That the prophetic and oracular shrines among pagans belonged to evil demons

"They speak well, then, who say that Plato, by discovering the element underlying the qualities that come into being, which they call matter, freed the philosophers from many great difficulties; but to me those seem to have solved more and greater difficulties who placed the race of demons between gods and men, and discovered what in a way brings together and joins our fellowship with them; whether this doctrine belongs to the Magi of Zoroaster, or is Thracian from Orpheus, or Egyptian, or Phrygian, as we conjecture when we see many mortal and mournful elements mixed in the rites of both, in the orgies and sacred acts performed. Of the Greeks, Homer appears to use both names in common, sometimes calling the gods demons. Hesiod first set out clearly and distinctly four classes of rational beings: gods, then demons, then heroes, and last of all men. From these he seems to make the change: the golden race being separated into many good demons, and the demigods into heroes." Then next he says: "But on these points we need not differ with Demetrius. For whether the time in which the soul of a demon and the life of a hero changes is longer or shorter, fixed or unfixed, he will none the less have shown what he wishes, with wise and ancient witnesses: that there are certain natures, as it were on the border between gods and men, subject to mortal passions and necessary changes, whom it is right, following the custom of our fathers, to regard as demons, name so, and reverence." After other matters he adds to this: "That not gods, for whom it is fitting to be free of earthly things, but demons, servants of the gods, preside over the oracles, does not seem to me a bad opinion; but to take, as it were, a handful from the verses of Empedocles and impose on these demons sins, calamities, and god-sent wanderings, and finally to suppose deaths for them as for men, I consider rather rash and barbarous." And again he adds to what has been said: "For there are, as among men, differences of virtue among demons too; and in some the passionate and irrational element is a weak and faint remnant, like a residue, while in others it is abundant and hard to quench; of which sacrifices, rites, and myths, scattered here and there, preserve and guard traces and tokens. And concerning the mysteries, in which one may find the greatest manifestations and illuminations of the truth about demons, 'let my lips be sealed,' as Herodotus says. But festivals and sacrifices, like unlucky and gloomy days, in which there are eating of raw flesh and tearings apart, fastings and beatings of the breast, and again in many places foul language at the sacred rites, and other frenzies 'raving with tossing of necks in tumult,' I would say are performed not for any god, but as appeasements to avert bad demons. And it is not credible that gods demanded or accepted the human sacrifices made of old; nor would kings and generals have accepted them in vain, giving up their children, beginning the rites, and slaughtering them; but they were averting and satisfying the anger and resentment of harsh and morose avenging spirits, and the mad loves of some, who could not and would not consort with bodies and through bodies. But as Heracles besieged Oechalia for a maiden, so often strong and violent demons, demanding a human soul contained in a body, bring plagues on cities and barrenness on the land, and stir up wars and seditions, until they take and obtain what they love." By these words the philosopher mentioned has clearly shown that the things described were performed in all the cities to wicked demons. And if there were among them, as they say, some good by nature, or even gods, why should they serve the bad, when these ought to be driven away by the good? For if they had any good protectors, trusting in these they ought surely to have cared nothing for the worse, and to have turned aside the opposing powers by sober words and prayers, and not by foul language. But when they did none of these things, but supplicated the wicked demons with a shameful and licentious life, indecent words, eating of raw flesh, tearings apart, and human sacrifices, how was it possible that men who did such things and performed what pleases the bad should be akin to the God over all, or to the divine powers under him, or to any good beings at all? It is plain to all that he who does what is dear to the bad could never be dear to the good. So those described served neither gods nor good demons, but only the bad. Plutarch confirms this argument still more where he says that the mythical narratives as if about gods are accounts about demons, and that the tales of giants and Titans sung among the Greeks are demonic narratives, so as to suggest a newer meaning. Perhaps, then, such were the things said in the divine Scripture about the giants before the flood, and about those who begot them, of whom it is said: "And the angels of God, seeing the daughters of men, that they were fair, took wives for themselves of all whom they chose;⁠a from whom were born the giants, the renowned ones of old." For one might say that these are those beings, and that their spirits were deified by later men, and that their battles, their quarrels with one another, and their wars are what is told in myth as about gods. At any rate Plutarch, in the treatise he composed On Isis and the Egyptian Gods, says this in these very words: