BOOK VIII. 
ARGUMENT. 
AUGUSTIN COMES NOW TO THE THIRD KIND OF THEOLOGY, THAT IS, THE NATURAL, AND 
TAKES UP THE QUESTION, WHETHER THE WORSHIP OF THE GODS OF THE NATURAL THEOLOGY 
IS OF ANY AVAIL TOWARDS SECURING BLESSEDNESS IN THE LIFE TO COME. THIS QUESTION 
HE PREFERS TO DISCUSS WITH THE PLATONISTS, BECAUSE THE PLATONIC SYSTEM IS 
"FACILE PRINCEPS" AMONG PHILOSOPHIES, AND MAKES THE NEAREST APPROXIMATION TO 
CHRISTIAN TRUTH. IN PURSUING THIS ARGUMENT, HE FIRST REFUTES APULEIUS, AND ALL 
WHO MAINTAIN THAT THE DEMONS SHOULD BE WORSHIPPED AS MESSENGERS AND MEDIATORS 
BETWEEN GODS AND MEN; DEMONSTRATING THAT BY NO POSSIBILITY CAN MEN BE RECONCILED 
TO GOOD GODS BY DEMONS, WHO ARE THE SLAVES OF VICE, AND WHO DELIGHT IN AND 
PATRONIZE WHAT GOOD AND WISE MEN ABHOR AND CONDEMN,--THE BLASPHEMOUS FICTIONS OF 
POETS, THEATRICAL EXHIBITIONS, AND MAGICAL ARTS. 
CHAP. 1.--THAT THE QUESTION OF NATURAL THEOLOGY IS TO BE DISCUSSED WITH THOSE 
PHILOSOPHERS WHO SOUGHT A MORE EXCELLENT WISDOM. 
We shall require to apply our mind with far greater intensity to the present 
question than was requisite in the solution and unfolding of the questions 
handled in the preceding books; for it is not with ordinary men, but with 
philosophers that we must confer concerning the theology which they call 
natural. For it is not like the fabulous, that is, the theatrical; nor the 
civil, that is, the urban theology: the one of which displays the crimes of the 
gods, whilst the other manifests their criminal desires, which demonstrate them 
to be rather malign demons than gods. It is, we say, with philosophers we have 
to confer with respect to this theology,--men whose very name, if rendered into 
Latin, signifies those who profess the love of wisdom. Now, if wisdom is God, 
who made all things, as is attested by the divine authority and truth,(1) then 
the philosopher is a lover of God. But since the thing itself, which is called 
by this name, exists not in all who glory in the name,--for it does not follow, 
of course, that all who are called philosophers are lovers of true wisdom,--we 
must needs select from the number of those with whose opinions we have been able 
to acquaint ourselves by reading, some with whom we may not unworthily engage in 
the treatment of this question. For I have not in this work undertaken to refute 
all the vain opinions of the philosophers, but only such as pertain to theology, 
which Greek word we understand to mean an account or explanation of the divine 
nature. Nor, again, have I undertaken to refute all the vain theological 
opinions of all the philosophers, but only of such of them as, agreeing in the 
belief that there is a divine nature, and that this divine nature is concerned 
about human affairs, do nevertheless deny that the worship of the one 
unchangeable God is sufficient for the obtaining of a blessed life after death, 
as well as at the present time; and hold that, in order to obtain that life, 
many gods, created, indeed, and appointed to their several spheres by that one 
God, are to be worshipped. These approach nearer to the truth than even Varro; 
for, whilst he saw no difficulty in extending natural theology in its entirety 
even to the world and the soul of the world, these acknowledge God as existing 
above all that is of the nature of soul, and as the Creator not only of this 
visible world, which is often called heaven and earth, but also of every soul 
whatsoever, and as Him who gives blessedness to the rational soul,--of which 
kind is the human soul,--by participation in His own unchangeable and 
incorporeal light. There is no one, who has even a slender knowledge of these 
things, who does not know of the Platonic philosophers, who derive their name 
from their master Plato. Concerning this Plato, then, I will briefly state such 
things as I deem necessary to the present question, mentioning beforehand those 
who preceded him in time in the same department of literature. 
CHAP. 2.--CONCERNING THE TWO SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHERS, THAT IS, THE ITALIC AND 
IONIC, AND THEIR FOUNDERS. 
As far as concerns the literature of the Greeks, whose language holds a more 
illustrious place than any of the languages of the other nations, history 
mentions two schools of philosophers, the one called the Italic school, 
originating in that part of Italy which was formerly called Magna Graecia; the 
other called the Ionic school, having its origin in those regions which are 
still called by the name of Greece. The Italic school had for its founder 
Pythagoras of Samos, to whom also the term "philosophy" is said to owe its 
origin. For whereas formerly those who seemed to excel others by the laudable 
manner in which they regulated their lives were called sages, Pythagoras, on 
being asked what he professed, replied that he was a philosopher, that is, a 
student or lover of wisdom; for it seemed to him to be the height of arrogance 
to profess oneself a sage.(1) The founder of the Ionic school, again, was Thales 
of Miletus, one of those seven who were styled the "seven sages," of whom six 
were distinguished by the kind of life they lived, and by certain maxims which 
they gave forth for the proper conduct of life. Thales was distinguished as an 
investigator into the nature of things; and, in order that he might have 
successors in his school, he committed his dissertations to writing. That, 
however, which especially rendered him eminent was his ability, by means of 
astronomical calculations, even to predict eclipses of the sun and moon. He 
thought, however, that water was the first principle of things, and that of it 
all the elements of the world, the world itself, and all things which are 
generated in it, ultimately consist. Over all this work, however, which, when we 
consider the world, appears so admirable, he set nothing of the nature of divine 
mind. To him succeeded Anaximander, his pupil, who held a different opinion 
concerning the nature of things; for he did not hold that all things spring from 
one principle, as Thales did, who held that principle to be water, but thought 
that each thing springs from its own proper principle. These principles of 
things he believed to be infinite in number, and thought that they generated 
innumerable worlds, and all the things which arise in them. He thought, also, 
that these worlds are subject to a perpetual process of alternate dissolution 
and regeneration, each one continuing for a longer or shorter period of time, 
according to the nature of the case; nor did he, any more than Thales, attribute 
anything to a divine mind in the production of all this activity of things. 
Anaximander left as his successor his disciple Anaximenes, who attributed all 
the causes of things to an infinite air. He neither denied nor ignored the 
existence of gods, but, so far from believing that the air was made by them, he 
held, on the contrary, that they sprang from the air. Anaxagoras, however, who 
was his pupil, perceived that a divine mind was the productive cause of all 
things which we see, and said that all the various kinds of things, according to 
their several modes and species, were produced out of an infinite matter 
consisting of homogeneous particles, but by the efficiency of a divine mind. 
Diogenes, also, another pupil of Anaximenes, said that a certain air was the 
original substance of things out of which all things were produced, but that it 
was possessed of a divine reason, without which nothing could be produced from 
it. Anaxagoras was succeeded by his disciple Archelaus, who also thought that 
all things consisted of homogeneous particles, of which each particular thing 
was made, but that those particles were pervaded by a divine mind, which 
perpetually energized all the eternal bodies, namely, those particles, so that 
they are alternately united and separated. Socrates, the master of Plato, is 
said to have been the disciple of Archelaus; and on Plato's account it is that I 
have given this brief historical sketch of the whole history of these schools. 
CHAP. 5.--THAT IT IS ESPECIALLY WITH THE PLATONISTS THAT WE MUST CARRY ON OUR 
DISPUTATIONS ON MATTERS OF THEOLOGY, THEIR OPINIONS BEING PREFERABLE TO THOSE OF 
ALL OTHER PHILOSOPHERS. 
If, then, Plato defined the wise man as one who imitates, knows, loves this God, 
and who is rendered blessed through fellowship with Him in His own blessedness, 
why discuss with the other philosophers? It is evident that none come nearer to 
us than the Platonists. To them, therefore, let that fabulous theology give 
place which delights the minds of men with the crimes of the gods; and that 
civil theology also, in which impure demons, under the name of gods, have 
seduced the peoples of the earth given up to earthly pleasures, desiring to be 
honored by the errors of men, and by filling the minds of their worshippers with 
impure desires, exciting them to make the representation of their crimes one of 
the rites of their worship, whilst they themselves found in the spectators of 
these exhibitions a most pleasing spectacle,--a theology in which, whatever was 
honorable in the temple, was defiled by its mixture with the obscenity of the 
theatre, and whatever was base in the theatre was vindicated by the abominations 
of the temples. To these philosophers also the interpretations of Varro must 
give place, in which he explains the sacred rites as having reference to heaven 
and earth, and to the seeds and operations of perishable things; for, in the 
first place, those rites have not the signification which he would have men 
believe is attached to them, and therefore truth does not follow him in his 
attempt so to interpret them; and even if they had this signification, still 
those things ought not to be worshipped by the rational soul as its god which 
are placed below it in the scale of nature, nor ought the soul to prefer to 
itself as gods things to which the true God has given it the preference. The 
same must be said of those writings pertaining to the sacred rites, which Numa 
Pompilius took care to conceal by causing them to be buried along with himself, 
and which, when they were afterwards turned up by the plough, were burned by 
order of the senate. And, to treat Numa with all honor, let us mention as 
belonging to the same rank as these writings that which Alexander of Macedon 
wrote to his mother as communicated to him by Leo, an Egyptian high priest. In 
this letter not only Picus and Faunus, and AEneas and Romulus or even Hercules, 
and AEsculapius and Liber, born of Semele, and the twin sons of Tyndareus, or 
any other mortals who have been deified, but even the principal gods 
themselves,(1) to whom Cicero, in his Tusculan questions,(2) alludes without 
mentioning their names, Jupiter, Juno, Saturn, Vulcan, Vesta, and many others 
whom Varro attempts to identify with the parts or the elements of the world, are 
shown to have been men. There is, as we have said, a similarity between this 
case and that of Numa; for the priest being afraid because he had revealed a 
mystery, earnestly begged of Alexander to command his mother to burn the letter 
which conveyed these communications to her. Let these two theologies, then, the 
fabulous and the civil, give place to the Platonic philosophers, who have 
recognized the true God as the author of all things, the source of the light of 
truth, and the bountiful bestower of all blessedness. And not these only, but to 
these great acknowledgers of so great a God, those philosophers must yield who, 
having their mind enslaved to their body, supposed the principles of all things 
to be material; as Thales, who held that the first principle of all things was 
water; Anaximenes, that it was air; the Stoics, that it was fire; Epicurus, who 
affirmed that it consisted of atoms, that is to say, of minute corpuscules; and 
many others whom it is needless to enumerate, but who believed that bodies, 
simple or compound, animate or inanimate, but nevertheless bodies, were the 
cause and principle of all things. For some of them--as, for instance, the 
Epicureans--believed that living things could originate from things without 
life; others held that all things living or without life spring from a living 
principle, but that, nevertheless, all things, being material, spring from a 
material principle. For the Stoics thought that fire, that is, one of the four 
material elements of which this visible world is composed, was both living and 
intelligent, the maker of the world and of all things contained in it,--that it 
was in fact God. These and others like them have only been able to suppose that 
which their hearts enslaved to sense have vainly suggested to them. And yet they 
have within themselves Something which they could not see: they represented to 
themselves inwardly things which they had seen without, even when they were not 
seeing them, but only thinking of them. But this representation in thought is no 
longer a body, but only the similitude of a body; and that faculty of the mind 
by which this similitude of a body is seen is neither a body nor the similitude 
of a body; and the faculty which judges whether the representation is beautiful 
or ugly is without doubt superior to the object judged of. This principle is the 
understanding of man, the rational soul; and it is certainly not a body, since 
that similitude of a body which it beholds and judges of is itself not a body. 
