BOOKS VI-VIIITHEOLOGY[309]
THEOLOGY[309]
Afterthe five books devoted to the seven liberal arts there follow three which are grouped together by unity of subject and are sharply differentiated from the remainder of theEtymologies, which is prevailingly secular in tone. The contents of these three form a summary of the non-secular thought of the time.[310]Their presence in the midst of an encyclopedia of secular learning is to be explained, as we have seen, by the probability that their purpose was educational, and that they are to be regarded as the texts of the final stage in the priestly training. They thus form the conclusion of Isidore’s educational encyclopedia.[311]
BOOK VI
On the Books and Services of the Church
Chapter 1. On the Old and New Testaments.
1. The Old Testament is so-called because when the New came it was at an end, of which the Apostle speaks: Vetera transierunt, et ecce facta sunt omnia nova.
2. The New Testament is so-called because it brings in the new. For men do not learn it, except those renewed from their former state through grace and now belonging to the New Testament, which is the kingdom of heaven.
3. The Hebrews accept on Esdras’ authority twenty-two books of the Old Testament, according to the number of their letters,[312]dividing them into three series, namely, the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographi.
4. The first series of the Law is accepted in five books, of which the first is Beresith, which is Genesis; the second, Veele Samoth, which is Exodus; the third, Vaicra, which is Leviticus; the fourth, Vajedabber, which is Numbers; the fifth, Elleaddebarim, which is Deuteronomy.
6. The second series is that of the Prophets, in which eight books are contained, of which the first is Josue Ben-Nun, which in Latin is called Jesu Nave; the second, Sophtin, which is Judges; the third, Samuel, which is the first of Kings; the fourth, Malachim, which is the second of Kings; the fifth, Isaias; the sixth, Jeremias; the seventh, Ezechiel; the eighth,Thereazer, which is called ‘Of the Twelve Prophets,’ which books are taken as one since they are placed together on account of their brevity.
7. The third is the series of the Hagiographi, that is, those who write what is holy, in which are nine books, of which the first is Job; the second, the Psalms; the third, Misse, which is the Proverbs of Solomon; the fourth, Cohaleth, which is Ecclesiastes; the fifth, Sir Hassirim, which is the Song of Songs; the sixth, Daniel; the seventh, Dibrehajamin, which is Verba dierum,i.e., Paralipomenon (Chronicles); the eighth, Esdras; the ninth, Esther. And all of these together, five, eight, and nine, make twenty-two just as they were inclusively given above.
8. Certain add Ruth and Cinoth, which in the Latin is Lamentatio Jeremiae, to the hagiographa and make twenty-four volumes of the Old Testament, like the twenty-four elders who stand in the sight of the Lord.
9. There is with us a fourth series consisting of those books of the Old Testament which are not in the Hebrew canon. Of which the first is the book of Wisdom (Sapientiae); the second, Ecclesiasticus; the third, Thobias; the fourth, Judith; the fifth and sixth, of the Machabees. Although the Jews set these aside as apocryphal, still the church of Christ honors and preaches them among the divine books.
10. In the New Testament are two series: first the Evangelic, in which are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; second, the apostolic, in which are Paul in fourteen epistles, Peter in two, John in three, James and Jude in one each, the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse of John.
11. Moreover the whole of each Testament is triply divided, that is, into history, morals, and allegory. Again those three have many divisions, for example, what was done and said by God, what by the angels, or by men, what was foretold by the prophets of Christ and his body; what of the devil and his members; what of the old and the new people; what of the present age, and the coming kingdom, and the judgment.
Chapter 2. On the writers and names of the sacred books.
1. These are said to be the authors of the Old Testament according to the Hebrew tradition. First Moses wrote a cosmography of divine history in five volumes, which is named Pentateuch.
8. The book of Josue received its name from Jesus, son of Nave, whose history it contains, and the Hebrews assert that the same Josue was its writer, in the text of which, after the crossing of the Jordan, the kingdoms of the enemy are overthrown and the land divided among the people, and by the separate cities, villages, mountains and boundaries the spiritual realms of the church and the heavenly Jerusalem are prefigured.
18. Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, wrote three volumes according to the number of his names, of which the first is in Hebrew Misle, which the Greeks name Parabolae, the Latins, Proverbia, because in it he sets forth figurative expressions and likenesses of the truth under the form of a parallel.
19. The truth itself he has reserved to its readers to understand. The second book is called Coheleth, which in the Greek is Ecclesiastes, in Latin, Concionator, because its discourse is not especially addressed to one, as in Proverbs, but generally to all, teaching that all things which we see in the universe are perishable and short-lived, and for this reason little to be desired.
20. The third book he called Sir hassirim, which is translated Cantica Canticorum in the Latin, where in a marriage song he sings in mystic fashion the union of Christ and the church....
21. The songs in these three books are said to be written in hexameter and pentameter verse as Josephus and Hieronymus say.
40. These are the four Evangelists whom the holy spirit indicated in Ezechiel in the four animals. And there are four animals, because the faith of the Christian religion is spread by their preaching through the four quarters of the world.
41. And they were called animals (animalia) because the Gospel of Christ is preached by them on account of the soul (anima) of man. And they were full of eyes within and without, since they perceive that what was said by the prophets and what had been promised was being fulfilled.
42. And their legs were straight because there is nothing crooked in the Gospels. And as for the six wings apiece that cover their legs and faces, those things which were hid are revealed at the coming of Christ.
50. These are the writers of the sacred books who, speaking by the holy spirit for our edification, wrote both the precepts of living and the rule for believing.
51. In addition to these there are other volumes called apocrypha, and they are called apocrypha, that is, set aside, because they are doubted. For their origin is hidden and was not clear to the Fathers from whom the authority of the genuine scriptures has come down to us by a most certain and well-known tradition. In these apocrypha, although some truth is found, there is no canonic authority, on account of the many things that are false, and it is rightly judged by the wise that they ought not to be believed [to be the work] of those to whom they are ascribed.
52. For many [works] were brought forward by the heretics under the name of the prophets, and many of later origin under the name of the apostles, and all of those after careful examination were separated from the authority of the canon, under the name of apocrypha.
Chapter 4. On translators.
1. This man [Ptolemy Philadelphus] asked Eleazer the high-priest for the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and had them translated from Hebrew into Greek by seventy translators, and kept them in the library of Alexandria.
2. Being placed separately in separate cells they so translated all, by the influence of the holy spirit, that nothing was found in the text of any one of them, that was different in the rest, even in the order of the words.
5. The priest, Hieronymus, being expert in the three languages, translated the Scriptures also from Hebrew into Latin and expressed them with eloquence, and his translation is rightly preferred to the rest. For it is nearer to the literal, and plainer because of the clearness of its expression, and truer, as being done by a Christian translator.
Chapter 7. Those who wrote much.
1. Marcus Terentius Varro among the Latins wrote innumerable books. Among the Greeks also Chalcenterus is extolled with marvelous praises because he wrote so many books that no one of us could even copy in his own hand-writing as many works of other men.
2. Of our own writers, too, among the Greeks, Origen in his toil upon the Scriptures surpassed both Greeks and Latins in the number of his works. Hieronymus asserts that he had read 6,000 of his books.
3. However Augustine surpassed the zeal of all these by his genius and wisdom. For he wrote so much that no one is able in the days and nights even to read his books, far less to write them.
Chapter 16. On the canons of the councils.
5. Among the rest of the councils we know there are four venerable synods which embrace the whole faith in its chief heads, like the four Gospels or the four rivers of Paradise.
6. Of these the first, the Nicene synod of 318 bishops, was held when Constantine was emperor. In it the blasphemy of the Arian perfidy was condemned, which the same Arius gave utterance to concerning the inequality of the holy Trinity. The same holy synod in the creed defined God the son as consubstantial with God, the father.
