Note 78 — IX. PORPHYRY. 233–306 (?) A.D.

In justice to the old Greek Theology which, as it really was, has enough to answer for, it must be remarked that its Demonology, or belief in the powers of subordinate divinities—in the first instance merely the internunciaries, or mediators, or angels between Heaven and Earth—was a very different thing from the Diabolism of Christian theology, a fact which, perhaps, can be adequately recognised by those only who happen to be acquainted with the history of that most widely-spread and most fearful of all superstitions. Necessarily, from the vague and, for the most part, merely secular character of the earlier theologies, the infernal horrors, with the frightful creed, tortures, burnings, &c., which characterised the faith of Christendom, were wholly unknown to the religion of Apollo and of Jupiter.