Augustine: DE CIVITATE DEI

[I] Et bonos et malos deos esse quidam opinati sunt; quidam uero de diis meliora sentientes tantum eis honoris laudisque tribuerunt, ut nullum deorum malum credere auderent. Sed illi, qui deos quosdam bonos, quosdam malos esse dixerunt, daemones quoque appellauerunt nomine deorum, quamquam et deos, sed rarius, nomine daemonum, ita ut ipsum Iouem, quem uolunt esse regem ac principem ceterorum, ab Homero fateantur daemonem nuncupatum. Hi autem, qui omnes deos non nisi bonos esse adserunt et longe praestantiores eis hominibus, qui perhibentur boni, merito mouentur daemonum factis, quae negare non possunt, eaque nullo modo a diis, quos omnes bonos uolunt, committi posse existimantes differentiam inter deos et daemones adhibere coguntur, ut, quidquid eis merito displicet in operibus uel affectibus prauis, quibus uim suam manifestant occulti spiritus, id credant esse daemonum, non deorum.

[1] Both good and bad gods some have thought there to be; but others, thinking better of the gods, have bestowed upon them so much honor and praise that they did not dare to believe any of the gods to be evil. But those who said that certain gods are good and certain bad also called the daemons by the name of gods, although they also, but more rarely, called the gods by the name of daemons, to such a point that they acknowledge that even Jupiter himself, whom they wish to be king and chief of the rest, was designated “daemon” by Homer. But those who assert that all gods are nothing but good, and far more excellent than those humans who are reported to be good, are rightly moved by the deeds of daemons, which they cannot deny; and thinking that these can in no way be committed by the gods, whom they will all to be good, they are forced to apply a distinction between gods and daemons, so that whatever justly displeases them in the works or in the perverse affections, by which occult spirits manifest their power, they believe to be of daemons, not of gods.

Sed quia eosdem daemones inter homines et deos ita medios constitutos putant, tamquam nullus deus homini misceatur, ut hinc perferant desiderata, inde referant impetrata, atque hoc Platonici, praecipui philosophorum ac nobilissimi, sentiunt, cum quibus uelut cum excellentioribus placuit istam examinare quaestionem, utrum cultus plurimorum deorum prosit ad consequendam uitam beatam quae post mortem futura est: libro superiore quaesiuimus, quo pacto daemones, qui talibus gaudent, qualia boni et prudentes homines auersantur et damnant, id est sacrilega flagitiosa facinerosa non de quolibet homine, sed de ipsis diis figmenta poetarum et magicarum artium sceleratam puniendamque uiolentiam, possint quasi propinquiores et amiciores diis bonis conciliare homines bonos, et hoc nulla ratione posse compertum est.

But because they suppose these same daemons to be set in the middle between men and gods in such a way that, as though no god is mingled with a human, they may from here carry up the things desired and from there bring back the things obtained—and this the Platonists, the foremost and most noble of the philosophers, hold—with them, as with the more excellent, it has pleased us to examine this question: whether the worship of many gods profits for attaining the blessed life which is to be after death. In the previous book we inquired how daemons, who take delight in such things as good and prudent men turn away from and condemn—that is, the sacrilegious, shameful, criminal fabrications of the poets, not about just any man but about the gods themselves, and the wicked and to-be-punished violence of the magical arts—could, as being, so to say, nearer and more friendly to the good gods, reconcile good men to them; and it has been found that this is by no reasoning possible.

[II] Proinde hic liber, sicut in illius fine promisimus, disputationem continere debebit de differentia (si quam uolunt esse) non deorum inter se, quos omnes bonos dicunt, nec de differentia deorum et daemonum, quorum illos ab hominibus longe alteque seiungunt, istos inter deos et homines conlocant; sed de differentia ipsorum daemonum, quod ad praesentem pertinet quaestionem. Apud plerosque enim usitatum est dici, alios bonos alios malos daemones; quae siue sit etiam Platonicorum, siue quorumlibet sententia, nequaquam eius est neglegenda discussio, ne quisquam uelut daemones bonos sequendos sibi esse arbitretur, per quos tamquam medios diis, quos omnes bonos credit, dum conciliari adfectat et studet, ut quasi cum eis possit esse post mortem, inretitus malignorum spirituum deceptusque fallacia longe aberret a uero Deo, cum quo solo et in quo solo et de quo solo anima humana, id est rationalis et intellectualis, beata est.

[2] Accordingly this book, just as we promised at the end of that one, ought to contain a disputation about the difference (if they wish there to be any), not of the gods among themselves, whom they say are all good, nor about the difference between gods and daemons, of whom the former they sever from human beings far and high, the latter they place between gods and men; but about the difference of the daemons themselves, which pertains to the present question. For among very many it is usual to say that some daemons are good, others evil; and whether this be the opinion of the Platonists as well, or of whomever, its discussion is by no means to be neglected, lest anyone suppose that so‑called good daemons are to be followed by him, through whom, as through mediators, to the gods (whom he believes all to be good), while he aims and strives to be conciliated, so that he might, as it were, be with them after death, he be ensnared by malignant spirits and, deceived by their deception, stray far from the true God, with whom alone and in whom alone and of whom alone the human soul, that is, rational and intellectual, is blessed.

[III] Quae igitur est differentia daemonum bonorum et malorum? Quando quidem Platonicus Apuleius de his uniuersaliter disserens et tam multa loquens de aeriis eorum corporibus de uirtutibus tacuit animorum, quibus essent praediti, si essent boni. Tacuit ergo beatitudinis causam, indicium uero miseriae tacere non potuit, confitens eorum mentem, qua rationales esse perhibuit,non saltem inbutam munitamque uirtute passionibus animi inrationabilibus nequaquam cedere, sed ipsam quoque, sicut stultarum mentium mos est, procellosis quodam modo perturbationibus agitari.

[III] What then is the difference between good and bad daemons? Since indeed Apuleius the Platonist, discoursing universally about these and saying so much about their airy bodies, was silent about the virtues of their souls, with which they would be endowed if they were good. He therefore kept silence about the cause of beatitude, but he could not keep silence about the indication of misery, admitting that their mind—by which he asserted them to be rational—was not at least imbued and fortified with virtue so as by no means to yield to the irrational passions of the soul, but that it itself also, as is the custom of foolish minds, is agitated by stormy perturbations in a certain manner.

Verba namque eius de hac re ista sunt: "Ex hoc ferme daemonum numero, inquit, poetae solent haudquaquam procul a ueritate osores et amatores quorundam hominum deos fingere; hos prosperare et euehere, illos contra aduersari et adfligere; igitur et misereri et indignari, et angi et laetari omnemque humani animi faciem pati, simili motu cordis et salo mentis per omnes cogitationum aestus fluctuare. Quae omnes turbelae tempestatesque procul a deorum caelestium tranquillitate exulant." Num est in his uerbis ulla dubitatio, quod non animorum aliquas inferiores partes, sed ipsas daemonum mentes, quibus rationalia sunt animalia, uelut procellosum salum dixit passionum tempestate turbari? ut ne hominibus quidem sapientibus comparandi sint, qui huius modi perturbationibus animorum, a quibus humana non est inmunis infirmitas, etiam cum eas huius uitae condicione patiuntur, mente inperturbata resistunt, non eis cedentes ad aliquid adprobandum uel perpetrandum, quod exorbitet ab itinere sapientiae et lege iustitiae; sed stultis mortalibus et iniustis non corporibus, sed moribus similes (ut non dicam deteriores, eo quo uetustiores et debita poena insanabiles) ipsius quoque mentis, ut iste appellauit, salo fluctuant, nec in ueritate atque uirtute, qua turbulentis et prauis affectionibus repugnatur, ex ulla animi parte consistunt.

For his words on this matter are these: "From this very number of daemons," he says, "poets are accustomed, by no means far from the truth, to fashion gods as haters and lovers of certain men; these to make prosper and to lift up, those on the contrary to oppose and to afflict; therefore both to pity and to be indignant, and to be anguished and to rejoice, and to undergo every aspect of the human spirit, to fluctuate with a like motion of heart and with the swell of mind through all the surges of thoughts. All which tossings and tempests stand far exiled from the tranquility of the celestial gods." Is there in these words any doubt that he said to be disturbed by the tempest of passions not some lower parts of souls, but the minds themselves of the daemons, by which they are rational animals, as if a stormy sea? so that they are not even to be compared to wise men, who, by such perturbations of spirits—from which human infirmity is not immune—even when they suffer them by the condition of this life, resist with an unperturbed mind, not yielding to approve or to perpetrate anything that swerves from the path of wisdom and the law of justice; but like foolish and unjust mortals not in bodies but in morals (not to say worse, in that, being older, they are incurable by due punishment) they too, with the swell of the mind, as he called it, are tossed, nor do they stand fast in truth and virtue, by which turbulent and depraved affections are withstood, in any part of the soul.

[IV] Duae sunt sententiae philosophorum de his animi motibus, quae Graeci *pa/qh, nostri autem quidam, sicut Cicero, perturbationes, quidam in affectiones uel affectus, quidam uero, sicut iste, de Graeco expressius passiones uocant. Has ergo perturbationes siue affectiones siue passiones quidam philosophi dicunt etiam in sapientem cadere, sed moderatas rationique subiectas, ut eis leges quodam modo, quibus ad necessarium redigantur modum, dominatio mentis inponat. Hoc qui sentiunt, Platonici sunt siue Aristotelici, cum Aristoteles discipulus Platonis fuerit, qui sectam Peripateticam condidit.

[4] There are two opinions of the philosophers about these motions of the mind, which the Greeks call *pa/qh*, but some of our writers, like Cicero, call perturbations, some affections or affects, and some indeed, like this man, more expressively from the Greek, call passions. These perturbations or affections or passions, some philosophers say, also befall the wise man—but moderated and subject to reason—so that the dominion of the mind imposes upon them, as it were, laws by which they may be reduced to a necessary measure. Those who hold this are Platonists or Aristotelians, since Aristotle, a disciple of Plato, founded the Peripatetic sect.

Aliis autem, sicut Stoicis, cadere ullas omnino huiusce modi passiones in sapientem non placet. Hos autem, id est Stoicos, Cicero in libris de finibus bonorum et malorum uerbis magis quam rebus aduersus Platonicos seu Peripateticos certare conuincit; quando quidem Stoici nolunt bona appellare, sed commoda corporis et externa, eo quod nullum bonum uolunt esse hominis praeter uirtutem, tamquam artem bene uiuendi, quae non nisi in animo est. Haec autem isti simpliciter et ex communi loquendi consuetudine appellant bona; sed in comparatione uirtutis, qua recte uiuitur, parua et exigua.

But to others, as to the Stoics, it does not please that any passions at all of this sort should fall upon the wise man. Now Cicero, in the books On the Ends of Goods and Evils, proves that these men, that is, the Stoics, contend against the Platonists or Peripatetics more in words than in realities; since indeed the Stoics are unwilling to call the conveniences of the body and external things “goods,” because they are willing that there be no good of a man besides virtue, as the art of living well, which is only in the mind. But these others call such things simply, and from the common custom of speaking, “goods”; yet in comparison with virtue, by which one lives rightly, they are small and exiguous.

Ex quo fit, ut ab utrisque quodlibet uocentur, seu bona seu commoda, pari tamen aestimatione pensentur, nec in hac quaestione Stoici delectentur nisi nouitate uerborum. Videtur ergo mihi etiam in hoc, ubi quaeritur utrum accidant sapienti passiones animi, an ab eis sit prorsus alienus, de uerbis eos potius quam de rebus facere controuersiam. Nam et ipsos nihil hinc aliud quam Platonicos et Peripateticos sentire existimo, quantum ad uim rerum adtinet, non ad uocabulorum sonum.

Whence it comes, that by both parties they are called whatever you will, whether goods or conveniences, yet are weighed with an equal estimation; and in this question the Stoics are delighted with nothing except the novelty of the words. Therefore it seems to me that even in this, where it is asked whether passions of the mind befall the wise man, or whether he is altogether alien from them, they make a controversy about words rather than about things. For I think that they themselves feel here nothing other than what the Platonists and Peripatetics hold, as far as the force of the realities is concerned, not the sound of the vocables.

Vt enim alia omittam, quibus id ostendam, ne longum faciam, aliquid unum quod sit euidentissimum dicam. In libris, quibus titulus est Noctium Atticarum, scribit A. Gellius, uir elegantissimi eloquii et multae undecumque scientiae, se nauigasse aliquando cum quodam philosopho nobili Stoico. Is philosophus, sicut latius et uberius, quod ego breuiter adtingam, narrat A. Gellius, cum illud nauigium horribili caelo et mari periculosissime iactaretur, ui timoris expalluit.

To omit other things, by which I would show this, lest I make it long, I will say one thing which is most evident. In the books whose title is Attic Nights, A. Gellius, a man of most elegant eloquence and of much knowledge from everywhere, writes that he once sailed with a certain philosopher, a noble Stoic. That philosopher, as A. Gellius relates more broadly and more copiously (which I will touch briefly), when that ship was being tossed most perilously by a horrible sky and sea, grew pale by the force of fear.

Id animaduersum est ab eis, qui aderant, quamuis in mortis uicinia curiosissime adtentis, utrum necne philosophus animo turbaretur. Deinde tempestate transacta mox ut securitas praebuit conloquendi uel etiam garriendi locum, quidam ex his, quos nauis illa portabat, diues luxuriosus Asiaticus philosophum compellat inludens, quod extimuisset atque palluisset, cum ipse mansisset intrepidus in eo quod inpendebat exitio. At ille Aristippi Socratici responsum rettulit, qui cum in re simili eadem uerba ab homine simili audisset, respondit illum pro anima nequissimi nebulonis merito non fuisse sollicitum, se autem pro Aristippi anima timere debuisse.

That was observed by those who were present, although in the vicinity of death most curiously attentive, whether or not the philosopher was disturbed in mind. Then, the storm having passed, as soon as security afforded a place for conversing or even chattering, a certain one of those whom that ship was carrying, a rich, luxurious Asiatic, accosts the philosopher in mockery, because he had feared and had turned pale, whereas he himself had remained intrepid amid that destruction which was impending. But he related the reply of Aristippus the Socratic, who, when in a similar affair he had heard the same words from a similar man, replied that that fellow had rightly not been solicitous for the soul of a most worthless knave, but that he ought to have feared for the soul of Aristippus.

Hac illo diuite responsione depulso postea quaesiuit A. Gellius a philosopho non exagitandi animo, sed discendi, quaenam illa ratio esset pauoris sui. Qui ut doceret hominem sciendi studio nauiter accensum, protulit statim de sarcinula sua Stoici Epicteti librum, in quo ea scripta essent, quae congruerent decretis Zenonis et Chrysippi, quos fuisse Stoicorum principes nouimus. In eo libro se legisse dicit A. Gellius hoc Stoicis placuisse, quod animi uisa, quas appellant phantasias nec in potestate est utrum et quando incidant animo, cum ueniunt ex terribilibus et formidabilibus rebus, necesse est etiam sapientis animum moueant, ita ut paulisper uel pauescat metu, uel tristitia contrahatur, tamquam his passionibus praeuenientibus mentis et rationis officium; nec ideo tamen in mente fieri opinionem mali, nec adprobari ista eisque consentiri.

After that rich man had been driven off by this reply, afterward A. Gellius asked the philosopher—not with a spirit of hectoring, but of learning—what the rationale was for his fear. In order to teach a man briskly kindled with zeal for knowing, he immediately brought out from his little pack a book of the Stoic Epictetus, in which there had been written things that accorded with the decrees of Zeno and Chrysippus, whom we know to have been the principals of the Stoics. In that book A. Gellius says he read that this was pleasing to the Stoics: that the mind’s appearances, which they call phantasies, and which are not in our power as to whether and when they fall upon the mind, when they come from terrible and fear‑inspiring things, must move even the mind of the wise man, so that for a little while he either grows pale with fear or is contracted with sadness, as if these passions were forestalling the office of mind and reason; and yet not on that account does an opinion of evil arise in the mind, nor are those things approved and assented to.

Hoc enim esse uolunt in potestate idque interesse censent inter animum sapientis et stulti, quod stulti animus eisdem passionibus cedit atque adcommodat mentis adsensum; sapientis autem, quamuis eas necessitate patiatur, retinet tamen de his, quae adpetere uel fugere rationabiliter debet, ueram et stabilem inconcussa mente sententiam. Haec ut potui non quidem commodius A. Gellio, sed certe breuius et, ut puto, planius exposui, quae ille se in Epicteti libro legisse commemorat eum ex decretis Stoicorum dixisse atque sensisse.

For they want this to be in power, and they judge that this is the difference between the mind of the wise man and of the fool: that the fool’s mind yields to the same passions and accommodates the assent of the mind; but the wise man, although he suffers them by necessity, nevertheless retains, with an unshaken mind, a true and stable judgment about those things which he ought rationally to pursue or to flee. These things, as I was able, I have set forth not indeed more commodiously than A. Gellius, but certainly more briefly and, as I think, more plainly—things which he recalls himself to have read in the book of Epictetus, that he, according to the decrees of the Stoics, both said and felt.

Quae si ita sunt, aut nihil aut paene nihil distat inter Stoicorum aliorumque philosophorum opinionem de passionibus et perturbationibus animorum; utrique enim mentem rationemque sapientis ab earum dominatione defendunt. Et ideo fortasse dicunt eas in sapientem non cadere Stoici, quia nequaquam eius sapientiam, qua utique sapiens est, ullo errore obnubilant aut labe subuertunt. Accidunt autem animo sapientis salua serenitate sapientiae propter illa, quae commoda uel incommoda appellant, quamuis ea nolint dicere bona uel mala.

If these things are so, either nothing or almost nothing differs between the opinion of the Stoics and of other philosophers about the passions and perturbations of souls; for both defend the mind and reason of the wise man from their domination. And therefore perhaps the Stoics say that they do not fall upon the wise man, because in no way do they obnubilate his wisdom—whereby indeed he is wise—or subvert it by any stain. They, however, befall the mind of the wise man, the serenity of wisdom remaining safe, on account of those things which they call commodities or incommodities, although they are unwilling to call them goods or evils.

Nam profecto si nihili penderet eas res ille philosophus, quas amissurum se naufragio sentiebat, sicuti est uita ista salusque corporis: non ita illud periculum perhorresceret, ut palloris etiam testimonio proderetur. Verum tamen et illam poterat permotionem pati, et fixam tenere mente sententiam, uitam illam salutemque corporis, quorum amissionem minabatur tempestatis inmanitas, non esse bona, quae illos quibus inessent facerent bonos, sicut facit iustitia. Quod autem aiunt ea nec bona appellanda esse, sed commoda: uerborum certamini, non rerum examini deputandum est.

For indeed, if that philosopher weighed as nothing those things which he perceived he would lose by shipwreck, just as this life and the health/safety of the body are: he would not so shudder at that danger as to be betrayed even by the testimony of pallor. Yet nevertheless he both could suffer that perturbation and hold fast in mind a fixed sentence, that that life and the health/safety of the body—whose loss the monstrosity of the tempest was threatening—are not goods which make those in whom they are present good, as justice does. But as for their saying that these are not to be called goods, but advantages (commoda): it is to be assigned to a contest of words, not to an examination of realities.

Quid enim interest, utrum aptius bona uocentur an commoda, dum tamen ne his priuetur non minus Stoicus quam Peripateticus pauescat et palleat, ea non aequaliter appellando, sed aequaliter aestimando? Ambo sane, si bonorum istorum seu commodorum periculis ad flagitium uel facinus urgeantur, ut aliter ea retinere non possint, malle se dicunt haec amittere, quibus natura corporis salua et incolumis habetur, quam illa committere, quibus iustitia uiolatur. Ita mens, ubi fixa est ista sententia, nullas perturbationes, etiamsi accidunt inferioribus animi partibus, in se contra rationem praeualere permittit; quin Immo eis ipsa dominatur eisque non consentiendo et potius resistendo regnum uirtutis exercet.

For what, indeed, does it matter whether they are more aptly called goods or conveniences, provided that the Stoic no less than the Peripatetic shudders and grows pale at being deprived of these—not by calling them equally, but by valuing them equally? Both assuredly, if by the dangers threatening those goods or conveniences they are driven to a scandalous deed or a crime, so that they cannot otherwise retain them, say that they would rather lose these things, by which the health and soundness of the body are maintained, than commit those things by which justice is violated. Thus the mind, where this judgment is fixed, allows no perturbations, even if they occur in the lower parts of the soul, to prevail within itself against reason; nay rather, it itself rules over them and, by not consenting to them and rather resisting them, exercises the reign of virtue.

Talem describit etiam Vergilius Aenean, ubi ait:

Virgil likewise describes Aeneas of such a sort, where he says:

Mens inmota manet, lacrimae uoluuntur inanes.

The mind remains unmoved; empty tears roll.

[V] Non est nunc necesse copiose ac diligenter ostendere, quid de istis passionibus doceat scriptura diuina, qua Christiana eruditio continetur. Deo quippe illa ipsam mentem subicit regendam et iuuandam mentique passiones ita moderandas atque frenandas, ut in usum iustitiae conuertantur. Denique in disciplina nostra non tam quaeritur utrum pius animus irascatur, sed quare irascatur; nec utrum sit tristis, sed unde sit tristis; nec utrum timeat, sed quid timeat.

[5] It is not now necessary copiously and diligently to show what the divine Scripture, in which Christian erudition is contained, teaches about those passions. For it subjects the very mind to God to be governed and aided, and the mind’s passions to be so moderated and bridled that they are turned to the use of justice. Finally, in our discipline the question is not so much whether a pious spirit becomes angry, but why it becomes angry; nor whether it is sad, but whence it is sad; nor whether it fears, but what it fears.

Irasci enim peccanti ut corrigatur, contristari pro adflicto ut liberetur, timere periclitanti ne pereat nescio utrum quisquam sana consideratione reprehendat. Nam et misericordiam Stoicorum est solere culpare; sed quanto honestius ille Stoicus misericordia perturbaretur hominis liberandi quam timore naufragii. Longe melius et humanius et piorum sensibus accommodatius Cicero in Caesaris laude locutus est, ubi ait: "Nulla de uirtutibus tuis nec admirabilior nec gratior misericordia est." Quid est autem misericordia nisi alienae miseriae quaedam in nostro corde compassio, qua utique si possumus subuenire compellimur?

For to be angry at the one sinning so that he may be corrected, to be saddened on behalf of the afflicted so that he may be freed, to fear for one in peril lest he perish—I do not know whether anyone, with sane consideration, would reprehend this. For even mercy is wont to be blamed by the Stoics; but how much more honest would that Stoic be to be perturbed by mercy for the freeing of a man than by the fear of shipwreck. Far better and more human, and more accommodated to the feelings of the pious, did Cicero speak in praise of Caesar, where he says: “Of your virtues none is either more admirable or more pleasing than mercy.” What, moreover, is mercy if not a certain compassion in our heart for another’s misery, by which indeed we are compelled, if we can, to succor?

Seruit autem motus iste rationi, quando ita praebetur misericordia, ut iustitia conseruetur, siue cum indigenti tribuitur, siue cum ignoscitur paenitenti. Hanc Cicero locutor egregius non dubitauit appellare uirtutem, quam Stoicos inter uitia numerare non pudet, qui tamen, ut docuit liber Epicteti, nobilissimi Stoici, ex decretis Zenonis et Chrysippi, qui huius sectae primas habuerunt, huiusce modi passiones in animum sapientis admittunt, quem uitiis omnibus liberum uolunt. Vnde fit consequens, ut haec ipsa non putent uitia, quando sapienti sic accidunt, ut contra uirtutem mentis rationemque nihil possint, et una sit eademque sententia Peripateticorum uel etiam Platonicorum et ipsorum Stoicorum, sed, ut ait Tullius, uerbi controuersia iam diu torqueat homines Graeculos contentionis cupidiores quam ueritatis.

Moreover, this motion serves reason, when mercy is offered in such a way that justice is preserved, whether when it is bestowed upon the indigent, or when pardon is granted to the penitent. Cicero, an outstanding speaker, did not hesitate to call this a virtue, which the Stoics are not ashamed to number among vices; who nevertheless, as the book of Epictetus, a most noble Stoic, has taught, from the decrees of Zeno and Chrysippus, who held the first place of this sect, admit passions of this kind into the mind of the sapient man, whom they wish to be free from all vices. Whence it follows that they do not think these to be vices, when they befall the wise in such a way that they can do nothing against the virtue of the mind and reason; and one and the same opinion is held by the Peripatetics and even the Platonists and by the Stoics themselves, but, as Tullius says, a controversy about a word has long been twisting the little Greeks, more desirous of contention than of truth.

Sed adhuc merito quaeri potest, utrum ad uitae praesentis pertineat infirmitatem etiam in quibusque bonis officiis huiusce modi perpeti affectus, sancti uero angeli et sine ira puniant, quos accipiunt aeterna Dei lege puniendos, et miseris sine miseriae compassione subueniant, et periclitantibus eis, quos diligunt, sine timore opitulentur; et tamen istarum nomina passionum consuetudine locutionis humanae etiam in eos usurpentur propter quandam operum similitudinem, non propter affectionum infirmitatem, sicut ipse Deus secundum scripturas irascitur, nec tamen ulla passione turbatur. Hoc enim uerbum uindictae usurpauit effectus, non illius turbulentus affectus.