7. The second synod of 150 fathers gathered at Constantinople under Theodosius the elder, and condemning Macedonius, who denied that the Holy Spirit was God, proved that the Holy Spirit was consubstantial with the Father and the Son, giving the form of the creed which the whole confession, Greek and Latin, preaches in the churches.
8. The third synod, the first of Ephesus, of 200 bishops,was held under Theodosius II, and it condemned with a just anathema Nestorius, who asserted that there were two persons in Christ, and showed that the one person of the Lord Jesus Christ was immanent in the two natures.
9. The fourth synod of 630 priests was held at Chalcedon under Martianus, and it condemned by the unanimous vote of the fathers Euthyches, abbot of Constantinople, who asserted that the nature of the Word of God and of flesh was one, and his defender, Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, and Nestorius himself a second time, along with the remaining heretics, the same synod stating that Christ the Lord was so born of the virgin that we confess in him the substance both of the divine and of the human nature.
These four are the principal synods, stating most fully the doctrine of faith; and whatever councils there are which the holy Fathers, full of the spirit of God, have ratified, after the authority of these four, they continue established in all strength.
Chapter 17. The cycle of Easter.
10. After the completion of this [95-year cycle][313]a returnmust be made to the beginning. In ancient times the church used to celebrate Easter on the 14th of the moon at the same time as the Jews, whatever day it came on; this way of celebrating the holy Fathers forbade at the council of Nicaea, giving directions to make inquiry not only for the Easter moon and month, but also to observe the day of the resurrection of the Lord, and because of this they extended Easter from the 14th of the moon to the 21st, in order that thedies Dominicusmight not be left out.
12. The eve of Easter is spent in watching because of the coming of our King and God, that the time of the resurrection may find us not sleeping but waking. And the reason for this night is a double one, either because he received life at that time when he suffered, or because he is to come for judgment at the same hour at which he arose.
13. And we celebrate Easter in such a way as not merely to call to memory the death and resurrection of Christ but also to consider the rest that is told about him with reference to its mystic meaning (ad sacramentorum significationem).
14. For on account of beginning the new life, and on account of the new man which we are bidden to put on and to put off the old, purging away the old ferment in order that we may be a new sprinkling (conspersio), since Christ is sacrificed as our Pascha (Passover); on account of this newness of life, then, the first month in the months of the year is mystically assigned to the Easter festival.
15. And that Easter is celebrated on a day in the third week, that is, a day that occurs between the fourteenth and twenty-first, this signifies that in the whole time of the world, which is based on the unit of seven days, this mystery has now opened a third time.
16. For the first time is before the law, the second under the law, the third under grace. Wherein the mystery before hidden in the prophetic allegory is now plain, and the resurrection of the Lord is on the third day on account of these three periods of the world.
17. As to the fact that Easter day is sought through sevendays from the fourteenth to the twenty-first, this is done on account of the number seven, by which the meaning of completeness is often figured, which is also assigned to the church itself because it is universal. For this reason also John, the apostle, writes to the seven churches.
18. And by the name of the moon in the Scriptures, on account of its mutability it is signified that the church as yet is established [only] in the mortality of the flesh.
19. An observance of different opinions as to the feast of Easter sometimes produces error. For the Latins seek for the moon of the first month from the third day before the Nones of March to the third before the Nones of April, and if the fourteenth day of the moon comes on Sunday, they postpone Easter to another Sunday.
20. The Greeks observe the moon of the first month from the eighth before the Ides of March to the day of the Nones of April, and if the fifteenth day of the moon comes on the Lord’s day, they celebrate Easter. A difference of this sort between them disturbs the regularity of the Easter canon.
BOOK VII
On God, the Angels, and the Orders of the Faithful
Chapter 1. On God.
1. The most blessed Hieronymus, a man of the greatest learning and skilled in many languages, first rendered into the Latin language the meaning of the Hebrew names. And leaving out many for brevity, I propose to insert certain of them in this work with their meanings in addition.
