t as a living religion, it
had lost its practical interest, and theoretically the Middle Ages were
occupied with quite other problems than the nature of paganism. At the
revival of the study of ancient literature, during the Renaissance, people
certainly again came into the most intimate contact with ancient religion
itself, but systematic investigations of its nature do not seem to have
been taken up in real earnest until after the middle of the sixteenth
century. It is therefore difficult to ascertain in what light paganism was
regarded during the thousand years which had then passed since its final
extinction. From the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, on the other
hand, the material is extraordinarily plentiful, though but slightly
investigated. Previous works in this field seem to be entirely wanting; at
any rate it has not been possible for me to find any collective treatment
of the subject, nor even any contributions worth mentioning towards the
solution of the numerous individual problems which arise when we enter
upon what might be called "the history of the history of religion."(1) In
this essay I must therefore restrict myself to a few aphoristic remarks
which may perhaps give occasion for this subject, in itself not devoid of
interest, to receive more detailed treatment at some future time.

Milton, in the beginning of _Paradise Lost_, which appeared in 1667, makes
Satan assemble all his angels for continued battle against God. Among the
demons there enumerated, ancient gods also appear; they are, then, plainly
regarded as devils. Now Milton was not only a poet, but also a sound
scholar and an orthodox theologian; we may therefore rest assured that his
conception of the pagan gods was dogmatically correct and in accord with
the prevailing views of his time. In him, therefore, we have found a fixed
point from which we can look forwards and backwards; as late as after the
middle of the seventeenth century the early Christian view of the nature
of paganism evidently persisted in leading circles.

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