs, and eyelids and the rest.

"Hence the myth came to speak of the works of Daedalus as self-moving." So it is: the earliest images were indeed crude, without hands, feet, or eyes; but when Daedalus had imposed upon the figures everything belonging to the external form of a man, the story grew widespread that he had made self-moving images. Similar accounts are found in Diodorus Siculus, Palaephatus, and others.

IX. Indeed, Plato sufficiently indicates that the images fashioned by Daedalus were quite rough — in Socrates, in the Hippias Major, near the beginning — as the beginnings of all things, discovered from imperfect origins, are themselves imperfect: "For if now," he says, "O Hippias, Bias were to come back to life, he would be laughed at among us, just as" — and so too the statuaries of those times speak of Daedalus,

224 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY. [Book 3.

that if he were now alive, he would work in such a manner as the statuaries of our time do — he would seem ridiculous. "If indeed now, O Hippias, Bias were to come back to life, he would provoke laughter among you; just as the statuaries of this age report of Daedalus, that if he were now alive and produced such works as those from which he obtained his fame and name, he would be made a laughingstock."

X. But it was a great thing to erect images in the form of a man, with hands extended and feet separated; since after columns, stelae, rough stones, and rude figures dedicated to the sun, moon, and stars, the most ancient images of this kind appear to have been such as are exhibited from the monuments of Egypt, with no hands, or with hands fastened to the sides, with feet joined together, or rather with the figures tapering into a base. Hence Philostratus, in book vi., chapter iii., of the Life of Apollonius, ascribing something peculiar to the statue of Memnon, says that it was made of black stone and that both feet touched the ground, in accordance with the Daedalic art of statue-making. The translator renders these words thus: "It is a statue made of black stone, and touching the ground with both feet, according to the art of Daedalus the statue-maker." Concerning this interpretation, Scaliger, in his Animadversions on Eusebius at Number 737, employs the phrase meaning "nothing of the kind," and renders it himself as "having its feet joined together." He similarly interprets the words of Apollodorus concerning the Palladium: "It was three cubits in height, with its feet joined together" — so some render it; others, "with its feet arranged so that it seemed to walk." From the force of the word, or from its use in this context, nothing certain can be gathered. But if the statue of Memnon had been made with feet joined together — that is, in truth without any form of feet at all, as the figures the Egyptians call mummies show to have been the common practice among them — there would have been nothing peculiar or noteworthy about it in that respect. Furthermore, since it was of the kind made after Daedalus, not before Daedalus, it seems to me that Philostratus sufficiently indicates that it differed from the other Egyptian images in this: that it was fashioned with feet separated, after the manner of Daedalus.

XI. And these are nearly all the things that are found among the ancients concerning the origin of Hellenism and of image-making. To these, many more of the same kind could be added, if it had been decided to report everything rather than only what is sufficient. What seems to us to come nearest to the truth, or at least to be most like what is probable, we shall state in the next place.

Gods who arose from men, all Easterners — Restorers of the human race after the flood — Leaders of the Babylonian hosts — Greece the workshop of gods — The East belongs to the gods above; the West to the gods below — Eastern things sacred to gods; western things sacred to demons — The placement of idols in temples — Jupiter Capitolinus — The testimony of Porphyry

— The fame of deeds accomplished in the East — The acts of the gods — Nectar as Babylonian wine — The first gods of the idolaters were themselves the first apostates from the true God — Some memory of the names of the true God retained after the confusion of tongues — That memory ascribed to idols — On the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton — The fables of Sanchoniathon: El, Iao, Ieue — Elioun, Adonis — Thoth, Theoth, Theos, Bau — Erebus — Earth, etc.

I. It can be demonstrated by certain arguments that all those who were first enrolled in the number of gods lived in the East. From that region of the world, immediately after the confusion of tongues, leaders of tribes and families led colonies into all parts of the earth. These men, in the course of time, became what the Hebrew calls men renowned for their fame. Yet wherever they directed their journey, there can be no doubt that the new bands retained some fame, though faint and obscure, even of their great ancestors — namely Noah, Shem, Ham, and others. Recalling these as the founders of their race, and those others as the blessed guides of their wanderings, and being by now given over to every superstition — with the traditions concerning the rank and deeds of those men gradually increasing, as is wont to happen — they imagined that those men had possessed something of the divine beyond the common lot of the human race. And since they knew that those men had lived on earth in the company of all, they felt it right to suppose either that those men had descended from heaven to accomplish outstanding deeds among men, or that by the merit of their deeds they had been translated to the heavens in some manner after death.