The soul is neither earth, nor water, nor air, nor fire, of which four bodies, 
called the four elements, we see that this world is composed. And if the soul is 
not a body, how should God, its Creator, be a body? Let all those philosophers, 
then, give place, as we have said, to the Platonists, and those also who have 
been ashamed to say that God is a body, but yet have thought that our souls are 
of the same nature as God. They have not been staggered by the great 
changeableness of the soul,--an attribute which it would be impious to ascribe 
to the divine nature,--but they say it is the body which changes the soul, for 
in itself it is unchangeable. As well might they say, "Flesh is wounded by some 
body, for in itself it is invulnerable." In a word, that which is unchangeable 
can be changed by nothing, so that that which can be changed by the body cannot 
properly be said to be immutable. 
CHAP. 6.--CONCERNING THE MEANING OF THE PLATONISTS IN THAT PART OF PHILOSOPHY 
CALLED PHYSICAL. 
These philosophers, then, whom we see not undeservedly exalted above the rest in 
fame and glory, have seen that no material body is God, and therefore they have 
transcended all bodies in seeking for God. They have seen that whatever is 
changeable is not the most high God, and therefore they have transcended every 
soul and all changeable spirits in seeking the supreme. They have seen also 
that, in every changeable thing, the form which makes it that which it is, 
whatever be its mode or nature, can only be through Him who truly is, because He 
is unchangeable. And therefore, whether we consider the whole body of the world, 
its figure, qualities, and orderly movement, and also all the bodies which are 
in it; or whether we consider all life, either that which nourishes and 
maintains, as the life of trees, or that which, besides this, has also 
sensation, as the life of beasts; or that which adds to all these intelligence, 
as the life of man; or that which does not need the support of nutriment, but 
only maintains, feels, understands, as the life of angels,--all can only be 
through Him who absolutely is. For to Him it is not one thing to be, and another 
to live, as though He could be, not living; nor is it to Him one thing to live, 
and another thing to understand, as though He could live, not understanding; nor 
is it to Him one thing to understand, another thing to be blessed, as though He 
could understand and not be blessed. But to Him to live, to understand, to be 
blessed, are to be. They have understood, from this unchangeableness and this 
simplicity, that all things must have been made by Him, and that He could 
Himself have been made by none. For they have considered that whatever is is 
either body or life, and that life is something better than body, and that the 
nature of body is sensible and that of life intelligible. Therefore they have 
preferred the intelligible nature to the sensible. We mean by sensible things 
such things as can be perceived by the sight and touch of the body; by 
intelligible things, such as can be understood by the sight of the mind For 
there is no corporeal beauty, whether in the condition of a body, as figure, or 
in its movement, as in music, of which it is not the mind that judges. But this 
could never have been, had there not existed in the mind itself a superior form 
of these things, without bulk, without noise of voice, without space and time. 
But even in respect of these things, had the mind not been mutable, it would not 
have been possible for one to judge better than another with regard to sensible 
forms. He who is clever, judges better than he who is slow, he who is skilled 
than he who is unskillful, he who is practised than he who is unpractised; and 
the same person judges better after he has gained experience than he did before. 
But that which is capable of more and less is mutable; whence able men, who have 
thought deeply on these things, have gathered that the first form is not to be 
found in those things whose form is changeable. Since, therefore, they saw that 
body and mind might be more or less beautiful in form, and that, if they wanted 
form, they could have no existence, they saw that there is some existence in 
which is the first form, unchangeable, and therefore not admitting of degrees of 
comparison, and in that they most rightly believed was the first principle of 
things which was not made, and by which all things were made. Therefore that 
which is known of God He manifested to them when His invisible things were seen 
by them, being understood by those things which have been made; also His eternal 
power and Godhead by whom all visible and temporal things have been created.(1) 
We have said enough upon that part of theology which they call physical, that 
is, natural. 
CHAP. 7.--HOW MUCH THE PLATONISTS ARE TO BE HELD AS EXCELLING OTHER PHILOSOPHERS 
IN LOGIC, I. E. RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. 
Then, again, as far as regards the doctrine which treats of that which they call 
logic, that is, rational philosophy, far be it from us to compare them with 
those who attributed to the bodily senses the faculty of discriminating truth, 
and thought, that all we learn is to be measured by their untrustworthy and 
fallacious rules. Such were the Epicureans, and all of the same school. Such 
also were the Stoics, who ascribed to the bodily senses that expertness in 
disputation which they so ardently love, called by them dialectic, asserting 
that from the senses the mind conceives the notions (<greek>ennoiai</greek>) of 
those things which they explicate by definition. And hence is developed the 
whole plan and connection of their learning and teaching. I often wonder, with 
respect to this, how they can say that none are beautiful but the wise; for by 
what bodily sense have they perceived that beauty, by what eyes of the flesh 
have they seen wisdom's comeliness of form? Those, however, whom we justly rank 
before all others, have distinguished those things which are conceived by the 
mind from those which are perceived by the senses, neither taking away from the 
senses anything to which they are competent, nor attributing to them anything 
beyond their competency. And the light of our understandings, by which all 
things are learned by us, they have affirmed to be that selfsame God by whom all 
things were made. 
CHAP. 8.--THAT THE PLATONISTS HOLD THE FIRST RANK IN MORAL PHILOSOPHY ALSO. 
The remaining part of philosophy is morals, or what is called by the Greeks 
<greek>hqikh</greek>, in which is discussed the question concerning the chief 
good,--that which will leave us nothing further to seek in order to be blessed, 
if only we make all our actions refer to it, and seek it not for the sake of 
something else, but for its own sake. Therefore it is called the end, because we 
wish other things on account of it, but itself only for its own sake. This 
beatific good, therefore, according to some, comes to a man from the body, 
according to others, from the mind, and, according to others, from both 
together. For they saw that man himself consists of soul and body; and therefore 
they believed that from i either of these two, or from both together, their 
well-being must proceed, consisting in a certain final good, which could render 
them blessed, and to which they might refer all their actions, not requiring 
anything ulterior to which to refer that good itself. This is why those who have 
added a third kind of good things, which they call extrinsic,--as honor, glory, 
wealth, and the like,--have not regarded them as part of the final good, that 
is, to be sought after for their own sake, but as things which are to be sought 
for the sake of something else, affirming that this kind of good is good to the 
good, and evil to the evil. Wherefore, whether they have sought the good of man 
from the mind or from the body, or from both together, it is still only from man 
they have supposed that it must be sought. But they who have sought it from the 
body have sought it from the inferior part of man; they who have sought it from 
the mind, from the superior part; and they who have sought it from both, from 
the whole man. Whether therefore, they have sought it from any part, or from the 
whole man, still they have only sought it from man; nor have these differences, 
being three, given rise only to three dissentient sects of philosophers, but to 
many. For diverse philosophers have held diverse opinions, both concerning the 
good of the body, and the good of the mind, and the good of both together. Let, 
therefore, all these give place to those philosophers who have not affirmed that 
a man is blessed by the enjoyment of the body, or by the enjoyment of the mind, 
but by the enjoyment of God,--enjoying Him, however, not as the mind does the 
body or itself, or as one friend enjoys another, but as the eye enjoys light, 
if, indeed, we may draw any comparison between these things. But what the nature 
of this comparison is, will, if God help me, be shown in another place, to the 
best of my ability. At present, it is sufficient to mention that Plato 
determined the final good to be to live according to virtue, and affirmed that 
he only can attain to virtue who knows and imitates God,--which knowledge and 
imitation are the only cause of blessedness. Therefore he did not doubt that to 
philosophize is to love God, whose nature is incorporeal. Whence it certainly 
follows that the student of wisdom, that is, the philosopher, will then become 
blessed when he shall have begun to enjoy God. For though he is not necessarily 
blessed who enjoys that which he loves (for many are miserable by loving that 
which ought not to be loved, and still more miserable when they enjoy it), 
nevertheless no one is blessed who does not enjoy that which he loves. For even 
they who love things which ought not to be loved do not count themselves blessed 
by loving merely, but by enjoying them. Who, then, but the most miserable will 
deny that he is blessed, who enjoys that which he loves, and loves the true and 
highest good? But the true and highest good, according to Plato, is God, and 
therefore he would call him a philosopher who loves God; for philosophy is 
directed to the obtaining of the blessed life, and he who loves God is blessed 
in the enjoyment of God. 
CHAP. 9.--CONCERNING THAT PHILOSOPHY WHICH HAS COME NEAREST TO THE CHRISTIAN 
FAITH. 