2. For the explanation of words sufficiently indicates what they mean. For certain have the reason for their names in peculiar causes. And at the beginning we set down ten names by which God is called among the Hebrews....
Chapter 5. On angels.
2. The word angel is the name of a function, not of a nature; for they are always spirits, but are called angels when they are sent.
3. And the license of painters makes wings for them in order to denote their swift passage in every direction, just as also in the fables of the poets the winds are said to have wings on account of their velocity....
4. The sacred writings testify that there are nine orders of angels, namely, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, virtues, principalities, powers, cherubim and seraphim. And we shall explain by derivation why the names of these functions were so applied.
5. Angels are so called because they are sent down from heaven to carry messages to men....
6. Archangels in the Greek tongue meanssummi nuntiiin the Latin. For they who carry small or trifling messages are called angels; and they who announce the most important things are called archangels.... Archangels are so called because they hold the leadership among angels.... For they are leaders and chiefs under whose control services are assigned to each and every angel.
17. Certain functions of angels by which signs and wonders are done in the world are called virtues, on account of which the virtues are named.
18. Those are powers to whom hostile virtues are subject, and they are called by the name of powers because evil spirits are constrained by their power not to harm the world as much as they desire.
19. Principalities are those who are in command of the hosts of the angels. And they have received the name of principality because they send the subordinate angels here and there to do the divine service....
20. Dominions are they who are in charge even of the virtues and principalities, and they are called dominions because they rule the rest of the hosts of the angels.
21. Thrones are the hosts of angels who in the Latin arecalledsedes; and they are called thrones because the creator presides over them, and through them accomplishes his decisions.
22. Cherubim ... are the higher hosts of angels who, being placed nearer, are fuller of the divine wisdom than the rest....
24. The seraphim in like manner are a multitude of angels, and the word is translated from the Hebrew into the Latin asardentesorincendentes, and they are calledardentesbecause between them and God no other angels stand, and therefore the nearer they stand in his presence the more they are lighted by the brightness of divine light.
25. And they veil the face and feet of God sitting on his throne, and therefore the rest of the throng of angels are not able to see fully the essence of God, since the seraphim cover him.
28. To each and every one, as has been said before, his proper duties are appointed, and it is agreed that they obtained these according to merit at the beginning of the world. That angels have charge over both places and men, an angel testifies through the prophet, saying: “Princeps regni Persarum mihi restitit” (Dan. x. 13).
29. Whence it is evident that there is no place that angels have not charge of. They have charge also over the beginnings of all works.
30. Such is the order or classification of the angels who after the fall of the wicked stood in celestial strength. For after the apostate angels fell, these were established in the continuance of eternal blessedness.
32. As to the two seraphim that are read of in Isaiah, they show in a figure the meaning of the Old and the New Testament. But as to their covering the face and feet of God, it is because we cannot know the past before the universe, nor the future after the universe, but according to their testimony we contemplate only the intervening time.
Chapter 6. On men who received prophetic names.
1. Most of the men of early times have the origin of their names in appropriate causes. And their names have been given in such a prophetic way that they are in harmony with either their future or their antecedent causes.
2. However we shall now examine merely their literal meaning in history, without touching on the inner meaning of the spirit.
Chapter 11. On martyrs.
4. There are two kinds of martyrs, one in open suffering, the other in the hidden virtue of the spirit. For many, enduring the lyings-in-wait of the enemy and resisting all carnal desires, have become martyrs even in time of peace, because they have sacrificed themselves in their heart to the omnipotent God, and if they had lived in time of persecution, they could have been martyrs in reality.
Chapter 12. On the clergy.
4. The order of bishops is four-fold, namely, patriarchs, archbishops, metropolitans, and bishops.
5. Patriarch in the Greek tongue means highest of the fathers, because he holds the first, that is, the Apostolic place, and he is honored by such a name because he holds the highest office, as for example, the patriarch of Rome, Antioch or Alexandria.
BOOK VIII[314]
The Church and the Different Sects
Chapter 1. On the church and the synagogue.
