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.