[247] Cf. GÖTTE: _Das Delphische Orakel: “In Zeiten, wo dasselbe keine Bedeutung mehr hatte, wo es nur dazu dienen konnte, den finstersten Aberglauben fortzupflanzen und zu erhalten, und die Menschen über die wahre Leitung der Dinge in der Welt, über die wahren Mittel, durch welche sich Jeder sein Glück bereitet, zu täuschen, wurde das Orakelwesen von den frommen Vätern unserer Kirche für die Ausgeburt des Teufels angesehen,” &c._—Cf. also, 1 Corinthians x. 20-22. [248] See, for these illustrations, SCOTT’s _Demonology and Witchcraft_, PATER’s _Apollo in Picardy_, and HEINE’s _Gods in Exile_. (“_Unter solchen Umständen musste Mancher, dessen heilige Haine konfisciert waren, bei uns in Deutschland als Holzhäcker taglöhnern und Bier trinken statt Nektar._”) [249] 361 A. sqq. [250] The author of the _De Placitis_ (882 B.) gives a very vague and slight account of the history of Dæmonology, probably from motives of Epicurean contempt, if one may judge from the curt sentence which concludes his brief note:—“Epicurus admits none of these things.”—He merely says that Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, and the Stoics asserted the existence of spirits called “Dæmons,” and adds that the same philosophers also maintained the existence of Heroes some good, some bad. The distinction between good and bad does not apply to the Dæmons. The identical words of this passage in the _De Placitis_ are used by Athenagoras (_Legat: pro Christ._, cap. 21) to express a definite statement about Thales, who is asserted to have been the first who made the division into God, dæmons, heroes. [251] Plutarch has here preserved some very beautiful verses of Empedocles, in which this punishment is described. Another fragment of verse from Empedocles (_De Exilio_, 607 C) depicts with equal force and beauty the punishment by the Dæmons of one who has been handed over to them to atone for his crimes. [252] Here should be noted the tendency to assimilate the good Dæmons to the gods—a tendency to which reference has already been made. [253] _De Defectu Orac._, 419 A. [254] _De Defectu Orac._, 419 A. [255] 419.—Mrs. Browning could hardly have read the _De Defectu_ when she stated that her fine poem “The Dead Pan” was “partly founded on a well-known tradition mentioned in a treatise of Plutarch (‘_De Oraculorum Defectu_’), _according to which, at the hour of the Saviour’s agony, a cry of ‘Great Pan is dead!’ swept across the waves in the hearing of certain mariners,—and the oracles ceased_.” (It was one of the mariners who uttered the cry, “The great Pan is dead!” having been thrice requested by a supernatural voice to do so. But such errors of detail are unimportant in view of the fact that the whole spirit of the story is misunderstood by the poetess.)