Note (return) — Chapter IV

A philosophy of Grecian mythology, such as we have outlined in the preceding paragraphs, is, in our judgment, perfectly consistent with the views announced by Paul in his address to the Athenians. He intimates that the Athenians "thought that the Godhead was like unto (ἐ ναι ὄµοιον)--to be imaged or represented by human art--by gold, and silver, and precious stone graven by art, and device of man;" that is, they thought the perfections of God could be represented to the eye by an image, or symbol. The views of Paul are still more articulately expressed in Romans, i. 23, 25: "They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the similitude of an image of corruptible man,.... and they worshipped and served the thing made, παρά--rather than, or more than the Creator." Here, then, the apostle intimates, first, that the heathen knew God, 154 and that they worshipped God. They worshipped the creature besides or even more than God, but still they also worshipped God. And, secondly, they represented the perfections of God by an image, and under this, as a "likeness" or symbol, they indirectly worshipped God. Their religious system was, then, even to the eye of Paul, a symbolic worship--that is, the objects of their devotion were the ὁµοιώµατα--the similitudes, the likenesses, the images of the perfections of the invisible God.