Charlie Kirk got this question, and he gave a brilliant response about how the early Christians turned down the offer to get Jesus into the Roman Pantheon.
I don't know the details about when this offer was made, and it is possible that Charlie overestimated someone else's competence in history, but it is not impossible they got it, it is certain that if they did, they turned it down. And rightly so. Once a certain name is an altar not of the true God, and you are sacrificing there, there are only demons left. Yes, even with persons alive the same time. When Tiberius was alive, people who spoke to him spoke to a man, but people who sacrificed to him or to his genius sacrificed to a demon. Even if it was just one grain of incense.
But when a Pagan thinks of his gods, he will sometimes think of things that aren't as object of his reflection demonic.
So, I'd give
So, here are the levels, if you ask me.
- partial views on the true God
- partial views on angelic beings, meaning also good angels
- bad guesses about what else there might be there
- human people whom people took to be god for bad reasons
- traits of people or societies
- direct demonic manifestations, like pythonic spirits or supernatural mayhem.
As Christians, we do not believe Roman Mars or Greek Zeus exist. Nor should we. This doesn't mean that Romulus, reputed to be son of Mars didn't exist, or Herakles, reputed to be son of Zeus.
It just means, someone was wrong about Romulus and Herakles and gave them a wrong origin story.
As Christians, we don't believe any demon is omniscient or even aware of the future. How does this relate to demonic oracles, like the Pythia of Delphi?
Reply to Objection 5. The demons know a truth in three ways: first of all by the subtlety of their nature; for although they are darkened by privation of the light of grace, yet they are enlightened by the light of their intellectual nature: secondly, by revelation from the holy angels; for while not agreeing with them in conformity of will, they do agree, nevertheless, by their likeness of intellectual nature, according to which they can accept what is manifested by others: thirdly, they know by long experience; not as deriving it from the senses; but when the similitude of their innate intelligible species is completed in individual things, they know some things as present, which they previously did not know would come to pass, as we said when dealing with the knowledge of the angels (I:57:3 ad 3).
S. Th. I P. Question 64. The punishment of the demons : Article 1. Whether the demons' intellect is darkened by privation of the knowledge of all truth?
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1064.htm#article1
I answer that, As stated above (II-II:171:1), prophecy denotes knowledge far removed from human knowledge. Now it is evident that an intellect of a higher order can know some things that are far removed from the knowledge of an inferior intellect. Again, above the human intellect there is not only the Divine intellect, but also the intellects of good and bad angels according to the order of nature. Hence the demons, even by their natural knowledge, know certain things remote from men's knowledge, which they can reveal to men: although those things which God alone knows are remote simply and most of all.
Accordingly prophecy, properly and simply, is conveyed by Divine revelations alone; yet the revelation which is made by the demons may be called prophecy in a restricted sense. Wherefore those men to whom something is revealed by the demons are styled in the Scriptures as prophets, not simply, but with an addition, for instance as "false prophets," or "prophets of idols." Hence Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xii, 19): "When the evil spirit lays hold of a man for such purposes as these," namely visions, "he makes him either devilish, or possessed, or a false prophet."
S. Th. II-II, Question 172. The cause of prophecy: Article 5. Whether any prophecy comes from the demons?
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3172.htm#article5
The demons can however pretend to know the future in such ways as to provoke the disasters they foresee. This is what I think happened in the case of Oedipus. Because, precisely, Apollo of Delphi, manifesting in the restless trance states of the Pythias, did this kind of manipulation in self fulfilling prophecies. I don't think a false reading of the Apocalypse could do this, because it is not from demons, but from Holy God. Nevertheless, false readings of the Apocalypse can bring about some disasters that are in the true reading, like saying "Antichrist cannot be here yet" can help him to seize power or "the mark of the beast cannot be here yet" can help a code of conduct amounting to this evil to gain such acceptance that those rightly opposing it can neither buy nor sell.
So, I'll give one example of each, from each of the three highly mythological religions I mentioned.
- partial views on the true God
- Greek: Josephus says that the earliest worship of Zeus, that of Zeus Ennyalion, was a worship of the true God. Doesn't mean it remained so.
- Norse: Odin is a false god, but takes on some attributes of the true God, like creating, sending a flood, being a father of all, and with his brothers, being Three in One.
- Hindu: Of the Hindu "trinity" Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, it would seem that only the third is diabolic as a concept, while the first two correctly reflect that God pre-existed and created the universe and upholds the universe.