4. The church began at the place where the holy spirit came from heaven and filled those who were sitting together.
5. In view of its present sojourn in strange parts the church is called Sion, because from the distant viewpoint of this sojourn it contemplates the promise of heavenly things, and therefore it has received the name Sion, that is, contemplation.
6. Moreover in view of the peace of the future land it is called Jerusalem, for Jerusalem means vision of peace. For there, all suffering ended, it shall possess with near contemplation the peace which is Christ.
Chapter 3. On heresy.
1.Haeresisis so-called in the Greek from choosing, because, forsooth, each one chooses for himself what seems to him to be better, as the Peripatetic philosophers, the Academic, the Epicureans, and the Stoics, or as others who, following perverse belief, have departed from the church of their own free will.
2. And so heresy is named in the Greek from its meaning of choice, since each at his own will chooses what he pleases to teach or believe. But we are not permitted to believe anything of our own will, nor to choose what someone has believed of his.
3. We have God’s apostles as authorities, who did not themselves of their own will choose anything of what they should believe, but they faithfully transmitted to the nations the teaching received from Christ. And so, even if an angel from heaven shall preach otherwise, he shall be called anathema.
Chapter 5. On the heresies of the Christians.
69. There are also other heresies[315]without founders or names: some of whom believe that God has three forms; and others say that the divinity of Christ is capable of suffering; and others set a date in time to the generation of Christ by the Father. Others believe that by the descent of Christ the liberation of all[316]in the lower regions was accomplished; others deny that the soul is the image of God; others think that souls are changed to demons and to animals of every sort; others hold different views about the constitution of the universe; others think there are innumerable universes; others make water co-eternal with God; others go on their bare feet; others do not eat in company with men.
70. These heresies have arisen against the catholic faith and have been condemned beforehand by the apostles and the holy fathers, or by the councils, and while they are not consistent with one another, being divided among many different errors, they still conspire with one assent against the church of God. But whoever understands the holy Scripture otherwise than as the sense of the Holy Spirit, by whom it was written, demands, though he do not withdraw from the church, he can be still called a heretic.
Chapter 6. On the heathen philosophers.
1. Philosophers are so-called by a Greek name, which in Latin meansamatores sapientiae. For he is a philosopher who has a knowledge of divine and human things, and keeps wholly to the way of right living.
2. The name of the philosophers is said to have first originated with Pythagoras. For when the ancient Greeks boastfully named themselves sophists, that is, wise men, or teachers of wisdom, he was asked what he professed to be, and he modestly replied that he was a philosopher, that is, lover of wisdom, since to make a profession of wisdom seemed very arrogant.
3. And so in later times it became the practice to give only the name of philosopher, no matter how great the learning in matters pertaining to wisdom each seemed to himself or to others to possess. And these philosophers are divided into three classes: for they are either natural philosophers (physici), or moral (ethici), or rational (logici).
4. The natural philosophers are so-called because they treat of nature....
5. The moral philosophers are so-called because they discuss morals....
6. The rational philosophers are so named because they add reason to nature and morals.... These are divided into their schools, some having names from their founders, asPlatonici,Epicurei,Pythagorici; others from their places of meeting, asPeripatetici,Stoici,Academici.
7. ThePlatoniciare named from the philosopher Plato. They assert that God is the creator of souls, the angels of bodies; they say that after many cycles of years souls return to different bodies.
9. [The Stoics] assert that no one is happy without virtue. They claim that every sin is equally sinful, saying: “He is as guilty who steals chaff as he who steals gold, he who kills a waterfowl as he who kills a horse; for it is not the thing but the spirit (non animal sed animus) that makes the sin.”
10. These also say that the soul perishes with the body. They love the virtue of self-control, and seek eternal glory although they assert that they are not immortal.
11. TheAcademiciare named from Academia, Plato’s villa at Athens, where he taught. These believe that all things are uncertain; but although it must be admitted that manythings which God willed to surpass the understanding of man, are uncertain and hidden from us, yet there are very many things which can be received by the senses and apprehended by man.
