Moreover, if the worshippers of many gods (whatever kind of gods they fancy their own to be) believe that the miracles recorded in their civil histories, or in the books of magic, or of the more respectable theurgy, were wrought by these gods, what reason have they for refusing to believe the miracles recorded in those writings, to which we owe a credence as much greater as He is greater to whom alone these writings teach us to sacrifice?
CHAP.19.--ON THE REASONABLENESS OF OFFERING, AS THE TRUE RELIGION TEACHES, A VISIBLESACRIFICE TO THE ONE TRUE AND INVISIBLE GOD.
As to those who think that these visible sacrifices are suitably offered to other gods, but that invisible sacrifices, the graces of purity of mind and holiness of will, should be offered, as greater and better, to the invisible God, Himself greater and better than alI others, they must be oblivious that these visible sacrifices are signs of the invisible, as the words we utter are the signs of things.And therefore, as in prayer or praise we direct intelligible words to Him to whom in our heart we offer the very feelings we are expressing, so we are to understand that in sacrifice we offer visible sacrifice only to Him to whom in our heart we ought to present ourselves an invisible sacrifice.It is then that the angels, and all those superior powers who are mighty by their goodness and piety, regard us with pleasure, and rejoice with us and assist us to the utmost of their power.But if we offer such worship to them, they decline it; and when on any mission to men they become visible to the senses, they positively forbid it.
Examples of this occur in holy writ.Some fancied they should, by adoration or sacrifice, pay the same honor to angels as is due to God, and were prevented from doing so by the angels themselves, and ordered to render it to Him to whom alone they know it to be due.And the holy angels have in this been imitated by holy men of God.For Paul and Barnabas, when they had wrought a miracle of healing in Lycaonia, were thought to be gods, and the Lycaonians desired to sacrifice to them, and they humbly and piously declined this honor, and announced to them the God in whom they should believe.And those deceitful and proud spirits, who exact worship, do so simply because they know it to be due to the true God.For that which they take pleasure in is not, as Porphyry says and some fancy, the smell of the victims, but divine honors.They have, in fact, plenty odors on all hands, and if they wished more, they could provide them for themselves.But the spirits who arrogate to themselves divinity are delighted not with the smoke of carcasses but with the suppliant spirit which they deceive and hold in subjection, and hinder from drawing near to God, preventing him from offering himself in sacrifice to God by inducing him to sacrifice to others.
CHAP.20.--OF THE SUPREME AND TRUE SACRIFICE WHICH WAS EFFECTED BY THEMEDIATOR
BETWEEN GOD AND MEN.
And hence that true Mediator, in so far as, by assuming the form of a servant, He became the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, though in the form of God He received sacrifice together with the Father, with whom He is one God, yet in the form of a servant He chose rather to be than to receive a sacrifice, that not even by this instance any one might have occasion to suppose that sacrifice should be rendered to any creature.
Thus He is both the Priest who offers and the Sacrifice offered.And He designed that there should be a daily sign of this in the sacrifice of the Church, which, being His body, learns 13to offer herself through Him.Of this true Sacrifice the ancient sacrifices of the saints were the various and numerous signs; and it was thus variously figured, just as one thing is signified by a variety of words, that there may be less weariness when we speak of it much.To this supreme and true sacrifice all false sacrifices have given place.
CHAP.21.--OF THE POWER DELEGATED TO DEMONS FOR THE TRIAL AND GLORIFICATIONOF
THE SAINTS, WHO CONQUER NOT BY PROPITIATING THE SPIRITS OF THE AIR, BUT BY ABIDING INGOD.
The power delegated to the demons at certain appointed and well-adjusted seasons, that they may give expression to their hostility to the city of God by stirring up against it the men who are under their influence, and may not only receive sacrifice from those who willingly offer it, but may also extort it from the unwilling by violent persecution;--this power is found to be not merely harmless, but even useful to the Church, completing as it does the number of martyrs, whom the city of God esteems as all the more illustrious and honored citizens, because they have striven even to blood against the sin of impiety.If the ordinary language of the Church allowed it, we might more elegantly call these men our heroes.For this name is said to be derived from Juno, who in Greek is called Here, and hence, according to the Greek myths, one of her sons was called Heros.And these fables mystically signified that Juno was mistress of the air, which they suppose to be inhabited by the demons and the heroes, understanding by heroes the souls of the well-deserving dead.But for a quite opposite reason would we call our martyrs heroes,--supposing, as I said, that the usage of ecclesiastical language would admit of it,--not because they lived along with the demons in the air, but because they conquered these demons or powers of the air, and among them Juno herself, be she what she may, not unsuitably represented, as she commonly is by the poets, as hostile to virtue, and jealous of men of mark aspiring to the heavens.Virgil, however, unhappily gives way, and yields to her; for, though he represents her as saying, "I am conquered by AEneas,"(1) Helenus gives.AEneas himself this religious advice:
"Pay vows to Juno: overbear Her queenly soul with gift and prayer."[2]