Whatever philosophers, therefore, thought concerning the supreme God, that He is 
both the maker of all created things, the light by which things are known, and 
the good in reference to which things are to be done; that we have in Him the 
first principle of nature, the truth of doctrine, and the happiness of 
life,--whether these philosophers may be more suitably called Platonists, or 
whether they may give some other name to their sect; whether, we say, that only 
the chief men of the Ionic school, such as Plato himself, and they who have well 
understood him, have thought thus; or whether we also include the Italic school, 
on account of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, and all who may have held like 
opinions; and, lastly, whether also we include all who have been held wise men 
and philosophers among all nations who are discovered to have seen and taught 
this, be they Atlantics, Libyans, Egyptians, Indians, Persians, Chaldeans, 
Scythians, Gauls, Spaniards, or of other nations,--we prefer these to all other 
philosophers, and confess that they approach nearest to us. 
CHAP. 10.--THAT THE EXCELLENCY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IS ABOVE ALL THE 
SCIENCE OF PHILOSOPHERS. 
For although a Christian man instructed only in ecclesiastical literature may 
perhaps be ignorant of the very name of Platonists, and may not even know that 
there have existed two schools of philosophers speaking the Greek tongue, to 
wit, the Ionic and Italic, he is nevertheless not so deaf with respect to human 
affairs, as not to know that philosophers profess the study, and even the 
possession, of wisdom. He is on his guard, however, with respect to those who 
philosophize according to the elements of this world, not according to God, by 
whom the world itself was made; for he is warned by the precept of the apostle, 
and faithfully hears what has been said, "Beware that no one deceive you through 
philosophy and vain deceit, according to the elements of the world."(1) Then, 
that he may not suppose that all philosophers are such as do this, he hears the 
same apostle say concerning certain of them, "Because that which is known of God 
is manifest among them, for God has manifested it to them. For His invisible 
things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the 
things which are made, also His eternal power and Godhead."(2) And, when 
speaking to the Athenians, after having spoken a mighty thing concerning God, 
which few are able to understand, "In Him we live, and move, and have our 
being,"(1) he goes on to say, "As certain also of your own have said." He knows 
well, too, to be on his guard against even these philosophers in their errors. 
For where it has been said by him, "that God has manifested to them by those 
things which are made His invisible things, that they might be seen by the 
understanding," there it has also been said that they did not rightly worship 
God Himself, because they paid divine honors, which are due to Him alone, to 
other things also to which they ought not to have paid them,--"because, knowing 
God, they glorified Him not as God: neither were thankful, but became vain in 
their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves 
to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God 
into the likeness of the image of corruptible man, and of birds, and fourfooted 
beasts, and creeping things;"(2)--where the apostle would have us understand him 
as meaning the Romans, and Greeks, and Egyptians, who gloried in the name of 
wisdom; but concerning this we will dispute with them afterwards. With respect, 
however, to that wherein they agree with us we prefer them to all others namely, 
concerning the one God, the author of this universe, who is not only above every 
body, being incorporeal, but also above all souls, being incorruptible--our 
principle, our light, our good. And though the Christian man, being ignorant of 
their writings, does not use in disputation words which he has not learned,--not 
calling that part of philosophy natural (which is the Latin term), or physical 
which is the Greek one), which treats of the investigation of nature; or that 
part rational, or logical, which deals with the question how truth may be 
discovered; or that part moral, or ethical, which concerns morals, and shows how 
good is to be sought, and evil to be shunned,--he is not, therefore, ignorant 
that it is from the one true and supremely good God that we have that nature in 
which we are made in the image of God, and that doctrine by which we know Him 
and ourselves, and that grace through which, by cleaving to Him, we are blessed. 
This, therefore, is the cause why we prefer these to all the others, because, 
whilst other philosophers have worn out their minds and powers in seeking the 
causes of things, and endeavoring to discover the right mode of learning and of 
living, these, by knowing God, have found where resides the cause by which the 
universe has been constituted, and the light by which truth is to be discovered, 
and the fountain at which felicity is to be drunk. All philosophers, then, who 
have had these thoughts concerning God, whether Platonists or others, agree with 
us. But we have thought it better to plead our cause with the Platonists, 
because their writings are better known. For the Greeks, whose tongue holds the 
highest place among the languages of the Gentiles, are loud in their praises of 
these writings; and the Latins, taken with their excellence, or their renown, 
have studied them more heartily than other writings, and, by translating them 
into our tongue, have given them greater celebrity and notoriety. 
CHAP. 11.--HOW PLATO HAS BEEN ABLE TO APPROACH SO NEARLY TO CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 

Certain partakers with us in the grace of Christ, wonder when they hear and read 
that Plato had conceptions concerning God, in which they recognize considerable 
agreement with the truth of our religion. Some have concluded from this, that 
when he went to Egypt he had heard the prophet Jeremiah, or, whilst travelling 
in the same country, had read the prophetic scriptures, which opinion I myself 
have expressed in certain of my writings.(3) But a careful calculation of dates, 
contained in chronological history, shows that Plato was born about a hundred 
years after the time in which Jeremiah prophesied, and, as he lived eighty-one 
years, there are found to have been about seventy years from his death to that 
time when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, requested the prophetic scriptures of the 
Hebrew people to be sent to him from Judea, and committed them to seventy 
Hebrews, who also knew the Greek tongue, to be translated and kept. Therefore, 
on that voyage of his, Plato could neither have seen Jeremiah, who was dead so 
long before, nor have read those same scriptures which had not yet been 
translated into the Greek language, of which he was a master, unless, indeed, we 
say that, as he was most earnest in the pursuit of knowledge, he also studied 
those writings through an interpreter, as he did those of the Egyptians,--not, 
indeed, writing a translation of them (the facilities for doing which were only 
gained even by Ptolemy in return for munificent acts of kindness,(4) though fear 
of his kingly authority might have seemed a sufficient motive), but learning as 
much as he possibly could concerning their contents by means of conversation. 
What warrants this supposition are the opening verses of Genesis: "In the 
beginning God made the heaven and earth. And the earth was invisible, and 
without order; and darkness was over the abyss: and the Spirit of God moved over 
the waters."(1) For in the Timaeus, when writing on the formation of the world, 
he says that God first united earth and fire; from which it is evident that he 
assigns to fire a place in heaven. This opinion bears a certain resemblance to 
the statement, "In the beginning God made heaven and earth." Plato next speaks 
of those two intermediary elements, water and air, by which the other two 
extremes, namely, earth and fire, were mutually united; from which circumstance 
he is thought to have so understood the words, "The Spirit of God moved over the 
waters." For, not paying sufficient attention to the designations given by those 
scriptures to the Spirit of God, he may have thought that the four elements are 
spoken of in that place, because the air also is called spirit.(2) Then, as to 
Plato's saying that the philosopher is a lover of God, nothing shines forth more 
conspicuously in those sacred writings. But the most striking thing in this 
connection, and that which most of all inclines me almost to assent to the 
opinion that Plato was not ignorant of those writings, is the answer which was 
given to the question elicited from the holy MOses when the words of God were 
conveyed to him by the angel; for, when he asked what was the name of that God 
who was commanding him to go and deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt, this 
answer was given: "I am who am; and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, He 
who is sent me unto you;"(3) as though compared with Him that truly is, because 
He is unchangeable, those things which have been created mutable are not,--a 
truth which Plato zealously held, and most diligently commended. And I know not 
whether this sentiment is anywhere to be found in the books of those who were 
before Plato, unless in that book where it is said, "I am who am; and thou shalt 
say to the children of Israel, who is sent me unto you." 
CHAP. 12.--THAT EVEN THE PLATONISTS, THOUGH THEY SAY THESE THINGS CONCERNING THE 
ONE TRUE GOD, NEVERTHELESS THOUGHT THAT SACRED RITES WERE TO BE PERFORMED IN 
HONOR OF MANY GODS. 
But we need not determine from what source he learned these things,--whether it 
was from the books of the ancients who preceded him, or, as is more likely, from 
the words of the apostle: "Because that which is known of God, has been 
manifested among them, for God hath manifested it to them. For His invisible 
things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by 
those things which have been made, also His eternal power and Godhead."(4) From 
whatever source he may have derived this knowledge, then, I think I have made it 
sufficiently plain that I have not chosen the Platonic philosophers undeservedly 
as the parties with whom to discuss; because the question we have just taken up 
concerns the natural theology,--the question, namely, whether sacred rites are 
to be performed to one God, or to many, for the sake of the happiness which is 
to be after death. I have specially chosen them because their juster thoughts 
concerning the one God who made heaven and earth, have made them illustrious 
among philosophers. This has given them such superiority to all others in the 
judgment of posterity, that, though Aristotle, the disciple of Plato, a man of 
eminent abilities, inferior in eloquence to Plato, yet far superior to many in 
that respect, had rounded the Peripatetic sect,--so called because they were in 
the habit of walking about during their disputations,--and though he had, 
through the greatness of his fame, gathered very many disciples into his school, 
even during the life of his master; and though Plato at his death was succeeded 
in his school, which was called the Academy, by Speusippus, his sister's son, 
and Xenocrates, his beloved disciple, who, together with their successors, were 
called from this name of the school, Academics; nevertheless the most 
illustrious recent philosophers, who have chosen to follow Plato, have been 
unwilling to be called Peripatetics, or Academics, but have preferred the name 
of Platonists. Among these were the renowned Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Porphyry, 
who were Greeks, and the African Apuleius, who was learned both in the Greek and 
Latin tongues. All these, however, and the rest who were of the same school, and 
also Plato himself, thought that sacred rites ought to be performed in honor of 
many gods. 
CHAP. 13.--CONCERNING THE OPINION OF PLATO, ACCORDING TO WHICH HE DEFINED THE 
GODS AS BEINGS ENTIRELY GOOD AND THE FRIENDS OF VIRTUE. 
Therefore, although in many other important respects they differ from us, 
nevertheless with respect to this particular point of difference, which I have 
just stated, as it is one of great moment, and the question on hand concerns it, 
I will first ask them to what gods they think that sacred rites are to be 
performed,--to the good or to the bad, or to both the good and the bad? But we 
have the opinion of Plato affirming that all the gods are good, and that there 
is not one of the gods bad. It follows, therefore, that these are to be 
performed to the good, for then they are performed to gods; for if they are not 
good, neither are they gods. Now, if this be the case (for what else ought we to 
believe concerning the gods?), certainly it explodes the opinion that the bad 
gods are to be propitiated by sacred rites in order that they may not harm us, 
but the good gods are to be invoked in order that they may assist us. For there 
are no bad gods, and it is to the good that, as they say, the due honor of such 
rites is to be paid. Of what character, then, are those gods who love scenic 
displays, even demanding that a place be given them among divine things, and 
that they be exhibited in their honor? The power of these gods proves that they 
exist, but their liking such things proves that they are bad. For it is 
well-known what Plato's opinion was concerning scenic plays. He thinks that the 
poets themselves, because they have composed songs so unworthy of the majesty 
and goodness of the gods, ought to be banished from the state. Of what 
character, therefore, are those gods who contend with Plato himself about those 
scenic plays? He does not suffer the gods to be defamed by false crimes; the 
gods command those same crimes to be celebrated in their own honor. 
