The Gods of the Nations

Leviticus 17:7
"And they shall no more sacrifice their victims to devils, with whom they have committed fornication. It shall be an ordinance for ever to them and to their posterity."

Deuteronomy 32:17
"They sacrificed to devils and not to God: to gods whom they knew not: that were newly come up, whom their fathers worshipped not."

Psalm 95[96]:5
"For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens."

Psalm 105[106]:37
"They sacrificed their sons, and their daughters to devils."

Baruch 4:7
"For you have provoked him who made you, the eternal God, offering sacrifice to devils, and not to God."

1 Corinthians 10:19-21
"What then? Do I say that what is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing? Or that the idol is any thing? But the things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. And I would not that you should be made partakers with devils. You cannot drink the chalice of the Lord and the chalice of devils: you cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord and of the table of devils."

St. Justin Martyr, II Century
"But our Jesus, who has not yet come in glory, has sent into Jerusalem a rod of power, namely, the word of calling and repentance [meant] for all nations over which demons held sway, as David says, 'The gods of the nations are demons.' And His strong word has prevailed on many to forsake the demons whom they used to serve, and by means of it to believe in the Almighty God because the gods of the nations are demons" (Dialogue with Trypho, 83).

St. Cyprian, III Century
"Oh, would you but hear and see them when they are adjured by us, and tortured with spiritual scourges, and are ejected from the possessed bodies with tortures of words, when howling and groaning at the voice of man and the power of God, feeling the stripes and blows, they confess the judgment to come! Come and acknowledge that what we say is true; and since you say that you thus worship gods, believe even those whom you worship. Or if you will even believe yourself, he—i.e., the demon—who has now possessed your breast, who has now darkened your mind with the night of ignorance, shall speak concerning yourself in your hearing. You will see that we are entreated by those whom you entreat, that we are feared by those whom you fear, whom you adore. You will see that under our hands they stand bound, and tremble as captives, whom you took up to and venerate as lords: assuredly even thus you might be confounded in those errors of yours, when you see and hear your gods, at once upon our interrogation betraying what they are, and even in your presence unable to conceal those deceits and trickeries of theirs... Why do you prostrate yourself into the ruin of death with the serpent whom you worship? Why do you fall into the destruction of the devil, by his means and in his company?" (Treatise 5: An Address to Demetrianus, 15, 16)

St. Peter Balsam, IV Century
"Severus: You shall quickly know that there is an edict of the most clement emperors, commanding all to sacrifice to the gods, or be put to death.

"Peter: You will also know one day that there is a law of the eternal King, proclaiming that everyone shall perish who offers sacrifice to devils... I can never be prevailed upon to sacrifice to gods of wood and stone, as those are which you worship" (Butler's Lives of the Saints, Vol. 1, 2nd Ed. [New York, NY: J.P. Kennedy & Sons, 1956] p. 27).

St. Gregory of Nazianzus, IV Century
"Let us leave all these to the Greeks and to the pomps and festivals of the Greeks, who call by the name of gods beings who rejoice in the reek of sacrifices, and who consistently worship with their belly; evil inventors and worshippers of evil demons" (Oration 38, VI).

St. Augustine, V Century
"All nations then had devils for their gods: those whom they called gods, were devils, as the Apostle more openly saith, ‘The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice unto devils, and not to God.’ …For when he had said, ‘He is more to be feared than all gods:’ he added, ‘As for all the gods of the heathen, they are devils’" (Exposition on Psalm 96, 5-6).

Symeon Metaphrates, VI Century
"[St. Matrona] went to an idol's temple near Beirut and stayed there, since she thought that to encounter demons and wild beasts was better than being taken by Domitianus… [A] woman called Sophrone, who lived a life [that is] prudent like her name and who was of the Greek religion, and at the same time others who shared the same belief with her, gave themselves to Matrona, abandoning their parents, friends, and the world. They listened obediently to her and soon became worthy of holy baptism. Among them was a virgin, a Greek priestess of the temple who, when she heard these things about the holy woman, became filled with divine zeal and condemned her own gods. She (hastened and) gave to the poor the offerings lavished by the Greeks in unlawful sacrifices to demons. She separated herself from the others and came to Matrona and eagerly made herself one of those who chose to follow her" (The Life of St. Matrona of Perge, 18, 21).

