Jeremiah 16

Further, Jeremiah says of Christ, "Behold the days come, says the Lord, and I will raise up to David a just branch. A king shall reign and shall be wise. He shall execute justice and judgment in the earth. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Israel shall dwell confidently. This is the name that they shall call him: The Lord our just one." On the calling of the Gentiles that he foresaw and we today see as realized, the prophet had this to say: "O Lord, my might and my strength, and my refuge in the day of tribulation; to you the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth and shall say, 'Surely our ancestors have possessed lies, a vanity that has not profited them.' "

Hermes Trismegistus lamented these vain, deceptive, pernicious, sacrilegious things because he foresaw that the time was coming when they would be abolished. He was as impudent in his grief as imprudent in his prophecy, since the Holy Spirit had made no revelation to him as to the holy prophets who exultantly proclaimed their inspired visions: "Shall a person make gods to himself, and they are not gods?" And again: "And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord of hosts, that I will destroy the names of idols out of the earth, and they shall be remembered no more." It is relevant to recall that holy Isaiah uttered a particular prophecy concerning Egypt: "And the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst thereof" and the rest.

Although Hermes calls these idols gods, he nevertheless admits that they were made by people whose example we should not follow, and thus, willy-nilly, he proves that these idols should not be worshiped by people who are unlike the people who made them, that is, by wise, believing and religious people. Moreover, he implies that the fabricators brought on themselves the guilt of reckoning as gods things that are not gods. Very true is that prophecy: "Shall a person make gods to himself, and they are not gods?" This, then, is what Hermes means by fabricated gods. Such gods, made and adored by such people, are but evil spirits imprisoned by magic in idols and bound there by the chains of their own passions.