John Calvin Commentary Acts 14:11

"And when the multitude saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voice, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men." — Acts 14:11 (ASV)

Furthermore, the multitude. This history abundantly testifies how ready and inclined people are to vanity. Paul did not utter that word, Arise, abruptly; rather, he added it, so to speak, as a conclusion to the sermon made concerning Christ. Yet the people ascribe the praise for the miracle to their idols, as if they had heard nothing of Christ.

Indeed, it is no great wonder that these uncultured people fell into superstition, which they had learned from their childhood, as soon as they saw the miracle. But this vice is all too common everywhere, and it is so ingrained in us to be perverse and wrong interpreters of the works of God.

Hence come such gross follies of superstition in Popery, because, rashly grasping at miracles, they pay no attention to doctrine. For this reason, we must take greater care and be more sober-minded, lest, through our carnal understanding (to which we are so inclined), we corrupt the power of God, which shines and appears to us for our salvation.

And it is no wonder if the Lord willed for only a few miracles to be performed, and that for a short time, lest through human lusts they should be drawn to a completely contrary end. This is because it is unfitting that His name should be exposed to the world's mockery, which inevitably happens when that which is proper to Him is transferred to idols, or when unbelievers corrupt His works to invent corrupt forms of worship, while, setting the Word aside, they grasp at every divine power they fabricate.

Gods like men. This was an opinion drawn from old fables, which, nevertheless, had its origin in truth. The books of the poets are full of these fanciful stories—that the gods were often seen on earth in human form. And yet we may well think that this did not come from nothing, but rather that profane people turned into fables what the holy fathers previously taught concerning angels.

And it may be that Satan, when he had stupefied people, deluded them with various tricks. Truly, whatever belonged to God, whenever it fell into the hands of unbelievers, was corrupted by their wicked inventions. We must think the same way about sacrifices, which God instructed His people in even from the beginning, so that they might have the external signs of godliness and of the worship of God. And after unbelievers invented strange gods for themselves, they misused the sacrifices for their sacrilegious worship.

When the men of Lycaonia saw the unusual power in the cripple who was healed, they convinced themselves that it was a work of God; this was all well. But they did evil in that they fashioned false gods for themselves in Paul and Barnabas, according to the old, familiar error. For what reason did they prefer Barnabas to Paul, except that they followed the childish conjecture (a fiction, really) concerning Mercury, the interpreter of the gods, in which belief they had been raised?

By this example, we are taught what a harmful thing it is to become accustomed to errors in youth. These errors can be so difficult to root out of the mind that, even through the works of God by which they ought to have been corrected, people only grow more hardened in them.