Pope St. Gregory the Great, VII Century
"When, therefore, Almighty God shall bring you to the most reverend Bishop Augustine, our brother, tell him what I have, upon mature deliberation on the affair of the English, determined upon, viz., that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected, and relics placed. For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God; that the nation, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have been accustomed" (cited in St. Bede the Venerable, Ecclesiastical History of England, 1:30).

St. John of Damascus, VIII Century
"Moreover the divine Scripture blames those who worship graven images, but also those who sacrifice to demons. The Greeks sacrificed and the Jews also sacrificed: but the Greeks to demons and the Jews to God. And the sacrifice of the Greeks was rejected and condemned, but the sacrifice of the just was very acceptable to God. For Noah sacrificed, and God smelled a sweet savour, receiving the fragrance of the right choice and good-will towards Him. And so the graven images of the Greeks, since they were images of deities, were rejected and forbidden" (An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 4:16).

Einhard, IX Century
"No war ever undertaken by the Frank nation was carried on with such persistence and bitterness, or cost so much labor, because the Saxons, like almost all the tribes of Germany, were a fierce people, given to the worship of devils, and hostile to our religion, and did not consider it dishonorable to transgress and violate all law, human and divine… It is hard to say how often they were conquered, and, humbly submitting to the King, promised to do what was enjoined upon them, without hesitation the required hostages, gave and received the officers sent them from the King. They were sometimes so much weakened and reduced that they promised to renounce the worship of devils, and to adopt Christianity, but they were no less ready to violate these terms than prompt to accept them, so that it is impossible to tell which came easier to them to do; scarcely a year passed from the beginning of the war without such changes on their part… The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the terms offered by the King; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and union with the Franks to form one people" (The Life of Charlemagne, 7).

St. Peter Damian, XI Century
"Does it not seem more tolerable for one to live according to the flesh, or to engage in giving service to the world, than to worship the devil according to the rite of the nations? For the same prophet who says, ‘All the gods of the nations are demons,’ also states ‘Accursed are they who stray from your commandments.’ And the Apostle who asks, ‘Has the temple of God a common ground with idols?’ also says, ‘People who are interested in unspiritual things can never be pleasing to God.’ ...The evil spirit, moreover, who is the source of idols, is called the prince of this world. And James says, ‘Anyone who chooses the world for his friend turns himself into God's enemy.’ What does it matter if a wicked man, in flaring up as an enemy of God, does so by offering sacrilegious worship or by leading an evil life?" (Owen J. Blum, O.F.M., trans., The Letters of Peter Damian, Vol. 2 [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1990] pp. 284-285)

Gerhohus Praepositus Reicherspergensis, XII Century
"Because all the gods of the Gentiles are demons, that is, they are not gods but demons. When, in fact, idols give answer, the devil himself is speaking in them. These are destructive superstitions, uttering vileness" (Exposition on Psalm 95, in Migne, Patrologiae Latinae, Vol. 194, cols. 581-682).

St. Thomas Aquinas, XIII Century
"The consummative cause of idolatry was the influence of the demons who offered themselves to the worship of erring men, giving answers from idols or doing things which to men seemed marvelous, whence the Psalmist says (Psalm 95:5): ‘All the gods of the gentiles are devils’" (Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. xciv, a. 4).

Council of Florence, XV Century
"The leader and prince of these men and the architect of the whole nefarious deed was that first-born son of Satan, the most unfortunate Amadeus, once duke and prince of Savoy. He meditated this scheme for long. Several years ago, as is widely said, he was seduced by the trickery, soothsayings and phantoms of certain unfortunate men and women of low reputation (commonly called wizards or witches or Waldensians and said to be very numerous in his country), who had forsaken their Saviour to turn backwards to Satan and be deceived by demonic illusions, to have himself raised up to be a monstrous head in God's church. He adopted the cloak of a hermit, or rather of a most false hypocrite, so that in sheep's clothing, like a lamb he might assume the ferocity of a wolf. Eventually he joined the people at Basel. By force, fraud, bribery, promises and threats he prevailed on the majority of those at Basel, who were subject to his sway and tyranny, to proclaim him as an idol and Beelzebub, the prince of these new demons, in opposition to your holiness, the true vicar of Christ and the undoubted successor of Peter in God's church" (Session 9, March 23, 1440).

St. Francis Xavier, XVI Century
"All the invocations of the pagans are hateful to God because all their gods are devils" (James Brodrick, S.J., Saint Francis Xavier [New York: Wicklow Press, 1952] p. 135).