II. The Greeks were the chief manufacturers of gods, so much so that Greece is not inaptly called the homeland and workshop of the gods; and that superstition which consists in their religious worship is what we are treating — namely, Hellenism. To them, the East was the realm of the gods above; the West, however, and whatever turned toward the northern regions of the world, they called the realm of the dead below. Those who had crossed over into those parts of the world, they supposed had sailed to the underworld or passed through it in some manner — for no other reason than that they had received all their gods from the East. The river Lethe is in Galicia in Spain; Avernus is in Italy; the Cimmerians and Scythians are near the Maeotian marsh, later called Huns; and certain others are in Italy itself. Hence in religious worship, the eastern parts were assigned to gods, and the western parts to demons — as Porphyry attests in his work on the Cave of the Nymphs in the Ithaca of Homer. And so, although, as we taught above, the ancient temples dedicated to the sun had their sacred doors toward the south, the sacred precincts established for these idols always had their entrances on the east side, with the statues facing east, which those entering venerated while looking back toward the west. The one exception was Jupiter Capitolinus, who from ancient times had been placed with his face toward the west, but was turned to face the east at the advice of the haruspices, during the consulship of Cicero, as Cicero himself testifies in his Oration against Catiline to the People. Porphyry himself teaches us this, saying: that almost all temples have their sacred statues and their entrances facing

Toward the east; and those entering, facing toward the west, when they have completed their circuit of the sacred statues, stand facing the statues toward the gods and offer worship and service — Almost all temples have their statues and their entrances facing east; and those entering look westward, where, standing with their faces turned toward the statues, they render honor and worship to the gods. It was the custom of certain ancient Christians, in order to oppose this superstition, to bow and to worship as they entered the temples facing east.

III. The first gods of the nations who arose from men — whom they enrolled in the number of gods (after having worshipped the stars of heaven for several centuries) — were leaders of families and tribes, either those who had been distinguished in the East, or those who had been guides for peoples seeking new homes, leading them out from the East. The fame of these men, mingled with fables, gradually passed into belief; and their memory passed into worship. And so, whatever they had received by fame or by any tradition concerning the life, deeds, character, and wars of those great men — true and false alike, but mostly false mixed with true — was recounted as the deeds and acts of divine beings, as if it had fallen down from heaven. Nectar itself, the drink of the gods, was Babylonian wine. Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, book i, cites Chaereas: that in Babylon there is a wine called nectar by the natives — Chaereas reports that in Babylon there is a wine which the natives call nectar. Hence nectar, the drink of the gods — which Suidas foolishly supposes to be called quasi neoktap, from the Greek for making its drinkers young — that which makes those who drink it young. And the author of the Etymologicon: Nectar, the drink of the gods, as it were that which keeps those who drink it in youth. Others propose various Greek etymologies for the word, all of them absurd, since it came to Greece from the East along with the gods themselves. Hence Strabo wisely cautions that Greek etymologies should not be sought for the names of barbarian nations. It has long since been shown by others that Noah was Saturn, Janus, and Bacchus; Ham was Jupiter Ammon; Japheth was Iapetus and Neptune; Shem was Pluto and Dis. There is no need to rehearse here the transformation of these and others from the most common fables. As for those who afterward swelled the number of gods in Greece itself, their history is too recent and too well-known for me to dwell upon it.

IV. Hellenism therefore laid its foundations in the obscure traditions and in the faint and corrupted fame of celebrated men who had either first restored the human race after the flood, or had led the Babylonian hosts into the various regions of the world. These men the idolaters first exalted to heaven with admiration and praises, and then with superstitious worship — although very many of those same men had been the authors and ringleaders of the most shameful defection from the true God. Hence, in all that confusion which we shall gradually show crept into the superstition of the nations, many things are found in which almost all conspired in unanimity. For fame transmitted to posterity much concerning those great founders of the various races. After superstitious men had therefore by their vows and by a certain vain conceit elevated their great ancestors to heaven — partly lest their memory and praises should fade from their minds, partly that they might present them as present to their senses — they set up images fashioned in human form (whereas when worshipping the celestial bodies they had been content with columns and rough stones). And this worship of images, for the reasons cited above, became likewise universal.

V. Furthermore: after the confusion of tongues, the builders of the tower, scattered here and there, retained in their memory in whatever manner some of the names of the true God, to pass them on to their sons and grandsons. But these, in the course of time, being ignorant of what or whom those great and venerable names referred to, applied them all to those new gods they had taken to themselves. Thus Sanchoniathon, among the Phoenician progenitors who were afterward enrolled in the number of gods, mentions Elioun or Hypsistos, that is, the Most High; and he writes that he begot heaven and earth. And Iao, who is nothing other than the true God. The name of Jupiter, Jova, and Jupiter — Sanchoniathon renders that name as Ieue, since he narrates that he learned many things from Hierombalus the priest of the god Ieue. Diodorus, in book 1, says that the God to whom Moses ascribed his laws was called Iao; with which agrees the oracle cited by Macrobius, Saturnalia, book 1:

Learn that Iao is the highest of all gods.

