A Plea for the Christians 26
Summary: The demons, greedy for sacrificial blood, work through the statues of dead men such as Neryllinus and Proteus; the bronze itself and the men portrayed have no such power.
Greek text · Otto 7:136–142
Καὶ οἱ μὲν περὶ τὰ εἴδωλα αὐτοὺς ἕλκοντες οἱ δαίμονές εἰσιν οἱ προειρημένοι, οἱ προστετηκότες τῷ ἀπὸ τῶν ἱερείων αἵματι καὶ ταῦτα περιλιχμώμενοι· οἱ δὲ τοῖς πολλοῖς ἀρέσκοντες θεοὶ καὶ ταῖς εἰκόσιν ἐπονομαζόμενοι, ὡς ἔστιν ἐκ τῆς κατʼ αὐτοὺς ἱστορίας εἰδέναι, ἄνθρωποι γεγόνασιν. Καὶ τοὺς μὲν δαίμονας εἶναι τοὺς ἐπιβατεύοντας τοῖς ὀνόμασι πίστις ἡ ἑκάστου αὐτῶν ἐνέργεια. Οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἀποτέμνουσι τὰ αἰδοῖα, οἱ περὶ τὴν Ῥέαν, οἱ δὲ ἐγκόπτουσιν ἢ ἐντέμνουσιν, οἱ περὶ τὴν Ἄρτεμιν, καὶ ἡ μὲν ἐν Ταύροις φονεύει τοὺς ξένους· ἐῶ γὰρ τοὺς ταῖς μαχαίραις καὶ τοῖς ἀστραγάλοις αἰκιζομένους αὐτοὺς λέγειν καὶ ὅσα εἴδη δαιμόνων· οὐ γὰρ θεοῦ κινεῖν ἐπὶ τὰ παρὰ φύσιν. Ὅταν δʼ ὁ δαίμων ἀνδρὶ πορσύνῃ κακά, Τὸν νοῦν ἔβλαψε πρῶτον. Ὁ δὲ θεός, τελείως ἀγαθὸς ὤν, ἀϊδίως ἀγαθοποιός ἐστιν. Τοῦ τοίνυν ἄλλους μὲν εἶναι τοὺς ἐνεργοῦντας, ἐφʼ ἑτέρων δὲ ἀνίστασθαι τὰς εἰκόνας, ἐκεῖνο μέγιστον τεκμήριον, Τρωὰς καὶ Πάριον· ἡ μὲν Νερυλλίνου εἰκόνας ἔχει, ὃς ἀνὴρ τῶν καθʼ ἡμᾶς, τὸ δὲ Πάριον Ἀλεξάνδρου καὶ Πρωτέως· τοῦ Ἀλεξάνδρου ἔτι ἐπὶ τῆς ἀγορᾶς καὶ ὁ τάφος καὶ ἡ εἰκών. Οἱ μὲν οὖν ἄλλοι ἀνδριάντες τοῦ Νερυλλίνου κόσμημά εἰσι δημόσιον, εἴπερ καὶ τούτοις κοσμεῖται πόλις, εἷς δὲ αὐτῶν καὶ χρηματίζειν καὶ ἰᾶσθαι νοσοῦντας νομίζεται, καὶ θύουσί τε διʼ αὐτὰ καὶ χρυσῷ περιαλείφουσι καὶ στεφανοῦσι τὸν ἀνδριάντα οἱ Τρωαδεῖς. Ὁ δὲ τοῦ Ἀλεξάνδρου καὶ ὁ τοῦ Πρωτέως (τοῦτον δʼ οὐκ ἀγνοεῖτε ῥίψαντα ἑαυτὸν εἰς τὸ πῦρ περὶ τὴν Ὀλυμπίαν), ὁ μὲν καὶ αὐτὸς λέγεται χρηματίζειν, τῷ δὲ τοῦ Ἀλεξάνδρου [Δύσπαρι, εἶδος ἄριστε, γυναιμανές] δημοτελεῖς ἄγονται θυσίαι καὶ ἑορταὶ ὡς ἐπηκόῳ θεῷ. Πότερον οὖν ὁ Νερυλλῖνος καὶ ὁ Πρωτεὺς καὶ ὁ Ἀλέξανδρός εἰσιν οἱ ταῦτα ἐνεργοῦντες περὶ τὰ ἀγάλματα ἢ τῆς ὕλης ἡ σύστασις; Ἀλλʼ ἡ μὲν ὕλη χαλκός ἐστιν. Τί δαὶ χαλκὸς δύναται καθʼ ἑαυτόν, ὃν μεταποιῆσαι πάλιν εἰς ἕτερον σχῆμα ἔξεστιν, ὡς τὸν ποδονιπτῆρα ὁ παρὰ τῷ Ἡροδότῳ Ἄμασις; Ὁ δὲ Νερυλλῖνος καὶ ὁ Πρωτεὺς καὶ ὁ Ἀλέξανδρος τί πλέον τοῖς νοσοῦσιν; Ἃ γὰρ ἡ εἰκὼν λέγεται νῦν ἐνεργεῖν, ἐνήργει καὶ ζῶντος καὶ νοσοῦντος Νερυλλίνου.
English · Claude translation
Those who draw people to the idols are the demons I have mentioned, who cling to the blood of the sacrificial victims and lick it up; while the gods who please the many and whose names are given to the images were, as one can learn from the accounts about them, human beings. That it is the demons who usurp the names is proved by what each of them does. Some castrate themselves: those devoted to Rhea. Others cut