Romans 1: the pagan sages served the creature though they held it a minister of the supreme God
That this is how things stand is plainly proved by the Apostle's charge against the pagan philosophers: they "worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator," that is, they gave divine worship to the creature beside the Creator, or rather than the Creator, because they worshiped the sun, the moon and the stars, the heroes and the genii with religious worship (Romans 1:25).
Yet it is certain that those pagan philosophers did not take the sun, the heroes and the genii for supreme gods. They took them for servants of that supreme God whom they called the Father of men and gods, and whom they believed was honored also in those lesser divinities.
Latin
LXXIII. Rem autem ita se habere inde manifeste probatur, quod Ethnicorum sapientes arguuntur ab Apostolo, ut ii qui ἐσεβάσθησαν καὶ ἐλάτρευσαν τῇ κτίσει παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα, id est, qui creaturam cultu divino coluerunt, praeter creatorem, sive potius quam creatorem: quia scilicet, Solem, Lunam, & Astra, Heroas, & Genios religiose colebant. Et tamen certum est, illos Ethnicorum sapientes Solem, Heroas, & Genios non pro summis Diis habuisse, sed pro Ministris summi illius Dei, quem vocabant Patrem hominumque Deumque, quemque etiam in divis illis inferioribus honorari existimabant. Rom. 1. 26.