Pope Innocent XI, XVII Century
"In order to free the world, prostrate in darkness and bound by numerous pagan errors, from the power of the devil who held it a wretched prisoner after the fall of our first parent, the heavenly shepherd, Christ our Lord, by his ineffable mercy, condescended to take flesh and, as a living victim, offer himself to God for us on the wood of the cross, nailing the guarantee of our redemption to the wood of the cross as a proof of his love for us" (Coelestis Pastor).

St. Alphonsus de Liguori, XVIII Century
"[H]earing with how much zeal and success St. Ignatius propagated the Christian religion, [Trajan] called him to his presence and thus addressed him: ‘Art thou that wicked demon called Theophorus, who taketh pleasure in violating our edict of sacrificing to the gods, and dost continue to seduce the inhabitants of this city by preaching the law of Christ?’ Ignatius replied: ‘Yes, prince, I am called Theophorus; by no one can Theophorus be called a demon, because the devils fly from the servants of God. If thou callest me a devil because I endeavor to defeat the machinations of the devil, I well deserve the name.’ Trajan asked him the signification of the term Theophorus; the saint replied, ‘It signifies "the bearer of God."’ The emperor replied: ‘Thou carriest God in thy heart; and we, have we not also in ourselves the gods that assist us?’ The saint answered with enthusiasm: ‘It is an error, O prince! to give the name of gods to the demons that you adore: there is only one true God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son’" (Victories of the Martyrs [Esopus, NY: Mount St. Alphonsus Book Shop, 1954] pp. 50-51).

Pope Gregory XVI, XIX Century
"We are thankful for the success of apostolic missions in America, the Indies, and other faithless lands. The indefatigable zeal of many apostolic men has led them abroad into those places. Relying not on wealth nor on any army, they are protected by the shield of faith alone. They fearlessly fight the Lord's battles against heresy and unbelief by private and public speech and writings. They are inspired with a burning love and undeterred by rough roads and heavy toil. They search out those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death to summon them to the light and life of the Catholic Religion. So, fearless in the face of every danger, they bravely enter the woods and caves of savages, gradually pacify them by Christian kindness, and prepare them for true faith and real virtue. At length they snatch them from the devil’s rule, by the bath of regeneration and promote them to the freedom of God's adopted sons" (Probe Nostis, 6).

Pope Pius XI, XX Century
"Augustine set the mark, or more truly, the fiery brand of his condemnation on the moral infamy of Greek and Roman paganism. And yet yearning for such a religion has been seen to infatuate, even in our day, certain writers, shallow and even licentious, who extol such a cult for its beauty and fitness and attractiveness. Again, knowing thoroughly his contemporaries and their unhappy forgetfulness of God, with a pen at one time caustic, at another indignant, he scored in his pages all the compulsion and folly, all the outrages and lust, introduced into man's life by the demons through the worship of false gods" (Ad Salutem, 27).

Fr. Gabrielle Amorth, XX Century
"In one of the rites of initiation into black magic, the witch doctors of the island of Green Cape claim that, at one point during the ritual, the novice will find himself in front of a mirror through which Satan himself will appear to grant him ‘the powers’ and to place in his hands the weapons that he will use... In voodoo, the androgynous snake Danbhalah and Aida Wedo guides its followers with a surety and precision that gives stunning results at any hour of day and night. This snake claims to know all the secrets of the Creator Verb through the ‘magic language’, whose power is increased by sacred music. This is Haitian magic, which together with the original African and the imported South American magic (particularly from Brazil) called ‘macumbe’ has great evil power. I have already mentioned that the toughest curses I have ever exorcised came either from Brazil or Africa" (An Exorcist Tells His Story [San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1999] pp. 145, 147-8).

Roy Schoeman, XXI Century
"The 'gods' that the pagans worshiped truly existed and truly fulfilled the role of gods to their adherents--that is, in return for adoration, reverence, and sacrifice they returned services to their adherents. However, rather than being 'God' in the meaning of the uncreated creator of all that is, they were merely spirits, in fact, fallen angels (otherwise known as demons or devils)... [He then quotes Deut 32:16-17; Josh 24:15; Psalm 82:1-8; 95:3; 96:5; Baruch 4:6-8 in support] ...The underlying Hebrew word that is here translated 'demons' is 'shadim'. It has the same root consonants as a word that means destruction, violence, havoc, or devastation, which is appropriate, for that is what the demons are--agents of destruction and devastation. And that is what the pagans, then and now, serve as 'gods', whether they are aware of it or not" (Salvation is from the Jews [San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2003] pp. 46, 49).

Ben Douglass
September 18, Anno Domini MMVII