and gash themselves: those devoted to Artemis; and the Artemis among the Taurians murders strangers. I pass over those who torture themselves with knives and knucklebones, and all the kinds of demons; for it is not God's part to move people to things contrary to nature. “When the demon prepares evils for a man, he first harms his mind.” But God, being perfectly good, is eternally doing good. The greatest proof that those who produce the effects are different from those for whom the images are set up is Troas and Parium. Troas has statues of Neryllinus, a man of our own time, and Parium has statues of Alexander and of Proteus; the tomb and statue of Alexander are still in the marketplace. The other statues of Neryllinus are a public ornament, if indeed a city is adorned by such things; but one of them is thought to give oracles and to heal the sick, and for this the people of Troas sacrifice to the statue, gild it, and crown it. As for the statues of Alexander and of Proteus (you know that Proteus threw himself into the fire near Olympia), the statue of Proteus too is said to give oracles, and to that of Alexander [“Evil Paris, fairest in form, mad for women”] public sacrifices and feasts are held, as to a god who hears prayers. Is it Neryllinus, Proteus, and Alexander who produce these effects around the statues, or the constitution of the matter? But the matter is bronze. What can bronze do by itself, when it can be made over into another shape, as Amasis did with the footbath in Herodotus? And what more can Neryllinus, Proteus, and Alexander do for the sick? For what the image is now said to do, it was doing while Neryllinus was still alive and ill.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- Neryllinus is otherwise unknown; “Alexander” at Parium is probably Alexander of Abonoteichus, the oracle-monger satirized by Lucian; Proteus is the Cynic Peregrinus Proteus, who burned himself at Olympia in AD 165 (cf. Tatian, Or. Graec. 25).
- The bracketed words are Iliad 3.39 (Hector's insult to Paris), probably added by a reader who took this Alexander to be Paris, whose other name was Alexander.
- Amasis, king of Egypt, had a gold footbath made into a statue of a god (Herodotus 2.172).
- The line “When the demon prepares evils for a man” is from an unknown tragedy.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (missing accent): Καὶ τους μὲν δαίμονας → Καὶ τοὺς μὲν δαίμονας.
Cite this passage
Athenagoras, Leg. 26 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/athenagoras-legatio/26/).
Plain text
Athenagoras, Leg. 26 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/athenagoras-legatio/26/).
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