BOOK IX. 
ARGUMENT. 
HAVING IN THE PRECEDING BOOK SHOWN THAT THE WORSHIP OF DEMONS MUST BE ABJURED, 
SINCE THEY IN A THOUSAND WAYS PROCLAIM THEMSELVES TO BE WICKED SPIRITS, AUGUSTIN 
IN THIS BOOK MEETS THOSE WHO ALLEGE A DISTINCTION AMONG DEMONS, SOME BEING EVIL, 
WHILE OTHERS ARE GOOD; AND, HAVING EXPLODED THIS DISTINCTION, HE PROVES THAT TO 
NO DEMON, BUT TO CHRIST ALONE, BELONGS THE OFFICE OF PROVIDING MEN WITH ETERNAL 
BLESSEDNESS. 
CHAP. 1.--THE POINT AT WHICH THE DISCUSSION HAS ARRIVED, AND WHAT REMAINS TO BE 
HANDLED. 
SOME have advanced the opinion that there are both good and bad gods; but some, 
thinking more respectfully of the gods, have attributed to them so much honor 
and praise as to preclude the supposition of any god being wicked. But those who 
have maintained that there are wicked gods as well as good ones have included 
the demons under the name "gods," and sometimes though more rarely, have called 
the gods demons; so that they admit that Jupiter, whom they make the king and 
head of all the rest, is called a demon by Homer.(1) Those, on the other hand, 
who maintain that the gods are all good, and far more excellent than the men who 
are justly called good, are moved by the actions of the demons, which they can 
neither deny nor impute to the gods whose goodness they affirm, to distinguish 
between gods and demons; so that, whenever they find anything offensive in the 
deeds or sentiments by which unseen spirits manifest their power, they believe 
this to proceed not from the gods, but from the demons. At the same time they 
believe that, as no god can hold direct intercourse with men, these demons hold 
the position of mediators, ascending with prayers, and returning with gifts. 
This is the opinion of the Platonists, the ablest and most esteemed of their 
philosophers, with whom we therefore chose to debate this question,--whether the 
worship of a number of gods is of any service toward obtaining blessedness in 
the future life. And this is the reason why, in the preceding book, we have 
inquired how the demons, who take pleasure in such things as good and wise men 
loathe and execrate, in the sacrilegious and immoral fictions which the poets 
have written not of men, but of the gods themselves, and in the wicked and 
criminal violence of magical arts, can be regarded as more nearly related and 
more friendly to the gods than men are, and can mediate between good men and the 
good gods; and it has been demonstrated that this is absolutely impossible. 
CHAP. 2.--WHETHER AMONG THE DEMONS, INFERIOR TO THE GODS, THERE ARE ANY GOOD. 
SPIRITS UNDER WHOSE GUARDIANSHIP THE HUMAN SOUL MIGHT REACH TRUE BLESSEDNESS. 
This book, then, ought, according to the promise made in the end of the 
preceding one, to contain a discussion, not of the difference which exists among 
the gods, who, according to the Platonists, are all good, nor of the difference 
between gods and demons, the former of whom they separate by a wide interval 
from men, while the latter are placed intermediately between the gods and men, 
but of the difference, since they make one, among the demons themselves. This we 
shall discuss so far as it bears on our theme. It has been the common and usual 
belief that some of the demons are bad, others good; and this opinon, whether it 
be that of the Platonists or any other sect, must by no means be passed over in 
silence, lest some one suppose he ought to cultivate the good demons in order 
that by their mediation he may be accepted by the gods, all of whom he believes 
to be good, and that he may live with them after death; whereas he would thus be 
ensnared in the toils of wicked spirits, and would wander far from the true God, 
with whom alone, and in whom alone, the human soul, that is to say, the soul 
that is rational and intellectual, is blessed. 
CHAP. 3.--WHAT APULEIUS ATTRIBUTES TO THE DEMONS, TO WHOM, THOUGH HE DOES NOT 
DENY THEM REASON, HE DOES NOT ASCRIBE VIRTUE. 
What, then, is the difference between good and evil demons? For the Platonist 
Apuleius, in a treatise on this whole subject,(1) while he says a great deal 
about their aerial bodies, has not a word to say of the spiritual virtues with 
which, if they were good, they must have been endowed. Not a word has he said, 
then, of that which could give them happiness; but proof of their misery he has 
given, acknowledging that their mind, by which they rank as reasonable beings, 
is not only not imbued and fortified with Virtue so as to resist all 
unreasonable passions, but that it is somehow agitated with tempestuous 
emotions, and is thus on a level with the mind of foolish men. His own words 
are: "It is this class of demons the poets refer to, when, without serious 
error, they feign that the gods hate and love individuals among men, prospering 
and ennobling some, and opposing and distressing others. Therefore pity, 
indignation, grief, joy, every human emotion is experienced by the demons, with 
the same mental disturbance, and the same tide of feeling and thought. These 
turmoils and tempests banish them far from the tranquility of the Celestial 
gods." Can there be any doubt that in these words it is not some inferior part 
of their spiritual nature, but the very mind by which the demons hold their rank 
as rational beings, which he says is tossed with passion like a stormy sea? They 
cannot, then, be compared even to wise men, who with undisturbed. mind resist 
these perturbations to which they are exposed in this life, and from which human 
infirmity is never exempt, and who do not yield themselves to approve of or 
perpetrate anything which might deflect them from the path of wisdom and law of 
rectitude. They resemble in character, though not in bodily appearance, wicked 
and foolish men. I might indeed say they are worse, inasmuch as they have grown 
old in iniquity, and incorrigible by punishment. Their mind, as Apuleius says, 
is a sea tossed with tempest, having no rallying point of truth or virtue in 
their soul from which they can resist their turbulent and depraved emotions. 
CHAP. 4.--THE OPINION OF THE PERIPATETICS AND STOICS ABOUT MENTAL EMOTIONS. 
Among the philosophers there are two opinions about these mental emotions, which 
the Greeks call <greek>paqh</greek>, while some of our own writers, as Cicero, 
call them perturbations,(2) some affections, and some, to render the Greek word 
more accurately, passions. Some say that even the wise man is subject to these 
perturbations, though moderated and controlled by reason, which imposes laws 
upon them, and so restrains them within necessary bounds. This is the opinion of 
the Platonists and Aristotelians; for Aristotle was Plato's disciple, and the 
founder of the Peripatetic school. But others, as the Stoics, are of opinion 
that the wise man is not subject to these perturbations. But Cicero, in his book 
De Finibus, shows that the Stoics are here at variance with the Platonists and 
Peripatetics rather in words than in reality; for the Stoics decline to apply 
the term "goods" to external and bodily advantages,(3) because they reckon that 
the only good is virtue, the art of living well, and this exists only in the 
mind. The other philosophers, again, use the simple and customary phraseology, 
and do not scruple to call these things goods, though in comparison of virtue, 
which guides our life, they are little and of small esteem. And thus it is 
obvious that, whether these outward things are called goods or advantages, they 
are held in the same estimation by both parties, and that in this matter the 
Stoics are pleasing themselves merely with a novel phraseology. It seems, then, 
to me that in this question, whether the wise man is subject to mental passions, 
or wholly free from them, the controversy is one of words rather than of things; 
for I think that, if the reality and not the mere sound of the words is 
considered, the Stoics hold precisely the same opinion as the Platonists and 
Peripatetics. For, omitting for brevity's sake other proofs which I might adduce 
in support of this opinion, I will state but one which I consider conclusive. 