In fine, when they ordered these plays to be inaugurated, they not only demanded 
base things, but also did cruel things, taking from Titus Latinius his son, and 
sending a disease upon him because he had refused to obey them, which they 
removed when he had fulfilled their commands. Plato, however, bad though they 
were, did not think they were to be feared; but, holding to his opinion with the 
utmost firmness and constancy, does not hesitate to remove from a well-ordered 
state all the sacrilegious follies of the poets, with which these gods are 
delighted because they themselves are impure. But Labeo places this same Plato 
(as I have mentioned already in the second book(1)) among the demi-gods. Now 
Labeo thinks that the bad deities are to be propitiated with bloody victims, and 
by fasts accompanied with the same, but the good deities with plays, and all 
other things which are associated with joyfulness. How comes it, then, that the 
demi-god Plato so persistently dares to take away those pleasures, because he 
deems them base, not from the demi-gods but from the gods, and these the good 
gods? And, moreover, those very gods themselves do certainly refute the opinion 
of Labeo, for they showed themselves in the case of Latinius to be not only 
wanton and sportive, but also cruel and terrible. Let the Platonists, therefore, 
explain these things to us, since, following the opinion of their master, they 
think that all the gods are good and honorable, and friendly to the virtues of 
the wise, holding it unlawful to think otherwise concerning any of the gods. We 
will explain it, say they. Let us then attentively listen to them. 
CHAP. 14.--OF THE OPINION OF THOSE WHO HAVE SAID THAT RATIONAL SOULS ARE OF 
THREE KINDS, TO WIT, THOSE OF THE CELESTIAL GODS, THOSE OF THE AERIAL DEMONS, 
AND THOSE OF TERRESTRIAL MEN. 
There is, say they, a threefold division of all animals endowed with a rational 
soul, namely, into gods, men, and demons. The gods occupy the loftiest region, 
men the lowest, the demons the middle region. For the abode of the gods is 
heaven, that of men the earth, that of the demons the air. As the dignity of 
their regions is diverse, so also is that of their natures; therefore the gods 
are better than men and demons. Men have been placed below the gods and demons, 
both in respect of the order of the regions they inhabit, and the difference of 
their merits. The demons, therefore, who hold the middle place, as they are 
inferior to the gods, than whom they inhabit a lower region, so they are 
superior to men, than whom they inhabit a loftier one. For they have immortality 
of body in common with the gods, but passions of the mind in common with men. On 
which account, say they, it is not wonderful that they are delighted with the 
obscenities of the theatre, and the fictions of the poets, since they are also 
subject to human passions, from which the gods are far removed, and to which 
they are altogether strangers. Whence we conclude that it was not the gods, who 
are all good and highly exalted, that Plato deprived of the pleasure of theatric 
plays, by reprobating and prohibiting the fictions of the poets, but the demons. 

Of these things many have written: among others Apuleius, the Platonist of 
Madaura, who composed a whole work on the subject, entitled, Concerning the God 
of Socrates. He there discusses and explains of what kind that deity was who 
attended on Socrates, a sort of familiar, by whom it is said he was admonished 
to desist from any action which would not turn out to his advantage. He asserts 
most distinctly, and proves at great length, that it was not a god but a demon; 
and he discusses with great diligence the opinion of Plato concerning the lofty 
estate of the gods, the lowly estate of men, and the middle estate of demons. 
These things being so, how did Plato dare to take away, if not from the gods, 
whom he removed from all human contagion, certainly from the demons, all the 
pleasures of the theatre, by expelling the poets from the state? Evidently in 
this way he wished to admonish the human soul, although still confined in these 
moribund members, to despise the shameful commands of the demons, and to detest 
their impurity, and to choose rather the splendor of virtue. But if Plato showed 
himself virtuous in answering and prohibiting these things, then certainly it 
was shameful of the demons to command them. Therefore either Apuleius is wrong, 
and Socrates' familiar did not belong to this class of deities, or Plato held 
contradictory opinions, now honoring the demons, now removing from the 
well-regulated state the things in which they delighted, or Socrates is not to 
be congratulated on the friendship of the demon, of which Apuleius was so 
ashamed that he entitled his book On the God of Socrates, whilst according to 
the tenor of his discussion, wherein he so diligently and at such length 
distinguishes gods from demons, he ought not to have entitled it, Concerning the 
God, but Concerning the Demon of Socrates. But he preferred to put this into the 
discussion itself rather than into the title of his book. For, through the sound 
doctrine which has illuminated human society, all, or almost all men have such a 
horror at the name of demons, that every one who before reading the dissertation 
of Apuleius, which sets forth the dignity of demons, should have read the title 
of the book, On the Demon of Socrates, would certainly have thought that the 
author was not a sane man. But what did even Apuleius find to praise in the 
demons, except subtlety and strength of body and a higher place of habitation? 
For when he spoke generally concerning their manners, he said nothing that was 
good, but very much that was bad. Finally, no one, when he has read that book, 
wonders that they desired to have even the obscenity of the stage among divine 
things, or that, wishing to be thought gods, they should be delighted with the 
crimes of the gods, or that all those sacred solemnities, whose obscenity 
occasions laughter, and whose shameful cruelty causes horror, should be in 
agreement with their passions. 
CHAP. 15.--THAT THE DEMONS ARE NOT BETTER THAN MEN BECAUSE OF THEIR AERIAL 
BODIES, OR ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR SUPERIOR PLACE OF ABODE. 
Wherefore let not the mind truly religious, and submitted to the true God, 
suppose that demons are better than men, because they have better bodies. 
Otherwise it must put many beasts before itself which are superior to us both in 
acuteness of the senses, in ease and quickness of movement, in strength and in 
long-continued vigor of body. What man can equal the eagle or the vulture in 
strength of vision? Who can equal the dog in acuteness of smell? Who can equal 
the hare, the stag, and all the birds in swiftness? Who can equal in strength 
the lion or the elephant? Who can equal in length of life the serpents, which 
are affirmed to put off old age along with their skin, and to return to youth 
again? But as we are better than all these by the possession of reason and 
understanding, so we ought also to be better than the demons by living good and 
virtuous lives. For divine providence gave to them bodies of a better quality 
than ours, that that in which we excel them might in this way be commended to us 
as deserving to be far more cared for than the body, and that we should learn to 
despise the bodily excellence of the demons compared with goodness of life, in 
respect of which we are better than they, knowing that we too shall have 
immortality of body,--not an immortality tortured by eternal punishment, but 
that which is consequent on purity of soul. 
But now, as regards loftiness of place, it is altogether ridiculous to be so 
influenced by the fact that the demons inhabit the air, and we the earth, as to 
think that on that account they are to be put before us; for in this way we put 
all the birds before ourselves. But the birds, when they are weary with flying, 
or require to repair their bodies with food, come back to the earth to rest or 
to feed, which the demons, they say, do not. Are they, therefore, inclined to 
say that the birds are superior to us, and the demons superior to the birds? But 
if it be madness to think so, there is no reason why we should think that, on 
account of their inhabiting a loftier element, the demons have a claim to our 
religious submission. But as it is really the case that the birds of the air are 
not only not put before us who dwell on the earth; but are even subjected to us 
on account of the dignity of the rational soul which is in us, so also it is the 
case that the demons, though they are aerial, are not better than we who are 
terrestrial because the air is higher than the earth, but, on the contrary, men 
are to be put before demons because their despair is not to be compared to the 
hope of pious men. Even that law of Plato's, according to which he mutually 
orders and arranges the four elements, inserting between the two extreme 
elements-namely, fire, which is in the highest degree mobile, and the immoveable 
earth--the two middle ones, air and water, that by how much the air is higher up 
than the water, and the fire than the air, by so much also are the waters higher 
than the earth,--this law, I say, sufficiently admonishes us not to estimate the 
merits of animated creatures according to the grades of the elements. And 
Apuleius himself says that man is a terrestrial animal in common with the rest, 
who is nevertheless to be put far before aquatic animals, though Plato puts the 
waters themselves before the land. By this he would have us understand that the 
same order is not to be observed when the question concerns the merits of 
animals, though it seems to be the true one in the gradation of bodies; for it 
appears to be possible that a soul of a higher order may inhabit a body of a 
lower, and a soul of a lower Order a body of a higher. 
CHAP. 16.--WHAT APULEIUS THE PLATONIST THOUGHT CONCERNING THE MANNERS AND 
ACTIONS OF DEMONS. 
The same Apuleius, when speaking concerning the manners of demons, said that 
they are agitated with the same perturbations of mind as men; that they are 
provoked by injuries, propitiated by services and by gifts, rejoice in honors, 
are delighted with a variety of sacred rites, and are annoyed if any of them be 
neglected. Among other things, he also says that on them depend the divinations 
of augurs, soothsayers, and prophets, and the revelations of dreams, and that 
from them also are the miracles of the magicians. But, when giving a brief 
definition of them, he says, "Demons are of an animal nature, passive in soul, 
rational in mind, aerial in body, eternal in time." "Of which five things, the 
three first are common to them and us, the fourth peculiar to themselves, and 
the fifth common to therewith the gods."(1) But I see that they have in common 
with the gods two of the first things, which they have in common with us. For he 
says that the gods also are animals; and when he is assigning to every order of 
beings its own element, he places us among the other terrestrial animals which 
live and feel upon the earth. Wherefore, if the demons are animals as to genus, 
this is common to them, not only with men, but also with the gods and with 
beasts; if they are rational as to their mind, this is common to them with the 
gods and with men; if they are eternal in time, this is common to them with the 
gods only; if they are passive as to their soul, this is common to them with men 
only; if they are aerial in body, in this they are alone. Therefore it is no 
great thing for them to be of an animal nature, for so also are the beasts; in 
being rational as to mind, they are not above ourselves, for so are we also; and 
as to their being eternal as to time, what is the advantage of that if they are 
not blessed? for better is temporal happiness than eternal misery. Again, as to 
their being passive in soul, how are they in this respect above us, since we 
also are so, but would not have been so had we not been miserable? Also, as to 
their being aerial in body, how much value is to be set on that, since a soul of 
any kind whatsoever is to be set above every body? and therefore religious 
worship, which ought to be rendered from the soul, is by no means due to that 
thing which is inferior to the soul. Moreover, if he had, among those things 
which he says belong to demons, enumerated virtue, wisdom, happiness, and 
affirmed that they have those things in common with the gods, and, like them, 
eternally, he would assuredly have attributed to them something greatly to be 
desired, and much to be prized. And even in that case it would not have been our 
duty to worship them like God on account of these things, but rather to worship 
Him from whom we know they had received them. But how much less are they really 
worthy of divine honor,--those aerial animals who are only rational that they 
may be capable of misery, passive that they may be actually miserable, and 
eternal that it may be impossible for them to end their misery ! 
