If the gods are demons…

A Brief Defense of Why Christians Should Read Pagan Literature

There are not always a lot of redeeming qualities about social media, but one highly redeeming quality is that it allows us to connect and make some genuine friendships with people we would otherwise never know. There is no better group to get to know on the platform formerly known as Twitter than the classical Christian educators who engage one another there. It is very encouraging to me to see a network of brothers and sisters in Christ who are all laboring passionately towards the same end; the exaltation of Jesus Christ and the inculcation of truth, goodness, and beauty in young hearts.

I thank God for the connections I have made here on Substack and on X and elsewhere online. I am thankful for the many great conversations we get to have and the countless great resources that have come my way through these brethren. Iron sharpens iron.

Recently one of my fellow educators reached out with a question, looking for another perspective on the matter. With his permission, I am sharing today his question and my answer.

I have a question for you, because I’m pretty sure it’s something you’ve dealt with. Today a student asked me the one question that is guaranteed to derail class: did the pagan gods exist? So I broke out Exodus and the Psalms and Genesis 6 and talked about nephilim and giants and demons, etc., leading up to my personal theory, which is that the gods were costumes for demons to put on when they wanted to deceive ancient people. One student followed all this, but then demanded to know why we read Homer and D’Aulaires if we know that ultimately these characters are demonic. I gave him an answer about distinguishing character from reality, and talked about how they personify ideas that we can discern virtue in, taking the good and leaving the bad. But I don’t think it was a great answer because I have always made that distinction between character and reality and thus the question never really occurred to me before, and I haven’t given an answer much thought. So I’m curious, have you had this question and how do you answer it?

Before answering the specific question about “why read such books?” I want to start with offering an affirmation of the claim that the gods of the pagans are actually demons. This is not a mere opinion, this is the fairly clear teaching of Holy Scripture.

Consider the words of the apostle Paul.

What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. (1 Corinthians 10:19-20)

The Psalmist agrees, saying,

They served their idols,
    which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons
    and their daughters to the demons;
they poured out innocent blood,
    the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,
    and the land was polluted with blood. (Psalm 106:36-38)

Moses also tells us,

They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods;
    with abominations they provoked him to anger.
They sacrificed to demons that were no gods,
    to gods they had never known,
to new gods that had come recently,
    whom your fathers had never dreaded. (Deuteronomy 32:16-17)

More evidence could be given in favor of the thesis that the gods of the pagans are actually demons, but let this suffice for now. If this is new to you I would simply exhort you to read Scripture very carefully with this notion in mind and you might be surprised by what you see. Too many Christians have made the amiable (but dangerous) error of assuming that to say “the gods of the people are not really gods” is equal to saying “the gods of the people have no real existence at all.” The Bible has lots of interesting things to say about spiritual creatures (angels, seraphim, cherubim, demons, etc.) being territorial entities (consider the fascinating episode in Daniel 10:10-14). That the Greek gods, the Egyptian gods, the Norse gods, the Babylonian gods, etc., are demons makes a lot of sense in light of the consistent teaching of the canon of Scripture.

Now to the original question. If the above thesis is true, what business do we have as Christian educators taking young hearts and souls to the words of Homer, Herodotus, Aeschylus, etc.? Shouldn’t we just read the Bible, theology books consistent with the Bible, and benign stories with nothing dangerous in them?

The following are three reasons in defense of why we should be reading classical pagan literature with our students (and our kids at home).

First, we should read the classical texts because they have been powerful influencers of civilization. Reading these texts helps us understand the world we are in. The texts tell us why civilizations have risen and fallen. They teach us about the development ideas which we now take for granted as part of our cultural consciousness. They explain who we are and where we come from. For example, our own government, as citizens of the United States, was largely modeled after principles which were developed in Ancient Greece and Rome coming into conjunction with biblical concepts of division of powers and plurality of elders/leadership. Reading in the great tradition from Homer on to present allows us to see a continuous conversation which explains a great many things about who we are and why we take certain ideas for granted (and why we dismiss others out of hand).

Second, I would say that despite the fact that Homer, Plato and the other great Pagan thinkers had faulty beliefs and even worshipped demons (ultimately) they were also human persons who experienced the common grace of God. As such they were recipients of His gracious natural revelation. By God's common grace, these brilliant men made many true, good, and beautiful observations and connections which are perfectly consistent with God's goodness. St. Augustine, in his book On Christian Doctrine, used the analogy of "plundering the Egyptians" to talk about the Christian duty to take away from the pagans all of that which rightfully belongs to God. Just as when the Hebrews took the wealth of the pagan Egyptians with them during the exodus so we too can joyfully loot Livy, Plutarch, and Plotinus. This is what we are doing when we read the greats of pagan history and literature. We are extending them enough respect to realize that they are image bearers with God-given rationality and natural giftings. We are acknowledging that they were capable of apprehending much truth and of creating much beauty even while living and operating in the midst of confusion and error. Further, while these texts have many untruths and immoral deeds in them it should be noted that observing faulty ideas and worldviews often help us apprehend and appreciate the truth even more by means of the provided contrast.

Third and finally, I would argue that we have biblical precedence (and historical Christian precedence from our church fathers) for reading pagan literature in just this way and for the above reasons. Acts 17 is the perfect text to demonstrate this. Paul the apostle clearly both read pagan literature (he was familiar enough with it to quote, from memory, writers like Aratus and Epimenedes in his sermon at the Areopagus) and he also made use of it for his ministry. He used Greek poets to point out that the Greeks, by human intellect in concert with natural revelation, had stumbled onto some useful truths (namely, that God is greater than his creation and is the ultimate sovereign over all of human affairs). He used his study of pagan literature to build ambassadorial bridges for evangelism. By understanding the pagan thought at work in the world around him, filtering it against the truth of Sacred Scripture, we are better equipped to understand our position in the world, and that of our neighbors, and to continue the work of reconciling the world to our Lord Jesus Christ just like Paul did.

Each of these above three points could, I think, be easily developed and further supported. Hopefully, for the sake of brevity, this will be enough to satisfy most as to the question “Why read pagan literature in Christian schools?” But I welcome your thoughts in the comments below!