This, and other passages which serve to identify Zóphiël with
Apollo, are perfectly conformable to a belief once acknowledged
by every Christian.
An able writer in “The North-American Review” (in an article
entitled “Ancient and Modern Poetry,” which appeared some time
between the years twenty-one and four) appears to have read a
great deal on the subject. The following is not irrelative: “Some
evil spirits or fallen angels, whom the fathers had cast out, were
compelled by the fire of exorcism to confess that they were the
same who had inspired the heathen poets; and these, with all the
duties of ‘gay religions full of pomp and gold,’ were confined to
the doom of that infernal host described by Milton. So far were
the Christians from denying the existence of any of the beings of
Pagan mythology, that they continually urged, as an argument in
favor of the superiority and divinity of their faith, the power which
it gave over them; and Eunapius (see Eunapius' life of Porphyry
in his Vitæ Philosophorum) very gravely mentions the story of
Porphyry's expelling a demon.”
M. de Fontenelle wrote his “Histoire des Oracles” expressly to
prove that heathen temples were not inhabited by demons or fallen
angels. In that work is found the following oracle, extracted from
the writings of Eusebius: “Unhappy priest,” said Apollo to one of
his ministers, “ask me no more concerning the Divine Father, nor
of his only Son, nor of that Spirit which is the soul of all things:
it is that Spirit which expels me forever from these abodes.”