CHAP. 17.--WHETHER IT IS PROPER THAT MEN SHOULD WORSHIP THOSE SPIRITS FROM WHOSE 
VICES IT IS NECESSARY THAT THEY BE FREED. 
Wherefore, to omit other things, and confine our attention to that which he says 
is common to the demons with us, let us ask this question: If all the four 
elements are full of their own animals, the fire and the air of immortal, and 
the water and the earth of mortal ones, why are the souls of demons agitated by 
the whirlwinds and tempests of passions?--for the Greek word 
<greek>paqos</greek> means perturbation, whence he chose to call the demons 
"passive in soul," because the word passion which is derived from 
<greek>paqos</greek>, signified a comotion of the mind contrary to reason. Why, 
then, are these things in the minds of demons which are not in beasts? For if 
anything of this kind appears in beasts, it is not perturbation, because it is 
not contrary to reason, of which they are devoid. Now it is foolishness or 
misery which is the cause of these perturbations in the case of men, for we are 
not yet blessed in the possession of that perfection of wisdom which is promised 
to us at last, when we shall be set free from our present mortality. But the 
gods, they say, are free from these perturbations, because they are not only 
eternal, but also blessed; for they also have the same kind of rational souls, 
but most pure from all spot and plague. Where fore; if the gods are tree from 
perturbation because they are blessed, not miserable animals, and the beasts are 
free from them because they are animals which are capable neither of blessedness 
nor misery, it remains that the demons, like men, are subject to perturbations 
because they are not blessed but miserable animals. What folly, therefore, or 
rather what madness, to submit ourselves through any sentiment of religion to 
demons, when it belongs to the true religion to deliver us from that depravity 
which makes us like to them ! For Apuleius himself, although he is very sparing 
toward them, and thinks they are worthy of divine honors, is nevertheless 
compelled to confess that they are subject to anger; and the true religion 
commands us not to be moved with anger, but rather to resist it. The demons are 
won over by gifts; and the true religion commands us to favor no one on account 
of gifts received. The demons are flattered by honors; but the true religion 
commands us by no means to be moved by such things. The demons are haters of 
some men and lovers of others, not in consequence of a prudent and calm 
judgment, but because of what he calls their "passive soul;" whereas the true 
religion commands us to love even our enemies. Lastly, the true religion 
commands us to put away all disquietude of heart and agitation of mind, and also 
all commotions and tempests of the soul, which Apuleius asserts to be 
continually swelling and surging in the souls of demons. Why, therefore, except 
through foolishness and miserable error shouldst thou humble thyself to worship 
a being to whom thou desirest to be unlike in thy life? And why shouldst thou 
pay religious homage to him whom thou art unwilling to imitate, when it is the 
highest duty of religion to imitate Him whom thou worshippest? 
CHAP. 18.--WHAT KIND OF RELIGION THAT IS WHICH TEACHES THAT MEN OUGHT TO EMPLOY 
THE ADVOCACY OF DEMONS IN ORDER TO BE RECOMMENDED TO THE FAVOR OF THE GOOD GODS. 

In vain, therefore, have Apuleius, and they who think with him, conferred on the 
demons the honor of placing them in the air, between the ethereal heavens and 
the earth, that they may carry to the gods the prayers of men, to men the 
answers of the gods: for Plato held, they say, that no god has intercourse with 
man. They who believe these things have thought it unbecoming that men should 
have intercourse with the gods, and the gods with men, but a befitting thing 
that the demons should have intercourse with both gods and men, presenting to 
the gods the petitions of men, and conveying to men what the gods have granted; 
so that a chaste man, and one who is a stranger to the crimes of the magic arts, 
must use as patrons, through whom the gods may be induced to hear him, demons 
who love these crimes, although the very fact of his not loving them ought to 
have recommended him to them as one who deserved to be listened to with greater 
readiness and willingness on their part. They love the abominations of the 
stage, which chastity does not love. They love, in the sorceries of the 
magicians, "a thousand arts of inflicting harm,"(1) which innocence does not 
love. Yet both chastity and innocence, if they wish to obtain anything from the 
gods, will not be able to do so by their own merits, except their enemies act as 
mediators on their behalf. Apuleius need not attempt to justify the fictions of 
the poets, and the mockeries of the stage. If human modesty can act so 
faithlessly towards itself as not only to love shameful things, but even to 
think that they are pleasing to the divinity, we can cite on the other side 
their own highest authority and teacher, Plato. 
CHAP. 19.--OF THE IMPIETY OF THE MAGIC ART, WHICH IS DEPENDENT ON THE ASSISTANCE 
OF MALIGN SPIRITS. 
Moreover, against those magic arts, concerning which some men, exceedingly 
wretched and exceedingly impious, delight to boast, may not public opinion 
itself be brought forward as a witness? For why are those arts so severely 
punished by the laws, if they are the works of deities who ought to be 
worshipped? Shall it be said that the Christians have or dained those laws by 
which magic arts are punished? With what other meaning, except that these 
sorceries are without doubt pernicious to the human race, did the most 
illustrious poet say, 
"By heaven, I swear, and your dear life, 
Unwillingly these arms I wield, And take, to meet the coming strife, 
Enchantment's sword and shield."(1) 
And that also which he says in another place concerning magic arts, 
"I've seen him to another place transport the standing corn,"(2) 
has reference to the fact that the fruits of one field are said to be 
transferred to another by these arts which this pestiferous and accursed 
doctrine teaches. Does not Cicero inform us that, among the laws of the Twelve 
Tables, that is, the most ancient laws of the Romans, there was a law written 
which appointed a punishment to be inflicted on him who should do this?(3) 
Lastly, was it before Christian judges that Apuleius himself was accused of 
magic arts?(4) Had he known these arts to be divine and pious, and congruous 
with the works of divine power, he ought not only to have confessed, but also to 
have professed them, rather blaming the laws by which these things were 
prohibited and pronounced worthy of condemnation, while they ought to have been 
held worthy of admiration and respect. For by so doing, either he would have 
persuaded the judges to adopt his own opinion, or, if they had shown their 
partiality for unjust laws, and condemned him to death notwithstanding his 
praising and commending such things, the demons would have bestowed on his soul 
such rewards as he deserved, who, in order to proclaim and set forth their 
divine works, had not feared the loss of his human life. As our martyrs, when 
that religion was charged on them as a crime, by which they knew they were made 
safe and most glorious throughout eternity, did not choose, by denying it, to 
escape temporal punishments, but rather by confessing, professing, and 
proclaiming it, by enduring all things for it with fidelity and fortitude, and 
by dying for it with pious calmness, put to shame the law by which that religion 
was prohibited, and caused its revocation. But there is extant a most copious 
and eloquent oration of this Platonic philosopher, in which he defends himself 
against the charge of practising these arts, affirming that he is wholly a 
stranger to them, and only wishing to show his innocence by denying such things 
as cannot be innocently committed. But all the miracles of the magicians, who he 
thinks are justly deserving of condemnation, are performed according to the 
teaching and by the power of demons. Why, then, does he think that they ought to 
be honored? For he asserts that they are necessary, in order to present our 
prayers to the gods, and yet their works are such as we must shun if we wish our 
prayers to reach the true God. Again, I ask, what kind of prayers of men does he 
suppose are presented to the good gods by the demons? If magical prayers, they 
will have none such; if lawful prayers, they will not receive them through such 
beings. But if a sinner who is penitent pour out prayers, especially if he has 
committed any crime of sorcery, does he receive pardon through the intercession 
of those demons by whose instigation and help he has fallen into the sin be 
mourns? or do the demons themselves, in order that they may merit pardon for the 
penitent, first become penitents because they have deceived them? This no one 
ever said concerning the demons; for had this been the case, they would never 
have dared to seek for themselves divine honors. For how should they do so who 
desired by penitence to obtain the grace of pardon; seeing that such detestable 
pride could not exist along with a humility worthy of pardon? 
CHAP. 20.--WHETHER WE ARE TO BELIEVE THAT THE GOOD GODS ARE MORE WILLING TO HAVE 
INTERCOURSE WITH DEMONS THAN WITH MEN. 
But does any urgent and most pressing cause compel the demons to mediate between 
the gods and men, that they may offer the prayers of men, and bring back the 
answers from the gods? and if so, what, pray, is that cause, what is that so 
great necessity? Because, say they, no god has intercourse with man. Most 
admirable holiness of God, which has no intercourse with a supplicating man, and 
yet has intercourse with an arrogant demon! which has no intercourse with a 
penitent man, and yet has intercourse with a deceiving demon! which has no 
intercourse with a man fleeing for refuge to the divine nature, and yet has 
intercourse with a demon reigning divinity! which has no intercourse with a man 
seeking pardon, and yet has intercourse with a demon persuading to wickedness! 
which has no intercourse with a man expelling the poets by means of 
philosophical writings from a well-regulated state, and yet has intercourse with 
a demon requesting from the princes and priests of a state the theatrical 
performance of the mockeries of the poets! which has no intercourse with the man 
who prohibits the ascribing of crime to the gods, and yet has intercourse with a 
demon who takes delight in the fictitious representation of their crimes! which 
has no intercourse with a man punishing the crimes of the magicians by just 
laws, and yet has intercourse with a demon teaching and practising magical arts! 
which has no intercourse with a man shunning the imitation of a demon, and yet 
has intercourse with a demon lying in wait for the deception of a man! 