But still it can deservedly be asked whether it pertains to the infirmity of the present life even, in whatever good offices of this sort, to endure such passions—whereas the holy angels punish without anger those whom they receive, by the eternal law of God, as to be punished; and they succor the wretched without a compassion of misery; and they help, without fear, those in peril whom they love—and yet the names of these passions, by the custom of human speech, are also employed of them on account of a certain likeness of works, not on account of an infirmity of affections; just as God himself, according to the Scriptures, is said to be angered, yet is disturbed by no passion. For it is the effect—namely, of vengeance—that has usurped this word, not any turbulent affection in him.

[VI] Qua interim de sanctis angelis quaestione dilata uideamus quem ad modum dicant Platonici medios daemones inter deos et homines constitutos istis passionum aestibus fluctuare. Si enim mente ab his libera eisque dominante motus huiusce modi paterentur, non eos diceret Apuleius simili motu cordis et salo mentis per omnes cogitationum aestus fluctuare. Ipsa igitur mens eorum, id est pars animi superior, qua rationales sunt, in qua uirtus et sapientia, si ulla eis esset, passionibus turbulentis inferiorum animi partium regendis moderandisque dominaretur, -- ipsa, inquam, mens eorum, sicut iste Platonicus confitetur, salo perturbationum fluctuat.

[6] Meanwhile, with the question about the holy angels deferred, let us see in what manner the Platonists say that the middle demons, set between the gods and men, are tossed by these surges of passions. For if, with the mind free from these and dominating them, they were to undergo motions of this sort, Apuleius would not say that they fluctuate with a similar motion of the heart and with a sea-swell of the mind through all the surges of thoughts. Therefore their very mind, that is, the superior part of the soul, by which they are rational—in which virtue and wisdom, if any were theirs, would bear rule in governing and moderating the turbulent passions of the lower parts of the soul—this very mind, I say, as this Platonist confesses, fluctuates in the swell of perturbations.

Subiecta est ergo mens daemonum passionibus libidinum formidinum irarum atque huiusmodi ceteris. Quae igitur pars in eis libera est composque sapientiae, qua placeant diis et ad bonorum morum similitudinem hominibus consulant, cum eorum mens passionum uitiis subiugata et oppressa, quidquid rationis naturaliter habet, ad fallendum et decipiendum tanto acrius intendat, quanto eam magis possidet nocendi cupiditas?

Therefore the mind of the daemons is subjected to the passions of libidinal cravings, terrors, angers, and others of this kind. What part, then, in them is free and in control of wisdom—by which they might please the gods and counsel men toward a likeness of good morals—when their mind, subjugated and oppressed by the vices of the passions, bends whatever reason it naturally has to deceiving and to being deceived, the more sharply the more the cupidity of harming possesses it?

[VII] Quod si quisquam dicit, non ex omnium, sed ex malorum daemonum numero esse, quos poetae quorundam hominum osores et amatores deos non procul a ueritate confingunt (hos enim dixit Apuleius salo mentis per omnes cogitationum aestus fluctuare): quo modo istud intellegere poterimus, quando, cum hoc diceret, non quorundam, id est malorum, sed omnium daemonum medietatem propter aeria corpora inter deos et homines describebat? Hoc enim ait fingere poetas, quod ex istorum daemonum numero deos faciunt et eis deorum nomina inponunt et quibus uoluerint hominibus ex his amicos inimicosque distribuunt ficti carminis inpunita licentia, cum deos ab his daemonum moribus et caelesti loco et beatitudinis opulentia remotos esse perhibeat. Haec est ergo fictio poetarum deos dicere, qui dii non sunt, eosque sub deorum nominibus inter se decertare propter homines, quos pro studio partium diligunt uel oderunt.

[VII] But if anyone says that they belong not to all, but to the number of evil daemons—whom the poets, not far from the truth, fashion as gods who are haters and lovers of certain men (for these Apuleius said to heave with the swell of the mind through all the surges of thoughts)—how shall we be able to understand that, when, as he said this, he was describing the median status of not certain, that is, the evil, but of all daemons, between gods and men, on account of their airy bodies? For this is what he says the poets feign: that from the number of these daemons they make gods and impose upon them the names of gods, and with the unpunished license of fictive song distribute from these, to whatever men they wish, friends and enemies—whereas he maintains that the gods are removed from these daemon-like manners, and by their celestial place and the opulence of beatitude. This, then, is the fiction of the poets: to call “gods” those who are not gods, and, under the names of gods, to make them contend among themselves on account of men, whom, out of partisanship, they love or hate.

Non procul autem a ueritate dicit hanc esse fictionem, quoniam deorum appellati uocabulis, qui dii non sunt, tales tamen describuntur daemones, quales sunt. Denique hinc esse dicit Homericam illam Mineruam, "quae mediis coetibus Graium cohibendo Achilli interuenit." Quod ergo Minerua illa fuerit, poeticum uult esse figmentum, eo quod Mineruam deam putat eamque inter deos, quos omnes bonos beatosque credit, in alta aetheria sede conlocat, procul a conuersatione mortalium; quod autem, aliquis daemon fuerit Graecis fauens Troianisque contrarius, sicut alius aduersus Graecos Troianorum opitulator, quem Veneris seu Martis nomine idem poeta commemorat, quos deos iste talia non agentes in habitationibus caelestibus ponit, et hi daemones pro eis, quos amabant, contra eos, quos oderant, inter se decertauerint: hoc non procul a ueritate poetas dixisse confessus est. De his quippe ista dixerunt, quos hominibus simili motu cordis et salo mentis per omnes cogitationum aestus fluctuare testatur, ut possint amores et odia non pro iustitia, sed sicut populus similis eorum in uenatoribus et aurigis secundum suarum studia partium pro aliis aduersus alios exercere.

Not far, however, from the truth he says this to be a fiction, since under the appellative names of gods—who are not gods—there are nevertheless described daemons such as they are. Finally, he says that from this comes that Homeric Minerva, “who intervened to restrain Achilles in the midst of the gatherings of the Greeks.” That, therefore, it was Minerva, he wishes to be a poetic figment, because he deems Minerva a goddess and places her among the gods—whom he believes all good and blessed—in a high aetherial seat, far from converse with mortals; but that it was some daemon favoring the Greeks and opposing the Trojans, just as another, against the Greeks, a helper of the Trojans, whom the same poet commemorates under the name of Venus or of Mars—gods whom this man locates in heavenly habitations as not doing such things—and that these daemons contended among themselves for those whom they loved against those whom they hated: this he has confessed the poets to have said not far from the truth. For he bears witness that they said these things about such beings as he attests to be tossed with a similar motion of heart and a swell of mind through all the surges of thoughts, so that they can exercise loves and hatreds not according to justice, but, just as the populace like them does with hunters and charioteers, according to the enthusiasms of their factions, for some against others.

Id enim uidetur philosophus curasse Platonicus, ne, cum haec a poetis canerentur, non a daemonibus mediis, sed ab ipsis diis, quorum nomina poetae fingendo ponunt, fieri crederentur.

For the Platonic philosopher seems to have taken care, lest, when these things were sung by the poets, they be believed to be done not by the middle daemons, but by the gods themselves, whose names the poets, by their feigning, set upon them.

[VIII] Quid? illa ipsa definitio daemonum parumne intuenda est (ubi certe omnes determinando complexus est), quod ait daemones esse genere animalia, animo passiua, mente rationalia, corpore aeria, tempore aeterna? In quibus quinque commemoratis nihil dixit omnino, quo daemones cum bonis saltem hominibus id uiderentur habere commune, quod non esset in malis.

[8] What then? Is that very definition of daemons to be too little considered (where certainly by determining he has encompassed them all), namely, that he says daemons are animals in kind, passive in soul, rational in mind, aerial in body, eternal in time? In these five things thus recounted he has said absolutely nothing by which the daemons would seem to have in common with even good human beings something that would not be in the evil.

Nam ipsos homines cum aliquanto latius describendo complecteretur, suo loco de illis dicens tamquam de infimis atque terrenis, cum prius dixisset de caelestibus diis, ut commendatis duabus partibus ex summo et infimo ultimis tertio loco de mediis daemonibus loqueretur: "Igitur homines, inquit, ratione gaudentes, oratione pollentes, inmortalibus animis, moribundis membris, leuibus et anxiis mentibus, brutis et obnoxiis corporibus, dissimilibus moribus, similibus erroribus, peruicaci audacia, pertinaci spe, casso labore, fortuna caduca, singillatim mortales, cuncti tamen uniuerso genere perpetui, uicissim sufficienda prole mutabiles, uolucri tempore, tarda sapientia, cita morte, querula uita terras incolunt." Cum hic tam multa diceret, quae ad plurimos homines pertinent, numquid etiam illud tacuit, quod nouerat esse paucorum, ubi ait "tarda sapientia"? Quod si praetermisisset, nullo modo recte genus humanum descriptionis huius tam intenta diligentia terminasset. Cum uero deorum excellentiam commendaret, ipsam beatitudinem, quo uolunt homines per sapientiam peruenire, in eis adfirmauit excellere. Proinde si aliquos daemones bonos uellet intellegi, aliquid etiam in ipsorum descriptione poneret, unde uel cum diis aliquam beatitudinis partem, uel cum hominibus qualemcumque sapientiam putarentur habere communem.

For when he embraced men themselves by describing them somewhat more widely, speaking in its own place about them as the lowest and earthly, since he had previously spoken about the heavenly gods, so that, the two parts commended—from the highest and the lowest extremes—he might in the third place speak about the middle daemons: “Therefore men,” he says, “enjoying reason, powerful in speech, with immortal souls, with dying limbs, with light and anxious minds, with brute and subjected bodies, with dissimilar morals, with similar errors, with pervicacious audacity, with pertinacious hope, with empty labor, with falling fortune, individually mortal, yet all perpetual by the universal kind, changeable, with offspring to be supplied in turn, in winged time, with slow wisdom, with swift death, with querulous life, inhabit the lands.” When here he said so many things which pertain to the majority of men, did he by any chance also keep silence about that which he knew to belong to a few, where he says “slow wisdom”? If he had passed it over, in no way would he rightly have bounded the human race with so intent a diligence of description. But when he was commending the excellence of the gods, he affirmed that very beatitude, to which men wish to attain through wisdom, to excel in them. Accordingly, if he had wished some daemons to be understood as good, he would also have put something into the description of them, whence they would be thought to have in common either with the gods some part of beatitude, or with men some kind of wisdom.

Nunc uero nullum bonum eorum commemorauit, quo boni discernuntur a malis. Quamuis et eorum malitiae liberius exprimendae pepercerit, non tam ne ipsos, quam ne cultores eorum, apud quos loquebatur, offenderet: significauit tamen prudentibus, quid de illis sentire deberent, quando quidem deos, quos omnes bonos beatosque credi uoluit, ab eorum passionibus atque, ut ait ipse, turbelis omni modo separauit, sola illos corporum aeternitate coniungens, animo autem non diis, sed hominibus similes daemones apertissime inculcans; et hoc non sapientiae bono, cuius et homines possunt esse participes, sed perturbatione passionum, quae stultis malisque dominatur, a sapientibus uero et bonis ita regitur, ut malint eam non habere quam uincere. Nam si non corporum, sed animorum aeternitatem cum diis habere daemones uellet intellegi, non utique homines ab huius rei consortio separaret, quia et hominibus aeternos esse animos procul dubio sicut Platonicus sentit.

Now indeed he has commemorated none of their good, by which the good are discerned from the bad. Although he also refrained from expressing their malice more freely, not so much lest he offend them as lest he offend their worshippers, in whose presence he was speaking, nevertheless he signified to the prudent what they ought to think about them, since indeed the gods, whom he wished to be believed all good and blessed, he separated in every way from their passions and, as he himself says, their turmoils, linking them to the gods only by the eternity of bodies, but most openly inculcating that the demons are similar in mind not to the gods but to humans; and this not by the good of wisdom, of which humans too can be participants, but by the perturbation of passions, which dominates fools and the wicked, but by the wise and good is so governed that they prefer not to have it rather than to conquer it. For if he wished it to be understood that the demons have with the gods not the eternity of bodies but of souls, he would certainly not separate humans from the consortium of this matter, because he too, like a Platonist, without doubt holds that souls are eternal for humans.

