City of God, Book 9

Some have advanced the opinion that there are both good and bad gods; but some, thinking more respectfully of the gods, have attributed to them so much honor and praise as to rule out the idea that any god is wicked. But those who have maintained that there are wicked gods as well as good ones have included the demons under the name “gods,” and sometimes though more rarely, have called the gods demons; so that they admit that Jupiter, whom they make the king and head of all the rest, is called a demon by Homer. Those, on the other hand, who maintain that the gods are all good, and far more excellent than the men who are justly called good, are moved by the actions of the demons, which they can neither deny nor impute to the gods whose goodness they affirm, to distinguish between gods and demons; so that, whenever they find anything offensive in the deeds or sentiments by which unseen spirits manifest their power, they believe that this comes not from the gods, but from the demons. At the same time they believe that, since no god can have direct dealings with men, these demons hold the position of mediators, ascending with prayers, and returning with gifts. This is the opinion of the Platonists, the ablest and most esteemed of their philosophers, with whom we therefore chose to debate this question — whether the worship of a number of gods is of any use toward obtaining blessedness in the future life. And this is the reason why, in the preceding book, we have inquired how the demons, who take pleasure in the kind of things that good and wise men loathe and detest, in the sacrilegious and immoral fictions which the poets have written not of men, but of the gods themselves, and in the wicked and criminal violence of magical arts, can be regarded as more nearly related and more friendly to the gods than men are, and can mediate between good men and the good gods; and it has been demonstrated that this is absolutely impossible.

This book, then, ought, according to the promise made at the end of the preceding one, to contain a discussion, not of the difference which exists among the gods, who, according to the Platonists, are all good, nor of the difference between gods and demons, the former of whom they separate by a wide interval from men, while the latter are placed midway between the gods and men, but of the difference, since they make one, among the demons themselves. This we shall discuss so far as it bears on our theme. It has been the common and usual belief that some of the demons are bad, others good; and this opinion, whether it is that of the Platonists or of any other sect, must by no means be passed over in silence, in case someone supposes he ought to cultivate the good demons so that by their mediation he may be accepted by the gods, all of whom he believes to be good, and that he may live with them after death; when in fact he would be caught in the snares of wicked spirits, and would wander far from the true God, with whom alone, and in whom alone, the human soul, that is to say, the soul that is rational and intellectual, is blessed.

What, then, is the difference between good and evil demons? For the Platonist Apuleius, in a treatise on this whole subject, while he says a great deal about their aerial bodies, has not a word to say of the spiritual virtues with which, if they were good, they must have been endowed. He has said not a word, then, of what could give them happiness; but he has given proof of their misery, acknowledging that their mind, by which they rank as rational beings, is not only not imbued and fortified with virtue so as to resist all unreasonable passions, but that it is somehow agitated with tempestuous emotions, and is thus on a level with the mind of foolish men. His own words are: “It is this class of demons the poets refer to when, without serious error, they imagine that the gods hate and love individuals among men, prospering and ennobling some, and opposing and distressing others. Therefore pity, indignation, grief, joy, every human emotion is experienced by the demons, with the same mental disturbance, and the same tide of feeling and thought. These turmoils and tempests banish them far from the tranquility of the celestial gods.” Can there be any doubt that in these words it is not some inferior part of their spiritual nature, but the very mind by which the demons hold their rank as rational beings, which he says is tossed with passion like a stormy sea? They cannot, then, be compared even to wise men, who with an undisturbed mind resist these disturbances to which they are exposed in this life, and from which human infirmity is never exempt, and who do not give way so as to approve or commit anything that might turn them from the path of wisdom and the law of uprightness. They resemble in character, though not in bodily appearance, wicked and foolish men. I might indeed say they are worse, since they have grown old in iniquity, and incorrigible by punishment. Their mind, as Apuleius says, is a sea tossed with tempest, having no rallying point of truth or virtue in their soul from which they can resist their turbulent and depraved emotions.