CHAP. 21.--WHETHER THE GODS USE THE DEMONS AS MESSENGERS AND INTERPRETERS, AND 
WHETHER THEY ARE DECEIVED BY THEM WILLINGLY, OR WITHOUT THEIR OWN KNOWLEDGE. 
But herein, no doubt, lies the great necessity for this absurdity, so unworthy 
of the gods, that the ethereal gods, who are concerned about human affairs, 
would not know what terrestrial men were doing unless the aerial demons should 
bring them intelligence, because the ether is suspended far away from the earth 
and far above it, but the air is contiguous both to the ether and to the earth O 
admirable wisdom! what else do these men think concerning the gods who, they 
say, are all in the highest degree good, but that they are concerned about human 
affairs, lest they should seem unworthy of worship, whilst, on the other hand, 
from the distance between the elements, they are ignorant of terrestrial things? 
It is on this account that they have supposed the demons to be necessary as 
agents, through whom the gods may inform themselves with respect to human 
affairs, and through whom, when necessary, they may succor men; and it is on 
account of this office that the demons themselves have been held as deserving of 
worship. If this be the case, then a demon is better known by these good gods 
through nearness of body, than a man is by goodness of mind. O mournful 
necessity, or shall I not rather say detestable and vain error, that I may not 
impute vanity to the divine nature! For if the gods can, with their minds free 
from the hindrance of bodies, see our mind, they do not need the demons as 
messengers from our mind to them; but if the ethereal gods, by means of their 
bodies, perceive the corporeal indices of minds, as the countenance, speech, 
motion, and thence understand what the demons tell them, then it is also 
possible that they may be deceived by the falsehoods of demons. Moreover, if the 
divinity of the gods cannot be deceived by the demons, neither can it be 
ignorant of our actions. But I would they would tell me whether the demons have 
informed the gods that the fictions of the poets concerning the crimes of the 
gods displease Plato, concealing the pleasure which they themselves take in 
them; or whether they have concealed both, and have preferred that the gods 
should be ignorant with respect to this whole matter, or have told both, as well 
the pious prudence of Plato with respect to the gods as their own lust, which is 
injurious to the gods; or whether they have concealed Plato's opinion, according 
to which he was unwilling that the gods should be defamed with falsely alleged 
crimes through the impious license of the poets, whilst they have not been 
ashamed nor afraid to make known their own wickedness, which make them love 
theatrical plays, in which the infamous deeds of the gods are celebrated. Let 
them choose which they will of these four alternatives, and let them consider 
how much evil any one of them would require them to think of the gods. For if 
they choose the first, they must then confess that it was not possible for the 
good gods to dwell with the good Plato, though he sought to prohibit things 
injurious to them, whilst they dwelt with evil demons, who exulted in their 
injuries; and this because they suppose that the good gods can only know a good 
man, placed at so great a distance from them, through the mediation of evil 
demons, whom they could know on account of their nearness to themselves.(1) If 
they shall choose the second, and shall say that both these things are concealed 
by the demons, so that the gods are wholly ignorant both of Plato's most 
religious law and the sacrilegious pleasure of the demons, what, in that case, 
can the gods know to any profit with respect to human affairs through these 
mediating demons, when they do not know those things which are decreed, through 
the piety of good men, for the honor of the good gods against the lust of evil 
demons? But if they shall choose the third, and reply that these intermediary 
demons have communicated, not only the opinion of Plato, which prohibited wrongs 
to be done to the gods, but also their own delight in these wrongs, I would ask 
if such a communication is not rather an insult? Now the gods, hearing both and 
knowing both, not only permit the approach of those malign demons, who desire 
and do things contrary to the dignity of the gods and the religion of Plato, but 
also, through these wicked demons, who are near to them, send good things to the 
good Plato, who is far away from them; for their inhabit such a place in the 
concatenated series of the elements, that they can come into contact with those 
by whom they are accused, but not with him by whom they are defended,--knowing 
the truth on both sides, but not being able to change the weight of the air and 
the earth. There remains the fourth supposition; but it is worse than the rest. 
For who will suffer it to be said that the demons have made known the calumnious 
fictions of the poets concerning the immortal gods, and also the disgraceful 
mockeries of the theatres, and their own most ardent lust after, and most sweet 
pleasure in these things, whilst they have concealed from them that Plato, with 
the gravity of a philosopher, gave it as his opinion that all these things ought 
to be removed from a well-regulated republic; so that the good gods are now 
compelled, through such messengers, to know the evil doings of the most wicked 
beings, that is to say, of the messengers themselves, and are not allowed to 
know the good deeds of the philosophers, though the former are for the injury, 
but these latter for the honor of the gods themselves? 
CHAP. 22.--THAT WE MUST, NOTWITHSTANDING THE OPINION OF APULEIUS, REJECT THE 
WORSHIP OF DEMONS. 
None of these four alternatives, then, is to be chosen; for we dare not suppose 
such unbecoming things concerning the gods as the adoption of any one of them 
would lead us to think. It remains, therefore, that no credence whatever is to 
be given to the opinion of Apuleius and the other philosophers of the same 
school, namely, that the demons act as messengers and interpreters between the 
gods and men to carry our petitions from us to the gods, and to bring back to us 
the help of the gods. On the contrary, we must believe them to be spirits most 
eager to inflict harm, utterly alien from righteousness, swollen with pride, 
pale with envy, subtle in deceit; who dwell indeed in this air as in a prison, 
in keeping with their own character, because, cast down from the height of the 
higher heaven, they have been condemned to dwell in this element as the just 
reward of irretrievable transgression. But, though the air is situated above the 
earth and the wafers, they are not on that account superior in merit to men, 
who, though they do not surpass them as far as their earthly bodies are 
concerned, do nevertheless far excel them through piety of mind,--they having 
made choice of the true God as their helper. Over many, however, who are 
manifestly unworthy of participation in the true religion, they tyrannize as 
over captives whom they have subdued,--the greatest part of whom they have 
persuaded of their divinity by wonderful and lying signs, consisting either of 
deeds or of predictions. Some, nevertheless, who have more attentively and 
diligently considered their vices, they have not been able to persuade that they 
are gods, and so have reigned themselves to be messengers between the gods and 
men. Some, indeed, have thought that not even this latter honor ought to be 
acknowledged as belonging to them, not believing that they were gods, because 
they saw that they were wicked, whereas the gods, according to their view, are 
all good. Nevertheless they dared not say that they were wholly unworthy of all 
divine honor, for fear of offending the multitude, by whom, through inveterate 
superstition, the demons were served by the performance of many rites, and the 
erection of many temples. 
CHAP. 23.--WHAT HERMES TRISMEGISTUS THOUGHT CONCERNING IDOLATRY, AND FROM WHAT 
SOURCE HE KNEW THAT THE SUPERSTITIONS OF EGYPT WERE TO BE ABOLISHED. 
The Egyptian Hermes, whom they call Trismegistus, had a different opinion 
concerning those demons. Apuleius, indeed, denies that they are gods; but when 
he says that they hold a middle place between the gods and men, so that they 
seem to be necessary for men as mediators between them and the gods, he does not 
distinguish between the worship due to them and the religious homage due to the 
supernal gods. This Egyptian, however, says that there are some gods made by the 
supreme God, and some made by men. Any one who hears this, as I have stated it, 
no doubt supposes that it has reference to images, because they are the works of 
the hands of men; but he asserts that visible and tangible images are, as it 
were, only the bodies of the gods, and that there dwell in them certain spirits, 
which have been invited to come into them, and which have power to inflict harm, 
or to fulfil the desires of those by whom divine honors and services are 
rendered to them. To unite, therefore, by a certain art, those invisible spirits 
to visible and material things, so as to make, as it were, animated bodies, 
dedicated and given up to those spirits who inhabit them,--this, he says, is to 
make gods, adding that men have received this great and wonderful power. I will 
give the words of this Egyptian as they have been translated into our tongue: 
"And, since we have undertaken to discourse concerning the relationship and 
fellowship between men and the gods know, O AEsculapius, the power and strength 
of man. As the Lord and Father, or that which is highest, even God, is the maker 
of the celestial gods, so man is the maker of the gods who are in the temples, 
content to dwell near to men."(1) And a little after he says, "Thus humanity, 
always mindful of its nature and origin, perseveres in the imitation of 
divinity; and as the Lord and Father made eternal gods, that they should be like 
Himself, so humanity fashioned its own gods according to the likeness of its own 
countenance." When this AEsculapius, to whom especially he was speaking, had 
answered him, and had said, "Dost thou mean the statues, O Trismegistus? "--" 
Yes, the statues," replied he, "however unbelieving thou art, O 
AEsculapius,--the statues, animated and full of sensation and spirit, and who do 
such great and wonderful things,--the statues prescient of future things, and 
foretelling them by lot, by prophet, by dreams, and many other things, who bring 
diseases on men and cure them again, giving them joy or sorrow according to 
their merits. Dost thou not know, O AEsculapius, that Egypt is an image of 
heaven, or, more truly, a translation and descent of all things which are 
ordered and transacted there, that it is, in truth, if we may say so, to be the 
temple of the whole world? And yet, as it becomes the prudent man to know all 
things beforehand, ye ought not to be ignorant of this, that there is a time 
coming when it shall appear that the Egyptians have all in vain, with pious 
mind, and with most scrupulous diligence, waited on the divinity, and when all 
their holy worship shall come to nought, and be found to be in vain." 
