DEMONOLATRY by I. E. Kimball

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 6, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 39.

DEMONOLATRY.

By I. E. Kimball

BY ELDER I. E. KIMBALL.

THE more evident extravagances of the monks, the wild, frenzied imagination, the uncouth appearance, have been considered, together with the licentiousness, hypocrisy, and the pitiful delusion under which they operated. We can but feel a vivid disgust when thinking of their hawking about dead men's bones, relics, etc., as a panacea for every ill. Even Augustine in the latter part of his life could but feel disgusted with them. Thus he said:—

The devil hath dispersed in every corner such a crew of hypocrites, under the habit of monks, gadding about every country, sent no whither, staying nowhere, everywhere restless, whether sitting or standing. Some sell the limbs of martyrs (if so be of martyrs), and all are asking, all expecting, either the expenses of a painful poverty, or the hire of a counterfeit sanctity.—De Opere Monachorum, cap. 28.

Thus we see, "under the habit of monks," Augustine acknowledged many hypocrites, who "spake lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron." Such persons played pranks and palmed them off for miracles, rehearsing the day before. What can we expect of such an one with the keys of a convent at his belt, simply that he might roll in the mire of fornication. The coarse, brutal, benumbed mind revealed nothing of that transformation whereby we may "show what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." The mass released from the burden of sin, or regeneration, came by "holy baptism," not the Spirit of God. And what shall we say of the mass—the breaden god of those times?—It was a sort of image worship or relic worship. As the dead martyr took possession of a statue, or manifested himself in his bones, or relics, so Christ was in the bread and wine, and that horrid idea of transubstantiation, whereby the blood became "body, blood, and divinity," took possession of the mind. To say the least, it is idolatry pure and simple. "Holy baptism" became the sprinkling of holy water. It was used in very nearly all the heathen mysteries, as Dr. Newton, in the March number of the Forum, 1886, plainly showed. In all heathendom it was the sign of "spiritual regeneration." In some of the forms of Buddhism the newborn babe was dipped in sacred water three times, and then the name given. So did the ancient Persian to his babe. The Mithraic mysteries had a similar service for the adults. The Egyptians had the same rites in the mysteries of Isis, whose priests were cloistered monks. The water was known as the "water of ablution," and the person was thus "regenerated." The sprinkling of holy

water was thought to have a "mystic power," exactly as the monks of the Nicenes thought, who used it to dissolve the charm of Satan and cleanse the soul from sin.

In the Mithraic mysteries the sacred sign of the cross was made upon the forehead. How well the monks and everybody else took up this ancient usage and perpetuated it in Christianity we well know. "Hindus, Assyrians, Egyptians, and Romans employed this sacred sign." It was understood to stand as the symbol of regeneration. Who cannot see that all the religions of polytheism contributed not merely their votaries, but their practices, to the Nicene Church, and how it came about that the dragon gave his power to the beast; and, while worshiping the beast, they worshiped the dragon which gave power to the beast? Rev. 13: 2-5.

But the dragon represents the power wielded by Satan, and, indeed, Satan himself. And that Satan and his angels were worshiped, I will now show. The demons of the Gentiles, which were worshiped, as we have shown, are identified in the New Testament as angels that sinned, and kept not their first estate. Satan, at their head, "was a liar from the beginning and abode not in the truth," and by his lies down through the ages he has "deceived the whole world." Rev. 12: 8. Satan and his demons will terminate their existence in the lake of fire. Matt. 25: 41. Luke speaks of one possessed with a devil as being possessed with the "spirit of an unclean demon." Chap. 4: 33, Murdoch's translation. This identifies these unclean spirits which filled the land,—unclean because sinful, and which were cast out by Christ—with the demons of the Gentiles. Everybody will therefore acknowledge that the demon gods of the Gentiles are the demons, or devils, of the New Testament.

