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Exhortation to Martyrdom

Origen, tr. O’Meara, 1954

6. Part 6: The Criminal Character of Idolatry

The Cult of Demons

Some people give no thought to the question of demons:¹ that is to say, to the fact that these demons, in order to be able to exist in the heavy atmosphere that encircles the earth, must have the nourishment of exhalations and, consequently, are always on the lookout for the savour of burnt sacrifices, blood, and incense. Since they attach no importance to the matter of sacrifice, we would express ourselves also on this subject. If men who give sustenance to robbers, murderers, and barbarian enemies of the Great King² are punished as criminals against the state, how much more will they be punished justly who through offering sacrifice proffer sustenance to the minions of evil and thus hold them in the atmosphere of the earth! And this holds true especially if knowing the text, He that sacrificeth to gods other than the Lord alone will be destroyed utterly,³ they nevertheless sacrifice to these authors of evil on earth. In my opinion, when there is question of crimes committed by these demons operating against men, they who sustain them by sacrificing to them will be held no less responsible than the demons themselves that do the crimes. For the demons and they that have kept them on earth, where they could not exist without the exhalations and nourishment considered vital to their bodies, work as one in doing evil to mankind.

The Importance of Names

Others again assume that the names of things are entirely arbitrary and have no natural relation to the objects of which they are the names.⁴ They think that it does not matter which you say: “I worship the first God, or Zeus, or Zēn”;⁵ and whether you assert: “I pay honour and veneration to the sun or Apollo, and the moon or Artemis, and the spirit of the earth or Demeter”—and so on according to what has been said by the wise men of the Greeks. We reply that on the question of names there is a special science which is both very profound and very subtle. A man versed in it will see that if these names were a matter of convention merely, the demons or whatever powers there are invisible to us, would not respond when addressed by such as mean to address them, but do so on the understanding that the names are but arbitrarily given. But in fact certain sounds, syllables, and names pronounced with a rough or smooth breathing, or with lengthening or shortening, bring to us them that are summoned—in virtue, doubtless, of some natural factor which we cannot discern. If this is so and names are not purely conventional, then we must call the first God by no other name but that which His Servant⁶ and the Prophets and Our Lord and Saviour Himself used—for example, Sabaoth, Adonai, Saddai; or, again, the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. This is a name for ever, says Scripture, and this is a memorial unto all generations.⁷ It should not surprise us that the demons should apply their own nomenclature to the first God, so as to be adored as the first God; but with our Servant, the Prophets, and Christ who fulfilled the Law,⁸ and His Apostles this is not customary.

It was necessary to add all this lest someone deceive us by sophistry or in any way vitiate our judgment. We must give careful consideration to these matters so as not to offer our adversaries any opportunity of foisting their views on us.

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