Among the philosophers there are two opinions about these mental emotions, which the Greeks call παθη, while some of our own writers, such as Cicero, call them disturbances, some affections, and some, to translate the Greek word more accurately, passions. Some say that even the wise man is subject to these disturbances, though moderated and controlled by reason, which imposes laws on them, and so restrains them within necessary bounds. This is the opinion of the Platonists and Aristotelians; for Aristotle was Plato's disciple, and the founder of the Peripatetic school. But others, such as the Stoics, are of the opinion that the wise man is not subject to these disturbances. But Cicero, in his book De Finibus, shows that the Stoics are here at variance with the Platonists and Peripatetics rather in words than in reality; for the Stoics decline to apply the term “goods” to external and bodily advantages, because they hold that the only good is virtue, the art of living well, and this exists only in the mind. The other philosophers, again, use the simple and customary terms, and do not hesitate to call these things goods, though in comparison with virtue, which guides our life, they are small and of little account. And thus it is obvious that, whether these outward things are called goods or advantages, they are held in the same estimation by both parties, and that in this matter the Stoics are merely pleasing themselves with a novel way of speaking. It seems, then, to me that in this question, whether the wise man is subject to mental passions, or wholly free from them, the controversy is one of words rather than of things; for I think that, if the reality and not the mere sound of the words is considered, the Stoics hold precisely the same opinion as the Platonists and Peripatetics. For, omitting for the sake of brevity other proofs which I might bring forward in support of this opinion, I will state only one which I consider conclusive. Aulus Gellius, a man of wide learning, and gifted with an eloquent and graceful style, relates, in his work entitled Noctes Atticæ that he once made a voyage with an eminent Stoic philosopher; and he goes on to relate fully and with gusto what I shall state only briefly, that when the ship was tossed and in danger from a violent storm, the philosopher grew pale with terror. This was noticed by those on board, who, though themselves threatened with death, were curious to see whether a philosopher would be agitated like other men. When the tempest had passed over, and as soon as their security gave them freedom to resume their talk, one of the passengers, a rich and pleasure-loving Asiatic, began to tease the philosopher and mock him because he had even become pale with fear, while he himself had been unmoved by the impending destruction. But the philosopher used the reply of Aristippus the Socratic, who, on finding himself similarly teased by a man of the same character, answered, “You had no cause for anxiety for the soul of a profligate debauchee, but I had reason to be alarmed for the soul of Aristippus.” With the rich man disposed of in this way, Aulus Gellius asked the philosopher, in the interests of science and not to annoy him, what the reason for his fear was. And he, willing to instruct a man so zealous in the pursuit of knowledge, at once took from his bag a book of Epictetus the Stoic, in which doctrines were advanced which precisely harmonized with those of Zeno and Chrysippus, the founders of the Stoic school. Aulus Gellius says that he read in this book that the Stoics maintain that there are certain impressions made on the soul by external objects which they call phantasiæ, and that it is not in the power of the soul to determine whether or when it will be invaded by these. When these impressions are made by alarming and formidable objects, they necessarily move the soul even of the wise man, so that for a little he trembles with fear, or is depressed by sadness, these impressions anticipating the work of reason and self-control; but this does not imply that the mind accepts these evil impressions, or approves or consents to them. For this consent is, they think, in a man's power; the difference between the mind of the wise man and that of the fool being that the fool's mind yields to these passions and consents to them, while that of the wise man, though it cannot help being invaded by them, still retains with unshaken firmness a true and steady conviction about those things which it ought rationally to desire or avoid. This account of what Aulus Gellius relates that he read in the book of Epictetus about the views and doctrines of the Stoics I have given as well as I could, not, perhaps, with his choice language, but with greater brevity, and, I think, with greater clearness. And if this is true, then there is no difference, or next to none, between the opinion of the Stoics and that of the other philosophers regarding mental passions and disturbances, for both parties agree in maintaining that the mind and reason of the wise man are not subject to these. And perhaps what the Stoics mean by asserting this, is that the wisdom which characterizes the wise man is clouded by no error and sullied by no taint, but, with this reservation that his wisdom remains undisturbed, he is exposed to the impressions which the goods and ills of this life (or, as they prefer to call them, the advantages or disadvantages) make on him. For we need not say that if that philosopher had thought nothing of those things which he thought he was immediately to lose, life and bodily safety, he would not have been so terrified by his danger as to betray his fear by the paleness of his cheeks. Nevertheless, he might suffer this mental disturbance, and still maintain the fixed conviction that life and bodily safety, which the violence of the tempest threatened to destroy, are not those good things which make their possessors good, as the possession of righteousness does. But insofar as they insist that we must call them not goods but advantages, they quarrel about words and neglect things. For what difference does it make whether goods or advantages is the better name, while the Stoic no less than the Peripatetic is alarmed at the prospect of losing them, and while, though they name them differently, they value them equally? Both parties assure us that, if pressed to commit some immoral act or crime by the threatened loss of these goods or advantages, they would prefer to lose such things as preserve bodily comfort and security rather than commit such things as violate righteousness. And thus the mind in which this resolution is well grounded allows no disturbances to prevail over it against reason, even though they assail the weaker parts of the soul; and not only that, but it rules over them, and, while it refuses its consent and resists them, administers a reign of virtue. Such a character is ascribed to Æneas by Virgil when he says, He stands immovable by tears, / Nor tenderest words with pity hears.

We need not at present give a careful and full exposition of the doctrine of Scripture, the sum of Christian knowledge, regarding these passions. It subjects the mind itself to God, so that He may rule and aid it, and the passions, again, to the mind, to moderate and bridle them, and turn them to righteous uses. In our ethics, we do not so much inquire whether a pious soul is angry, as why he is angry; not whether he is sad, but what is the cause of his sadness; not whether he fears, but what he fears. For I am not aware that any right thinking person would find fault with anger at a wrongdoer which seeks his correction, or with sadness which intends relief to the suffering, or with fear that someone in danger may be destroyed. The Stoics, indeed, are accustomed to condemn compassion. But how much more honorable it would have been in that Stoic we have been speaking of if he had been disturbed by compassion prompting him to relieve a fellow-creature, than to be disturbed by the fear of shipwreck! The words of Cicero in praise of Cæsar are far better and more humane, and more in keeping with pious feeling, when he says, “Among your virtues none is more admirable and agreeable than your compassion.” And what is compassion but a fellow-feeling for another's misery, which prompts us to help him if we can? And this emotion is obedient to reason, when compassion is shown without violating right, as when the poor are relieved, or the penitent forgiven. Cicero, who knew how to use language, did not hesitate to call this a virtue, which the Stoics are not ashamed to count among the vices, although, as the book of the eminent Stoic, Epictetus, quoting the opinions of Zeno and Chrysippus, the founders of the school, has taught us, they admit that passions of this kind invade the soul of the wise man, whom they hold to be free from all vice. From this it follows that these very passions are not judged by them to be vices, since they assail the wise man without forcing him to act against reason and virtue; and that, therefore, the opinion of the Peripatetics or Platonists and of the Stoics is one and the same. But, as Cicero says, mere quarreling over words is the bane of these pitiful Greeks, who thirst for contention rather than for truth. However, it may justly be asked whether our subjection to these affections, even while we follow virtue, is a part of the weakness of this life. For the holy angels feel no anger while they punish those whom the eternal law of God consigns to punishment, no fellow-feeling with misery while they relieve the miserable, no fear while they aid those who are in danger; and yet ordinary language ascribes to them also these mental emotions, because, though they have none of our weakness, their acts resemble the actions to which these emotions move us; and thus even God Himself is said in Scripture to be angry, and yet without any disturbance. For this word is used of the effect of His vengeance, not of the disturbing emotion.

