Steering the Ship of State
The state of the perfection of the Christian God is juxtaposed with the state of the far less perfect existence of the mythological gods from Zeus on down. The author focuses on a very particular and certain aspect of the monotheistic supreme deity of Judeo-Christian faith that is still very much front and center as a tenet of faith among His worshippers:
“But missing to discover the greatness of God, and not being able to rise on high with their reason…they pine away among the forms of matter, and…deify the changes of the elements: just as if anyone should put the ship he sailed in the place of the steersman. But as the ship, although equipped with everything, is of no use if it have not a steersman, so neither are the elements, though arranged in perfect order, of any service apart from the providence of God. For the ship will not sail of itself; and the elements without their Framer will not move.”
The Goal of Demons
Athenagoras does not deny the existence of demonic agents within the construction of the universe created by the Christian god. But he explains their purpose is to undermine the potential perfection of that creation. The purpose of demonic possession is simply to lead men astray by encouraging worship of false gods and this is delineated through imagery:
“When, too, a tender and susceptible soul, which has no knowledge or experience of sounder doctrines, and is unaccustomed to contemplate truth, and to consider thoughtfully the Father and Maker of all things, gets impressed with false opinions respecting itself, then the demons who hover about matter, greedy of sacrificial odors and the blood of victims, and ever ready to lead men into error, avail themselves of these delusive movements of the souls of the multitude; and, taking possession of their thoughts, cause to flow into the mind empty visions as if coming from the idols and the statues”
Pot Meet Kettle
The attacks upon the sexual perversions supposed to be prevalent among the Christians by the Romans is turned back upon itself in an imagery-laden counterargument. The argument counters the attacks by suggesting there may be what would later come to be known as psychological projection at work among the Romans. Or, put another way, those Romans got some nerve attacking any other group on grounds of debauchery:
“These adulterers and pederasts defame the eunuchs and the once-married (while they themselves live like fishes; for these gulp down whatever falls in their way, and the stronger chases the weaker: and, in fact, this is to feed upon human flesh, to do violence in contravention of the very laws which you and your ancestors, with due care for all that is fair and right, have enacted)”
American Evangelicalism: 21st Century Style
The centerpiece of American evangelical Christians a voting bloc to be overly reckoned with is foreshadowed with an astonishing degree of prescience in this text. Or, alternatively, it is this text rather than scripture which has formed the foundation of the pro-life movement as a minority group exercising political power far beyond its capacity to enact retribution:
“And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God's care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it.”