Ideo cum hoc genus animantum describeret, inmortalibus animis, moribundis membris dixit esse homines. Ac per hoc si propterea communem cum diis aeternitatem non habent homines, quia corpore sunt mortales: propterea ergo daemones habent, quia corpore sunt inmortales.

Therefore, when he was describing this kind of animate beings, he said that men are with immortal souls, with moribund members. And accordingly, if for this reason men do not have a common eternity with the gods, because they are mortal in body: for this reason, then, the daemons have it, because they are immortal in body.

[IX] Quales igitur mediatores sunt inter homines et deos, per quos ad deorum amicitias homines ambiant, qui hoc cum hominibus habent deterius, quod est in animante melius, id est animum; hoc autem habent cum diis melius, quod est in animante deterius, id est corpus? Cum enim animans, Id est animal, ex anima constet et corpore, quorum duorum anima est utique corpore melior, etsi uitiosa et infirma, melior certe corpore etiam sanissimo atque firmissimo, quoniam natura eius excellentior nec labe uitiorum postponitur corpori, sicut aurum etiam sordidum argento seu plumbo, licet purissimo, carius aestimatur: isti mediatores deorum et hominum, per quos interpositos diuinis humana iunguntur, cum diis habent corpus aeternum, uitiosum autem cum hominibus animum; quasi religio, qua uolunt diis homines per daemones iungi, in corpore sit, non in animo constituta. Quaenam tandem istos mediatores falsos atque fallaces quasi capite deorsum nequitia uel poena suspendit, ut inferiorem animalis partem, id est corpus, cum superioribus, superiorem uero, id est animum, cum inferioribus habeant, et cum diis caelestibus in parte seruiente coniuncti, cum hominibus autem terrestribus in parte dominante sint miseri?

[9] What sort of mediators, then, are they between humans and gods, through whom humans court the friendships of the gods, who have this in worse condition with humans, which is the better in a living being, that is, the mind; but have this in better condition with the gods, which is the worse in a living being, that is, the body? For since a living being, that is, an animal, consists of soul and body, of which two the soul is assuredly better than the body, even if vicious and infirm—certainly better than even the healthiest and most most robust body—since its nature is more excellent and by the stain of vices is not set after the body, just as even filthy gold is valued more dearly than silver or lead, though most pure: these mediators of gods and men, through whose interposition human things are joined to divine, have with the gods an eternal body, but with humans a vicious mind; as though the religion by which they want men to be joined to the gods through daemons were in the body, not established in the mind. What wickedness or punishment, pray, hangs these false and fallacious mediators, as it were, head downward, so that they have the lower part of the animal, that is, the body, with those above, but the higher, that is, the mind, with those below, and, joined to the heavenly gods in the serving part, they are wretched with earthly men in the ruling part?

Corpus quippe seruum est, sicut etiam Sallustius ait: "Animi imperio, corporis seruitio magis utimur." Adiunxit autem ille: "Alterum nobis cum diis, alterum cum beluis commune est", quoniam de hominibus loquebatur, quibus sicut beluis mortale corpus est. Isti autem, quos inter nos et deos mediatores nobis philosophi prouiderunt, possunt quidem dicere de animo et corpore: Alterum nobis cum diis, alterum cum hominibus commune est; sed, sicut dixi, tamquam in peruersum ligati atque suspensi, seruum corpus cum diis beatis, dominum animum cum hominibus miseris, parte inferiore exaltati, superiore deiecti. Vnde etiamsi quisquam propter hoc eos putauerit aeternitatem habere cum diis, quia nulla morte, sicut animalium terrestrium, animi eorum soluuntur a corpore: nec sic existimandum est eorum corpus tamquam honoratorum aeternum uehiculum, sed aeternum uinculum damnatorum.

For the body is indeed a servant, as Sallust also says: "We employ rather the command of the mind, the servitude of the body." He added moreover: "The one is common to us with the gods, the other with the beasts," since he was speaking about humans, for whom, as for beasts, the body is mortal. But these, whom the philosophers have provided for us as mediators between us and the gods, can indeed say of mind and body: The one is common to us with the gods, the other with humans; but, as I said, as if bound and hung upside down, they have the servant body with the blessed gods, the master mind with wretched humans—exalted in the lower part, cast down in the higher. Whence even if someone for this reason has thought that they have eternity with the gods, because by no death, as in terrestrial animals, are their souls loosed from the body, not even so is their body to be thought an eternal vehicle of the honored, but an eternal bond of the damned.

[X] Plotinus certe nostrae memoriae uicinis temporibus Platonem ceteris excellentius intellexisse laudatur. Is cum de humanis animis ageret: "Pater, inquit, misericors mortalia illis uincla faciebat." Ita hoc ipsum, quod mortales sunt homines corpore, ad misericordiam Dei patris pertinere arbitratus est, ne semper huius uitae miseria tenerentur. Hac misericordia indigna iudicata est iniquitas daemonum, quae in animi passiui miseria non mortale sicut homines, sed aeternum corpus accepit.

[10] Plotinus, indeed, in times near to our memory, is praised for having understood Plato more excellently than the others. He, when he was treating of human souls, said: "The merciful Father made mortal bonds for them." Thus he judged that this very fact—that humans are mortal in body—pertains to the mercy of God the Father, lest they should always be held by the misery of this life. By this mercy the iniquity of the daemons was judged unworthy, which, in the misery of a passible soul, received not a mortal body like humans, but an eternal body.

Essent quippe feliciores hominibus, si mortale cum eis haberent corpus et cum diis animum beatum. Essent autem pares hominibus, si cum animo misero corpus saltem mortale cum eis habere meruissent; si tamen adquirerent aliquid pietatis, ut ab aerumnis uel in morte requiescerent. Nunc uero non solum feliciores hominibus non sunt animo misero, sed etiam miseriores sunt perpetuo corporis uinculo.

They would indeed be more felicitous than human beings, if they had with them a mortal body and, with the gods, a blessed soul. They would, however, be equal to human beings, if, with a miserable soul, they had at least deserved to have a mortal body along with them; if nevertheless they should acquire some measure of piety, so that even in death they might rest from hardships. But as it is, not only are they not more felicitous than human beings with a miserable soul, but they are even more miserable through the perpetual bond of the body.

Non enim aliqua pietatis et sapientiae disciplina proficientes intellegi uoluit ex daemonibus fieri deos, cum apertissime dixerit daemones aeternos.

For he did not wish it to be understood that, by some discipline of piety and sapience, those progressing would be made gods out of daemons, since he has said most openly that the daemons are eternal.

[XI] Dicit quidem et animas hominum daemones esse et ex hominibus fieri lares, si boni meriti sunt; lemures, si mali, seu laruas; manes autem deos dici, si incertum est bonorum eos seu malorum esse meritorum. In qua opinione quantam uoraginem aperiant sectandis perditis moribus, quis non uideat, si uel paululum adtendat? Quando quidem quamlibet nequam homines fuerint, uel laruas se fieri dum opinantur, uel dum manes deos, tanto peiores fiunt, quanto sunt nocendi cupidiores, ut etiam quibusdam sacrificiis tamquam diuinis honoribus post mortem se inuitari opinentur, ut noceant.

[XI] He does indeed say that the souls of men are demons and that from men are made lares, if they are of good merit; lemures, if evil, or larvae; but the manes are said to be gods, if it is uncertain whether they are of good or of evil merits. In which opinion, how great an abyss they open for the pursuit of profligate morals, who does not see, if he but pay a little attention? Since indeed, however wicked men may have been, either while they suppose that they become larvae, or while they suppose the manes to be gods, they become the worse, the more desirous they are of harming, so that they even suppose that by certain sacrifices, as by divine honors, after death they are invited, in order that they may do harm.

Laruas quippe dicit esse noxios daemones ex hominibus factos. Sed hinc alia quaestio est. Inde autem perhibet appellari Graece beatos.

For he indeed says that larvas are noxious demons made from human beings. But from this there is another question. And from that he asserts that in Greek they are called “the blessed.”

*eu)dai/monas, quod boni sint animi, hoc est boni daemones, animos quoque hominum daemones esse confirmans.

*eudaimones, because they are good spirits—that is, good daemons—affirming that the souls of men also are daemons.

[XII] Sed nunc de his agimus, quos in natura propria descripsit inter deos et homines genere animalia, mente rationalia, animo passiua, corpore aeria, tempore aeterna. Nempe cum prius deos in sublimi caelo, homines autem in terra infima disiunctos locis et naturae dignitate secerneret, ita conclusit: "Habetis, inquit, interim bina animalia: deos ab hominibus plurimum differentes loci sublimitate, uitae perpetuitate, naturae perfectione, nullo inter se propinquo communicatu, cum et habitacula summa ab infimis tanta intercapedo fastigii dispescat, et uiuacitas illic aeterna et indefecta sit, hic caduca et subsiciua, et ingenia illa ad beatitudinem sublimata, haec ad miserias infimata." Hic terna uideo commemorata contraria de duabus naturae partibus ultimis, id est summis atque infimis. Nam tria quae proposuit de diis laudabilia, eadem repetiuit, aliis quidem uerbis, ut eis aduersa alia tria ex hominibus redderet.

[12] But now we are dealing with those whom he described, in their own proper nature, as animals between gods and men: by kind animals, rational in mind, passible in soul, airy in body, eternal in time. Indeed, when he had first separated the gods in the lofty heaven and men, however, on the lowest earth, divided by places and by the dignity of nature, he concluded thus: “You have, he says, for the time being a pair of animals: gods differing very greatly from men by the loftiness of their place, the perpetuity of life, the perfection of nature, with no kindred communication between them, since both the highest dwellings are parted from the lowest by so great an interval of height, and the vitality there is eternal and unfailing, here perishable and needing replacement, and those natures are raised up to beatitude, these cast down to miseries.” Here I see three opposed items recounted concerning the two extreme parts of nature, that is, the highest and the lowest. For the three praiseworthy things that he proposed about the gods, he repeated the same, indeed with other words, so that he might render to them three other things contrary, from men.

Tria deorum haec sunt: loci sublimitas, uitae perpetuitas, perfectio naturae. Haec aliis uerbis ita repetiuit, ut eis tria contraria humanae condicionis opponeret. "Cum et habitacula, inquit, summa ab infimis tanta intercapedo fastigii dispescat", quia dixerat loci sublimitatem; "et uiuacitas, inquit, illic aeterna et indefecta sit, hic caduca et subsiciua", quia dixerat uitae perpetuitatem; "et ingenia illa, inquit, ad beatitudinem sublimata, haec ad miserias infimata", quia dixerat naturae perfectionem.

These three of the gods are: loftiness of place, perpetuity of life, perfection of nature. He repeated these in other words in such a way that he opposed to them three contraries of the human condition. "Since also," he says, "the highest dwellings from the lowest are separated by so great an interval of elevation," because he had said loftiness of place; "and the vivacity there is eternal and undefective, here perishable and makeshift," because he had said perpetuity of life; "and those minds," he says, "sublimated to beatitude, these cast down to miseries," because he had said perfection of nature.

Tria igitur ab eo posita sunt deorum, id est locus sublimis, aeternitas, beatitudo; et his contraria tria hominum, id est locus infimus, mortalitas, miseria.

Therefore three things were set down by him of the gods, that is: a sublime place, eternity, beatitude; and to these three contrary things of men, that is: the lowest place, mortality, misery.

[XIII] Inter haec terna deorum et hominum quoniam daemones medios posuit, de loco nulla est controuersia; inter sublimem quippe et infimum medius locus aptissime habetur et dicitur. Cetera bina restant, quibus cura adtentior adhibenda est, quem ad modum uel aliena esse a daemonibus ostendantur, uel sic eis distribuantur, ut medietas uidetur exposcere. Sed ab eis aliena esse non possunt.

[13] Among these triads of the gods and of men, since he has placed the daemons as middle, about place there is no controversy; indeed, between the sublime and the lowest, a middle place is most aptly held and spoken of. The other two remain, to which more attentive care must be applied—how either they may be shown to be alien from the daemons, or be thus distributed to them as the middle-ness seems to require. But they cannot be alien from them.

Non enim sicut dicimus locum medium nec summum esse nec infimum, ita daemones, cum sint animalia rationalia, nec beatos esse nec miseros, sicuti sunt arbusta uel pecora, quae sunt sensus uel rationis expertia, recte possumus dicere. Quorum ergo ratio mentibus inest, aut miseros esse aut beatos necesse est. Item non possumus recte dicere nec mortales esse daemones nec aeternos.

For we cannot, just as we say that a middle place is neither highest nor lowest, so say rightly that the daemons, since they are rational animals, are neither blessed nor miserable, as are tree-groves or cattle, which are devoid of sense or of reason. Therefore, for those in whose minds reason is present, it is necessary that they be either miserable or blessed. Likewise, we cannot rightly say that the daemons are neither mortal nor eternal.