Aulus Gellius, a man of extensive erudition, and gifted with an eloquent and 
graceful style, relates, in his work entitled Noctes Atticae(1) that he once 
made a voyage with an eminent Stoic philosopher; and he goes on to relate fully 
and with gusto what I shall barely state, that when the ship was tossed and in 
danger from a violent storm, the philosopher grew pale with terror. This was 
noticed by those on board, who, though themselves threatened with death, were 
curious to see whether a philosopher would be agitated like other men. When the 
tempest had passed over, and as soon as their security gave them freedom to 
resume their talk, one of the passengers, a rich and luxurious Asiatic, begins 
to banter the philosopher, and rally him because he had even become pale with 
fear, while he himself had been unmoved by the impending destruction. But the 
philosopher availed himself of the reply of Aristippus the Socratic, who, on 
finding himself similarly bantered by a man of the same character, answered, 
"You had no cause for anxiety for the soul of a profligate debauchee, but I had 
reason to be alarmed for the soul of Aristippus." The rich man being thus 
disposed of, Aulus Gellius asked the philosopher, in the interests of science 
and not to annoy him, what was the reason of his fear? And he willing to 
instruct a man so zealous in the pursuit of knowledge, at once took from his 
wallet a book of Epictetus the Stoic,(2) in which doctrines were advanced which 
precisely harmonized with those of Zeno and Chrysippus, the founders of the 
Stoical school. Aulus Gellius says that he read in this book that the Stoics 
maintain that there are certain impressions made on the soul by external objects 
which they call phantasiae, and that it is not in the power of the soul to 
determine whether or when it shall be invaded by these. When these impressions 
are made by alarming and formidable objects, it must needs be that they move the 
soul even of the wise man, so that for a little he trembles with fear, or is 
depressed by sadness, these impressions anticipating the work of reason and 
self-control; but this does not imply that the mind accepts these evil 
impressions, or approves or consents to them. For this consent is, they think, 
in a man's power; there being this difference between the mind of the wise man 
and that of the fool, that the fool's mind yields to these passions and consents 
to them, while that of the wise man, though it cannot help being invaded by 
them, yet retains with unshaken firmness a true and steady persuasion of those 
things which it ought rationally to desire or avoid. This account of what Aulus 
Gellius relates that he read in the book of Epictetus about the sentiments and 
doctrines of the Stoics I have given as well as I could, not, perhaps, with his 
choice language, but with greater brevity, and, I think, with greater clearness. 
And if this be true, then there is no difference, or next to none, between the 
opinion of the Stoics and that of the other philosophers regarding mental 
passions and perturbations, for both parties agree in maintaining that the mind 
and reason of the wise man are not subject to these. And perhaps what the Stoics 
mean by asserting this, is that the wisdom which characterizes the wise man is 
clouded by no error and sullied by no taint, but, with this reservation that his 
wisdom remains undisturbed, he is exposed to the impressions which the goods and 
ills of this life (or, as they prefer to call them, the advantages or 
disadvantages) make upon them. For we need not say that if that philosopher had 
thought nothing of those things which he thought he was forthwith to lose, life 
and bodily safety, he would not have been so terrified by his danger as to 
betray his fear by the pallor of his cheek. Nevertheless, he might suffer this 
mental disturbance, and yet maintain the fixed persuasion that life and bodily 
safety, which the violence of the tempest threatened to destroy, are not those 
good things which make their possessors good, as the possession of righteousness 
does. But in so far as they persist that we must call them not goods but 
advantages, they quarrel about words and neglect things. For what difference 
does it make whether goods or advantages be the better name, while the Stoic no 
less than the Peripatetic is alarmed at the prospect of losing them, and while, 
though they name them differently, they hold them in like esteem? Both parties 
assure us that, if urged to the commission of some immorality or crime by the 
threatened loss of these goods or advantages, they would prefer to lose such 
things as preserve bodily comfort and security rather than commit such things as 
violate righteousness. And thus the mind in which this resolution is well 
grounded suffers no perturbations to prevail with it in opposition to reason, 
even though they assail the weaker parts of the soul; and not only so, but it 
rules over them, and, while it refuses its consent and resists them, administers 
a reign of virtue. Such a character is ascribed to AEneas by Virgil when he 
says, 
"He stands immovable by tears, 
Nor tenderest words with pity hears."(3 
CHAP. 5.--THAT THE PASSIONS WHICH ASSAIL THE SOULS OF CHRISTIANS DO NOT SEDUCE 
THEM TO VICE, BUT EXERCISE THEIR VIRTUE. 
We need not at present give a careful and copious exposition of the doctrine of 
Scripture, the sum of Christian knowledge, regarding these passions. It subjects 
the mind itself to God, that He may rule and aid it, and the passions, again, to 
the mind, to moderate and bridle them, and turn them to righteous uses. In our 
ethics, we do not so much inquire whether a pious soul is angry, as why he is 
angry; not whether he is sad, but what is the cause of his sadness; not whether 
he fears, but what he fears. For I am not aware that any right thinking person 
would find fault with anger at a wrongdoer which seeks his amendment, or with 
sadness which intends relief to the suffering, or with fear lest one in danger 
be destroyed. The Stoics, indeed, are accustomed to condemn compassion.(1) But 
how much more honorable had it been in that Stoic we have been telling of, had 
he been disturbed by compassion prompting him to relieve a fellow-creature, than 
to be disturbed by the fear of shipwreck! Far better and more humane, and more 
consonant with pious sentiments, are the words of Cicero in praise of Caesar, 
when he says, "Among your virtues none is more admirable and agreeable than your 
compassion."(2) And what is compassion but a fellow-feeling for another's 
misery, which prompts us to help him if we can? And this emotion is obedient to 
reason, when compassion is shown without violating right, as when the poor are 
relieved, or the penitent forgiven. Cicero, who knew how to use language, did 
not hesitate to call this a virtue, which the Stoics are not ashamed to reckon 
among the vices, although, as the book of the eminent Stoic, Epictetus, quoting 
the opinions of Zeno and Chrysippus, the founders of the school, has taught us, 
they admit that passions of this kind invade the soul of the wise man, whom they 
would have to be free from all vice. Whence it follows that these very passions 
are not judged by them to be vices, since they assail the wise man without 
forcing him to act against reason and virtue; and that, therefore, the opinion 
of the Peripatetics or Platonists and of the Stoics is one and the same. But, as 
Cicero says,(3) mere logomachy is the bane of these pitiful Greeks, who thirst 
for contention rather than for truth. However, it may justly be asked, whether 
our subjection to these affections, even while we follow virtue, is a part of 
the infirmity Of this life? For the holy angels feel no anger while they punish 
those whom the eternal law of God consigns to punishment, no fellow-feeling with 
misery while they relieve the miserable, I no fear while they aid those who are 
in danger; and yet ordinary language ascribes to them also these mental 
emotions, because, though they have none of our weakness, their acts resemble 
the actions to which these emotions move us; and thus even God Himself is said 
in Scripture to be angry, and yet without any perturbation. For this word is 
used of the effect of His vengeance, not of the disturbing mental affection. 
