19. What say I then ? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing ?
This is evidently intended to guard against a false inference from this mode of reasoning. It was not to be inferred from what he had said, that he regarded the professed objects of heathen worship as ha-sdng the same objective existence as the God whom Jews and Christians worshipped ; or that he con- sidered the heathen sacrifices as having any inherent power. The idol was nothing, and that which was offered to the idol was nothing. This however does not alter the case. For al- though there are no such beings as those whom the heathen conceive their gods to be, and although their sacrifices are not what they consider them, still their worship is real idolatry, and has a destructive influence on the soul. How this is, is explained in the following verse.
20. But (I say), that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God : and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.
That is, ' I do not say the gods of the heathen have a real existence, that there are any such persons as Jupiter or Mi- nerva ; but I do say that the heathen worship is the worship of demons.* This verse presents two questions for considera- tion. First, in what sense does Paul here use the word Sat/Ao- vta, translated devils / and secondly, in what sense can it be truly said that the heathen worship devils.
The words SaLfjuov and 8at/xovtov were used by the Greeks for any deity or god, or spirit, and generally for any object of reverence or dread. The only case in the New Testament where they have this sense is Acts 17, 18, (" He seems to be a setter forth of strange gods.") Elsewhere they always mean fallen angels. Our translators have not adhered to the dis- tinction which in the New Testament is constantly made in the use of the words Sia^oXos and 8at/xovtov. They translate both terms by the word devil, and hence, when the latter oc- curs in the plural form, they render it devils. The former, however, is never applied in Scripture (except in its appellative sense of accuser) to any other being than Satan. He is the Devil, and the Scriptures never speak of more than one. By