Omnia namque uiuentia aut in aeternum uiuunt, aut finiunt morte quod uiuunt. Iam uero iste tempore aeternos daemone s dixit. Quid igitur restat, nisi ut hi medii de duobus summis unum habeant et de duobus infimis alterum?

For all living beings either live unto eternity, or they finish by death what they live. Now indeed this man has said that the daemons are eternal in respect of time. What, then, remains, except that these intermediates should have one of the two highest, and from the two lowest the other?

Nam si utraque de imis habebunt aut utraque de summis, medii non erunt, sed in alterutram partem uel resiliunt uel recumbunt. Quia ergo his binis, sicut demonstratum est, carere utrisque non possunt, acceptis ex utraque parte singulis mediabuntur. Ac per hoc quia de infimis habere non possunt aeternitatem, quae ibi non est, unum hoc de summis habent; et ideo non est alterum ad complendam medietatem suam, quod de infimis habeant, nisi miseriam.

For if they have both from the lowest or both from the highest, they will not be those-in-the-middle, but they either rebound or sink down to one side or the other. Therefore, since of these pairs, as has been demonstrated, they cannot be without both, having received single elements from each side, they will be in the middle. And thus, because from the lowest they cannot have eternity, which is not there, this one thing they have from the highest; and so there is no other thing to complete their mediety, which they may have from the lowest, except misery.

Est itaque secundum Platonicos sublimium deorum uel beata aeternitas uel aeterna beatitudo; hominum uero infimorum uel miseria mortalis uel mortalitas misera; daemonum autem mediorum uel misera aeternitas uel aeterna miseria. Nam et quinque illis, quae in definitione daemonum posuit, non eos medios, sicut promittebat, ostendit; quoniam tria dixit eos habere nobis cum, quod genere animalia, quod mente rationalia, quod animo passiua sunt; cum diis autem unum, quod tempore aeterna; et unum proprium, quod corpore aeria. Quo modo ergo medii, quando unum habent cum summis, tria cum infimis?

It is therefore, according to the Platonists, of the loftiest gods either blessed eternity or eternal beatitude; but of men, the lowest, either mortal misery or wretched mortality; and of daemons, the middle, either wretched eternity or eternal wretchedness. For even by those five things which he set in the definition of daemons, he did not show them to be middle, as he was promising; since he said they have three in common with us: that by genus they are animals, that by mind they are rational, that by soul they are passible; but with the gods one, that in respect to time they are eternal; and one proper to themselves, that in body they are aerial. How then are they middle, when they have one thing with the highest and three with the lowest?

Quis non uideat relicta medietate quantum inclinentur et deprimantur ad infima? Sed plane etiam ibi medii possunt ita inueniri, ut unum habeant proprium, quod est corpus aerium, sicut et illi de summis atque infimis singula propria, dii corpus aetherium hominesque terrenum; duo uero communia sint omnibus, quod genere sunt animalia et mente rationalia. Nam et ipse cum de diis et hominibus loqueretur: "Habetis, inquit, bina animalia", et non solent isti deos nisi rationales mente perhibere.

Who would not see, with the middle abandoned, how far they lean and are pressed down toward the lowest? But plainly even there middle beings can be found in such a way that they have one proper attribute, which is an airy body, just as those among the highest and the lowest have each a proper one—the gods an aetherial body and humans an earthly (terrestrial) one; while two things are common to all, that in kind they are animals and in mind rational. For even he himself, when he was speaking about gods and humans, said: "You have a pair of animals"; and these people are not wont to aver gods except as rational in mind.

Duo sunt residua, quod sunt animo passiua et tempore aeterna; quorum habent unum cum infimis, cum summis alterum, ut proportionali ratione librata medietas neque sustollatur in summa, neque in infima deprimatur. Ipsa est autem illa daemonum misera aeternitas uel aeterna miseria. Qui enim ait "animo passiua", etiam "misera" dixisset, nisi eorum cultoribus erubuisset.

Two things remain: that they are passible in soul and eternal in time; of which they have one in common with the lowest, the other with the highest, so that a mediacy balanced by proportional ratio is neither lifted up into the highest nor pressed down into the lowest. This, moreover, is that wretched eternity or eternal misery of the daemons. For he who said “passible in soul” would also have said “wretched,” had he not blushed before their worshipers.

Porro quia prouidentia summi Dei, sicut etiam ipsi fatentur, non fortuita temeritate regitur mundus, numquam esset istorum aeterna miseria, nisi esset magna malitia.

Moreover, since by the providence of the Most High God, as even they themselves confess, the world is not governed by fortuitous temerity, the eternal misery of these would never exist, unless there were great malice.

Si igitur beati recte dicuntur eudaemones, non sunt eudaemones daemones, quos inter homines et deos isti in medio locauerunt. Quis ergo est locus bonorum daemonum, qui supra homines, infra deos istis praebeant adiutorium, illis ministerium? Si enim boni aeternique sunt, profecto et beati sunt.

If therefore the blessed are rightly called eudaemons, the daemons are not eudaemons, whom those people have placed in the middle between human beings and gods. What then is the place of the good daemons, who, above men and beneath gods, would provide aid to the former and ministry to the latter? For if they are good and eternal, surely they are blessed as well.

Aeterna autem beatitudo medios eos esse non sinit, quia multum cum diis comparat multumque ab hominibus separat. Vnde frustra isti conabuntur ostendere, quo modo daemones boni, si et inmortales sunt et beati, recte medii constituantur inter deos inmortales ac beatos et homines mortales ac miseros. Cum enim utrumque habeant cum diis, et beatitudinem scilicet et inmortalitatem, nihil autem horum cum hominibus et miseris et mortalibus: quo modo non potius remoti sunt ab hominibus diisque coniuncti, quam inter utrosque medii constituti?

But eternal beatitude does not allow them to be in the middle, because it compares them much with the gods and separates them much from humans. Whence these people will vainly try to show how good daemons, if they are both immortal and blessed, are rightly set in the middle between immortal and blessed gods and mortal and wretched humans. For since they have both with the gods—namely beatitude and immortality—but none of these with humans, who are wretched and mortal: how are they not rather removed from humans and joined to the gods, than set as middling between both sides?

Tunc enim medii essent, si haberent et ipsi duo quaedam sua, non cum binis alterutrorum, sed cum singulis utrorumque communia; sicut homo medium quiddam est, sed inter pecora et angelos, ut, quia pecus est animal inrationale atque mortale, angelus autem rationale et inmortale, medius homo est, sed inferior angelis, superior pecoribus, habens cum pecoribus mortalitatem, rationem cum angelis, animal rationale mortale. Ita ergo cum quaerimus medium inter beatos inmortales miserosque mortales, hoc inuenire debemus, quod aut mortale sit beatum, aut inmortale sit miserum.

For then indeed they would be middle, if they too had two certain things of their own, not common with the two things of either side, but common with single things of each; just as man is a certain middle thing, but between beasts and angels, since a beast is an irrational and mortal animal, while an angel is rational and immortal, man is in the middle, yet inferior to angels, superior to beasts, having with beasts mortality, with angels reason—being a rational mortal animal. Thus therefore, when we seek a middle between blessed immortals and wretched mortals, this we ought to find: something which either, being mortal, is blessed, or, being immortal, is wretched.

[XIV] Vtrum et beatus et mortalis homo esse possit, magna est inter homines quaestio. Quidam enim condicionem suam humilius inspexerunt negaueruntque hominem capacem esse posse beatitudinis, quamdiu mortaliter uiuit. Quidam uero extulerunt se et ausi sunt dicere sapientiae compotes beatos esse posse mortales.

[14] Whether a man can be both blessed and mortal is a great question among men. For some inspected their condition more humbly and denied that a human can be capable of beatitude so long as he lives mortally. Others, however, exalted themselves and dared to say that mortals possessed of wisdom can be blessed.

Quod si ita est, cur non ipsi potius medii: constituuntur inter mortales miseros et inmortales beatos, beatitudinem habentes cum inmortalibus beatis, mortalitatem cum mortalibus miseris? Profecto enim, si beati sunt, inuident nemini (nam quid miserius inuidentia?) et ideo mortalibus miseris, quantum possunt, ad consequendam beatitudinem consulunt, ut etiam inmortales ualeant esse post mortem et angelis inmortalibus beatisque coniungi.

But if it is so, why are not they themselves rather the middle: they are constituted between mortal wretches and immortal blessed, having beatitude with the immortal blessed, mortality with the mortal wretched? For surely, if they are blessed, they envy no one (for what is more wretched than envy?), and therefore they counsel mortal wretches, as far as they can, for the attainment of beatitude, so that they too may be able to be immortal after death and be conjoined to the immortal and blessed angels.

[XV] Si autem, quod multo credibilius et probabilius disputatur, omnes homines, quamdiu mortales sunt, etiam miseri sint necesse est, quaerendus est medius, qui non solum homo, uerum etiam deus sit, ut homines ex mortali miseria ad beatam inmortalitatem huius medii beata mortalitas interueniendo perducat; quem neque non fieri mortalem oportebat, neque permanere mortalem. Mortalis quippe factus est non infirmata Verbi diuinitate, sed carnis infirmitate suscepta; non autem permansit in ipsa carne mortalis, quam resuscitauit a mortuis; quoniam Ipse est fructus mediationis eius, ut nec ipsi, propter quos liberandos mediator effectus est, in perpetua uel carnis morte remanerent. Proinde mediatorem inter nos et Deum et mortalitatem habere oportuit transeuntem et beatitudinem permanentem, ut per id, quod transit, congrueret morituris, et ad id, quod permanet, transferret ex mortuis.

[15] But if, as is argued much more credibly and more probably, all men, so long as they are mortal, must also be wretched, a mediator must be sought, who is not only man but also God, so that he may lead men from mortal misery to blessed immortality, through the intervening of this mediator’s blessed mortality; for whom it was fitting both to become mortal and not to remain mortal. For he became mortal not by the divinity of the Word being weakened, but by the weakness of the flesh assumed; nor did he remain mortal in that very flesh, which he raised from the dead; since He Himself is the fruit of his mediation, namely, that those themselves, for whose deliverance the mediator was made, should not remain either in perpetual death or in the death of the flesh. Accordingly, it was requisite that the mediator between us and God have mortality passing and beatitude remaining, so that by that which passes he might be congruent with those who are dying, and to that which remains he might transfer them from the dead.

Boni igitur angeli inter miseros mortales et beatos inmortales medii esse non possunt, quia ipsi quoque et beati et inmortales sunt; possunt autem medii esse angeli mali, quia inmortales sunt cum illis, miseri cum istis. His contrarius est mediator bonus, qui aduersus eorum inmortalitatem et miseriam et mortalis esse ad tempus uoluit, et beatus in aeternitate persistere potuit; ac sic eos et inmortales superbos et miseros noxios, ne inmortalitatis iactantia seducerent ad miseriam, et suae mortis humilitate et suae beatitudinis benignitate destruxit in eis, quorum corda per suam fidem mundans ab illorum inmundissima dominatione liberauit.

Therefore good angels cannot be middle between wretched mortals and blessed immortals, because they themselves also are both blessed and immortal; but evil angels can be middle, because they are immortal with those, wretched with these. Opposed to these is the good Mediator, who, against their immortality and misery, both willed to be mortal for a time and was able to persist blessed in eternity; and thus them both—the immortal proud and the noxious wretched—lest by a boasting of immortality they should seduce into misery, he destroyed by the humility of his own death and the benignity of his own beatitude, in those whose hearts, cleansing by his faith, he freed from their most unclean domination.

Homo itaque mortalis et miser longe seiunctus ab inmortalibus et beatis quid eligat medium, per quod inmortalitati et beatitudini copuletur? Quod possit delectare in daemonum inmortalitate, miserum est; quod posset offendere in Christi mortalitate, iam non est. Ibi ergo cauenda est miseria sempiterna; hic mors timenda non est, quae non esse potuit sempiterna, et beatitudo amanda est sempiterna.

Homo therefore, mortal and miserable, far separated from the immortals and the blessed, what medium should he choose, through which he may be coupled to immortality and beatitude? What can delight in the immortality of the daemons is wretched; what could offend in the mortality of Christ is now no more. There, therefore, everlasting misery is to be guarded against; here death is not to be feared, which could not be everlasting, and everlasting beatitude is to be loved.

