117. As for the fact that there has been religion from the earliest times and that people all over the world have known about God and have known something about life after death, this did not come from the people themselves and from their own mental acuity, but from that former Word discussed in §§101-103 above, and later from the Israelite Word. Religious principles spread from these sources into southeast Asia, including its islands; through Egypt and Ethiopia into Africa; and from the coast of Asia Minor into Greece and from there into Italy.

But since there was no way the Word could be composed except in the language of representative imagery, in images of things characteristic of this world that corresponded to and therefore signified heavenly realities, the religions of many nations were turned into idolatries - in Greece into fables - and divine attributes and characteristics were turned into individual gods led by one highest God whom people called Jove, from “Jehovah.” It is common knowledge that [ancient people] were familiar with paradise, the Flood, sacred fire, and the four ages - from the first Golden Age to the last Iron Age - which serve in the Word to mean the four states of the church, as in Daniel 2:31-35.

It is also common knowledge that Islam, which came later and wiped out the preceding religious cultures of many nations, was drawn from the Word of both Testaments.