Deferring for the present the question about the holy angels, let us examine the opinion of the Platonists, that the demons who mediate between gods and men are agitated by passions. For if their mind, though exposed to their attack, still remained free and superior to them, Apuleius could not have said that their hearts are tossed with passions as the sea by stormy winds. Their mind, then — that superior part of their soul by which they are rational beings, and which, if it actually exists in them, should rule and bridle the turbulent passions of the inferior parts of the soul — this mind of theirs, I say, is, according to the Platonist just mentioned, tossed with a hurricane of passions. The mind of the demons, therefore, is subject to the emotions of fear, anger, lust, and all similar feelings. What part of them, then, is free, and endowed with wisdom, so that they are pleasing to the gods, and the fit guides of men into purity of life, since their very highest part, being the slave of passion and subject to vice, only makes them more intent on deceiving and seducing, in proportion to the mental force and energy of desire they possess?

But if anyone says that it is not of all the demons, but only of the wicked, that the poets, not without truth, say that they violently love or hate certain men, — for it was of them Apuleius said that they were driven about by strong currents of emotion — how can we accept this interpretation, when Apuleius, in the very same passage, represents all the demons, and not only the wicked, as intermediate between gods and men by their aerial bodies? The fiction of the poets, according to him, consists in their making gods of demons, and giving them the names of gods, and assigning them as allies or enemies to individual men, using this poetic license, though they profess that the gods are very different in character from the demons, and far exalted above them by their heavenly home and wealth of blessedness. This, I say, is the poets' fiction, to say that these are gods who are not gods, and that, under the names of gods, they fight among themselves about the men whom they love or hate with keen partisan feeling. Apuleius says that this is not far from the truth, since, though they are wrongfully called by the names of the gods, they are described in their own proper character as demons. To this category, he says, belongs the Minerva of Homer, “who interposed in the ranks of the Greeks to restrain Achilles.” For he supposes it a poetic fiction that this was Minerva; for he thinks that Minerva is a goddess, and he places her among the gods whom he believes to be all good and blessed in the lofty ethereal region, far from dealings with men. But that there was a demon favorable to the Greeks and adverse to the Trojans, as another, whom the same poet mentions under the name of Venus or Mars (gods exalted above earthly affairs in their heavenly dwellings), was the Trojans' ally and the enemy of the Greeks, and that these demons fought for those they loved against those they hated — in all this he admitted that the poets stated something very like the truth. For they made these statements about beings to whom he ascribes the same violent and tempestuous passions as disturb men, and who are therefore capable of loves and hatreds not justly formed, but formed in a party spirit, as the spectators in races or hunts take fancies and prejudices. It seems to have been the great fear of this Platonist that the poetic fictions might be believed of the gods, and not of the demons who bore their names.

The definition which Apuleius gives of demons, and in which he of course includes all demons, is that they are in nature animals, in soul subject to passion, in mind rational, in body aerial, in duration eternal. Now in these five qualities he has named absolutely nothing which belongs to good men and not also to bad. For when Apuleius had spoken of the celestials first, and had then extended his description so as to include an account of those who dwell far below on the earth, so that, after describing the two extremes of rational being, he might proceed to speak of the intermediate demons, he says, “Men, therefore, who are endowed with the faculty of reason and speech, whose soul is immortal and their limbs mortal, who have weak and anxious spirits, dull and corruptible bodies, dissimilar characters, similar ignorance, who are obstinate in their audacity, and persistent in their hope, whose labor is vain, and whose fortune is ever on the wane, their race immortal, themselves perishing, each generation replenished with creatures whose life is swift and their wisdom slow, their death sudden and their life a wail — these are the men who dwell on the earth.” In recounting so many qualities which belong to the large proportion of men, did he forget that which is the property of the few when he speaks of their wisdom being slow? If this had been omitted, this description of the human race, so carefully elaborated, would have been defective. And when he commended the excellence of the gods, he affirmed that they excelled in that very blessedness to which he thinks men must attain by wisdom. And therefore, if he had wished us to believe that some of the demons are good, he should have inserted in his description something by which we might see that they have, in common with the gods, some share of blessedness, or, in common with men, some wisdom. But, as it is, he has mentioned no good quality by which the good may be distinguished from the bad. For although he refrained from giving a full account of their wickedness, through fear of offending, not themselves but their worshippers, for whom he was writing, yet he sufficiently indicated to discerning readers what opinion he had of them; for only on the one point of the eternity of their bodies does he liken them to the gods, all of whom, he asserts, are good and blessed, and absolutely free from what he himself calls the stormy passions of the demons; and as to the soul, he quite plainly affirms that they resemble men and not the gods, and that this resemblance lies not in the possession of wisdom, which even men can attain, but in the disturbance of passions which sways the foolish and wicked, but is so ruled by the good and wise that they prefer not to admit rather than to conquer it. For if he had wished it to be understood that the demons resembled the gods in the eternity not of their bodies but of their souls, he would certainly have admitted men to share in this privilege, because, as a Platonist, he of course must hold that the human soul is eternal. Accordingly, when describing this race of living beings, he said that their souls were immortal, their limbs mortal. And, consequently, if men do not have eternity in common with the gods because they have mortal bodies, demons have eternity in common with the gods because their bodies are immortal.

