An inquiry into the existence of a personal devil / [By John Epps.

Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the existence of a personal devil / [By John Epps. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, what will this babbler say? Other some, lie seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods : because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.” The Greeks thought that Jesus and the resurrection were two human spirits, which Paul had adopted as deified, and offered for their reception. They call them “ strange gods,” ££va>v dat/mmW, ksenon daimonion. The translators, who have rendered this word devils in every other passage, were obliged in this case to translate the word properly, or nearly so. The Athenians would never have acknowledged that they worshipped devils :135 and the phrase “ strange,” prefixed to the daip-oviov shows that they did worship dciipovia, daimonia, but that these two Paul preached, namely, Jesus and the resurrection, were they imagined new, of whom they had never heard before. They would not condemn themselves by calling their dcupovia, daimonia, devils. Paul, moreover, does not condemn them; 136“And they took him, and brought him unto the Areopagus, saying, may we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is ? Eor thou bringest certain strange things to our ears : we would know therefore what these things mean. (Eor all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.) Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. Eor as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, to the unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worsliip, Him declare I unto you.” The phrase “too superstitious,” is deMTidcup-ovearepovs, deisdahnonesterous, a word, made up of babco, deido, to bind with fear, and dcupow: (the word beibco, deido, being derived from beto, deio, to fear.) The word has not a bad sense: it means pious in a good sense. The Athenians gloried in the character of being more religious, beundaipovearepoi,, deisdaimonesteroi, than any other Grecian state. Paul’s concession on this point in their favor would rather gratify than offend them, and would serve to alleviate the cen- sure of carrying their religion to excess.137 This passage therefore demonstrates, that Paul makes no reference at all to devils, but simply to the spirits of departed human beings, whom the Athenians worshipped. In the same sense, namely, as referring to the deified spirits of departed human beings (possessions), Paul introduces the word in his epistle to the Corinthians, 138 “Behold Israel after the flesh, Are not they which eat of the sacrifices, partakers of the altar ?” 135 “ If our translators had adhered to their method of rendering this word in every other instance, and said, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange devils, they they would have grossly perverted the sense of this passage. Now this may suggest a suspicion of the impropriety of this version of the word dai/aonov, devil, any where, but especially where it relates to the objects of worship among the pagans, with whom the term, when unaccompanied by any bad epithet, or anything in the context that fixed the application to evil spirits, was always employed in a good sense. Professor Campbells Preliminary Dissertations, article dcugoviov, p. 1G4, 4to. edit. 136 Acts xvii. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. 137 Professor Campbell’s Preliminary Dissertations, p. 202, 4to. ed. vol. i. 158 1 Cor. x. 18,