15. The Epicureans are named from Epicurus, a certain philosopher, a lover of vanity not of wisdom, whom the very philosophers themselves called a swine because he wallowed in carnal filth and asserted that bodily pleasure was the highest good, and even said that the universe was not formed and ruled by a divine Providence.
16. But he assigned the origin of things to atoms, that is, to indivisible material bodies, from the chance combination of which all things arise and have arisen. He said that God did nothing, that all things are corporeal, that the soul is not different from the body. And so he said, “I shall not exist after I die.”
22. These errors of the philosophers have given rise also to heresies in the church....
23. When it is said that the soul perishes, Epicurus is honored; and the denial of the resurrection of the flesh is taken from all the philosophers; and where matter is put on an equality with God, it is the teaching of Zeno; and where anything is read about a God of fire, Heraclitus comes in. The same material is used and the same errors are embraced over and over by heretics and philosophers.
Chapter 7. On poets.
1. Tranquillus thus tells why poets were so named: “When men putting off savagery first began to have a settled mode of life and to obtain a knowledge of themselves and their gods, they contrived a modest way of living and necessary words for themselves, but sought for magnificence in each for the worship of their gods.
2. And so, just as they made temples more beautiful than the homes of that time, and images larger than men’s bodies, so they thought that [the gods] must be honored with an eloquence even more stately, and they extolled their merits in splendid words and pleasure-giving verse.”
10. The function of a poet is in this, that by the aid of a figurative and indirect mode of speech he gracefully changes and transforms to a different aspect what has really taken place. But Lucan is not placed in the number of poets because he seems to have composed a history, not a poem.
Chapter 8. On the sibyls.
3. The most learned authors relate that there were ten Sibyls. Of whom the first was the Persian; the second, the Libyan; the third, the Delphian, born in the temple of the Delphian Apollo, who foretold the Trojan wars and very many of whose verses Homer inserted in his work; the fourth, the Cimmerian in Italy; the fifth, the Erythraean, Herophyla by name, born in Babylon, who foretold to the Greeks on their way to Ilium that they would perish and Homer would write lies; she was called Erythraean because her verses were found in that island; the sixth, the Samian....
5. The seventh, the Sibyl of Cumae, who brought nine books to Tarquinius Priscus in which were written the secrets[317]of Rome....
6. The eighth, the Sibyl of Hellespont, born in Trojan territory, who is said to have lived in the days of Solon and Cyrus.... The ninth, who prophesied at Ancyra. The tenth, the Sibyl of Tibur, Albunea by name.
7. Verses of all these are published, in which it is manifestly proved that they wrote many things about God and Christ and the heathen. The Erythraean Sibyl, however, is said to be the most celebrated and famous of them all.
Chapter 9. On the magi.
1. The first of the magi was Zoroaster, king of the Bactrians, whom Ninus, king of the Assyrians, slew in battle, and of whom Aristotle writes that on the evidence of his works it is clear that he composed 2,000,000 verses.
2. This art was enlarged by Democritus many centuries later when Hippocrates was famous for his knowledge of medicine....
3. And so this vanity of the magic arts flourished during many generations in the whole world by the teaching of the bad angels, through a certain knowledge of the future and the summoning up of infernal spirits. Their inventions are divinations, auguries, the so-called oracles, and necromancy.
4. And there is no miracle in the feats of the magicians, whose arts of wickedness reached such perfection that they actually resisted Moses by wonders very like his, turning twigs to serpents and water to blood.
5. It is said that there was a very famous magician, Circe, who turned Ulysses’ companions into beasts. We also read of a sacrifice which the Arcadians offered to their god Lycaeus when all who ate of it were changed to the shapes of beasts.
