superstitious." Therefore idolatry belongs to superstition.

_I answer that,_ As stated above (Q. 92, A. 2), it belongs to
superstition to exceed the due mode of divine worship, and this is
done chiefly when divine worship is given to whom it should not be
given. Now it should be given to the most high uncreated God alone,
as stated above (Q. 81, A. 1) when we were treating of religion.
Therefore it is superstition to give worship to any creature
whatsoever.

Now just as this divine worship was given to sensible creatures by
means of sensible signs, such as sacrifices, games, and the like, so
too was it given to a creature represented by some sensible form or
shape, which is called an "idol." Yet divine worship was given to
idols in various ways. For some, by means of a nefarious art,
constructed images which produced certain effects by the power of the
demons: wherefore they deemed that the images themselves contained
something God-like, and consequently that divine worship was due to
them. This was the opinion of Hermes Trismegistus [*De Natura Deorum,
ad Asclep.], as Augustine states (De Civ. Dei viii, 23): while others
gave divine worship not to the images, but to the creatures
represented thereby. The Apostle alludes to both of these (Rom. 1:23,
25). For, as regards the former, he says: "They changed the glory of
the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible
man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of creeping
things," and of the latter he says: "Who worshipped and served the
creature rather than the Creator."

These latter were of three ways of thinking. For some deemed certain
men to have been gods, whom they worshipped in the images of those
men: for instance, Jupiter, Mercury, and so forth. Others again
deemed the whole world to be one god, not by reason of its material
substance, but by reason of its soul, which they believed to be God,
for they held God to be nothing else than a soul governing the world
by movement and reason: even as a man is said to be wise in respect
not of his body but of his soul. Hence they thought that divine
worship ought to be given to the whole world and to all its parts,
heaven, air, water, and to all such things: and to these they
referred the names of their gods, as Varro asserted, and Augustine
relates (De Civ. Dei vii, 5). Lastly, others, namely, the Platonists,
said that there is one supreme god, the cause of all things. After
him they pla