117. Religion has existed from ancient times, and the inhabitants of the world have everywhere known of the existence of God, and something of the life after death, not on their own or owing to their own acumen, but from the Ancient Word (as discussed above, nos. 101-103 above), and later from the Israelite Word.

From these two sources religions have spread to southeast Asia and its islands, through Egypt and Ethiopia into African kingdoms, and from the maritime regions of Asia to Greece, and from there to Italy.

However, because the Word could be written only in representational terms, namely in terms of such things as are found in the world, which correspond to heavenly things and so symbolize them, therefore the religions of many nations were turned into idolatrous ones, and in Greece into myths, where Divine attributes and predicates became so many gods, over which the people set a supreme one that they called Jove, after the name Jehovah.

It is common knowledge that people had a concept of paradise, of the flood, of holy fire, and of the four ages, extending from the first, golden one to the final, iron one, which in the Word symbolize the four states of the church, as in Daniel 2:31-35.

People also know that the Muslim religion which followed, and which destroyed many peoples’ earlier religions, was derived from the Word of both Testaments.