6. And it is plain that the famous poet wrote of a certain woman who excelled in the magic arts: “She promises to soothe by her charms the minds of whomsoever she wishes, and to cause others cruel anxieties; to stay the current in the stream, to turn the stars back. She summons the spirits of the dead at night; you shall hear the earth bellow beneath your feet and see the ash trees come down the mountain side.”[318]
7. Why should I tell further of the sorceress—if it is right to believe it—how she summoned the soul of the prophet Samuel from the secret places of hell and presented him to the gaze of the living—if we are to believe that it was the soul of the prophet and not some fantastic deceit created by the trickery of Satan.
8. Prudentius, too, tells of Mercury: “It is said that he recalled the souls of the dead to the light by the power of the wand he held, and others he condemned to death.” And a little later he adds: “The wicked art can summon unsubstantial forms with its magic murmur and utter incantations over sepulchral ashes, and others it can deprive of life.”
9. The magi are they who are usually calledmaleficibecause of the greatness of their guilt. They throw the elements into commotion, disorder men’s minds, and without any draught of poison they kill by the mere virulence of a charm.
10. ... They summon demons, and dare to work such juggleries that each one slays his enemies by evil arts. They use blood also, and victims, and often touch dead bodies.
11. Necromancers are they by whose incantations the dead appear to revive and prophesy and answer questions.... To summon them blood is thrown on a corpse; for they say demons love blood, and therefore as often as necromancy is practiced blood is mixed with water, that they may be more easily attracted owing to the color of blood.
12. Thehydromantiiare so named from water. For it is hydromancy to summon the shades of demons by looking into water and to see their likenesses or mockeries, and to be told some things by them, while the pretence is made that it is actually the dead who are being questioned by the aid of blood.[319]
13. This sort of divination is said to have been introduced by the Persians. Varro says there are four kinds of divination, namely, by earth, air, water, fire; hence geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, pyromancy.
14.Divini(sooth-sayers) are so called as if they wereDeo pleni(full of God); for they pretend that they are full of divinity and they guess men’s future by a deceitful cleverness.
There are two sorts of [this] divination, skill and frenzy.
16.Arioli(sooth-sayers) are so named because they utter their execrable prayers at the altars (aras) of idols and make funeral offerings, and because of their solemn observances they receive responses from demons.
23. Thegenethliaciare so named because of their observance of natal days. They lay out men’s nativities according to the twelve constellations of heaven, and by the course of the stars endeavor to foretell the characters, deeds, andfortunes of the new-born, that is, under what sign each has been born, and what result it has for the life of him who is born.
25. At first the interpreters of the stars were calledmagi, as is read of those who announced the birth of Christ in the Gospel; later they had only the name ofmathematici.
26. A knowledge of this art was granted up to the time of the Gospel, that when Christ was born no one after that should read the nativity of anyone from heaven.
30. To these belong also theligatures, with their accursed remedies, which medical science condemns, whether in charms or in signs or in suspending and binding articles.
31. In all these the demonic art has arisen from a pestilential association of men and bad angels. Whence all must be avoided by Christians and rejected and condemned with thorough-going malediction.
Chapter 10. On the heathen.
2. The Gentiles are they who are without the law and have not yet believed. Moreover they are called Gentiles because they are in their con-genital state, that is, just as in the flesh they have plunged down into sin, to wit, serving idols and not yet regenerate.
Chapter 11. On the gods of the heathen.
1. They whom the pagans assert to be gods are known to have been men at one time, and in accordance with the life and services of each one they began to be worshiped among their own people after their death, as, in Egypt, Isis; in Crete, Jove; among the Moors, Juba; among the Latins, Faunus; among the Romans, Quirinus.
2. ... And in their praises the poets, too, have helped, and by writing poems have raised them up to the heavens.
3. It is said that the invention of certain arts has given rise to worship, as medicine for Aesculapius, craftsmanship for Vulcan. And they get their names from their activities, as Mercurius because he is in charge of merchandise; Liber from liberty.
