Chapter XVII. That the Daemons Whom They Worship as Gods Actually Die

‘THE opinion, said he, that those who preside over the oracles are not gods----for gods ought rightly to be kept free from the affairs of earth----but daemons who are servants of gods, seems to me no unfair assumption. But to take as it were a handful out of the verses of Empedocles, and to lay sins and frenzies and heaven-sent wanderings upon these daemons, and to imagine them dying deaths like men, I consider too bold and barbaric. Hereupon Cleombrotus asked Philip who the young man was, and whence he came; and when he had learned his name and city, he said, We are not ourselves unconscious, Ileracleon, that we have entered upon strange arguments: but in dealing with great subjects it is not possible to arrive at a probable opinion without employing great principles.

‘But you are yourself unconsciously taking back what you grant. For you admit that daemons exist; but, in claiming that they are not wicked and not mortal, you no longer have daemons to defend. For in what do they differ from the gods, if they are both in regard to essence incorruptible, and in regard to virtue free from passion and from sin?

‘While Heracleon was silently pondering in himself some answer to this, Philip said to him, Nay, Heracleon, that daemons are wicked was admitted not only by Empedocles, but also by Pinto, and Xenocrates and Chrysippus: and moreover when Democritus prayed that he might meet with favourable apparitions, it was evident that he knew of others perverse and mischievous, with certain propensities and impulses.

‘Now with regard to the death of such beings, I have heard a story from a man who was no fool nor braggart. For the father of Aemilianus the rhetorician, whose hearers some of us have been, was Epitherses, my fellow citizen and grammar-master. He said that once on a voyage to Italy he embarked in a ship carrying merchandise and many passengers: and at evening off the Echinades the wind dropped, and the ship drifted and came near to Paxi; that most of them were awake, and were drinking after they had supped. And suddenly a voice was heard from the island Paxi, some one calling aloud on Thamus, so that they were amazed. For Thamus was the pilot, an Egyptian, not even known by name to many of those on board. Though called twice however, he kept silence, but the third time he answered him that called. He then raised his voice higher and said, “When thou art come off Pelodes, announce that the Great Pan is dead.”

‘On hearing this, Epitherses said they were all struck with amazement, and began to take counsel together, whether it were better to do what was commanded, or not to meddle with the matter, but let it pass; whereupon Thamus decided, that if there should be wind, he would sail past and keep quiet, but if the wind should fail and a calm come on near the place, he would report what he had heard.

‘When therefore he was come off Pelodes, as there was neither wind nor sea, Thamus looking from the poop towards the land spake as he had heard, that “The Great Pan is dead”: and he had no sooner ceased speaking than there came a loud lamentation, not of one but of many, mingled with amazement.

‘And inasmuch as there were many persons present, the tale was soon spread in Rome, and Thamus was sent for by Tiberius Caesar. And Tiberius so fully believed the story, that he made thorough inquiry and research about Pan; and the learned men of his court being present in great number conjectured that it was Pan the son of Hermes and Penelope.

‘So then Philip had witnesses to his story in some of those who were present, and had heard it from the aged Aemiiian. But Demetrius said that there were many desert islands scattered about among those on the coast of Britain, some of which were named after daemons and heroes. And that he himself, being sent by the Emperor to make an investigation and survey, sailed to the nearest of the desert islands, which had but few inhabitants, and these all sacred persons inviolable to the Britons.

‘Very soon after his arrival there arose a great commotion in the air, and many portents in the sky, and violent blasts of wind, and falling of thunderbolts. And when this abated, the islanders said that one of the higher powers had been extinguished; for as a lamp, they said, while lighted does no harm, but being extinguished is hurtful to many, so great souls are benignant and harmless in their shining, but their extinction and dissolution oftentimes, as now, cause winds and storms, and often infect the air with pestilent diseases.

‘There was however one island there, in which Kronos was confined and guarded in his sleep by Briareus; for his sleep had been artfully contrived to keep him bound; and there were many daemons about him as attendants and servants.’.

So far Plutarch. But it is important to observe the time at which he says that the death of the daemon took place. For it was the time of Tiberius, in which our Saviour, making His sojourn among men, is recorded to have been ridding human life from daemons of every kind: so that there were some of them now kneeling before Him and beseeching Him not to deliver them over to the Tartarus that awaited them.

You have therefore the date of the overthrow of the daemons, of which there was no record at any other time; just as you had the abolition of human sacrifice among the Gentiles as not having occurred until after the preaching of the doctrine of the Gospel had reached all mankind. Let then these refutations from recent history suffice.