1 Corinthians 10:20

20. But On the contrary, what I say is that, etc.

Devils Demons. Note on Luke 10:17. Our translators should never have confounded devil and demon. In pagan mythology a demon was intermediate between gods and men. One class were supposed to be the spirits of dead men, either good or evil, according to their character in life. Another class were beings of supernatural origin, somewhat like the angels. They might be good, like the demon which Socrates claimed to be his supernatural monitor; and it is singular to note how wonderfully many of the attributes of the Pythian Apollo prefigured Christ! They might be evil, as held by the wisest philosophers, and send diseases and pestilences to men and animals, and supply temptations to wrong.

In the Septuagint the word demon is used to designate, generally, an evil supernatural spirit, or whatever evil living reality there was to appropriate the service of pagan worshippers. So Psalms 96:5. All the gods of the pagans are demons; Deuteronomy 32:17, they sacrificed unto demons, and not unto God. It is clear from 1 Corinthians 10:22 that the apostle has this passage in mind. Josephus uses the word demons to denote the surviving spirits of wicked dead men, who often possess the living, and are to be expelled by exorcisms and fumigations.

In the New Testament the word is always used in a bad sense. There is but one Satan, one devil, and his angels, (Matthew 25:41,) and his angels are doubtless identical with the demons. There is no intimation in Scripture that they are the surviving spirits of the wicked dead. Wherever in our translation the plural word devils is used, the Greek is demons. Paul denies that there is any real god or goddess in paganism, but Satan’s spiritual emissaries may so impersonate those imaginary beings as to appropriate the honours of the worship, and keep the worshippers in paganism. Notes on Mark 5:2, and Acts 16:16; Acts 16:18.

Not to God They belong to the idolatrous and infernal, and antagonize the true religion and the true God.

I would not And this would not, he shows next verse, involves a cannot.