How, then, can men hope for a favorable introduction to the friendship of the gods by such mediators as these, who are, like men, defective in what is the better part of every living creature, namely, the soul, and who resemble the gods only in the body, which is the inferior part? For a living creature or animal consists of soul and body, and of these two parts the soul is undoubtedly the better; even though vicious and weak, it is obviously better than even the soundest and strongest body, for the greater excellence of its nature is not reduced to the level of the body even by the pollution of vice, as gold, even when tarnished, is more precious than the purest silver or lead. And yet these mediators, by whose intervention things human and divine are to be harmonized, have an eternal body in common with the gods, and a vicious soul in common with men, — as if the religion by which these demons are to unite gods and men were a bodily, and not a spiritual matter. What wickedness, then, or punishment has suspended these false and deceitful mediators, as it were head downward, so that their inferior part, their body, is linked to the gods above, and their superior part, the soul, bound to men beneath; united to the celestial gods by the part that serves, and miserable, together with the inhabitants of earth, by the part that rules? For the body is the servant, as Sallust says: “We use the soul to rule, the body to obey;” adding, “the one we have in common with the gods, the other with the brutes.” For he was here speaking of men; and they have, like the brutes, a mortal body. These demons, whom our philosophic friends have provided for us as mediators with the gods, may indeed say of the soul and body, the one we have in common with the gods, the other with men; but, as I said, they are as it were suspended and bound head downward, having the slave, the body, in common with the gods, the master, the soul, in common with miserable men, — their inferior part exalted, their superior part depressed. And therefore, if anyone supposes that, because they are not subject, like terrestrial animals, to the separation of soul and body by death, they therefore resemble the gods in their eternity, their body must not be considered a chariot of an eternal triumph, but rather the chain of an eternal punishment.

Plotinus, whose memory is quite recent, enjoys the reputation of having understood Plato better than any other of his disciples. In speaking of human souls, he says, “The Father in compassion made their bonds mortal;” that is to say, he considered it due to the Father's mercy that men, having a mortal body, should not be forever confined in the misery of this life. But the demons have been judged unworthy of this mercy, and they have received, together with a soul subject to passions, a body not mortal like man's, but eternal. For they would have been happier than men if they had, like men, had a mortal body, and, like the gods, a blessed soul. And they would have been equal to men, if together with a miserable soul they had at least received, like men, a mortal body, so that death might have freed them from trouble, if, at least, they had attained some degree of piety. But, as it is, they are not only no happier than men, having, like them, a miserable soul, they are also more wretched, being eternally bound to the body; for he does not leave us to infer that by some progress in wisdom and piety they can become gods, but expressly says that they are demons forever.

He says, indeed, that the souls of men are demons, and that men become Lares if they are good, Lemures or Larvæ if they are bad, and Manes if it is uncertain whether they deserve well or ill. Who does not see at a glance that this is a mere whirlpool sucking men to moral destruction? For, however wicked men have been, if they suppose they will become Larvæ or divine Manes, the more they love inflicting injury, the worse they will become; for, as the Larvæ are hurtful demons made out of wicked men, these men must suppose that after death they will be invoked with sacrifices and divine honors so that they may inflict injuries. But we must not pursue this question. He also states that the blessed are called in Greek εὐδαίμονες, because they are good souls, that is to say, good demons, confirming his opinion that the souls of men are demons.

But at present we are speaking of those beings whom he described as being properly intermediate between gods and men, in nature animals, in mind rational, in soul subject to passion, in body aerial, in duration eternal. When he had distinguished the gods, whom he placed in the highest heaven, from men, whom he placed on earth, not only by position but also by the unequal dignity of their natures, he concluded in these words: “You have here two kinds of animals: the gods, widely distinguished from men by loftiness of dwelling, perpetuity of life, perfection of nature; for their dwellings are separated by so wide an interval that there can be no intimate communication between them, and while the vitality of the one is eternal and unfailing, that of the others is fading and precarious, and while the spirits of the gods are exalted in bliss, those of men are sunk in miseries.” Here I find three opposite qualities ascribed to the extremes of being, the highest and lowest. For, after mentioning the three qualities for which we are to admire the gods, he repeated, though in other words, the same three as a foil to the defects of man. The three qualities are, “loftiness of dwelling, perpetuity of life, perfection of nature.” These he again mentioned so as to bring out their contrasts in man's condition. As he had mentioned “loftiness of dwelling,” he says, “Their dwellings are separated by so wide an interval;” as he had mentioned “perpetuity of life,” he says that “while divine life is eternal and unfailing, human life is fading and precarious;” and as he had mentioned “perfection of nature,” he says that “while the spirits of the gods are exalted in bliss, those of men are sunk in miseries.” These three things, then, he predicates of the gods, exaltation, eternity, blessedness; and of man he predicates the opposite, lowliness of dwelling, mortality, misery.