4. There were also certain brave men and founders of cities, upon whose death men, because they loved them, made images of them, so as to have some comfort from the contemplation of their likenesses, but this error, it is now plain, so insinuated itself among later men by the influence of demons, that the persons whom earlier men honored for the sake of memory and nothing else, were believed by their successors to be gods, and were worshiped.
5. The use of images arose when, because of longing for the dead, likenesses or representations were made of them as if they had been received into heaven. And demons substituted themselves to be worshiped on earth in their place, and persuaded deceived and wretched men that sacrifices should be made to them.
12. While wicked pride, whether of men or of demons, commands and desires this worship, on the other hand pious humility, whether of men or of holy angels, refuses it when offered to them and shows to whom it is due.
15. Demons, they say, were named by the Greeks as if δαήμονας, that is, clever and knowing about things. For they foreknow many things that are to come, and because of this they are wont to give some responses.
16. For there is in them a knowledge of things greater than is in human weakness, partly by the keenness of their subtler sense, partly by the experience of very long life, partly by God’s command as revealed by the angels. They are strong in the nature of their aerial bodies.
17. Before their transgression, indeed, they had celestial bodies. But they fell and changed to an aerial quality, and they are not allowed to occupy the purer stretches of yonder airy space, but those misty parts, and this serves as a sort of prison for them until the time of judgment. These are the apostate angels, and their chief is the devil.
18. The devil (diabolus) in Hebrew means flowing downward (deorsum fluens), because he despised a calm station at heaven’s height and fell in downward ruin by the weight of his pride; but in Greek devil means accuser, whether because he reports the guilty deeds to which he is himself the tempter, or because he accuses the innocence of the elect with false crimes. Whence the angel’s voice says in the Apocalypse: “The accuser of our brethren has been cast down, who accused them in the sight of God day and night.”
19.Satanassignifies in Latin the adversary, or deserter. He is the adversary, for he is the foe of truth, and struggles to resist the virtues of the holy; and the deserter, because he became an apostate and did not stand by the truth in which he was created; and the tempter, because he demands that the uprightness of the just be tried, as is written in Job.
20. Antichrist is so named because he is going to oppose Christ. It is not as certain simple-minded persons understand, that he is called Antichrist because he is going to come before Christ, that is, that Christ will come after him; not so, but Antichrist in the Greek means in the Latincontrarius Christo, for ἀντὶ in Greek meanscontrain Latin.
21. For when he comes he will say falsely that he is Christ, and he will fight against him, and will oppose the sacraments of Christ, in order to destroy the Gospel of truth.
22. For he will try to repair the temple at Jerusalem and to restore all the ceremonies of the old law; moreover he is Antichrist who denies that Christ is God, for he is opposed to Christ; all who go out of the church and are cut off from the unity of faith are themselves Antichrist.
37. They say thatJanusis the gate (janua), as it were, of the universe, or the heavens or the months; they make Janus with two faces because of the East and the West; when they make him with four faces and call him the double Janus they refer this to the four quarters of the universe or to the four elements or seasons. But when they make this pretence they make a monster, not a god.
56. They say that Diana [Apollo’s] sister is at the same time Luna and the divinity of roads. And they represent her as a maiden because nothing grows on a road. And both [Apollo and Diana] are falsely represented as having arrows because the sun and moon send their rays from heaven down to the earth.
81.Panis a Greek name; the Latin isSilvanus; the god of the country people whom they invented to represent nature, whence he is called Pan, that is,all. For they pretend that he is made out of every kind of element.
82. For he has horns to represent the rays of the sun and moon; he has a skin, marked by spots, because of the stars of heaven; his face is red to represent the ether; he carries a Pan’s-pipe of seven reeds because of the harmony of the heavens in which are seven sounds, and the seven notes of the voice.
89. These[320]and others are the fabulous imaginations of the heathen, and, being rightly understood, they are such that their worship, though in ignorance, brings damnation.
100. They saymanesare the gods of the dead, whose power, they assert, is between the moon and the earth....
101.Larvaethey say are demons made from men who have been wicked. It is said to be their nature to terrify little ones and to gibber in dark corners.