Ad hoc se quippe interponit medius inmortalis et miser, ut ad inmortalitatem beatam transire non sinat, quoniam persistit quod inpedit, id est ipsa miseria; ad hoc se autem interposuit mortalis et beatus, ut mortalitate transacta et ex mortuis faceret inmortales, quod in se resurgendo monstrauit, et ex miseris beatos, unde numquam ipse discessit. Alius est ergo medius malus, qui separat amicos; alius bonus, qui reconciliat inimicos. Et ideo multi sunt medii separatores, quia multitudo, quae beata est, unius Dei participatione fit beata; cuius participationis priuatione misera multitudo malorum angelorum, quae se opponit potius ad inpedimentum, quam interponit ad beatitudinis adiutorium, etiam ipsa multitudine obstrepit quodam modo, ne possit ad illud unum beatificum <bonum> perueniri, ad quod ut perduceremur, non multis, sed uno mediatore opus erat, et hoc eo ipso, cuius participatione simus beati, hoc est Verbo Dei non facto, per quod facta sunt omnia.

For this, indeed, the middle one, immortal and miserable, interposes himself, so that he does not allow a crossing over to blessed immortality, since that which impedes persists, that is, misery itself; but for this the mortal and blessed One interposed himself, that, mortality having been passed through, he might make immortals out of the dead—which he showed in himself by rising again—and out of the miserable, blessed, from which he himself never departed. One mediator, then, is evil, who separates friends; another is good, who reconciles enemies. And therefore many are the middle separators, because the multitude which is blessed is made blessed by the participation of the one God; by the privation of which participation the miserable multitude of evil angels, which sets itself in opposition rather for impediment than interposes for the aid of beatitude, even by its very multitude makes a din, in a certain way, lest one be able to arrive at that one beatifying <good>, to which, that we might be led, there was need not of many but of one mediator—and this one the very One by whose participation we are blessed, that is, the Word of God not made, through whom all things were made.

Nec tamen ob hoc mediator est, quia Verbum; maxime quippe inmortale et maxime beatum Verbum longe est a mortalibus miseris; sed mediator, per quod homo, eo ipso utique ostendens ad illud non solum beatum, uerum etiam beatificum bonum non oportere quaeri alios mediatores, per quos arbitremur nobis peruentionis gradus esse moliendos, quia beatus et beatificus Deus factus particeps humanitatis nostrae compendium praebuit participandae diuinitatis suae. Neque enim nos a mortalitate et miseria liberans ad angelos inmortales beatosque ita perducit, ut eorum participatione etiam nos inmortales et beati simus; sed ad illam Trinitatem, cuius et angeli participatione beati sunt. Ideo quando in forma serui, ut mediator esset, infra angelos esse uoluit, in forma Dei supra angelos mansit; idem in inferioribus uia uitae, qui in superioribus uita.

Nor, however, is he mediator on this account, because he is the Word; for the maximally immortal and maximally blessed Word is far from wretched mortals; but he is mediator inasmuch as he is man, thereby indeed showing that toward that good which is not only blessed but even beatific, it is not fitting to seek other mediators, by whom we suppose the steps of arrival for us must be laboriously engineered, since the blessed and beatific God, having become a participant of our humanity, provided a shortcut for the participation of his divinity. For neither, in freeing us from mortality and misery, does he so lead us to the immortal and blessed angels that by their participation we too should be immortal and blessed; but to that Trinity, by whose participation even the angels are blessed. Therefore, when in the form of a servant, that he might be mediator, he willed to be beneath the angels; in the form of God he remained above the angels; the same one in the lower things the way of life, who in the higher things is life.

[XVI] Non enim uerum est, quod idem Platonicus ait Platonem dixisse: "Nullus Deus miscetur homini"; et hoc praecipuum eorum sublimitatis ait esse specimen, quod nulla adtrectatione hominum contaminantur. Ergo daemones contaminari fatetur, et ideo eos, a quibus contaminantur, mundare non possunt omnesque inmundi pariter fiunt, et daemones contrectatione hominum et homines cultu daemonum. Aut si et contrectari miscerique hominibus, nec tamen contaminari daemones possunt, diis profecto meliores sunt, quia illi, si miscerentur, contaminarentur.

[16] For it is not true, what that same Platonist says that Plato said: "No god is mixed with man"; and he says this is the chief specimen of their sublimity, that they are not contaminated by any contact with humans. Therefore he confesses that daemons are contaminated, and for that reason they cannot cleanse those by whom they are contaminated, and all alike become unclean, both the daemons by the contact of humans and the humans by the cult of daemons. Or if even though they can be contacted and be mixed with humans, yet the daemons cannot be contaminated, then they are assuredly better than the gods, because those latter, if they were mixed, would be contaminated.

Nam hoc deorum dicitur esse praecipuum, ut eos sublimiter separatos humana contrectatio contaminare non possit. Deum quidem summum omnium creatorem, quem nos uerum Deum dicimus, sic a Platone praedicari asseuerat, quod ipse sit solus qui non possit penuria sermonis humani quauis oratione uel modice conprehendi; uix autem sapientibus uiris, cum se uigore animi quantum licuit a corpore remouerunt, intellectum huius Dei, id quoque interdum uelut in altissimis tenebris rapidissimo coruscamine lumen candidum intermicare. Si ergo supra omnia uere summus Deus intellegibili et ineffabili quadam praesentia, etsi interdum, etsi tamquam rapidissimo coruscamine lumen candidum intermicans, adest tamen sapientium mentibus, cum se quantum licuit a corpore remouerunt, nec ab eis contaminari potest: quid est quod isti dii propterea constituuntur longe in sublimi loco, ne contrectatione contaminentur humana?

For this is said to be the principal thing of the gods: that, with them loftily separated, human handling cannot contaminate them. He does indeed aver that the highest God, the creator of all, whom we call the true God, is so proclaimed by Plato, namely, that He Himself is the only one who cannot, by the penury of human speech, be comprehended even moderately by any discourse; and that scarcely even to wise men—when by vigor of mind they have withdrawn themselves from the body as far as was permitted—the apprehension of this God comes, this too at times, as in the loftiest darkness a white light flickering with a most rapid coruscation. If, therefore, above all things the truly highest God, by a certain intelligible and ineffable presence—though at times, though as a white light flickering with the most rapid coruscation—is nevertheless present to the minds of the wise, when they have withdrawn themselves from the body as far as was permitted, nor can He be contaminated by them: what is the reason that these so‑called gods are therefore established far on high, lest they be contaminated by human handling?

Quasi uero aliud corpora illa aetheria quam uidere sufficiat, quorum luce terra, quantum sufficit, inlustratur. Porro si non contaminantur sidera, cum uidentur, quos deos omnes uisibiles dicit: nec daemones hominum contaminantur aspectu, quamuis de proximo uideantur. An forte uocibus humanis contaminarentur, qui acie non contaminantur oculorum, et ideo daemones medios habent, per quos eis uoces hominum nuntientur, a quibus longe absunt, ut incontaminatissimi perseuerent?

As though indeed anything else were required of those aetherial bodies than that to see them suffices, by whose light the earth, so far as suffices, is illuminated. Moreover, if the stars are not contaminated when they are seen—which he calls all visible gods: neither are demons contaminated by the gaze of men, although they are seen from close at hand. Or perhaps they would be contaminated by human voices, who are not contaminated by the acuity of eyes, and therefore the demons have intermediaries, through whom the voices of men are announced to them, from whom they are far distant, so that they may persevere most uncontaminated?

Quid iam de ceteris sensibus dicam? Non enim olfaciendo contaminari uel dii possent, si adessent, uel cum adsunt daemones possunt uiuorum corporum uaporibus humanorum, si tantis sacrificiorum cadauerinis non contaminantur nidoribus. In gustandi autem sensu nulla necessitate reficiendae mortalitatis urgentur, ut fame adacti cibos ab hominibus quaerant.

What shall I now say about the other senses? For neither could the gods be contaminated by smelling, if they were present, nor, when they are present, can the demons be contaminated by the vapors of living human bodies, if by such great cadaverous reeks of sacrifices they are not contaminated. But in the sense of tasting they are urged by no necessity of mortality needing replenishment, so that, driven by hunger, they would seek foods from men.

Tactus uero in potestate est. Nam licet ab eo potissimum sensu contrectatio dicta uideatur, hactenus tamen, si uellent, miscerentur hominibus, ut uiderent et uiderentur, audirent et audirentur. Tangendi autem quae necessitas?

Touch, however, is under control. For although handling seems to be called most especially from that sense, nevertheless thus far, if they were willing, they would mingle with human beings, so as to see and be seen, to hear and be heard. But what necessity is there of touching?

Nam neque homines id concupiscere auderent, cum deorum uel daemonum bonorum conspectu uel conloquio fruerentur; et si in tantum curiositas progrederetur, ut uellent: quonam pacto quispiam posset inuitum tangere deum uel daemonem, qui nisi captum non potest passerem?

For neither would human beings dare to covet that, while they enjoyed the sight or the colloquy of the gods or of good demons; and if curiosity should progress so far that they wished it: by what means could anyone touch an unwilling god or demon, who cannot even touch a sparrow unless it has been caught?

Videndo igitur uisibusque se praebendo et loquendo et audiendo dii corporaliter misceri hominibus possent. Hoc autem modo daemones si miscentur, ut dixi, et non contaminantur, dii autem contaminarentur, si miscerentur: incontaminabiles dicunt daemones et contaminabiles deos. Si autem contaminantur et daemones, quid conferunt hominibus ad uitam post mortem beatam, quos contaminati mundare non possunt, ut eos mundos diis incontaminatis possint adiungere, inter quos et illos medii constituti sunt?

By seeing and by presenting themselves to sight, and by speaking and by hearing, the gods could be corporally mingled with human beings. But if in this way the daemons, if they are mingled, as I said, are not contaminated, while the gods would be contaminated if they were mingled: they call the daemons incontaminable and the gods contaminable. But if even the daemons are contaminated, what do they confer upon human beings toward a blessed life after death—whom, being contaminated, they are not able to cleanse, so that, clean, they may be able to adjoin them to the incontaminated gods—between whom and those they have been constituted as mediators?

Aut si hoc eis beneficii non conferunt, quid prodest hominibus daemonum amica mediatio? An ut post mortem non ad deos homines per daemones transeant, sed simul uiuant utrique contaminati ac per hoc neutri beati? Nisi forte quis dicat more spongiarum uel huiusce modi rerum mundare daemones amicos suos, ut tanto ipsi sordidiores fiant, quanto fiunt homines eis uelut tergentibus mundiores.

Or if they do not confer this benefit upon them, what does the friendly mediation of the daemons profit human beings? Or is it rather that after death men do not transit to the gods through the daemons, but that both alike live together, both contaminated, and thus neither blessed? Unless perhaps someone should say that the daemons cleanse their friends in the manner of sponges or things of this sort, so that they themselves become the more sordid, in proportion as men become cleaner by them, as though they were the wipers.

Quod si ita est, contaminatioribus dii miscentur daemonibus, qui, ne contaminarentur, hominum propinquitatem contrectationemque uitarunt. An forte dii possunt ab hominibus contaminatos mundare daemones, nec ab eis contaminari, et eo modo non possent et homines? Quis talia sentiat, nisi quem fallacissimi daemones deceperunt?

If this is so, the gods are mingled with more-contaminated demons, who, in order not to be contaminated, avoided the proximity and contact of human beings. Or perhaps the gods can cleanse demons contaminated by humans, and not be contaminated by them—and in that way could they not also cleanse humans? Who would feel such things, except one whom the most deceitful demons have deceived?

Quid quod, si uideri et uidere contaminat, uidentur ab hominibus dii, quos uisibiles dicit, "clarissima mundi lumina" et cetera sidera, tutioresque sunt daemones ab ista hominum contaminatione, qui non possunt uideri, nisi uelint? Aut si non uideri, sed uidere contaminat, negent ab istis clarissimis mundi luminibus, quos deos opinantur, uideri homines, cum radios suos terras usque pertendant. Qui tamen eorum radii per quaeque inmunda diffusi non contaminantur, et dii contaminarentur, si hominibus miscerentur, etiamsi esset necessarius in subueniendo contactus?

What of this, that, if being seen and seeing contaminates, the gods—whom he calls visible, “the very brightest lights of the world,” and the other stars—are seen by men, and the daemons are safer from that human contamination, since they cannot be seen unless they wish? Or if it is not being seen, but seeing that contaminates, let them deny that men are seen by those very brightest luminaries of the world, whom they suppose to be gods, since they stretch their rays all the way to the earth. And yet their rays, diffused through every unclean thing, are not contaminated; and would the gods be contaminated if they were mingled with men, even if contact were necessary in succoring?

Nam radiis solis et lunae terra contingitur, nec istam contaminat lucem.

For by the rays of the sun and of the moon the earth is touched, nor does it contaminate that light.