CHAP. 6.--OF THE PASSIONS WHICH, ACCORDING TO APULEIUS, AGITATE THE DEMONS WHO 
APE SUPPOSED BY HIM TO MEDIATE BETWEEN GODS AND MEN. 
Deferring for the present the question about the holy angels, let us examine the 
opinion of the Platonists, that the demons who mediate between gods and men are 
agitated by passions. For if their mind, though exposed to their incursion, 
still remained free and superior to them, Apuleius could not have said that 
their hearts are tossed with passions as the sea by stormy winds.(4) Their mind, 
then,--that superior part of their soul whereby they are rational beings, and 
which, if it actually exists in them, should rule and bridle the turbulent 
passions of the inferior parts of the soul,--this mind of theirs, I say, is, 
according to the Platonist referred to, tossed with a hurricane of passions. The 
mind of the demons, therefore, is subject to the emotions of fear, anger, lust, 
and all similar affections. What part of them, then, is free, and endued with 
wisdom, so that they are pleasing to the gods, and the fit guides of men into 
purity of life, since their very highest part, being the slave of passion and 
subject to vice, only makes them more intent on deceiving and seducing, in 
proportion to the mental force and energy of desire they possess? 
CHAP. 7.--THAT THE PLATONISTS MAINTAIN THAT THE POETS WRONG THE GODS BY 
REPRESENTING THEM AS DISTRACTED BY PARTY FEELING, TO WHICH THE DEMONS AND NOT 
THE GODS, ARE SUBJECT. 
But if any one says that it is not of all the demons, but only of the wicked, 
that the poets, not without truth, say that they violently love or hate certain 
men,--for it was of them Apuleius said that they were driven about by strong 
currents of emotion,--how can we accept this interpretation, when Apuleius, in 
the very same connection, represents all the demons, and not only the wicked, as 
intermediate between gods and men by their aerial bodies? The fiction of the 
poets, according to him, consists in their making gods of demons, and giving 
them the names of gods, and assigning them as allies or enemies to individual 
men, using this poetical license, though they profess that the gods are very 
different in character from the demons, and far exalted above them by their 
celestial abode and wealth of beatitude. This, I say, is the poets' fiction, to 
say that these are gods who are not gods, and that, under the names of gods, 
they fight among themselves about the men whom they love or hate with keen 
partisan feeling. Apuleius says that this is not far from the truth, since, 
though they are wrongfully called by the names of the gods, they are described 
in their own proper character as demons. To this category, he says, belongs the 
Minerva of Homer, "who interposed in the ranks of the Greeks to restrain 
Achilles."(1) For that this was Minerva he supposes to be poetical fiction; for 
he thinks that Minerva is a goddess, and he places her among the gods whom he 
believes to be all good and blessed in the sublime ethereal region, remote from 
intercourse with men. But that there was a demon favorable to the Greeks and 
adverse to the Trojans, as another, whom the same poet mentions under the name 
of Venus or Mars (gods exalted above earthly affairs in their heavenly 
habitations), was the Trojans' ally and the foe of the Greeks, and that these 
demons fought for those they loved against those they hated,--in all this he 
owned that the poets stated something very like the truth. For they made these 
statements about beings to whom he ascribes the same violent and tempestuous 
passions as disturb men, and who are therefore capable of loves and hatreds not 
justly formed, but formed in a party spirit, as the spectators in races or hunts 
take fancies and prejudices. It seems to have been the great fear of this 
Platonist that the poetical fictions should be believed of the gods, and not of 
the demons who bore their names. 
CHAP. 8.--HOW APULEIUS DEFINES THE GODS WHO DWELL IN HEAVEN, THE DEMONS WHO 
OCCUPY THE AIR, AND MEN WHO INHABIT EARTH. 
The definition which Apuleius gives of demons, and in which he of course 
includes all demons, is that they are in nature animals, in soul subject to 
passion, in mind reasonable, in body aerial, in duration eternal. Now in these 
five qualities he has named absolutely nothing which is proper to good men and 
not also to bad. For when Apuleius had spoken of the celestials first, and had 
then extended his description so as to include an account of those who dwell far 
below on the earth, that, after describing the two extremes of rational being, 
he might proceed to speak of the intermediate demons, he says, "Men, therefore, 
who are endowed with the faculty of reason and speech, whose soul is immortal 
and their members mortal, who have weak and anxious spirits, dull and 
corruptible bodies, dissimilar characters, similar ignorance, who are obstinate 
in their audacity, and persistent in their hope, whose labor is vain, and whose 
fortune is ever on the wane, their race immortal, themselves perishing, each 
generation replenished with creatures whose life is swift and their wisdom slow, 
their death sudden and their life a wail,--these are the men who dwell on the 
earth."(2) In recounting so many qualities which belong to the large proportion 
of men, did he forget that which is the property of the few when he speaks of 
their wisdom being slow? If this had been omitted, this his description of the 
human race, so carefully elaborated, would have been defective. And when he 
commended the excellence of the gods, he affirmed that they excelled in that 
very blessedness to which he thinks men must attain by wisdom. And therefore, if 
he had wished us to believe that some of the demons are good, he should have 
inserted in his description something by which we might see that they have, in 
common with the gods, some share of blessedness, or, in common with men, some 
wisdom. But, as it is, he has mentioned no good quality by which the good may be 
distinguished from the bad. For although he refrained from giving a full account 
of their wickedness, through fear of offending, not themselves but their 
worshippers, for whom he was writing, yet he sufficiently indicated to 
discerning readers what opinion he had of them; for only in the one article of 
the eternity of their bodies does he assimilate them to the gods, all of whom, 
he asserts, are good and blessed, and absolutely free from what he himself calls 
the stormy passions of the demons; and as to the soul, he quite plainly affirms 
that they resemble men and not the gods, and that this resemblance lies not in 
the possession of wisdom, which even men can attain to, but in the perturbation 
of passions which sway the foolish and wicked, but is so ruled by the good and 
wise that they prefer not to admit rather than to conquer it. For if he had 
wished it to be understood that the demons resembled the gods in the eternity 
not of their bodies but of their souls, he would certainly have admitted men to 
share in this privilege, because, as a Platonist, he of course must hold that 
the human soul is eternal. Accordingly, when describing this race of living 
beings, he said that their souls were immortal, their members mortal. And, 
consequently, if men have not eternity in common with the gods because they have 
mortal bodies, demons have eternity in common with the gods because their bodies 
are immortal. 