If we now try to find between these opposites the middle ground occupied by the demons, there can be no question about their position in space; for, between the highest and lowest place, there is a place which is rightly considered and called the middle place. The other two qualities remain, and to them we must give greater care, so that we may see whether they are altogether foreign to the demons, or how they are bestowed on them without infringing on their intermediate position. We may dismiss the idea that they are foreign to them. For we cannot say that the demons, being rational animals, are neither blessed nor wretched, as we say of the beasts and plants, which are devoid of feeling and reason, or as we say of the middle place, that it is neither the highest nor the lowest. The demons, being rational, must be either miserable or blessed. And, in the same way, we cannot say that they are neither mortal nor immortal; for all living things either live eternally or end life in death. Our author, besides, stated that the demons are eternal. What remains for us to suppose, then, but that these intermediate beings are likened to the gods in one of the two remaining qualities, and to men in the other? For if they received both from above, or both from beneath, they would no longer be intermediate, but either rise to the gods above, or sink to men beneath. Therefore, as it has been demonstrated that they must possess these two qualities, they will hold their middle place if they receive one from each party. Consequently, as they cannot receive their eternity from beneath, because it is not there to receive, they must get it from above; and accordingly they have no choice but to complete their intermediate position by accepting misery from men. According to the Platonists, then, the gods, who occupy the highest place, enjoy eternal blessedness, or blessed eternity; men, who occupy the lowest, a mortal misery, or a miserable mortality; and the demons, who occupy the middle, a miserable eternity, or an eternal misery. As to those five things which Apuleius included in his definition of demons, he did not show, as he promised, that the demons are intermediate. For three of them, that their nature is animal, their mind rational, their soul subject to passions, he said that they have in common with men; one thing, their eternity, in common with the gods; and one their own, their aerial body. How, then, are they intermediate, when they have three things in common with the lowest, and only one in common with the highest? Who does not see that the intermediate position is abandoned in proportion as they tend to, and are pressed down toward, the lowest extreme? But perhaps we are to accept them as intermediate because of their one property of an aerial body, since the two extremes each have their own kind of body, the gods an ethereal, men a terrestrial body, and because two of the qualities they possess in common with man they possess also in common with the gods, namely, their animal nature and rational mind. For Apuleius himself, in speaking of gods and men, said, “You have two animal natures.” And Platonists usually ascribe a rational mind to the gods. Two qualities remain, their liability to passion, and their eternity — the first of which they have in common with men, the second with the gods; so that they are neither wafted to the highest nor depressed to the lowest extreme, but perfectly poised in their intermediate position. But then, this is the very thing that constitutes the eternal misery, or miserable eternity, of the demons. For he who says that their soul is subject to passions would also have said that they are miserable, if he had not blushed for their worshippers. Moreover, as the world is governed, not by random chance, but, as the Platonists themselves declare, by the providence of the supreme God, the misery of the demons would not be eternal unless their wickedness were great. If, then, the blessed are rightly called eudemons, the demons intermediate between gods and men are not eudemons. What, then, is the place of those good demons, who, above men but beneath the gods, give help to the former and serve the latter? For if they are good and eternal, they are doubtless blessed. But eternal blessedness destroys their intermediate character, giving them a close resemblance to the gods, and widely separating them from men. And therefore the Platonists will in vain strive to show how the good demons, if they are both immortal and blessed, can justly be said to hold a middle place between the gods, who are immortal and blessed, and men, who are mortal and miserable. For if they have both immortality and blessedness in common with the gods, and neither of these in common with men, who are both miserable and mortal, are they not rather remote from men and united with the gods, than intermediate between them? They would be intermediate if they held one of their qualities in common with the one party, and the other with the other, as man is a kind of midpoint between angels and beasts — the beast being an irrational and mortal animal, the angel a rational and immortal one, while man, inferior to the angel and superior to the beast, and having in common with the one mortality, and with the other reason, is a rational and mortal animal. So, when we seek an intermediate between the blessed immortals and miserable mortals, we should find a being which is either mortal and blessed, or immortal and miserable.

It is a great question among men, whether man can be mortal and blessed. Some, taking the humbler view of his condition, have denied that he is capable of blessedness as long as he continues in this mortal life; others, again, have spurned this idea, and have been bold enough to maintain that, even though mortal, men may be blessed by attaining wisdom. But if this is the case, why are these wise men not made mediators between miserable mortals and the blessed immortals, since they have blessedness in common with the latter, and mortality in common with the former? Certainly, if they are blessed, they envy no one (for what is more miserable than envy?), but seek with all their might to help miserable mortals on to blessedness, so that after death they may become immortal, and be associated with the blessed and immortal angels.

