Medieval scholars explained idolatry as mourning gone wrong plus demonic deception

Evidence

If Isidore seems unable to escape the Roman, imperial structuring of history, he nevertheless shows a Catholic churchman’s preoccupation with religious error: paganism and especially heresy. He places the creation of pagan idolatry near the beginning of the second age: “in these times the first temples were built, and certain princes among the nations began to be adored as gods.” He later (§45–53) discusses Prometheus, Atlas, Mercury, Jove, and other humans who were worshiped as gods. Isidore develops this idea in more detail in Etymologies 835; after the death of such men, he explains, their followers crafted images (simulacra) of them, “so that they could have some solace in the contemplation of images, but their descendants, persuaded by demons, gradually slipped into this error [idolatry].” — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 129

Categorization

• SEED: The mechanism — idolatry born from widows/worshippers seeking comfort in images of a dead ruler, then demons exploiting it — is a tidy origin myth for syncretism, useful for an essay on how early Christian historiography explained religious plurality.