The records of the Middle Ages show the ancient god was known in many parts of the country, but to the Christian recorder he was the enemy of the New Religion and was therefore equated with the Principle of Evil, in other words the Devil. This conception, that a god other than that of the recorded must be evil, is not confined to Christianity, or to the Middle Ages. St. Paul, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, expressed the same opinion when he wrote, „The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table and the table of devils“. The author of the Book of Revelation is equally definite when he calls the magnificent altar of Zeus at Pergamos „the throne of Satan“, „I know thy works and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s throne is“. In 1613 Sebastian Michaelis spoke with no uncertain voice, „The Gods of the Turks and the Gods of the Gentiles are all Devils“. In India, Hindus, Mahommedans and Christians unite in calling the deities of the aboriginal tribes „devils“. The gentle peaceable Yezidis of modern Mesopotamia, whose god is incarnate in a peacock or a black snake, are stigmatised as „devil−worshippers“ by their Moslem fellow−countrymen. As late as the nineteenth century Christian missionaries of every denomination, who went out to Convert the heathen in any part of the world, were apt to speak of the people among whom they laboured as worshippers of devils, and many even believed that those to whom they preached were doomed to hell−fire unless they turned to the Christian God. The gods of the Pagans were often accredited with evil magical powers, which could be mysteriously communicated to the priests. Against such powers of hell the Christian missionaries felt themselves strengthened by the powers of heaven; and the belief that the devil had been defeated by the Archangel Michael backed by the whole power of the Almighty gave them courage in the contest.