How came these Gentiles to so fully rule and possess the Gentile world?—Eusebius will tell us:—

When those wicked spirits [as he has shown the demons to be] saw mankind brought off to a deifying of the dead, they insinuated themselves, and helped forward their error, by certain motions of the statues which anciently were consecrated to the honor [memory] of the deceased, as also by ostentation of oracles and cures of diseases, whereby they drove the superstitious headlong, sometimes to take them to be some heavenly powers and God indeed, and sometimes to be the souls of their deified worthies, and so the earth-neighboring demons, which are those princes of the air, those spiritualities of wickedness, and ringleaders to all evil, were on all hands accounted for great gods. And the memory of those ancient deceased was thought worthy to be celebrated with a great service, the features of whose bodies the images dedicated in every city seemed to represent, but the souls of them, and the divine incorporeal powers, the wicked demons counterfeited, by working many miracles.

Tertullian exhorted the Gentiles to renounce the whole mystery, "which under the names and images of the dead, through signs, miracles, and oracles, obtained an opinion of divinity." Chrysostom said that the demons wrought many miracles for the confirmation of paganism.

How came the demons to get possession of the Nicene Church?—Ah, in the same way, under the names and images of the dead, through signs and miracles, not this time personating the proud heroes of the battle field, but the martyrs of Christ! Comment is unnecessary. I will quote from Theodoret's eighth book, concerning the curing of the affections of the Greeks, the title of which is "Concerning Martyrs":—

If, then, the poet [Hesiod] calls good men after their decease guardians and preservers or deliverers of mortal men from all evil, and, accordingly, the best of philosophers, in confirmation of the poet saying, would have their sepulchers to be served and honored, I beseech you, sirs, why do you find such fault with what we do? For such as were eminent for piety and religion, and for the sake thereof suffered death, we also call preservers and physicians. In nowise do we term them demons. God forbid that we should ever fall into such desperate madness [what difference did it make what they called them], but the hearty friends and servants of God. That the souls of holy men, even when they were out of the body, are in a capacity of taking care of men's affairs, Plato affirmeth in the eleventh book of his laws. But you do not only disbelieve us, but are utterly unwilling to hearken to the loud voice of the events or effects themselves. [That is, the miracles reported.] The martyr temples [dead men's sepulchers, as it were the Gentile temples] are frequently to be seen, famous for their beauty and greatness.

They that are in health pray for the continuance thereof, and they that have been long sick pray for recovery; the barren pray for children, and they that are to take a long journey desire them [the martyrs] to be their companions, or, rather, their guides in the journey, not going to them as gods, but making application to them as divine men and agents for them with God. Now that they who made faithful prayers have obtained their petitions, clearly appears by the presents and gifts brought by the votaries, as so many grateful acknowledgments of their recovery. Accordingly, some do present the effigies of eyes, others of hands, and these made of gold or of silver. Nay, the martyrs have utterly abolished and wiped out of the minds of men the memory of those who were called gods [demons]. Our Lord God hath brought his dead into the place of your gods, whom he hath sent packing, and hath given their honor to his martyrs. For, instead of the feasts of Jupiter and Bacchus, are now celebrated the festivals of Peter and Paul and Thomas and Sergius, and other holy martyrs. Wherefore, since you see there is so much advantage by honoring the martyrs, be persuaded, I beseech you, to flee from the errors of demons, and, making use of the martyrs as so many lights and guides, follow the way which leads directly to God.

Hear the apostle: "But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God; and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils." "The doctrine of demons" was the doctrine of the mediation, intercession, and ministry of dead men, as divine agents with the gods. It matters not whether they be called saints or heroes who were thus invoked. The Gentile doctrine of demons was transferred to the Catholic Church; and demons wrought as fully therein as they had before in paganism. It is the same doctrine now taught in Spiritualism, and in very many of the pulpits of our land, howbeit the Bible asserts that the dead have no more a part forever in anything that is done under the sun, that their "love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished." "They praise not the Lord," until the final resurrection.

Thus the prophecy of Paul in 1 Timothy 4 was fulfilled. They departed from the faith of Jesus, and gave heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from meats, etc.

It is futile, absurd, outrageous to claim for the Nicene Church any holiness. They were one and all mastered by an illusion, of which demon worship was the all-absorbing thought, the central figure. It is madness to say that monkery was not then held up by the great divines as the summit of Christian attainments, more than madness to claim that the vows of continence and virginity, taken by