CHAP. 9.--WHETHER THE INTERCESSION OF THE DEMONS CAN SECURE FOR MEN THE 
FRIENDSHIP OF THE CELESTIAL GODS. 
How, then, can men hope for a favorable introduction to the friendship of the 
gods by such mediators as these, who are, like men, defective in that which is 
the better part of every living creature, viz., the soul, and who resemble the 
gods only in the body, which is the inferior part? For a living creature or 
animal consists of soul and body, and of these two parts the soul is undoubtedly 
the better; even though vicious and weak, it is obviously better than even the 
soundest and strongest body, for the greater excellence of its nature is not 
reduced to the level of the body even by the pollution of vice, as gold, even 
when tarnished, is more precious than the purest silver or lead. And yet these 
mediators, by whose interposition things human and divine are to be harmonized, 
have an eternal body in common with the gods, and a vicious soul in common with 
men,--as if the religion by which these demons are to unite gods and men were a 
bodily, and not a spiritual matter. What wickedness, then, or punishment has 
suspended these false and deceitful mediators, as it were head downwards, so 
that their inferior part, their body, is linked to the gods above, and their 
superior part, the soul, bound to men beneath; united to the celestial gods by 
the part that serves, and miserable, together with the inhabitants of earth, by 
the part that rules? For the body is the servant, as Sallust says: "We use the 
soul to rule, the body to obey;"(1) adding, "the one we have in common with the 
gods, the other with the brutes." For he was here speaking of men; and they 
have, like the brutes, a mortal body. These demons, whom our philosophic friends 
have provided for us as mediators with the gods, may indeed say of the soul and 
body, the one we have in common with the gods, the other with men; but, as I 
said, they are as it were suspended and bound head downwards, having the slave, 
the body, in common with the gods, the master, the soul, in common with 
miserable men,--their inferior part exalted, their superior part depressed. And 
therefore, if any one supposes that, because they are not subject, like 
terrestrial animals, to the separation of soul and body by death, they therefore 
resemble the gods in their eternity, their body must not be considered a chariot 
of an eternal triumph, but rather the chain of an eternal punishment. 
CHAP. 10.--THAT, ACCORDING TO PLOTINUS, MEN, WHOSE BODY IS MORTAL, ARE LESS 
WRETCHED THAN DEMONS, WHOSE BODY IS ETERNAL. 
Plotinus, whose memory is quite recent,(2) enjoys the reputation of having 
understood Plato better than any other of his disciples. In speaking of human 
souls, he says, "The Father in compassion made their bonds mortal;"(3) that is 
to say, he considered it due to the Father's mercy that men, having a mortal 
body, should not be forever confined in the misery of this life. But of this 
mercy the demons have been judged unworthy, and they have received, in 
conjunction with a soul subject to passions, a body not mortal like man's, but 
eternal. For they should have been happier than men if they had, like men, had a 
mortal body, and, like the gods, a blessed soul. And they should have been equal 
to men, if in conjunction with a miserable soul they had at least received, like 
men, a mortal body, so that death might have freed them from trouble, if, at 
least, they should have attained some degree of piety. But, as it is, they are 
not only no happier than men, having, like them, a miserable soul, they are also 
more wretched, being eternally bound to the body; for he does not leave us to 
infer that by some progress in wisdom and piety they can become gods, but 
expressly says that they are demons forever. 
CHAP. 11.--OF THE OPINION OF THE PLATONISTS, THAT THE SOULS OF MEN BECOME DEMONS 
WHEN DISEMBODIED. 
He(4) says, indeed, that the souls of men are demons, and that men become Lares 
if they are good, Lemures or Larvae if they are bad, and Manes if it is 
uncertain whether they de serve well or ill. Who does not see at a glance that 
this is a mere whirlpool sucking men to moral destruction? For, however wicked 
men have been, if they suppose they shall become Larvae or divine Manes, they 
will become the worse the more love they have for inflicting injury; for, as the 
Larvae are hurtful demons made out of wicked men, these men must suppose that 
after death they will be invoked with sacrifices and divine honors that they may 
inflict injuries. But this question we must not pursue. He also states that the 
blessed are called in Greek <greek>eudaimones</greek>, because they are good 
souls, that is to say, good demons, confirming his opinion that the souls of men 
are demons. 
CHAP. 12.--OF THE THREE OPPOSITE QUALITIES BY WHICH THE PLATONISTS DISTINGUISH 
BETWEEN THE NATURE OF MEN AND THAT OF DEMONS. 
But at present we are speaking of those beings whom he described as being 
properly intermediate between gods and men, in nature animals, in mind rational, 
in soul subject to passion, in body aerial, in duration eternal. When he had 
distinguished the gods, whom he placed in the highest heaven, from men, whom he 
placed on earth, not only by position but also by the unequal dignity of their 
natures, he concluded in these words: "You have here two kinds of animals: the 
gods, widely distinguished from men by sublimity of abode, perpetuity of life, 
perfection of nature; for their habitations are separated by so wide an interval 
that there can be no intimate communication between them, and while the vitality 
of the one is eternal and indefeasible, that of the others is fading and 
precarious, and while the spirits of the gods are exalted in bliss, those of men 
are sunk in miseries."(1) Here I find three opposite qualities ascribed to the 
extremes of being, the highest and lowest. For, after mentioning the three 
qualities for which we are to admire the gods, he repeated, though in other 
words, the same three as a foil to the defects of man. The three qualities are, 
"sublimity of abode, perpetuity of life, perfection of nature." These he again 
mentioned so as to bring out their contrasts in man's condition. As he had 
mentioned "sublimity of abode," he says, "Their habitations are separated by so 
wide an interval;" as he had mentioned "perpetuity of life," he says, that 
"while divine life is eternal and indefeasible, human life is fading and 
precarious;" and as he had mentioned "perfection of nature," he says, that 
"while the spirits of the gods are exalted in bliss, those of men are sunk in 
miseries." These three things, then, he predicates of the gods, exaltation, 
eternity, blessedness; and of man he predicates the opposite, lowliness of 
habitation, mortality, misery. 
CHAP. 13.--HOW THE DEMONS CAN MEDIATE BETWEEN GODS AND MEN IF THEY HAVE NOTHING 
IN COMMON WITH BOTH, BEING NEITHER BLESSED LIKE THE GODS, NOR MISERABLE LIKE 
MEN. 