- partial views on angelic beings, meaning also good angels
- Greek: Helios, as long as not mixed with Apollo, Selene as long as not mixed with Hecate or Artemis. Hermes seems once to have meant a guardian angel trying to tell a sinner (Aegistus) to repent.
- Norse: In Norse myth, Sol and Mani are actually not worshipped gods. When the songs about Sigurd and Brunhild say, they worshipped Sol and Mani to get powers of healing and obstretician skill, I suppose this refers in historic fact to invoking the Roman or Greek Apollo and Artemis / Diana, nothing to do with Norse gods. Sigfried / Sigurd and Brunhild had access to remnants of Roman paganism. So, on this level angelology remains angelology.
- Hindu: Surya and Chandra.
- In Greek and Hindu, also leave out Sun (and Moon?) having children. That's not partial, but erroneous, as statement about good angels.
- bad guesses about what else there might be there
- Greek: Okeanos. Nope, the sea doesn't need one specific spirit.
- Norse: Jotunheim. Nope, Giants don't survive on an earth disc that's lower than and bigger than our earth disc.
- Hindu: Rahu. Nope, Solar and Lunar eclipses don't need a third body beyond the Earth (as observing or causing eclipse), but would do so if Earth were a disc.
- human people whom people took to be some kind of god for bad reasons
- Greek: Herakles.
- Roman: Romulus. Venus mater.*
- Japanese: Amaterasu as ancestor of Jimmu.*
- Norse: Odin and Yngwe-Frey, when they appeared in Norse lands, founding the Yngling dynasty, may involve Tyr and Thor as well.
- Hindu: Krishna and Rama.
- traits of people or societies
- Greek: Aphrodite (Roman Venus) as goddess of love (may at times have been demons too). Ares (Roman Mars) as god of war.
- Norse: I don't know an example.
- Hindu: I don't know an example.
- direct demonic manifestations, like pythonic spirits or supernatural mayhem.
- Greek: Apollo of Delphi, Apollo the Plague sender. Helios as father of Aeetes, grandfather of Medea. Hekate, if appearing. Poseidon in the Hippolytus tragedy, possibly Aphrodite in the Hippolytus tragedy.
- Norse: Odin and Thor appearing to Pagans appealing to them to avoid Christianity.
- Hindu: Shiva. Is called the Destroyer, and when Arjuna made a deal with him, he became a wonderful warrior, but awful husband.**
When a hero with a human life is said to have a god as a father, it sometimes is a sign of the father being for some reason unknown, or not worth mentioning (Minos being called son of Zeus to the analysis of Leaf simply meant he was a self made man, came much higher in society than his actual father). But sometimes it could mean a demonic entity interfering in the conception (Romulus) or pregnancy (Herakles).
BUT, whichever it is, once someone worships this instead of the true God, they worship the devil or his minions, demons. It's not because Krishna was an actual man that worshipping him becomes a kind of veneration of saints, he is unfortunately worshipped as an actual god and avatar of Vishnu. He is obviously not THE one and only Incarnation of the True God. Therefore, worshipping him as Hindus do is illicit and is demon worship. Though, not as directly, not as intentionally, as if you worshipped Shiva or Apollo or Hecate or ... some Canaanean things I left out of this altogether.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Bridget of Sweden
8.X.2025
23 Jul. Romae natalis sanctae Birgittae Viduae, quae, post multas sanctarum locorum peregrinationes, divino afflata Spiritu, quievit. Ipsius autem festivitas octavo Idus Octobris celebratur.
7 Oct. In Suecia Translatio corporis sanctae Birgittae Viduae.
8 Oct. Sanctae Birgittae Viduae, cujus dies natalis decimo Kalendas Augusti, ac Translatio Nonis Octobris recensetur.
* I consider both Venus Mater and Amaterasu are in history known as Puduhepa. Before becoming a Hittite empress, she was priestess of the Sungoddess of Arinna (confer Amaterasu) whom she identified with the love goddess (Venus mater).
** I haven't read the original Mahabharata in Sanskrit. However a girl who was daughter of an ambassador of India (perhaps to France) made a prose retelling, and she really felt sorry for his wife, poor Draupadi. So do I. I think this took place, not in post-Flood India, but in pre-Flood Nod East of Eden (to which post-Flood India, via Rama / Regma, has a nostalgic attachment.)