[XVII] Miror autem plurimum tam doctos homines, qui cuncta corporalia et sensibilia prae incorporalibus et intellegibilibus postponenda iudicauerunt, cum agitur de beata uita, corporalium contrectationum facere mentionem. Vbi est illud Plotini, ubi ait: "Fugiendum est igitur ad carissimam patriam, et ibi pater, et ibi omnia. Quae igitur, inquit, classis aut fuga?

[17] I marvel very greatly at such learned men, who judged that all corporeal and sensible things ought to be set after the incorporeal and intelligible, when it is a matter of the blessed life, to make mention of the handlings of corporeal things. Where is that remark of Plotinus, where he says: "One must flee, then, to the dearest fatherland, and there is the father, and there are all things. What then," says he, "is the fleet or the flight?"

Similem Deo fieri." Si ergo deo quanto similior, tanto fit quisque propinquior: nulla est ab illo alia longinquitas quam eius dissimilitudo. Incorporali uero illi aeterno et incommutabili tanto est anima hominis dissimilior, quanto rerum temporalium mutabiliumque cupidior. Hoc ut sanetur, quoniam inmortali puritati, quae in summo est, ea quae in imo sunt mortalia et inmunda conuenire non possunt, opus est.quidem mediatore; non tamen tali, qui corpus quidem habeat inmortale propinquum summis, animum autem morbidum similem infimis (quo morbo nobis inuideat potius ne sanemur, quam adiuuet ut sanemur); sed tali, qui nobis infimis ex corporis mortalitate coaptatus inmortali spiritus iustitia, per quam non locorum distantia, sed similitudinis excellentia mansit in summis, mundandis liberandisque nobis uere diuinum praebeat adiutorium.

"To become similar to God." If therefore the more similar to God, by so much each one becomes nearer: there is no other remoteness from him than dissimilarity to him. But to that incorporeal, eternal, and incommutable One, the soul of man is so much the more dissimilar, the more it is desirous of temporal and mutable things. For this to be healed—since to the immortal purity which is at the highest, the things which are at the lowest, mortal and unclean, cannot be made to agree—there is need indeed of a mediator; yet not such a one as should have an immortal body, near to the highest things, but a morbid mind similar to the lowest (by which disease he would rather envy us lest we be healed, than help that we be healed); but such a one who, coapted to us lowly ones by the mortality of the body, with the justice of an immortal spirit—by which not by distance of places but by the excellence of likeness he remained among the highest—might offer to us, for our cleansing and freeing, truly divine assistance.

Qui profecto incontaminabilis Deus absit ut contaminationem timeret ex homine quo indutus est, aut ex hominibus inter quos in homine conuersatus est. Non enim parua sunt haec interim duo, quae salubriter sua incarnatione monstrauit, nec carne posse contaminari ueram diuinitatem, nec ideo putandos daemones nobis esse meliores, quia non habent carnem. Hic est, sicut eum sancta scriptura praedicat, mediator Dei et hominum, homo Christus Iesus, de cuius et diuinitate, qua patri est semper aequalis, et humanitate, qua nobis factus est similis, non hic locus est ut competenter pro nostra facultate dicamus.

Who indeed is the incontaminable God—far be it that he should fear contamination from the man with whom he was clothed, or from the men among whom he conversed in the man. For these two points, at least for now, are not small, which he salutarily demonstrated by his Incarnation: both that true divinity cannot be contaminated by flesh, and that therefore the demons are not to be thought better than us because they do not have flesh. This is, as Holy Scripture proclaims him, the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus—of whose divinity, by which he is always equal to the Father, and humanity, by which he was made like to us, this is not the place to speak fittingly according to our capacity.

[XVIII] Falsi autem illi fallacesque mediatores daemones, qui, cum per spiritus inmunditiam miseri ac maligni multis effectibus clareant, per corporalium tamen locorum interualla et per aeriorum corporum leuitatem a prouectu animorum nos auocare atque auertere moliuntur, non uiam praebent ad Deum, sed, ne uia teneatur, inpediunt. Quando quidem et in ipsa uia corporali (quae falsissima est et plenissima erroris, qua non iter agit iustitia; quoniam non per corporalem altitudinem, sed per spiritalem, hoc est incorporalem, similitudinem ad Deum debemus ascendere) -- in ipsa tamen uia corporali, quam daemonum amici per elementorum gradus ordinant inter aetherios deos et terrenos homines aeriis daemonibus mediis constitutis, hoc deos opinantur habere praecipuum, ut propter hoc interuallum locorum contrectatione non contaminentur humana. Ita daemones contaminari potius ab hominibus, quam homines mundari a daemonibus credunt, et deos ipsos contaminari potuisse, nisi loci altitudine munirentur.

[18] But those false and deceitful mediators, the demons, who, though by the uncleanness of their spirit—wretched and malignant—they are made manifest by many effects, yet by the intervals of bodily places and by the lightness of aerial bodies strive to call us away and turn us aside from the advancement of souls, do not offer a way to God, but hinder, lest the way be held. Since even in that bodily way itself (which is most false and fullest of error, along which justice does not make a journey; for we ought to ascend to God not by corporal height, but by spiritual, that is, incorporeal, similitude) -- in that bodily way itself, which the friends of demons arrange by the grades of the elements between ethereal gods and terrene humans, with airy demons set in the middle, this they suppose the gods to have as their chief prerogative: that, because of this interval of places, they are not contaminated by contact with human things. Thus they believe that demons are rather contaminated by humans than that humans are cleansed by demons, and that the gods themselves could have been contaminated, unless they were fortified by the height of their place.

Quis tam infelix est, ut ista uia mundari se existimet, ubi homines contaminantes, daemones contaminati, dii contaminabiles praedicantur; et non potius eligat uiam, ubi contaminantes magis daemones euitentur et ab incontaminabili Deo ad ineundam societatem incontaminatorum angelorum homines a contaminatione mundentur?

Who is so wretched as to suppose that by that way he is cleansed, where men are proclaimed contaminating, demons contaminated, and gods contaminable; and does not rather choose the way where the contaminating demons are more shunned, and where by the incontaminable God, for entering into the society of uncontaminated angels, human beings are cleansed from contamination?

[XIX] Sed ne de uerbis etiam nos certare uideamur, quoniam nonnulli istorum, ut ita dixerim, daemonicolarum, in quibus et Labeo est, eosdem perhibent ab aliis angelos dici, quos Ipsi daemones nuncupant, iam mihi de bonis angelis aliquid uideo disserendum, quos isti esse non negant, sed eos bonos daemones uocare quam angelos malunt. Nos autem, sicut scriptura loquitur, secundum quam Christiani sumus, angelos quidem partim bonos, partim malos, numquam uero bonos daemones legimus; sed ubicumque illarum litterarum hoc nomen positum reperitur, siue daemones, siue daemonia dicantur, non nisi maligni significantur spiritus. Et hanc loquendi consuetudinem in tantum populi usquequaque secuti sunt, ut eorum etiam, qui pagani appellantur et deos multos ac daemones colendos esse contendunt, nullus fere sit tam litteratus et doctus, qui audeat in laude uel seruo suo dicere: "Daemonem habes"; sed cuilibet hoc dicere uoluerit, non se aliter accipi, quam maledicere uoluisse, dubitare non possit.

[19] But lest we seem to contend even about words, since some of these, so to speak, daemon‑worshipers, among whom is Labeo, affirm that those whom they themselves call daemones are by others called angels, I now see that I must discourse somewhat about good angels, whose existence they do not deny, but prefer to call them good daemons rather than angels. We, however, as Scripture speaks, according to which we are Christians, read that angels are partly good and partly evil, but never that there are good daemons; rather, wherever in those letters this name is found, whether they are called daemones or daemonia, nothing other than malignant spirits are signified. And peoples everywhere have followed this custom of speaking to such an extent that even among those who are called pagans and contend that many gods and daemons are to be worshiped, there is scarcely anyone so literate and learned who would dare to say, in praise even to his own servant, “You have a daemon”; but if he should wish to say this to anyone, he could not doubt that he would be understood as having wished to speak ill.

Quae igitur nos causa compellit, ut post offensionem aurium tam multarum, ut iam paene sint omnium, quae hoc uerbum non nisi in malam partem audire consuerunt, quod diximus cogamur exponere, cum possimus angelorum nomine adhibito eandem offensionem, quae nomine daemonum fieri poterat, euitare?

What, then, is the cause that compels us—after the offense of so many ears, indeed now almost of all, who have been accustomed to hear this word only in an evil sense—to be forced to expound what we have said, when we could, by employing the name of angels, avoid the same offense that could have been occasioned by the name of daemons?

[XX] Quamquam etiam ipsa origo huius nominis, si diuinos intueamur libros, aliquid adfert cognitione dignissimum. Daemones enim dicuntur (quoniam uocabulum Graecum est) ab scientia nominati. Apostolus autem spiritu sancto locutus ait: Scientia inflat, caritas uero aedificat; quod recte aliter non intellegitur, nisi scientiam tunc prodesse, cum caritas inest; sine hac autem inflare, id est in superbiam inanissimae quasi uentositatis extollere.

[20] Although even the origin itself of this name, if we look into the divine books, brings something most worthy of cognition. For demons are said (since the vocable is Greek) to be named from science. But the Apostle, speaking by the Holy Spirit, says: Science inflates, but charity indeed builds up; which is rightly not otherwise understood, except that science then profits when charity is present; but without this it inflates, that is, it exalts into pride of a most empty, as-it-were, ventosity.

Est ergo in daemonibus scientia sine caritate, et ideo tam inflati, hoc est tam superbi sunt, ut honores diuinos et religionis seruitutem, quam uero Deo deberi sciunt, sibi satis egerint exhiberi, et quantum possunt et apud quos possunt adhuc agant. Contra superbiam porro daemonum, qua pro meritis possidebatur genus humanum, Dei humilitas, quae in Christo apparuit, quantam uirtutem habeat, animae hominum nesciunt inmunditia elationis inflatae, daemonibus similes superbia, non scientia.

Therefore in the daemons there is knowledge without charity, and hence they are so inflated— that is, so proud— that they have procured that divine honors and the servitude of religion, which they know to be truly owed to God, be rendered to themselves, and, as much as they can and with whom they can, they still do this. Against the pride, moreover, of the daemons, by which the human race was possessed according to its deserts, the humility of God, which appeared in Christ, has such power as the souls of men do not know, through the uncleanness of puffed‑up exaltation, being like the daemons in pride, not in knowledge.

[XXI] Ipsi autem daemones etiam hoc ita sciunt, ut eidem Domino infirmitate carnis induto dixerint: Quid nobis et tibi, Iesu Nazarene? Venisti perdere nos? Clarum est in his uerbis, quod in eis et tanta scientia erat, et caritas non erat.

[XXI] But the demons themselves know even this in such a way that they said to the same Lord clothed with the infirmity of flesh: What to us and to you, Jesus the Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? It is clear in these words that in them both so great a science was, and charity was not.

Poenam suam quippe formidabant ab illo, non in illo iustitiam diligebant. Tantum uero eis innotuit, quantum uoluit; tantum autem uoluit, quantum oportuit. Sed innotuit non sicut angelis sanctis, qui eius, secundum id quod Dei Verbum est, participata aeternitate perfruuntur, sed sicut eis terrendis innotescendum fuit, ex quorum tyrannica quodam modo potestate fuerat liberaturus praedestinatos in suum regnum et gloriam semper ueracem et ueraciter sempiternam.

For they indeed were fearing their own penalty from him; they were not loving justice in him. But he became known to them only so much as he willed; and he willed only so much as was expedient. Yet he became known not as to the holy angels, who, according to that whereby he is the Word of God, enjoy a participated eternity, but as it had to be made known for terrifying them, from whose, in a certain manner, tyrannical power he was going to free those predestined into his kingdom and glory ever veracious and veraciously sempiternal.

Innotuit ergo daemonibus non per id, quod est uita aeterna et lumen incommutabile, quod inluminat pios, cui uidendo per fidem, quae in illo est, corda mundantur, sed per quaedam temporalia suae uirtutis effecta et occultissimae signa praesentiae, quae angelicis sensibus etiam malignorum spirituum potius quam infirmitati hominum possent esse conspicua. Denique quando ea paululum supprimenda iudicauit et aliquanto altius latuit, dubitauit de illo daemonum princeps eumque temptauit, an Christus esset explorans, quantum se temptari ipse permisit, ut hominem, quem gerebat, ad nostrae imitationis temperaret exemplum. Post illam uero temptationem, cum angeli, sicut scriptum est, ministrarent ei, boni utique et sancti ac per hoc spiritibus inmundis metuendi et tremendi, magis magisque innotescebat daemonibus quantus esset, ut ei iubenti, quamuis in illo contemptibilis uideretur carnis infirmitas, resistere nullus auderet.