If, now, we endeavor to find between these opposites the mean occupied by the 
demons, there can be no question as to their local position; for, between the 
highest and lowest place, there is a place which is rightly considered and 
called the middle place. The other two qualities remain, and to them we must 
give greater care, that we may see whether they are altogether foreign to the 
demons, or how they are so bestowed upon them without infringing upon their 
mediate position. We may dismiss the idea that they are foreign to them. For we 
cannot say that the demons, being rational animals, are neither blessed nor 
wretched, as we say of the beasts and plants, which are void of feeling and 
reason, or as we say of the middle place, that it is neither the highest nor the 
lowest. The demons, being rational, must be either miserable or blessed. And, in 
like manner, we cannot say that they are neither mortal nor immortal; for all 
living things either live eternally or end life in death. Our author, besides, 
stated that the demons are eternal. What remains for us to suppose, then, but 
that these mediate beings are assimilated to the gods in one of the two 
remaining qualities, and to men in the other? For if they received both from 
above, or both from beneath, they should no longer be mediate, but either rise 
to the gods above, or sink to men beneath. Therefore, as it has been 
demonstrated that they must possess these two qualities, they will hold their 
middle place if they receive one from each party. Consequently, as they cannot 
receive their eternity from beneath, because it is not there to receive, they 
must get it from above; and accordingly they have no choice but to complete 
their mediate position by accepting misery from men. 
According to the Platonists, then, the gods, who occupy the highest place, enjoy 
eternal blessedness, or blessed eternity; men, who occupy the lowest, a mortal 
misery, or a miserable mortality; and the demons, who occupy the mean, a 
miserable eternity, or an eternal misery. As to those five things which Apuleius 
included in his definition of demons, he did not show, as he promised, that the 
demons are mediate. For three of them, that their nature is animal, their mind 
rational, their soul subject to passions, he said that they have in common with 
men; one thing, their eternity, in common with the gods; and one proper to 
themselves, their aerial body. How, then, are they intermediate, when they have 
three things in common with the lowest, and only one in common with the highest? 
Who does not see that the intermediate position is abandoned in proportion as 
they tend to, and are depressed towards, the lowest extreme? But perhaps we are 
to accept them as intermediate because of their one property of an aerial body, 
as the two extremes have each their proper body, the gods an ethereal men a 
terrestrial body, and because two of the qualities they possess in common with 
man they possess also in common with the gods, namely, their animal nature and 
rational mind. For Apuleius himself, in speaking of gods and men, said, "You 
have two animal natures." And Platonists are wont to ascribe a rational mind to 
the gods. Two qualities remain, their liability to passion, and their 
eternity,--the first of which they have in common with men, the second with the 
gods; so that they are neither wafted to the highest nor depressed to the lowest 
extreme, but perfectly poised in their intermediate position. But then, this is 
the very circumstance which constitutes the eternal misery, or miserable 
eternity, of the demons. For he who says that their soul is subject to passions 
would also have said that they are miserable, had he not blushed for their 
worshippers. Moreover, as the world is governed, not by fortuitous hap-hazard, 
but, as the Platonists themselves avow, by the providence of the supreme God, 
the misery of the demons would not be eternal unless their wickedness were 
great. 
If, then, the blessed are rightly styled eudemons, the demons intermediate 
between gods and men are not eudemons. What, then, is the local position of 
those good demons, who, above men but beneath the gods, afford assistance to the 
former, minister to the latter? For if they are good and eternal, they are 
doubtless blessed. But eternal blessedness destroys their intermediate 
character, giving them a close resemblance to the gods, and widely separating 
them from men. And therefore the Platonists will in vain strive to show how the 
good demons, if they are both immortal and blessed, can justly be said to hold a 
middle place between the gods, who are immortal and blessed, and men, who are 
mortal and miserable. For if they have both immortality and blessedness in 
common with the gods, and neither of these in common with men, who are both 
miserable and mortal, are they not rather remote from men and united with the 
gods, than intermediate between them. They would be intermediate if they held 
one of their qualities in common with the one party, and the other with the 
other, as man is a kind of mean between angels and beasts,--the beast being an 
irrational and mortal animal, the angel a rational and immortal one, while man, 
inferior to the angel and superior to the beast, and having in common with the 
one mortality, and with the other reason, is a rational and mortal animal. So, 
when we seek for an intermediate between the blessed immortals and miserable 
mortals, we should find a being which is either mortal and blessed, or immortal 
and miserable. 
CHAP. 14.--WHETHER MEN, THOUGH MORTAL, CAN ENJOY TRUE BLESSEDNESS. 
It is a great question among men, whether man can be mortal and blessed. Some, 
taking the humbler view of his condition, have denied that he is capable of 
blessedness so long as he continues in this mortal life; others, again, have 
spurned this idea, and have been bold enough to maintain that, even though 
mortal, men may be blessed by attaining wisdom. But if this be the case, why are 
not these wise men constituted mediators between miserable mortals and the 
blessed immortals, since they have blessedness in common with the latter, and 
mortality in common with the former? Certainly, if they are blessed, they envy 
no one (for what more miserable than envy?), but seek with all their might to 
help miserable mortals on to blessedness, so that after death they may become 
immortal, and be associated with the blessed and immortal angels. 
CHAP. 15.--OF THE MAN CHRIST JESUS, THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MEN. 
But if, as is much more probable and credible, it must needs be that all men, so 
long as they are mortal, are also miserable, we must seek an intermediate who is 
not only man, but also God, that, by the interposition of His blessed mortality, 
He may bring men out of their mortal misery to a blessed immortality. In this 
intermediate two things are requisite, that He become mortal, and that He do not 
continue mortal. He did become mortal, not rendering the divinity of the Word 
infirm, but assuming the infirmity of flesh. Neither did He continue mortal in 
the flesh, but raised it from the dead; for it is the very fruit of His 
mediation that those, for the sake of whose redemption He became the Mediator, 
should not abide eternally in bodily death. Wherefore it became the Mediator 
between us and God to have both a transient mortality and a permanent 
blessedness, that by that which is transient He might be assimilated to mortals, 
and might translate them from mortality to that which is permanent. Good angels, 
therefore, cannot mediate between miserable mortals and blessed immortals, for 
they themselves also are both blessed and immortal; but evil angels can mediate, 
because they are immortal like the one party, miserable like the other. To these 
is opposed the good Mediator, who, in opposition to their immortality and 
misery, has chosen to be mortal for a time, and has been able to continue 
blessed in eternity. It is thus He has destroyed, by the humility of His death 
and the benignity of His blessedness, those proud immortals and hurtful 
wretches, and has prevented them from seducing to misery by their boast of 
immortality those men whose hearts He has cleansed by faith, and whom He has 
thus freed from their impure dominion. 
