We seldom find definite heathen gods so precisely designated as demons as in Milton, but no doubt seems possible that the general principle was accepted by contemporary and earlier authors. The chief work of the seventeenth century on ancient religion is the _De Theologia Gentili_ of G. I. Voss; he operates entirely with the traditional view. It may be traced back through a succession of writings of the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries. They are all, or almost all, agreed that antique paganism was the work of the devil, and that idolatry was, at any rate in part, a worship of demons. From the Middle Ages I can adduce a pregnant expression of the same view from Thomas Aquinas; in his treatment of idolatry and also of false prophecy he definitely accepts the demonology of the early Church. On this point he appeals to Augustine, and with perfect right; from this it may presumably be assumed that the Schoolmen in general had the same view, Augustine being, as we know, an authority for Catholic theologians. In mediaeval poets also we occasionally find the same view expressed. As far as I have been able to ascertain, Dante has no ancient gods among his devils, and the degree to which he had dissociated himself from ancient paganism may be gauged by the fact that in one of the most impassioned passages of his poem he addresses the Christian God as “Great Jupiter.” But he allows figures of ancient mythology such as Charon, Minos and Geryon to appear in his infernal world, and when he designates the pagan gods as “false and _untruthful_,” demonology is evidently at the back of his mind. The mediaeval epic poets who dealt with antique subjects took over the pagan gods more or less. Sometimes, as in the Romance of Troy, the Christian veneer is so thick that the pagan groundwork is but slightly apparent; in other poems, such as the adaptation of the _Aeneid_, it is more in evidence. In so far as the gods are not eliminated they seem as a rule to be taken over quite naïvely from the source without further comment; but occasionally the poet expresses his view of their nature. Thus the French adapter of Statius’s _Thebaïs_, in whose work the Christian element is otherwise not prominent, cautiously remarks that Jupiter and Tisiphone, by whom his heroes swear, are in reality only devils. Generally speaking, the gods of antiquity are often designated as devils in mediaeval poetry, but at times the opinion that they are departed human beings crops up. Thus, as we might expect, the theories of ancient times still survive and retain their sway.