But if, as is much more probable and credible, all men, as long as they are mortal, are necessarily also miserable, we must seek an intermediate who is not only man, but also God, so that, by the intervention of His blessed mortality, He may bring men out of their mortal misery to a blessed immortality. In this intermediate two things are required: that He become mortal, and that He not remain mortal. He did become mortal, not by weakening the divinity of the Word, but by taking on the weakness of flesh. Nor did He remain mortal in the flesh, but raised it from the dead; for it is the very fruit of His mediation that those, for the sake of whose redemption He became the Mediator, should not remain eternally in bodily death. Therefore it was fitting for the Mediator between us and God to have both a passing mortality and a permanent blessedness, so that by what is passing He might be made like mortals, and might carry them over from mortality to what is permanent. Good angels, therefore, cannot mediate between miserable mortals and blessed immortals, for they themselves also are both blessed and immortal; but evil angels can mediate, because they are immortal like the one party, miserable like the other. To these is opposed the good Mediator, who, in opposition to their immortality and misery, has chosen to be mortal for a time, and has been able to continue blessed in eternity. It is thus He has destroyed, by the humility of His death and the kindness of His blessedness, those proud immortals and hurtful wretches, and has prevented them from seducing to misery by their boast of immortality those men whose hearts He has cleansed by faith, and whom He has thus freed from their impure dominion. Man, then, mortal and miserable, and far removed from the immortal and the blessed, what mediator is he to choose by which he may be united to immortality and blessedness? The immortality of the demons, which might have some charm for man, is miserable; the mortality of Christ, which might offend man, exists no longer. In the one there is the fear of an eternal misery; in the other, death, which could not be eternal, can no longer be feared, and blessedness, which is eternal, must be loved. For the immortal and miserable mediator interposes himself to prevent us from passing to a blessed immortality, because that which hinders such a passage, namely, misery, continues in him; but the mortal and blessed Mediator interposed Himself, in order that, having passed through mortality, He might make mortals immortal (showing His power to do this in His own resurrection), and raise them from misery to the blessed company from which He Himself had never departed. There is, then, a wicked mediator, who separates friends, and a good Mediator, who reconciles enemies. And those who separate are numerous, because the multitude of the blessed are blessed only by their participation in the one God; and the evil angels, being deprived of this participation, are wretched, and intervene to hinder rather than to help us toward this blessedness, and by their very number prevent us from reaching that one good that makes us blessed, to obtain which we need not many but one Mediator, the uncreated Word of God, by whom all things were made, and in partaking of whom we are blessed. I do not say that He is Mediator because He is the Word, for as the Word He is supremely blessed and supremely immortal, and therefore far from miserable mortals; but He is Mediator as He is man, for by His humanity He shows us that, in order to obtain that blessed and blessing good, we need not seek other mediators to lead us through the successive steps of this attainment, but that the blessed and blessing God, having Himself become a partaker of our humanity, has given us ready access to participation in His divinity. For in delivering us from our mortality and misery, He does not lead us to the immortal and blessed angels, so that we should become immortal and blessed by participating in their nature, but He leads us straight to that Trinity, by participating in which the angels themselves are blessed. Therefore, when He chose to be in the form of a servant, and lower than the angels, so that He might be our Mediator, He remained higher than the angels, in the form of God — Himself at once the way of life on earth and life itself in heaven.

That opinion, which the same Platonist claims Plato expressed, is not true, “that no god has dealings with men.” And this, he says, is the chief evidence of their exaltation, that they are never contaminated by contact with men. He admits, therefore, that the demons are contaminated; and it follows that they cannot cleanse those by whom they are themselves contaminated, and thus all alike become impure, the demons by associating with men, and men by worshipping the demons. Or, if they say that the demons are not contaminated by associating and dealing with men, then they are better than the gods, for the gods, if they did so, would be contaminated. For this, we are told, is the glory of the gods, that they are so highly exalted that no human contact can stain them. He affirms, indeed, that the supreme God, the Creator of all things, whom we call the true God, is spoken of by Plato as the only God whom the poverty of human speech fails to describe even tolerably; and that even the wise, when their mental energy is as far as possible freed from the bonds of connection with the body, have only such glimpses of His nature as may be compared to a flash of lightning lighting up the darkness. If, then, this supreme God, who is truly exalted above all things, nevertheless visits the minds of the wise, when they are freed from the body, with an intelligible and ineffable presence, though this is only occasional, and like a swift flash of light across the darkness, why are the other gods so loftily removed from all contact with men, as if they would be polluted by it? As if it were not a sufficient refutation of this to lift up our eyes to those heavenly bodies which give the earth the light it needs. If the stars, though they, by his account, are visible gods, are not contaminated when we look at them, neither are the demons contaminated when men see them quite closely. But perhaps it is the human voice, and not the eye, which pollutes the gods; and therefore the demons are appointed to mediate and carry men's utterances to the gods, who keep themselves at a distance for fear of pollution. What am I to say of the other senses? For by smell neither the demons, who are present, nor the gods, even if they were present and inhaling the exhalations of living men, would be polluted if they are not contaminated by the fumes of the carcasses offered in sacrifice. As for taste, they are under no necessity of repairing bodily decay, so as to be reduced to asking men for food. And touch is in their own power. For while it may seem that contact is so called, because the sense of touch is specially concerned in it, the gods, if they wished, could still mingle with men, so as to see and be seen, hear and be heard; and where is the need of touching? For men would not dare to desire this, if they were favored with the sight or conversation of gods or good demons; and if through excessive curiosity they did desire it, how could they accomplish their wish without the consent of the god or demon, when they cannot touch so much as a sparrow unless it is caged? There is, then, nothing to hinder the gods from mingling in a bodily form with men, from seeing and being seen, from speaking and hearing. And if the demons mix with men in this way, as I said, and are not polluted, while the gods, if they did so, would be polluted, then the demons are less liable to pollution than the gods. And if even the demons are contaminated, how can they help men to attain blessedness after death, if, so far from being able to cleanse them, and present them clean to the unpolluted gods, these mediators are themselves polluted? And if they cannot confer this benefit on men, what good can their friendly mediation do? Or will its result be, not that men find entrance to the gods, but that men and demons remain together in a state of pollution, and consequently of exclusion from blessedness? Unless, perhaps, someone may say that, like sponges or things of that sort, the demons themselves, in the process of cleansing their friends, become themselves the filthier in proportion as the others become clean. But if this is the solution, then the gods, who shun contact or dealings with men for fear of pollution, mix with demons who are far more polluted. Or perhaps the gods, who cannot cleanse men without polluting themselves, can without pollution cleanse the demons who have been contaminated by human contact? Who can believe such follies, unless the demons have practiced their deceit on him? If seeing and being seen is contamination, and if the gods, whom Apuleius himself calls visible, “the brilliant lights of the world,” and the other stars, are seen by men, are we to believe that the demons, who cannot be seen unless they please, are safer from contamination? Or if it is only the seeing and not the being seen which contaminates, then they must deny that these gods of theirs, these brilliant lights of the world, see men when their rays shine on the earth. Their rays are not contaminated by falling on every kind of pollution, and are we to suppose that the gods would be contaminated if they mixed with men, and even if contact were needed in order to assist them? For there is contact between the earth and the sun's or moon's rays, and yet this does not pollute the light.