Man, then, mortal and miserable, and far removed from the immortal and the 
blessed, what medium shall he choose by which he may be united to immortality 
and blessedness? The immortality of the demons, which might have some charm for 
man, is miserable; the mortality of Christ, which might offend man, exists no 
longer. In the one there is the fear of an eternal misery; in the other, death, 
which could not be eternal, can no longer be feared, and blessedness, which is 
eternal, must be loved. For the immortal and miserable mediator interposes 
himself to prevent us from passing to a blessed immortality, because that which 
hinders such a passage, namely, misery, continues in him; but the mortal and 
blessed Mediator interposed Himself, in order that, having passed through 
mortality, He might of mortals make immortals (showing His power to do this in 
His own resurrection), and from being miserable to raise them to the blessed 
company from the number of whom He had Himself never departed. There is, then, a 
wicked mediator, who separates friends, and a good Mediator, who reconciles 
enemies. And those who separate are numerous, because the multitude of the 
blessed are blessed only by their participation in the one God; of which 
participation the evil angels being deprived, they are wretched, and interpose 
to hinder rather than to help to this blessedness, and by their very number 
prevent us from reaching that one beatific good, to obtain which we need not 
many but one Mediator, the uncreated Word of God, by whom all things were made, 
and in partaking of whom we are blessed. I do not say that He is Mediator 
because He is the Word, for as the Word He is supremely blessed and supremely 
immortal, and therefore far from miserable mortals; but He is Mediator as He is 
man, for by His humanity He shows us that, in order to obtain that blessed and 
beatific good, we need not seek other mediators to lead us through the 
successive steps of this attainment, but that the blessed and beatific God, 
having Himself become a partaker of our humanity, has afforded us ready access 
to the participation of His divinity. For in delivering us from our mortality 
and misery, He does not lead us to the immortal and blessed angels, so that we 
should become immortal and blessed by participating in their nature, but He 
leads us straight to that Trinity, by participating in which the angels 
themselves are blessed. Therefore, when He chose to be in the form of a servant, 
and lower than the angels, that He might be our Mediator, He remained higher 
than the angels, in the form of God,--Himself at once the way of life on earth 
and life itself in heaven. 
CHAP. 16.--WHETHER IT IS REASONABLE IN THE PLATONISTS TO DETERMINE THAT THE 
CELESTIAL GODS DECLINE CONTACT WITH EARTHLY THINGS AND INTERCOURSE WITH MEN, WHO 
THEREFORE REQUIRE THE INTERCESSION OF THE DEMONS. 
That opinion, which the same Platonist avers that Plato uttered, is not true, 
"that no god holds intercourse with men."(1) And this, he says, is the chief 
evidence of their exaltation, that they are never contaminated by contact with 
men. He admits, therefore, that the demons are contaminated; and it follows that 
they cannot cleanse those by whom they are themselves contaminated, and thus all 
alike become impure, the demons by associating with men, and men by worshipping 
the demons. Or, if they say that the demons are not contaminated by associating 
and dealing with men, then they are better than the gods, for the gods, were 
they to do so, would be contaminated. Four this, we are told, is the glory of 
the gods, that they are so highly exalted that no human intercourse can sully 
them. He affirms, indeed, that the supreme God, the Creator of all things, whom 
we call the true God, is spoken of by Plato as the only God whom the poverty of 
human speech fails even passably to describe; and that even the wise, when their 
mental energy is as far as possible delivered from the trammels of connection 
with the body, have only such gleams of insight into His nature as may be 
compared to a flash of lightning illumining the darkness. If, then, this supreme 
God, who is truly exalted above all things, does nevertheless visit the minds of 
the wise, when emancipated from the body, with an intelligible and ineffable 
presence, though this be only occasional, and as it were a swift flash of 
athwart the darkness, why are the other gods so sublimely removed from all 
contact with men, as if they would be polluted by it? as if it were not a 
sufficient refutation of this to lift up our eyes to those heavenly bodies which 
give the earth its needful light. If the stars, though they, by his account, are 
visible gods, are not contaminated when we look at them, neither are the demons 
contaminated when men see them quite closely. But perhaps it is the human voice, 
and not the eye, which pollutes the gods; and therefore the demons are appointed 
to mediate and carry men's utterances to the gods, who keep themselves remote 
through fear of pollution? What am I to say of the other senses? For by smell 
neither the demons, who are present, nor the gods, though they were present and 
inhaling the exhalations of living men, would be polluted if they are not 
contaminated with the effluvia of the carcasses offered in sacrifice. As for 
taste, they are pressed by no necessity of repairing bodily decay, so as to be 
reduced to ask food from men. And touch is in their own power. For while it may 
seem that contact is so called, because the sense of touch is specially 
concerned in it, yet the gods, if so minded, might mingle with men, so as to see 
and be seen, hear and be heard; and where is " the need of touching? For men 
would not dare to desire this, if they were favored with the sight or 
conversation of gods or good demons; and if through excessive curiosity they 
should desire it, how could they accomplish their wish without the consent of 
the god or demon, when they cannot touch so much as a sparrow unless it be 
caged? 
There is, then, nothing to hinder the gods from mingling in a bodily form with 
men, from seeing and being seen, from speaking and hearing. And if the demons do 
thus mix with men, as I said, and are not polluted, while the gods, were they to 
do so, should be polluted, then the demons are less liable to pollution than the 
gods. And if even the demons are contaminated, how can they help men to attain 
blessedness after death, if, so far from being able to cleanse them, and present 
them clean to the unpolluted gods, these mediators are themselves polluted? And 
if they cannot confer this benefit on men, what good can their friendly 
mediation do? Or shall its result be, not that men find entrance to the gods, 
but that men and demons abide together in a state of pollution, and consequently 
of exclusion from blessedness? Unless, perhaps, some one may say that, like 
sponges or things of that sort, the demons themselves, in the process of 
cleansing their friends, become themselves the filthier in proportion as the 
others become clean. But if this is the solution, then the gods, who shun 
contact or intercourse with men for fear of pollution, mix with demons who are 
far more polluted. Or perhaps the gods, who cannot cleanse men without polluting 
themselves, can without pollution cleanse the demons who have been contaminated 
by human contact? Who can believe such follies, unless the demons have practised 
their deceit upon him? If seeing and being seen is contamination, and if the 
gods, whom Apuleius himself calls visible, "the brilliant lights of the 
world,"(1) and the other stars, are seen by men, are we to believe that the 
demons, who cannot be seen unless they please, are safer from contamination? Or 
if it is only the seeing and not the being seen which contaminates, then they 
must deny that these gods of theirs, these brilliant lights of the world, see 
men when their rays beam upon the earth. Their rays are not contaminated by 
lighting on all manner of pollution, and are we to suppose that the gods would 
be contaminated if they mixed with men, and even if contact were needed in order 
to assist them? For there is contact between the earth and the sun's or moon's 
rays, and yet this does not pollute the light. 
