Demonic imitation and mythology

Those who hand down the myths invented by the poets offer no proof to the young people who learn them. We will show that these stories were put forward through the activity of the evil demons in order to deceive and lead the human race astray.

For when the demons heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ would come and that the ungodly among humanity would be punished by fire, they put forward many figures who were said to be sons of Zeus, thinking they could make people suppose that what was said concerning Christ was merely a collection of marvelous tales like those told by the poets. Such stories were told both among the Greeks and among all the nations where the demons especially heard the prophets proclaiming that Christ would be believed.

But although they heard what was said through the prophets, they did not understand it accurately. Instead, in their error they imitated the things concerning our Christ. We will make this clear.

The prophet Moses, as we said before, was older than all the writers, and through him it was prophesied: “A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from between his thighs, until he comes for whom it is reserved; and he shall be the expectation of the nations, binding his colt to a vine and washing his robe in the blood of the grape.”

When the demons heard these prophetic words, they said that Dionysus was a son of Zeus; they handed down that he was the discoverer of the vine, include wine among his mysteries, and taught that after being torn apart he ascended into heaven.

And because the prophecy of Moses did not state expressly whether the one who was to come was the Son of God, or whether after riding on a colt he would remain on earth or ascend into heaven—and because the word “colt” could mean the young of either a donkey or a horse—they did not know whether the foretold one would bring a donkey’s colt or a horse as the sign of his coming, nor whether he was the Son of God, as we have said, or the son of a human being. So they said that Bellerophon, himself a human being born from human beings, ascended into heaven on the horse Pegasus.

When they heard through the other prophet Isaiah that he would be born through a virgin and ascend into heaven by his own power, they put forward Perseus. And when they learned the saying quoted earlier in the written prophecies, “Strong like a giant to run his course,” they said that Heracles was strong and had traveled throughout the whole earth. Again, when they learned that it had been prophesied that he would heal every disease and raise the dead, they put forward Asclepius.