I am considerably surprised that such learned men, men who pronounce all material things perceived by the senses to be altogether inferior to those that are spiritual and intelligible, should mention bodily contact in connection with the blessed life. Is that saying of Plotinus forgotten?— “We must flee to our beloved fatherland. There is the Father, there our all. What fleet or flight shall convey us there? Our way is to become like God.” If, then, a person is nearer to God the more like Him he is, there is no other distance from God than unlikeness to Him. And the soul of man is unlike that incorporeal and unchangeable and eternal essence, in proportion as it craves things temporal and mutable. And as the things beneath, which are mortal and impure, cannot have dealings with the immortal purity which is above, a mediator is indeed needed to remove this difficulty; but not a mediator who resembles the highest order of being by possessing an immortal body, and the lowest by having a diseased soul, which makes him grudge our healing rather than help our cure. We need a Mediator who, being united to us here below by the mortality of His body, would at the same time be able to give us truly divine help in cleansing and liberating us by means of the immortal righteousness of His spirit, by which He remained heavenly even while here on earth. The God who cannot be contaminated could never fear pollution from the man He assumed, or from the men among whom He lived in the form of a man. For, though His incarnation showed us nothing else, these two wholesome facts were enough, that true divinity cannot be polluted by flesh, and that demons are not to be considered better than ourselves because they do not have flesh. This, then, as Scripture says, is the “Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,” 1 Timothy 2:5 of whose divinity, by which He is equal to the Father, and humanity, by which He has become like us, this is not the place to speak as fully as I could.

As to the demons, these false and deceitful mediators, who, though their uncleanness of spirit frequently reveals their misery and malignity, still manage, by virtue of the lightness of their aerial bodies and the nature of the places they inhabit, to turn us aside and hinder our spiritual progress; they do not help us toward God, but rather prevent us from reaching Him. Since even in the bodily way, which is erroneous and misleading, and in which righteousness does not walk — for we must rise to God not by bodily ascent, but by incorporeal or spiritual conformity to Him — in this bodily way, I say, which the friends of the demons arrange according to the weight of the various elements, the aerial demons being set between the ethereal gods and earthy men, they imagine the gods to have this privilege, that by this distance in space they are preserved from the pollution of human contact. Thus they believe that the demons are contaminated by men rather than men cleansed by the demons, and that the gods themselves would be polluted unless their higher place preserved them. Who is so wretched a creature as to expect purification by a way in which men are contaminating, demons contaminated, and gods contaminable? Who would not rather choose that way by which we escape the contamination of the demons, and are cleansed from pollution by the God who cannot be contaminated, so as to be associated with the uncontaminated angels?

But since some of these demon worshippers, as I may call them, and among them Labeo, allege that those whom they call demons are by others called angels, I must, if I am not to seem to argue merely about words, say something about the good angels. The Platonists do not deny their existence, but prefer to call them good demons. But we, following Scripture, according to which we are Christians, have learned that some of the angels are good, some bad, but we have never read in Scripture of good demons; wherever this or any related term occurs, it is applied only to wicked spirits. And this usage has become so universal, that, even among those who are called pagans, and who maintain that demons as well as gods should be worshipped, there is scarcely a man, no matter how well read and learned, who would dare to say by way of praise to his slave, You have a demon, or who could doubt that the man to whom he said this would consider it a curse? Why, then, are we to subject ourselves to the necessity of explaining away what we have said when we have given offense by using the word demon, with which everyone, or almost everyone, connects a bad meaning, when we can so easily avoid this necessity by using the word angel?

However, the very origin of the name suggests something worthy of consideration, if we compare it with the divine books. They are called demons from a Greek word meaning knowledge. Now the apostle, speaking with the Holy Spirit, says, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” 1 Corinthians 8:1 And this can only be understood as meaning that without love knowledge does no good, but inflates a man or magnifies him with an empty windiness. The demons, then, have knowledge without love, and are so inflated or proud because of it that they crave those divine honors and religious services which they know to be due to the true God, and still, as far as they can, exact these from all over whom they have influence. Against this pride of the demons, under which the human race was held subject as its deserved punishment, there was exerted the mighty influence of the humility of God, who appeared in the form of a servant; but men, resembling the demons in pride, but not in knowledge, and being puffed up with uncleanness, failed to recognize Him.

The devils themselves knew this manifestation of God so well, that they said to the Lord though clothed with the infirmity of flesh, “What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us before the time?” Mark 1:24 From these words, it is clear that they had great knowledge, and no love. They feared His power to punish, and did not love His righteousness. He made known to them as much as He pleased, and He was pleased to make known as much as was necessary. But He made Himself known not as to the holy angels, who know Him as the Word of God, and rejoice in His eternity, in which they share, but as was required to strike with terror the beings from whose tyranny He was going to free those who were predestined to His kingdom and the glory of it, eternally true and truly eternal. He made Himself known, therefore, to the demons, not by what is eternal life, and the unchangeable light which enlightens the pious, whose souls are cleansed by the faith that is in Him, but by some temporal effects of His power, and evidences of His mysterious presence, which were more easily discerned by the angelic senses even of wicked spirits than by human weakness. But when He judged it advisable gradually to suppress these signs, and to retire into deeper obscurity, the prince of the demons doubted whether He was the Christ, and tried to find out by tempting Him, insofar as He permitted Himself to be tempted, so that He might fit the humanity He wore to be an example for our imitation. But after that temptation, when, as Scripture says, He was ministered to Matthew 4:3-11 by the angels who are good and holy, and therefore objects of terror to the impure spirits, He revealed more and more distinctly to the demons how great He was, so that, even though the infirmity of His flesh might seem contemptible, no one dared to resist His authority.