CHAP. 17.--THAT TO OBTAIN THE BLESSED LIFE, WHICH CONSISTS IN PARTAKING OF THE 
SUPREME GOOD, MAN NEEDS SUCH MEDIATION AS IS FURNISHED NOT BY A DEMON, BUT BY 
CHRIST ALONE. 
I am considerably surprised that such learned men, men who pronounce all 
material and sensible things to be altogether inferior to those that are 
spiritual and intelligible, should mention bodily contact in connection with the 
blessed life. Is that sentiment of Plotinus forgotten?--"We must fly to our 
beloved fatherland. There is the Father, there our all. What fleet or flight 
shall convey us thither? Our way is, to become like God."(2) If, then, one is 
nearer to God the liker he is to Him, there is no other distance from God than 
unlikeness to Him. And the soul of man is unlike that incorporeal and 
unchangeable and eternal essence, in proportion as it craves things temporal and 
mutable. And as the things beneath, which are mortal and impure, cannot hold 
intercourse with the immortal purity which is above, a mediator is indeed needed 
to remove this difficulty; but not a mediator who resembles the highest order of 
being by possessing an immortal body, and the lowest by having a diseased soul, 
which makes him rather grudge that we be healed than help our cure. We need a 
Mediator who, being united to us here below by the mortality of His body, should 
at the same time be able to afford us truly divine help in cleansing and 
liberating us by means of the immortal righteousness of His spirit, whereby He 
remained heavenly even while here upon earth. Far be it from the incontaminable 
God to fear pollution from the man(1) He assumed, or from the men among whom He 
lived in the form of a man. For, though His incarnation showed us nothing else, 
these two wholesome facts were enough, that true divinity cannot be polluted by 
flesh, and that demons are not to be considered better than ourselves because 
they have not flesh.(2) This, then, as Scripture says, is the "Mediator between 
God and man, the man Christ Jesus,"(3) of whose divinity, whereby He is equal to 
the Father, and humanity, whereby He has become like us, this is not the place 
to speak as fully as I could. 
CHAP. 18.--THAT THE DECEITFUL DEMONS, WHILE PROMISING TO CONDUCT MEN TO GOD BY 
THEIR INTERCESSION, MEAN TO TURN THEM FROM THE PATH OF TRUTH. 
As to the demons, these false and deceitful mediators, who, though their 
uncleanness of spirit frequently reveals their misery and malignity, yet, by 
virtue of the levity of their aerial bodies and the nature of the places they 
inhabit, do contrive to turn us aside and hinder our spiritual progress; they do 
not help us towards God, but rather prevent us from reaching Him. Since even in 
the bodily way, which is erroneous and misleading, and in which righteousness 
does not walk,--for we must rise to God not by bodily ascent, but by incorporeal 
or spiritual conformity to Him,--in this bodily way, I say, which the friends of 
the demons arrange according to the weight of the various elements, the aerial 
demons being set between the ethereal gods and earthy men, they imagine the gods 
to have this privilege, that by this local interval they are preserved from the 
pollution of human contact. Thus they believe that the demons are contaminated 
by men rather than men cleansed by the demons, and that the gods themselves 
should be polluted unless their local superiority preserved them. Who is so 
wretched a creature as to expect purification by a way in which men are 
contaminating, demons contaminated, and gods contaminable? Who would not rather 
choose that way whereby we escape the contamination of the demons, and are 
cleansed from pollution by the incontaminable God, so as to be associated with 
the uncontaminated angels? 
CHAP. 19.--THAT EVEN AMONG THEIR OWN WORSHIPPERS THE NAME "DEMON" HAS NEVER A 
GOOD SIGNIFICATION. 
But as some of these demonolators, as I may call them, and among them Labeo, 
allege that those whom they call demons are by others called angels, I must, if 
I would not seem to dispute merely about words, say something about the good 
angels. The Platonists do not deny their existence, but prefer to call them good 
demons. But we, following Scripture, according to which we are Christians, have 
learned that some of the angels are good, some bad, but never have we read in 
Scripture of good demons; but wherever this or any cognate term occurs, it is 
applied only to wicked spirits. And this usage has become so universal, that, 
even among those who are called pagans, and who maintain that demons as well as 
gods should be worshipped, there is scarcely a man, no matter how well read and 
learned, who would dare to say by way of praise to his slave, You have a demon, 
or who could doubt that the man to whom he said this would consider it a curse? 
Why, then, are we to subject ourselves to the necessity of explaining away what 
we have said when we have given offence by using the word demon, with which 
every one, or almost every one, connects a bad meaning, while we can so easily 
evade this necessity by using the word angel? 
CHAP. 20.--OF THE KIND OF KNOWLEDGE WHICH 
PUFFS UP THE DEMONS. 
However, the very origin of the name suggests something worthy of consideration, 
if we compare it with the divine books. They are called demons from a Greek word 
meaning knowledge.(1) Now the apostle, speaking with the Holy Spirit, says, 
"Knowledge puffeth up, but charity buildeth up."(2) And this can only be 
understood as meaning that without charity knowledge does no good, but inflates 
a man or magnifies him with an empty windiness. The demons, then, have knowledge 
without charity, and are thereby so inflated or proud, that they crave those 
divine honors and religious services which they know to be due to the true God, 
and still, as far as they can, exact these from all over whom they have 
influence. Against this pride of the demons, under which the human race was held 
subject as its merited punishment, there was exerted the mighty influence of the 
humility of God, who appeared in the form of a servant; but men, resembling the 
demons in pride, but not in knowledge, and being puffed up with uncleanness, 
failed to recognize Him. 
CHAP. 21.--TO WHAT EXTENT THE LORD WAS PLEASED TO MAKE HIMSELF KNOWN TO THE 
DEMONS. 
The devils themselves knew this manifestation of God so well, that they said to 
the Lord though clothed with the infirmity of flesh, "What have we to do with 
Thee, Jesus of Nazareth? Art Thou come to destroy us before the time?"(1) From 
these words, it is clear that they had great knowledge, and no charity. They 
feared His power to punish, and did not love His righteousness. He made known to 
them so much as He pleased, and He was pleased to make known so much as was 
needful. But He made Himself known not as to the holy angels, who know Him as 
the Word of God, and rejoice in His eternity, which they partake, but as was 
requisite to strike with terror the beings from whose tyranny He was going to 
free those who were predestined to His kingdom and the glory of it, eternally 
true and truly eternal. He made Himself known, therefore, to the demons, not by 
that which is life eternal, and the unchangeable light which illumines the 
pious, whose souls are cleansed by the faith that is in Him, but by some 
temporal effects of His power, and evidences of His mysterious presence, which 
were more easily discerned by the angelic senses even of wicked spirits than by 
human infirmity. But when He judged it advisable gradually to suppress these 
signs, and to retire into deeper obscurity, the prince of the demons doubted 
whether He were the Christ, and endeavored to ascertain this by tempting Him, in 
so far as He permitted Himself to be tempted, that He might adapt the manhood He 
wore to be an example for our imitation. But after that temptation, when, as 
Scripture says, He was ministered to(2) by the angels who are good and holy, and 
therefore objects of terror to the impure spirits, He revealed more and more 
distinctly to the demons how great He was, so that, even though the infirmity of 
His flesh might seem contemptible, none dared to resist His authority. 
