Читать книгу Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations - Richard Gilpin - Страница 21

[4.] Fourthly, Seeing also the Scripture condemned the opinion of the Sadducees, the contrary of that opinion must be true. And expressly in Acts xii. 9, that which was done by an angel is opposed to what might be visional or imaginary.

[5.] Fifthly, The reality of devils and their malignity hath been the opinion of heathens. For there is nothing more common among them than the belief of inferior deities, which they called δάιμονες or δαιμόνια, that is, devils; and notwithstanding that they supposed these to be mediators to the supreme gods, yet they learned to distinguish them into good and evil.164 The Platonists thought that the souls of tyrants after death became lemures and larvæ, that is, hurtful devils; and at last the name devil became of so bad a signification, that to say, ‘thou hast a devil,’ was reproach and not praise; but what these groped at in the dark, the Scripture doth fully determine, using the word devil only for a malignant spirit.