He therefore became known to the demons not by that which is eternal life and the incommutable light that illuminates the pious—by seeing which, through the faith that is in him, hearts are cleansed—but by certain temporal effects of his power and by the most hidden signs of his presence, which could be conspicuous to angelic senses, even of malign spirits, rather than to the infirmity of men. Finally, when he judged that these were to be somewhat suppressed and lay more deeply hidden, the prince of the demons doubted about him and tempted him, exploring whether he was the Christ, insofar as he himself permitted himself to be tempted, so that he might temper to our imitation the example of the man he was bearing. But after that temptation, when angels, as it is written, were ministering to him—good, to be sure, and holy, and therefore to be feared and dreaded by unclean spirits—he became more and more known to the demons how great he was, so that, at his commanding, although the infirmity of flesh in him seemed contemptible, no one dared to resist.

[XXII] His igitur angelis bonis omnis corporalium temporaliumque rerum scientia, qua inflantur daemones, uilis est; non quod earum ignari sint, sed quod illis Dei, qua sanctificantur, caritas cara est, prae cuius non tantum incorporali, uerum etiam incommutabili et ineffabili pulchritudine, cuius sancto amore inardescunt, omnia, quae infra sunt et, quod illud est, non sunt seque ipsos inter illa contemnunt, ut ex toto, quod boni sunt, eo bono, ex quo boni sunt, perfruantur. Et ideo certius etiam temporalia et mutabilia ista nouerunt, quia eorum principales causas in Verbo Dei conspiciunt, per quod factus est mundus; quibus causis quaedam probantur, quaedam reprobantur, cuncta ordinantur. Daemones autem non aeternas temporum causas et quodam modo cardinales in Dei sapientia contemplantur, sed quorundam signorum nobis occultorum maiore experientia multo plura quam homines futura prospiciunt; dispositiones quoque suas aliquando praenuntiant.

[22] Therefore to these good angels all the science of bodily and temporal things, by which the demons are puffed up, is vile; not that they are ignorant of them, but that to them the charity of God, by which they are sanctified, is dear, before whose not only incorporeal but also incommutable and ineffable beauty—by the holy love of which they burn—all things which are below and, in that He is That-Which-Is, are not, and themselves among them, they contemn, so that, in the whole that they are good, they may enjoy that Good by which they are good. And therefore they know even these temporal and changeable things more certainly, because they behold their principal causes in the Word of God, through whom the world was made; by which causes certain things are approved, certain reproved, all are ordered. But the demons do not contemplate in the Wisdom of God the eternal and, in a certain manner, cardinal causes of times, but by a greater experience of certain signs hidden from us they foresee many more future things than men; they also sometimes fore-announce their own dispositions.

Denique saepe isti, numquam illi omnino falluntur. Aliud est enim temporalibus temporalia et mutabilibus mutabilia coniectare eisque temporalem et mutabilem modum suae uoluntatis et facultatis inserere, quod daemonibus certa ratione permissum est; aliud autem in aeternis atque incommutabilibus Dei legibus, quae in eius sapientia uiuunt, mutationes temporum praeuidere Deique uoluntatem, quae tam certissima quam potentissima est omnium, spiritus eius participatione cognoscere; quod sanctis angelis recta discretione donatum est. Itaque non solum aeterni, uerum etiam beati sunt.

Finally, these are often, those never at all, deceived. For it is one thing to conjecture temporals from temporals and mutables from mutables, and to insert into them the temporal and mutable mode of one’s will and faculty—something permitted to demons by a certain reason; but it is another to foresee, in the eternal and immutable laws of God, which live in His wisdom, the changes of times, and to know the will of God—which is as most certain as it is most powerful of all—by participation in His Spirit; which has been granted to the holy angels with right discretion. Therefore they are not only eternal, but also blessed.

Bonum autem, quo beati sunt, Deus illis est, a quo creati sunt. Illius quippe indeclinabiliter participatione et contemplatione perfruuntur.

But the Good, by which they are blessed, is God for them, by whom they were created. For indeed they unfailingly enjoy the participation and contemplation of Him.

[XXIII] Hos si Platonici malunt deos quam daemones dicere eisque adnumerare, quos a summo Deo conditos deos scribit eorum auctor et magister Plato: dicant quod uolunt; non enim cum eis de uerborum controuersia laborandum est. Si enim sic inmortales, ut tamen a summo Deo factos, et si non per se ipsos, sed ei, a quo facti sunt, adhaerendo beatos esse dicunt: hoc dicunt quod dicimus, quolibet eos nomine appellent. Hanc autem Platonicorum esse sententiam, siue omnium siue meliorum, in eorum litteris inueniri potest.

[23] If the Platonists prefer to call these gods rather than daemons, and to number among them those whom their author and teacher Plato writes were created as gods by the supreme God, let them say what they will; for we need not toil with them over a controversy of words. For if they say that they are immortal in such a way as yet to have been made by the supreme God, and that they are blessed not by themselves, but by adhering to Him by whom they were made: they say what we say, by whatever name they may call them. And that this is the opinion of the Platonists, whether of all or of the better sort, can be found in their writings.

Nam et de ipso nomine, quod huius modi inmortalem beatamque creaturam deos appellant, ideo inter nos et ipsos paene nulla dissensio est, quia et in nostris sacris litteris legitur: Deus deorum dominus locutus est, et alibi: Confitemini deo deorum, et alibi: Rex magnus super omnes deos. Illud autem ubi scriptum est: Terribilis est super omnes deos, cur dictum sit, deinceps ostenditur. Sequitur enim: Quoniam omnes dii gentium daemonia, Dominus autem caelos fecit.

For even concerning the very name, that a creature of this sort, immortal and blessed, they call gods, on this point there is scarcely any dissension between us and them, because in our sacred letters it is read as well: "The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken," and elsewhere: "Give thanks to the God of gods," and elsewhere: "A great king over all gods." But that place where it is written: "He is terrible over all gods," why it was said is shown immediately afterward. For it follows: "For all the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens."

Super omnes ergo deos dixit, sed gentium, id est quos gentes pro diis habent, quae sunt daemonia; ideo terribilis, sub quo terrore Domino dicebant: Venisti perdere nos? Illud uero, ubi dicitur: Deus deorum, non potest intellegi deus daemoniorum; et rex magnus super omnes deos absit ut dicatur rex magnus super omnia daemonia. Sed homines quoque in populo Dei eadem scriptura deos appellat.

Therefore he said over all gods, but of the nations, that is, those whom the nations hold as gods, which are daemons; therefore “terrible,” under which terror they were saying to the Lord: “Have you come to destroy us?” But that place where it is said: “God of gods,” cannot be understood as “god of daemons”; and “a great king over all gods”—far be it that it be said “a great king over all daemons.” But the same scripture also calls human beings in the people of God “gods.”

Ego, inquit, dixi, dii estis et filii Excelsi omnes. Potest itaque intellegi horum deorum deus, qui dictus est deus deorum, et super hos deos rex magnus, qui dictus est rex magnus super omnes deos.

I, he says, said, "You are gods and all of you sons of the Most High." Therefore it can be understood that the God of these gods is He who is called the God of gods, and over these gods the great King, who is called the great King over all gods.

Verum tamen cum a nobis quaeritur: Si homines dicti sunt dii, quod in populo Dei sunt, quem per angelos uel per homines alloquitur Deus, quanto magis inmortales eo nomine digni sunt, qui ea fruuntur beatitudine, ad quam Deum colendo cupiunt homines peruenire: quid respondebimus nisi non frustra in scripturis sanctis expressius homines nuncupatos deos, quam illos inmortales et beatos, quibus nos aequales futuros in resurrectione promittitur, ne scilicet propter illorum excellentiam aliquem eorum nobis constituere deum infidelis auderet infirmitas? Quod in homine facile est euitare. Et euidentius dici debuerunt homines dii in populo Dei, ut certi ac fidentes fierent eum esse Deum suum, qui dictus est deus deorum f quia etsi appellentur dii inmortales illi et beati, qui in caelis sunt, non tamen dicti sunt dii deorum, id est dii hominum in populo Dei constitutorum, quibus dictum est: Ego dixi, dii estis et filii Excelsi omnes.

Yet, nevertheless, when it is asked of us: If men were called gods, because they are in the people of God, whom God addresses through angels or through men, how much more are the immortals worthy of that name, who enjoy that beatitude to which men, by worshipping God, desire to attain—what shall we answer except this: that not in vain in the sacred scriptures were men more expressly named gods than those immortals and blessed ones, with whom it is promised that we shall be made equal in the resurrection, lest, namely, on account of their excellence some unbelieving infirmity should dare to constitute any one of them a god for us? Which in the case of a man is easy to avoid. And men ought to have been more plainly called gods in the people of God, that they might become certain and confident that He is their God who is called the God of gods; for although those immortals and blessed ones who are in the heavens are called gods, yet they are not called gods of gods—that is, gods of the men established in the people of God—to whom it was said: I said, “You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.”

Hinc est quod ait apostolus: Etsi sunt qui dicuntur dii, siue in caelo siue in terra, sicuti sunt dii multi et domini multis nobis tamen unus Deus Pater, ex quo omnia et nos in ipso, et unus Dominus Iesus Christus, per quem omnia et nos per ipsum.

Hence it is that the apostle says: Even if there are those who are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth—just as there are many gods and many lords—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we in him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through him.

Non multum ergo de nomine disceptandum est, cum res ipsa ita clareat, ut ab scrupulo dubitationis aliena sit. Illud uero, quod nos ex eorum inmortalium beatorum numero missos esse angelos dicimus, qui Dei uoluntatem hominibus adnuntiarent, illis autem non placet, quia hoc ministerium non per illos, quos deos appellant, id est inmortales et beatos, sed per daemones fieri credunt, quos inmortales tantum, non etiam beatos audent dicere, aut certe ita inmortales et beatos, ut tamen daemones bonos, non deos sublimiter conlocatos et ab humana contrectatione semotos, quamuis nominis controuersia uideatur, tamen ita detestabile est nomen daemonum, ut hoc modis omnibus a sanctis angelis nos remouere debeamus. Nunc ergo ita liber iste claudatur, ut sciamus inmortales et beatos, quodlibet uocentur, qui tamen facti et creati sunt, medios non esse ad inmortalem beatitudinem perducendis mortalibus miseris, a quibus utraque differentia separantur.

Not much, then, ought to be disputed about the name, since the thing itself is so clear as to be free from the scruple of doubt. But as to this point—that we say angels have been sent from the number of those immortal and blessed beings, who would announce the will of God to men—which does not please them, because they believe this ministry is performed not through those whom they call gods, that is, immortals and blessed, but through daemons, whom they dare to call immortal only, not also blessed; or at any rate so immortal and blessed as still to be good daemons, not gods loftily set in place and removed from human handling—although it may seem a controversy of a name, nevertheless the name of daemons is so detestable that we ought by every means to remove this from the holy angels. Therefore now let this book be closed thus: that we should know that the immortal and blessed—whatever they are called—who nevertheless have been made and created, are not intermediaries for leading wretched mortals to immortal beatitude, from whom they are separated by both differences.

Qui autem medii sunt communem habendo inmortalitatem cum superioribus, miseriam cum inferioribus, quoniam merito malitiae miseri sunt, beatitudinem, quam non habent, inuidere nobis <possunt> potius quam praebere. Vnde nihil habent amici daemonum quod nobis dignum adferant, cur eos tamquam adiutores colere debeamus, quos potius ut deceptores uitare debemus. Quos autem bonos et ideo non solum inmortales, uerum etiam beatos deorum nomine sacris et sacrificiis propter uitam beatam post mortem adipiscendam colendos putant, qualescumque illi sint et quolibet uocabulo digni sint, non eos uelle per tale religionis obsequium nisi unum Deum coli, a quo creati et cuius participatione beati sunt, adiuuante ipso in sequenti libro diligentius disseremus.

But those who are intermediates, having in common immortality with the superiors and misery with the inferiors—since by the desert of malice they are wretched—can envy us the beatitude which they do not have rather than provide it. Whence the friends of the daemons have nothing to bring us worthy of our worshiping them as helpers—whom rather we ought to avoid as deceivers. But as for those whom they deem good, and therefore not only immortal but also blessed, to be honored under the name of gods with rites and sacrifices for the sake of acquiring a blessed life after death, whatever they be and worthy of whatever appellation, that they do not wish, by such a service of religion, that any but the one God be worshiped—by whom they were created and by whose participation they are blessed—we shall, with His aid, discuss more diligently in the following book.