CHAP. 22.--THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOLY ANGELS AND THAT OF 
THE DEMONS. 
The good angels, therefore, hold cheap all that knowledge of material and 
transitory things which the demons are so proud of possessing,--not that they 
are ignorant of these things, but because the love of God, whereby they are 
sanctified, is very dear to them, and because, in comparison of that not merely 
immaterial but also unchangeable and ineffable beauty, with the holy love of 
which they are inflamed, they despise all things which are beneath it, and all 
that is not it, that they may with every good thing that is in them enjoy that 
good which is the source of their goodness. And therefore they have a more 
certain knowledge even of those temporal and mutable things, because they 
contemplate their principles and causes in the word of God, by which the world 
was made,--those causes by which one thing is, approved, another rejected, and 
all arranged. But the demons do not behold in the wisdom of God these eternal, 
and, as it were, cardinal causes of things temporal, but only foresee a larger 
part of the future than men do, by reason of their greater acquaintance with the 
signs which are hidden from us. Sometimes, too, it is their own intentions they 
predict. And, finally, the demons are frequently, the angels never, deceived. 
For it is one thing, by the aid of things temporal and changeable, to conjecture 
the changes that may occur in time, and to modify such things by one's own will 
and faculty,--and this is to a certain extent permitted to the demons,--it is 
another thing to foresee the changes of times in the eternal and immutable laws 
of God, which live in His wisdom, and to know the will of God, the most 
infallible and powerful of all causes, by participating in His spirit; and this 
is granted to the holy angels by a just discretion. And thus they are not only 
eternal, but blessed. And the good wherein they are blessed is God, by whom they 
were created. For without end they enjoy the contemplation and participation of 
Him 
CHAP. 23.--THAT THE NAME OF GODS IS FALSELY GIVEN TO THE GODS OF THE GENTILES, 
THOUGH SCRIPTURE APPLIES IT BOTH TO THE HOLY ANGELS AND JUST MEN. 
If the Platonists prefer to call these angels gods rather than demons, and to 
reckon them with those whom Plato, their founder and master, maintains were 
created by the supreme God,(1) they are welcome to do so, for I will not spend 
strength in fighting about words. For if they say that these beings are 
immortal, and yet created by the supreme God, blessed but by cleaving to their 
Creator and not by their own power, they say what we say, whatever name they 
call these beings by. And that this is the opinion either of all or the best of 
the Platonists can be ascertained by their writings. And regarding the name 
itself, if they see fit to call such blessed and immortal creatures gods, this 
need not give rise to any serious discussion between us, since in our own 
Scriptures we read, "The God of gods, the Lord hath spoken;"(2) and again, 
"Confess to the God of gods;"(3) and again, "He is a great King above all 
gods."(4) And where it is said, "He is to be feared above all gods," the reason 
is forthwith added, for it follows, "for all the gods of the nations are idols, 
but the Lord made the heavens."(5) He said, "above all gods," but added, "of the 
nations;" that is to say, above all those whom the nations count gods, in other 
words, demons. By them He is to be feared with that terror in which they cried 
to the Lord, "Hast Thou come to destroy us?" But where it is said, "the God of 
gods," it cannot be understood as the god of the demons; and far be it from us 
to say that "great King above all gods" means "great King above all demons." But 
the same Scripture also calls men who belong to God's people" gods:" "I have 
said, Ye are gods, and all of you children of the Most High."(6) Accordingly, 
when God is styled God of gods, this may be understood of these gods; and so, 
too, when He is styled a great King above all gods. 
Nevertheless, some one may say, if men are called gods because they belong to 
God's people, whom He addresses by means of men and angels, are not the 
immortals, who already enjoy that felicity which men seek to attain by 
worshipping God, much more worthy of the title? And what shall we reply to this, 
if not that it is not without reason that in holy Scripture men are more 
expressly styled gods than those immortal and blessed spirits to whom we hope to 
be equal in the resurrection, because there was a fear that the weakness of 
unbelief, being overcome with the excellence of these beings, might presume to 
constitute some of them a god? In the case of men this was a result that need 
not be guarded against. Besides, it was right that the men belonging to God's 
people should be more expressly called gods, to assure and certify them that He 
who is called God of gods is their God; because, although those immortal and 
blessed spirits who dwell in the heavens are called gods, yet they are not 
called gods of gods, that is to say, gods of the men who constitute God's 
people, and to whom it is said, "I have said. Ye are gods, and all of you the 
children of the Most High." Hence the saying of the apostle, "Though there be 
that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be gods many and 
lords many, but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, 
and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by 
Him."(7) 
We need not, therefore, laboriously contend about the name, since the reality is 
so obvious as to admit of no shadow of doubt. That which we say, that the angels 
who are sent to announce the will of God to men belong to the order of blessed 
immortals, does not satisfy the Platonists, because they believe that this 
ministry is discharged, not by those whom they call gods, in other words, not by 
blessed immortals, but by demons, whom they dare not affirm to be blessed, but 
only immortal, or if they do rank them among the blessed immortals, yet only as 
good demons, and not as gods who dwell in the heaven of heavens remote from all 
human contact. But, though it may seem mere wrangling about a name, yet the name 
of demon is so detestable that we cannot bear in any sense to apply it to the 
holy angels. Now, therefore, let us close this book in the assurance that, 
whatever we call these immortal and blessed spirits, who yet are only creatures, 
they do not act as mediators to introduce to everlasting felicity miserable 
mortals, from whom they are severed by a twofold distinction. And those others 
who are mediators, in so far as they have immortality in common with their 
superiors, and misery in common with their inferiors (for they are justly 
miserable in punishment of their wickedness), cannot bestow upon us, but rather 
grudge that we should possess, the blessedness from which they themselves are 
excluded. And so the friends of the demons have nothing considerable to allege 
why we should rather worship them as our helpers than avoid them as traitors to 
our interests. As for those spirits who are good, and who are therefore not only 
immortal but also blessed, and to whom they suppose we, should give the title of 
gods, and offer worship and sacrifices for the sake of inheriting a future life, 
we shall, by God's help, endeavor in the following book to show that these 
spirits, call them by what name, and ascribe to them what nature you will, 
desire that religious worship be paid to God alone, by whom they were created, 
and by whose communications of Himself to them they are blessed.