Hermes then follows out at great length the statements of this passage, in which 
he seems to predict the present time, in which the Christian religion is 
overthrowing all lying figments with a vehemence and liberty proportioned to its 
superior truth and holiness, in order that the grace of the true Saviour may 
deliver men from those gods which man has made, and subject them to that God by 
whom man was made. But when Hermes predicts these things, he speaks as one who 
is a friend to these same mockeries of demons, and does not clearly express the 
name of Christ. On the contrary, he deplores, as if it had already taken place, 
the future abolition of those things by the observance of which there was 
maintained in Egypt a resemblance of heaven,--he bears witness to Christianity 
by a kind of mournful prophecy. Now it was with reference to such that the 
apostle said, that "knowing God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were 
thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was 
darkened; professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the 
glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible 
man,"(2) and so on, for the whole passage is too long to quote. For Hermes makes 
many such statements agreeable to the truth concerning the one true God who 
fashioned this world. And I know not how he has become so bewildered by that 
"darkening of the heart" as to stumble into the expression of a desire that men 
should always continue in subjection to those gods which he confesses to be made 
by men, and to bewail their future removal; as if there could be anything more 
wretched than mankind tyrannized over by the work of his own hands, since man, 
by worshipping the works of his own hands, may more easily cease to be man, than 
the works of his hands can, through his worship of them, become gods. For it can 
sooner happen that man, who has received an honorable position, may, through 
lack of understanding, become comparable to the beasts, than that the works of 
man may become preferable to the work of God, made in His own image, that is, to 
man himself. Wherefore deservedly is man left to fall away from Him who made 
Him, when he prefers to himself that which he himself has made. 
For these vain, deceitful, pernicious, sacrilegious things did the Egyptian 
Hermes sorrow, because he knew that the time was coming when they should be 
removed. But his sorrow was as impudently expressed as his knowledge was 
imprudently obtained; for it was not the Holy Spirit who revealed these things 
to him, as He had done to the holy prophets, who, foreseeing these things, said 
with exultation, "If a man shall make gods, lo, they are no gods;(3) and in 
another place, "And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that I 
will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be 
remembered."(4) But the holy Isaiah prophesies expressly concerning Egypt in 
reference to this matter, saying, "And the idols of Egypt shall be moved at His 
presence, and their heart shall be overcome in them,"(5) and other things to the 
same effect. And with the prophet are to be classed those who rejoiced that that 
which they knew was to come had actually come,--as Simeon, or Anna, who 
immediately recognized Jesus when He was born, or Elisabeth, who in the Spirit 
recognized Him when He was conceived, or Peter, who said by the revelation of 
the Father, "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God."(1) But to this 
Egyptian those spirits indicated the time of their own destruction, who also, 
when the Lord was present in the flesh, said with trembling, "Art Thou come 
hither to destroy us before the time?"(2) meaning by destruction before the 
time, either that very destruction which they expected to come, but which they 
did not think would come so suddenly as it appeared to have done, or only that 
destruction which consisted in their being brought into contempt by being made 
known. And, indeed, this was a destruction before the time, that is, before the 
time of judgment, when they are to be punished with eternal damnation, together 
with all men who are implicated in their wickedness, as the true religion 
declares, which neither errs nor leads into error; for it is not like him who, 
blown hither and thither by every wind of doctrine, and mixing true things with 
things which are false, bewails as about to perish a religion, which he 
afterwards confesses to be error. 
CHAP. 24.--HOW HERMES OPENLY CONFESSED THE ERROR OF HIS FOREFATHERS, THE COMING 
DESTRUCTION OF WHICH HE NEVERTHELESS BEWAILED. 
After a long interval, Hermes again comes back to the subject of the gods which 
men have made, saying as follows: "But enough on this subject. Let us return to 
man and to reason, that divine gift on account of which man has been called a 
rational animal. For the things which have been said concerning man, wonderful 
though they are, are less wonderful than those which have been said concerning 
reason. For man to discover the divine nature, and to make it, surpasses the 
wonder of all other wonderful things. Because, therefore, our forefathers erred 
very far with respect to the knowledge of the gods, through incredulity and 
through want of attention to their worship and service, they invented this art 
of making gods; and this art once invented, they associated with it a suitable 
virtue borrowed from universal nature, and being incapable of making souls, they 
evoked those of demons or of angels, and united them with these holy images and 
divine mysteries, in order that through these souls the images might have power 
to do good or harm to men." I know not whether the demons themselves could have 
been made, even by adjuration, to confess as he has confessed in these words: 
"Because our forefathers erred very far with respect to the knowledge of the 
gods, through incredulity and through want of attention to their worship and 
service, they invented the art of making gods." Does he say that it was a 
moderate degree of error which resulted in their discovery of the art of making 
gods, or was he content to say "they erred?" No; he must needs add "very far," 
and say, "They erred very far." It was this great error and incredulity, then, 
of their forefathers who did not attend to the worship and service of the gods, 
which was the origin of the art of making gods. And yet this wise man grieves 
over the ruin of this art at some future time, as if it were a divine religion. 
Is he not verily compelled by divine influence, on the one hand, to reveal the 
past error of his forefathers, and by a diabolical influence, on the other hand, 
to bewail the future punishment of demons? For if their forefathers, by erring 
very far with respect to the knowledge of the gods, through incredulity and 
aversion of mind from their worship and service, invented the art of making 
gods, what wonder is it that all that is done by this detestable art, which is 
opposed to the divine religion, should be taken away by that religion, when 
truth corrects error, faith refutes incredulity, and conversion rectifies 
aversion? 
For if he had only said, without mentioning the cause, that his forefathers had 
discovered the art Of making gods, it would have been our duty, if we paid any 
regard to what is right and pious, to consider and to see that they could never 
have attained to this art if they had not erred from the truth, if they had 
believed those things which are worthy of God, if they had attended to divine 
worship and service. However, if we alone should say that the causes of this art 
were to be found in the great error and incredulity of men, and aversion of the 
mind erring from and unfaithful to divine religion, the impudence of those who 
resist the truth were in some way to be borne with; but when he who admires in 
man, above all other things, this power which it has been granted him to 
practise, and sorrows because a time is coming when all those figments of gods 
invented by men shall even be commanded by the laws to be taken away,-when even 
this man confesses nevertheless, and explains the causes which led to the 
discovery of this art, saying that their ancestors, through great error and 
incredulity, and through not attending to the worship and service of the gods, 
invented this art of making gods,--what ought we to say, or rather to do, but to 
give to the Lord our God all the thanks we are able, because He has taken away 
those things by causes the contrary of those which led to their institution? For 
that which the prevalence of error instituted, the way of truth took away; that 
which incredulity instituted, faith took away; that which aversion from divine 
worship and service instituted, conversion to the one true and holy God took 
away. Nor was this the case only in Egypt, for which country alone the spirit of 
the demons lamented in Hermes, but in all the earth, which sings to the Lord a 
new song,(1) as the truly holy and truly prophetic Scriptures have predicted, in 
which it is written, "Sing unto the Lord a new song; sing unto the Lord, all the 
earth." For the title of this psalm is, "When the house was built after the 
captivity." For a house is being built to the Lord in all the earth, even the 
city of God, which is the holy Church, after that captivity in which demons held 
captive those men who, through faith in God, became living stones in the house. 
For although man made gods, it did not follow that he who made them was not held 
captive by them, when, by worshipping them, he was drawn into fellowship with 
them,--into the fellowship not of stolid idols, but of cunning demons; for what 
are idols but what they are represented to be in the same ScriptUres, "They have 
eyes, but they do not see,"(2) and, though artistically fashioned, are still 
without life and sensation? But unclean spirits, associated through that wicked 
art with these same idols, have miserably taken captive the souls of their 
worshippers, by bringing them down into fellowship with themselves. Whence the 
apostle says, "We know that an idol is nothing, but those things which the 
Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons, and not to God; and I would not ye 
should have fellowship with demons."(3) After this captivity, therefore, in 
which men were held by malign demons, the house of God is being built in all the 
earth; whence the title of that psalm in which it is said, "Sing unto the Lord a 
new song; sing unto the Lord, all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, bless His name; 
declare well His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations, 
among all people His wonderful things. For great is the Lord, and much to be 
praised: He is terrible above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are 
demons: but the Lord made the heavens."(4) 
Wherefore he who sorrowed because a time was coming when the worship of idols 
should be abolished, and the domination of the demons over those who worshipped 
them, wished, under the influence of a demon, that that captivity should always 
continue, at the cessation of which that psalm celebrates the building of the 
house of the Lord in all the earth. Hermes foretold these things with grief, the 
prophet with joyfulness; and because the Spirit is victorious who sang these 
things through the ancient prophets, even Hermes himself was compelled in a 
wonderful manner to confess, that those very things which he wished not to be 
removed, and at the prospect of whose removal he was sorrowful, had been 
instituted, not by prudent, faithful, and religious, but by erring and 
unbelieving men, averse to the worship and service of the gods. And although he 
calls them gods, nevertheless, when he says that they were made by such men as 
we certainly ought not to be, he shows, whether he will or not, that they are 
not to be worshipped by those who do not resemble these image-makers, that is, 
by prudent, faithful, and religious men, at the same time also making it 
manifest that the very men who made them involved themselves in the worship of 
those as gods who were not gods. For true is the saying of the prophet, "If a 
man make gods, lo, they are no gods."(5) Such gods, therefore, acknowledged by 
such worshippers and made by such men, did Hermes call "gods made by men," that 
is to say, demons, through some art of I know not what description, bound by the 
chains of their own lusts to images. But, nevertheless, he did not agree with 
that opinion of the Platonic Apuleius, of which we have already shown the 
incongruity and absurdity, namely, that they were interpreters and intercessors 
between the gods whom God made, and men whom the same God made, bringing to God 
the prayers of men, and from God the gifts given in answer to these prayers. For 
it is exceedingly stupid to believe that gods whom men have made have more 
influence with gods whom God has made than men themselves have, whom the very 
same God has made. And consider, too, that it is a demon which, bound by a man 
to an image by means of an impious art, has been made a god, but a god to such a 
man only, not to every man. What kind of god, therefore, is that which no man 
would make but one erring, incredulous, and averse to the true God? Moreover, if 
the demons which are worshipped in the temples, being introduced by some kind of 
strange art into images, that is, into visible representations of themselves, by 
those men who by this art made gods when they were straying away from, and were 
averse to the worship and service of the gods,--if, I say, those demons are 
neither mediators nor interpreters between men and the gods, both on account of 
their own most wicked and base manners, and because men, though erring, 
incredulous, and averse from the worship and service of the gods, are 
nevertheless beyond doubt better than the demons whom they themselves have 
evoked, then it remains to be affirmed that what power they possess they possess 
as demons, doing harm by bestowing pretended benefits,--harm all the greater for 
the deception,--or else openly and undisguisedly doing evil to men. They cannot, 
however, do anything of this kind unless where they are permitted by the deep 
and secret providence of God, and then only so far as they are permitted. When, 
however, they are permitted, it is not because they, being midway between men 
and the gods, have through the friendship of the gods great power over men; for 
these demons cannot possibly be friends to the good gods who dwell in the holy 
and heavenly habitation, by whom we mean holy angels and rational creatures, 
whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers, from whom they 
are as far separated in disposition and character as vice is distant from 
virtue, wickedness from goodness. 