The good angels, therefore, hold cheap all that knowledge of material and transitory things which the demons are so proud of possessing — not that they are ignorant of these things, but because the love of God, by which they are sanctified, is very dear to them, and because, in comparison with that not merely immaterial but also unchangeable and ineffable beauty, with the holy love of which they are inflamed, they despise all things which are beneath it, and all that is not it, so that they may with every good thing that is in them enjoy that good which is the source of their goodness. And therefore they have a more certain knowledge even of those temporal and mutable things, because they contemplate their principles and causes in the word of God, by which the world was made — those causes by which one thing is approved, another rejected, and all arranged. But the demons do not see in the wisdom of God these eternal, and, as it were, cardinal causes of things temporal, but only foresee a larger part of the future than men do, because of their greater acquaintance with the signs which are hidden from us. Sometimes, too, it is their own intentions they predict. And, finally, the demons are frequently deceived, the angels never. For it is one thing, by the aid of things temporal and changeable, to conjecture the changes that may occur in time, and to modify such things by one's own will and faculty — and this is to a certain extent permitted to the demons — it is another thing to foresee the changes of times in the eternal and immutable laws of God, which live in His wisdom, and to know the will of God, the most infallible and powerful of all causes, by participating in His spirit; and this is granted to the holy angels by a just discretion. And thus they are not only eternal, but blessed. And the good in which they are blessed is God, by whom they were created. For without end they enjoy the contemplation and participation of Him.

If the Platonists prefer to call these angels gods rather than demons, and to count them among those whom Plato, their founder and master, maintains were created by the supreme God, they are welcome to do so, for I will not spend strength in fighting about words. For if they say that these beings are immortal, and yet created by the supreme God, but blessed by clinging to their Creator and not by their own power, they say what we say, whatever name they call these beings by. And that this is the opinion either of all or the best of the Platonists can be ascertained by their writings. And regarding the name itself, if they see fit to call such blessed and immortal creatures gods, this need not give rise to any serious discussion between us, since in our own Scriptures we read, “The God of gods, the Lord has spoken;” and again, “Confess to the God of gods;” and again, “He is a great King above all gods.” And where it is said, “He is to be feared above all gods,” the reason is immediately added, for it follows, “for all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.” He said, “above all gods,” but added, “of the nations;” that is to say, above all those whom the nations count gods, in other words, demons. By them He is to be feared with that terror in which they cried to the Lord, “Have You come to destroy us?” But where it is said, “the God of gods,” it cannot be understood as the god of the demons; and we must never say that “great King above all gods” means “great King above all demons.” But the same Scripture also calls men who belong to God's people “gods:” “I have said, You are gods, and all of you children of the Most High.” Accordingly, when God is called God of gods, this may be understood of these gods; and so, too, when He is called a great King above all gods. Nevertheless, someone may say, if men are called gods because they belong to God's people, whom He addresses by means of men and angels, are not the immortals, who already enjoy that happiness which men seek to attain by worshipping God, much more worthy of the title? And what are we to reply to this, if not that it is not without reason that in holy Scripture men are more expressly called gods than those immortal and blessed spirits to whom we hope to be equal in the resurrection, because there was a fear that the weakness of unbelief, overwhelmed by the excellence of these beings, might presume to make one of them a god? In the case of men this was a result that need not be guarded against. Besides, it was right that the men belonging to God's people should be more expressly called gods, to assure and certify them that He who is called God of gods is their God; because, although those immortal and blessed spirits who dwell in the heavens are called gods, yet they are not called gods of gods, that is to say, gods of the men who constitute God's people, and to whom it is said, “I have said, You are gods, and all of you the children of the Most High.” This is the reason for the saying of the apostle, “Though there are those that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is only one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him.” 1 Corinthians 8:5-6 We need not, therefore, labor to argue about the name, since the reality is so obvious as to admit of no shadow of doubt. What we say, that the angels who are sent to announce the will of God to men belong to the order of blessed immortals, does not satisfy the Platonists, because they believe that this ministry is discharged, not by those whom they call gods, in other words, not by blessed immortals, but by demons, whom they dare not affirm to be blessed, but only immortal, or if they do rank them among the blessed immortals, then only as good demons, and not as gods who dwell in the heaven of heavens remote from all human contact. But, though it may seem mere wrangling about a name, the name of demon is nevertheless so detestable that we cannot bear in any sense to apply it to the holy angels. Now, therefore, let us close this book in the assurance that, whatever we call these immortal and blessed spirits, who yet are only creatures, they do not act as mediators to introduce to everlasting happiness miserable mortals, from whom they are severed by a twofold distinction. And those others who are mediators, insofar as they have immortality in common with their superiors, and misery in common with their inferiors (for they are justly miserable in punishment of their wickedness), cannot bestow on us, but rather grudge that we should possess, the blessedness from which they themselves are excluded. And so the friends of the demons have nothing substantial to offer as a reason why we should worship them as our helpers rather than avoid them as traitors to our interests. As for those spirits who are good, and who are therefore not only immortal but also blessed, and to whom they suppose we should give the title of gods, and offer worship and sacrifices for the sake of inheriting a future life, we shall, with God's help, try in the following book to show that these spirits, whatever name you call them by and whatever nature you ascribe to them, desire religious worship to be paid to God alone, by whom they were created, and by whose sharing of Himself with them they are blessed.