By this, Satan strives to ascribe the incommunicable name to other idols. Eusebius, in Demonstratio Evangelica, book 4, final chapter, says: Joshua moreover is Iao salvation, that is, the salvation of God. Hence it is probable that in that other passage, Eusebius wrote from Sanchoniathon Iao and not Ieue. Iaou appears in Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5, perhaps also corruptly for Iaoe; and Iauia appears in Origen, but certainly corruptly. He says, in Contra Celsum, book 7: According to the Hebrew scriptures, the name Iauia used by the Hebrews, and Sabaoth, and Adonai, and Elohim — these names taken from the scriptures are synonyms of the one and only God; which the ignorant, not understanding this, as even they themselves confess, supposed Iao to be one god and Sabaoth another. He is speaking of heretics who had drawn their monstrous fabrications from the cesspools of paganism. Furthermore, whether they learned those names — epithets of the one true God — from the scriptures or from ancient tradition, it amounts to the same thing. From each individual name, a new deity is constructed. Moreover, Iauia is a corrupt reading for Iao Iao. Reynolds was the first to suspect the error, in De Idololatria, book 2, chapter 3. Sandford restored the true reading, in his first book De Descensu Christi ad Inferos; after him Grotius, on Matthew 22, and others.

VI. And from this it appears — which is worth noting in passing — that the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was once known. The Jews today, and for many centuries past, are ignorant of it; and they have thus utterly forgotten the name of God, who was once their own. For they have been so thoroughly rejected by Him that they are not even able to call upon His name. This was what He first made known to them when

He first made it known to them, when He adopted the entire nation as His peculiar people and church — Exodus 3. For although the name YHWH had been known to all the faithful from the foundation of the world, God had never used it in any confirmation of His covenant, in any promise, but only the name El Shaddai. Therefore, after that nation ceased to be the people of God and the church, it voluntarily cast off all memory of that name of God which He graciously revealed in that covenant compact by which He adopted them as His peculiar people — or it has been punished with forgetfulness of it.

VII. Next, the Hebrew names for "God the Mighty, the Most High" were transformed into Heros. Adon was Adonis; Evan and Evius derived their origin from Eheie; Elelei came from Elohim. Plutarch in his Theseus says of those who "hasten and exult" to cry out that word: "those who rush forward and shout for joy." The word Hierum, which refers to all sacred things, is written to be derived from Io, which has no meaning at all in Greek; and it is nothing other than the Hebrew term for it. From the Hebrew word for "dust" (adamah) came Hades, after God had said to Adam "you shall return to the dust" — that is, to the adamah. Jupiter Sabasius comes from Jehovah Sabaoth. I would weary the reader if I were to enumerate everything of this kind that presents itself.

VIII. Sanchuniathon invents that the names of the chief things recorded in the creation of the world were the titles of men, sages, and kings, and from that foundation he spins out his lengthy fables. Hesiod wove his own theogony from no other source. From the Hebrew word for "earth" (erets) comes Hertha, the greatest goddess among the English and the other peoples of Germany, as Tacitus attests in his Germania, chapter 40: "In common," he says, "they worship Airthum, that is, Mother Earth." The Hebrew letters tav-vav-tav and tav-vav-tav-he are Thoth and Theoth (from which also the Greek Theos), and Bau. The Hebrew word for "darkness" (ereb) is Erebus; and from that order of words found in Genesis 1 — "and there was evening and there was morning" — many peoples have preferred night to day. Of the Germans, Tacitus says: "They count not the number of days but of nights; thus they make their appointments, thus they agree on dates; night appears to lead the day." And in truth it did lead; for light came forth from darkness. The same custom still holds among the English to this day. For a week we say "seven-night," and "fortnight," that is, "fourteen nights," for two weeks. And likewise the ancient Britons, whom we now call Welsh, for whom a week is "Withos," that is, eight nights; and two weeks, "Pymthec nos," that is, fifteen nights — which is also a monument of Celtic origin. The same custom prevailed among the ancient Gauls, flowing from the same source of traditions, and not, as Caesar supposed, because they believed themselves to be descended from Father Dis. Such were the beginnings of Hellenism, or rather of that confused superstition which spread over nearly the entire world.