CHAP. 25.--CONCERNING THOSE THINGS WHICH MAY BE COMMON TO THE HOLY ANGELS AND TO 
MEN. 
Wherefore we must by no means seek, through the supposed mediation of demons, to 
avail ourselves of the benevolence or beneficence of the gods, or rather of the 
good angels, but through resembling them in the possession of a good will, 
through which we are with them, and live with them, and worship with them the 
same God, although we cannot see them with the eyes of our flesh. But it is not 
in locality we are distant from them, but in merit of life, caused by our 
miserable unlikeness to them in will, and by the weakness of our character; for 
the mere fact of our dwelling on earth under the conditions of life in the flesh 
does not prevent our fellowship with them. It is only prevented when we, in the 
impurity of our hearts, mind earthly things. But in this present time, while we 
are being healed that we may eventually be as they are, we are brought near to 
them by faith, if by their assistance we believe that He who is their 
blessedness is also ours. 
CHAP. 26.--THAT ALL THE RELIGION OF THE PAGANS HAS REFERENCE TO DEAD MEN. 
It is certainly a remarkable thing how this Egyptian, when expressing his grief 
that a time was coming when those things would be taken away from Egypt, which 
he confesses to have been invented by men erring, incredulous, and averse to the 
service of divine religion, says, among other things, "Then shall that land, the 
most holy place of shrines and temples, be full of sepulchres and dead men," as 
if, in sooth, if these things were not taken away, men would not die! as if dead 
bodies could be buried elsewhere than in the ground! as if, as time advanced, 
the number of sepulchres must not necessarily increase in proportion to the 
increase of the number of the dead! But they who are of a perverse mind, and 
opposed to us, suppose that what he grieves for is that the memorials of our 
martyrs were to succeed to their temples and shrines, in order, forsooth, that 
they may have grounds for thinking that gods were worshipped by the pagans in 
temples, but that dead men are worshipped by us in sepulchres. For with such 
blindness do impious men, as it were, stumble over mountains, and will not see 
the things which strike their own eyes, that they do not attend to the fact that 
in all the literature of the pagans there are not found any, or scarcely any 
gods, who have not been men, to whom, when dead, divine honors have been paid. I 
will not enlarge on the fact that Varro says that all dead men are thought by 
them to be gods--Manes and proves it by those sacred rites which are performed 
in honor of almost all the dead, among which he mentions funeral games, 
considering this the very highest proof of divinity, because games are only wont 
to be celebrated in honor of divinities. Hermes himself, of whom we are now 
treating, in that same book in which, as if foretelling future things, he says 
with sorrow "Then shall that land, the most holy place of shrines and temples, 
be full of sepulchres and dead men," testifies that the gods of Egypt were dead 
men. For, having said that their forefathers, erring very far with respect to 
the knowledge of the gods, incredulous and inattentive to the divine worship and 
service, invented the art of making gods, with which art, when invented, they 
associated the appropriate virtue which is inherent in universal nature, and by 
mixing up that virtue with this art, they called forth the souls of demons or of 
angels (for they could not make souls), and caused them to take possession of, 
or associate themselves with holy images and divine mysteries, in order that 
through these souls the images might have power to do good or harm to 
men;--having said this, he goes on, as it were, to prove it by illustrations, 
saying, "Thy grandsire, O AEsculapius, the first discoverer of medicine, to whom 
a temple was consecrated in a mountain of Libya, near to the shore of the 
crocodiles, in which temple lies his earthly man, that is, his body,--for the 
better part of him, or rather the whole of him, if the whole man is in the 
intelligent life, went back to heaven,--affords even now by his divinity all 
those helps to infirm men which formerly he was wont to afford to them by the 
art of medicine." He says, therefore that a dead man was worshipped as a god in 
that place where he had his sepulchre. He deceives men by a falsehood, for the 
man "went back to heaven." Then he adds "Does not Hermes, who was my grandsire, 
and whose name I bear, abiding in the country which is called by his name, help 
and preserve all mortals who come to him from every quarter?" For this eider 
Hermes, that is, Mercury, who, he says, was his grandsire, is said to be buried 
in Hermopolis, that is, in the city called by his name; so here are two gods 
Whom he affirms to have been men, AEsculapius and Mercury. Now concerning 
AEsculapius, both the Greeks and the Latins think the same thing; but as to 
Mercury, there are many who do not think that he was formerly a mortal, though 
Hermes testifies that he was his grandsire. But are these two different 
individuals who were called by the same name? I will not dispute much whether 
they are different individuals or not. It is sufficient to know that this 
Mercury of whom Hermes speaks is, as well as AEsculapius, a god who once was a 
man, according, to the testimony of this same Trismegistus, esteemed so great by 
his countrymen, and also the grandson of Mercury himself. 
Hermes goes on to say, "But do we know how many good things Isis, the wife of 
Osiris, bestows when she is propitious, and what great opposition she can offer 
when enraged?" Then, in order to show that there were gods made by men through 
this art, he goes on to say, "For it is easy for earthly and mundane gods to be 
angry, being made and composed by men out of either nature;" thus giving us to 
understand that he believed that demons were formerly the souls of dead men, 
which, as he says, by means of a certain art invented by men very far in error, 
incredulous, and irreligious, were caused to take possession of images, because 
they who made such gods were not able to make souls. When, therefore, he says 
"either nature," he means soul and body,--the demon being the soul, and the 
image the body. What, then, becomes of that mournful complaint, that the land of 
Egypt, the most holy place of shrines and temples, was to be full of sepulchres 
and dead men? Verily, the fallacious spirit, by whose inspiration Hermes spoke 
these things, was compelled to confess through him that even already that land 
was full of sepulchres and of dead men, whom they were worshipping as gods. But 
it was the grief of the demons which was expressing itself through his. mouth, 
who were sorrowing on account of the punishments which were about to fall upon 
them at the tombs of the martyrs. For in many such places they are tortured and 
compelled to confess, and are cast out of the bodies of men, of which they had 
taken possession. 
CHAP. 27.---CONCERNING THE NATURE OF THE HONOR WHICH THE CHRISTIANS PAY TO THEIR 
MARTYRS. 
But, nevertheless, we do not build temples, and ordain priests, rites, and 
sacrifices for these same martyrs; for they are not our gods, but their God is 
our God. Certainly we honor their reliquaries, as the memorials of holy men of 
God who strove for the truth even to the death of their bodies, that the true 
religion might be made known, and false and fictitious religions exposed. For if 
there were some before them who thought that these religions were really false 
and fictitious, they were afraid to give expression to their convictions. But 
who ever heard a priest of the faithful, standing at an altar built for the 
honor and worship of God over the holy body of some martyr, say in the prayers, 
I offer to thee a sacrifice, O Peter, or O Paul, or O Cyprian? for it is to God 
that sacrifices are offered at their tombs,--the God who made them both men and 
martyrs, and associated them with holy angels in celestial honor; and the reason 
why we pay such honors to their memory is, that by so doing we may both give 
thanks to the true God for their victories, and, by recalling them afresh to 
remembrance, may stir ourselves up to imitate them by seeking to obtain like 
crowns and palms, calling to our help that same God on whom they called. 
Therefore, whatever honors the religions may pay in the places of the martyrs, 
they are but honors rendered to their memory,(1) not sacred rites or sacrifices 
offered to dead men as to gods. And even such as bring thither food,--which, 
indeed, is not done by the better Christians, and in most places of the world is 
not done at all,--do so in order that it may be sanctified to them through the 
merits of the martyrs, in the name of the Lord of the martyrs, first presenting 
the food and offering prayer, and thereafter taking it away to be eaten, or to 
be in part bestowed upon the needy.(1) But he who knows the one sacrifice of 
Christians, which is the sacrifice offered in those places, also knows that 
these are not sacrifices offered to the martyrs. It is, then, neither with 
divine honors nor with human crimes, by which they worship their gods, that we 
honor our martyrs; neither do we offer sacrifices to them, or convert the crimes 
of the gods into their sacred rites. For let those who will and can read the 
letter of Alexander to his mother Olympias, in which he tells the things which 
were revealed to him by the priest Leon, and let those who have read it recall 
to memory what it contains, that they may see what great abominations have been 
handed down to memory, not by poets, but by the mystic writings of the 
Egyptians, concerning the goddess Isis, the wife of Osiris, and the parents of 
both, all of whom, according to these writings, were royal personages. Isis, 
when sacrificing to her parents, " is said to have discovered a crop of barley, 
of which she brought some ears to the king her husband, and his councillor 
Mercurius, and hence they identify her with Ceres. Those who read the letter may 
there see what was the character of those people to whom when dead sacred rites 
were instituted as to gods, and what those deeds of theirs were which furnished 
the occasion for these rites. Let them not once dare to compare in any respect 
those people, though they hold them to be gods, to our holy martyrs, though we 
do not hold them to be gods. For we do not ordain priests and offer sacrifices 
to our martyrs, as they do to their dead men, for that would be incongruous, 
undue, and unlawful, such being due only to God; and thus we do not delight them 
with their own crimes, or with such shameful plays as those in which the crimes 
of the gods are celebrated, which are either real crimes committed by them at a 
time when they were men, or else, if they never were men, fictitious crimes 
invented for the pleasure of noxious demons. The god of Socrates, if he had a 
god, cannot have belonged to this class of demons. But perhaps they who wished 
to excel in this art of making gods, imposed a god of this sort on a man who was 
a stranger to, and innocent of any connection with that art. What need we say 
more? No one who is even moderately wise imagines that demons are to be 
worshipped on account of the blessed life which is to be after death. But 
perhaps they will say that all the gods are good, but that of the demons some 
are bad and some good, and that it is the good who are to be worshipped, in 
order that through them we may attain to the eternally blessed life. To the 
examination of this opinion we will devote the following book.