Chapter XXII.

And we affirm indeed the existence of certain spiritual essences; nor is their name unfamiliar. The philosophers acknowledge there are demons; Socrates himself waiting on a demon’s will. Why not? since it is said an evil spirit attached itself specially to him even from his childhood—turning his mind no doubt from what was good. The poets are all acquainted with demons too; even the ignorant common people make frequent use of them in cursing. In fact, they call upon Satan, the demon-chief, in their execrations, as though from some instinctive soul-knowledge of him. Plato also admits the existence of angels. The dealers in magic, no less, come forward as witnesses to the existence of both kinds of spirits. We are instructed, moreover, by our sacred books how from certain angels, who fell of their own free-will, there sprang a more wicked demon-brood, condemned of God along with the authors of their race, and that chief we have referred to. It will for the present be enough, however, that some account is given of their work.  Their great business is the ruin of mankind. So, from the very first, spiritual wickedness sought our destruction. They inflict, accordingly, upon our bodies diseases and other grievous calamities, while by violent assaults they hurry the soul into sudden and extraordinary excesses. Their marvellous subtleness and tenuity give them access to both parts of our nature. As spiritual, they can do no harm; for, invisible and intangible, we are not cognizant of their action save by its effects, as when some inexplicable, unseen poison in the breeze blights the apples and the grain while in the flower, or kills them in the bud, or destroys them when they have reached maturity; as though by the tainted atmosphere in some unknown way spreading abroad its pestilential exhalations. So, too, by an influence equally obscure, demons and angels breathe into the soul, and rouse up its corruptions with furious passions and vile excesses; or with cruel lusts accompanied by various errors, of which the worst is that by which these deities are commended to the favour of deceived and deluded human beings, that they may get their proper food of flesh-fumes and blood when that is offered up to idol-images. What is daintier food to the spirit of evil, than turning men’s minds away from the true God by the illusions of a false divination? And here I explain how these illusions are managed. Every spirit is possessed of wings. This is a common property of both angels and demons. So they are everywhere in a single moment; the whole world is as one place to them; all that is done over the whole extent of it, it is as easy for them to know as to report. Their swiftness of motion is taken for divinity, because their nature is unknown. Thus they would have themselves thought sometimes the authors of the things which they announce; and sometimes, no doubt, the bad things are their doing, never the good. The purposes of God, too, they took up of old from the lips of the prophets, even as they spoke them; and they gather them still from their works, when they hear them read aloud. Thus getting, too, from this source some intimations of the future, they set themselves up as rivals of the true God, while they steal His divinations.  But the skill with which their responses are shaped to meet events, your Crœsi and Pyrrhi know too well. On the other hand, it was in that way we have explained, the Pythian was able to declare that they were cooking a tortoise33    Herodotus, I. 47. [See Wilberforce’s Five Empires, p. 67.] with the flesh of a lamb; in a moment he had been to Lydia. From dwelling in the air, and their nearness to the stars, and their commerce with the clouds, they have means of knowing the preparatory processes going on in these upper regions, and thus can give promise of the rains which they already feel.  Very kind too, no doubt, they are in regard to the healing of diseases. For, first of all, they make you ill; then, to get a miracle out of it, they command the application of remedies either altogether new, or contrary to those in use, and straightway withdrawing hurtful influence, they are supposed to have wrought a cure. What need, then, to speak of their other artifices, or yet further of the deceptive power which they have as spirits: of these Castor apparitions,34    [Castor and Pollux. Imitated in saint worship.] of water carried by a sieve, and a ship drawn along by a girdle, and a beard reddened by a touch, all done with the one object of showing that men should believe in the deity of stones, and not seek after the only true God?

CAPUT XXII.

Atque adeo dicimus, esse substantias quasdam 0405A spiritales; nec nomen novum est. Sciunt daemonas Philosophi, Socrate ipso ad daemonii arbitrium exspectante. Quidni? cum et ipsi daemonium adhaesisse a pueritia dicatur, dehortatorium plane a bono . Daemonas sciunt Poetae, etiam vulgus indoctum in usum maledicti frequentat, nam et Satanam , principem hujus mali generis, proinde de propria conscientia animae, eadem execramenti voce pronuntiat . Angelos quoque etiam Plato non negavit, Utriusque nominis testes vel magi asserunt . Sed quomodo de angelis quibusdam sua sponte corruptis corruptior gens daemonum evaserit damnata a Deo cum generis auctoribus, et cum eo quem diximus principe , apud litteras sanctas ordine cognoscitur . Nunc de operatione eorum satis 0405B erit exponere. Operatio eorum est hominis eversio: 0406A sic malitia spiritalis a primordio auspicata est in hominis exitium. Itaque corporibus quidem, et valetudines infligunt , et aliquos casus acerbos, animae vero repentinos et extraordinarios per vim excessus. Suppetit illis ad utramque substantiam hominis adeundam mira subtilitas et tenuitas sua. Multum spiritalibus viribus licet, ut invisibiles et insensibiles in effectu potius quam in actu suo appareant: si poma, si fruges nescio quod aurae latens vitium in flore praecipitat, in germine exanimat, in pubertate convulnerat, ac si caeca ratione tentatus aër pestilentes haustus suos offundit: eadem igitur obscuritate contagionis aspiratio daemonum et angelorum mentis quoque corruptelas agit furoribus et amentiis foedis, aut saevis libidinibus cum erroribus variis; quorum 0406B iste potissimus, quo deos istos captis et circumscriptis 0407A hominum mentibus commendat, ut et sibi pabula propria nidoris et sanguinis procuret simulacris et imaginibus oblata, et quae illis accuratior pascua est, hominem a cogitatu verae divinitatis avertant praestigiis falsae divinationis . Quas et ipsas quomodo operentur, expediam. Omnis spiritus ales est. hoc angeli et daemones. Igitur momento ubique sunt: totus orbis illis locus unus est ; quid ubique geratur, tam facile sciunt , quam enuntiant . Velocitas 0408A divinitas creditur, quia substantia ignoratur. Sic et auctores interdum videri volunt eorum quae annuntiant: et sunt plane malorum nonnunquam, bonorum tamen nunquam. Dispositiones etiam Dei, et tunc prophetis concionantibus exceperunt , et nunc lectionibus resonantibus carpunt. Ita et hinc sumentes quasdam temporum sortes, aemulantur divinitatem dum furantur divinationem . In oraculis autem quo ingenio ambiguitates temperent in eventus , sciunt Croesi, 0409A sciunt Pyrrhi. Caeterum testudinem decoqui cum carnibus pecudis Pythius eo modo renuntiavit, quo supra diximus; momento apud Lydiam fuerat . Habent de incolatu aeris et de vicinia siderum et de commercio nubium coelestes sapere paraturas, ut et pluvias, quas jam sentiunt, repromittant. Venefici plane et circa curas valetudinum. Laedunt enim primo , dehinc remedia praecipiunt ad miraculum nova, sive contraria, post quae desinunt laedere , et curasse creduntur. Quid ergo de caeteris ingeniis vel etiam viribus fallaciae spiritalis edisseram, phantasmata Castorum, et aquam cribro gestatam, et navem 0410A cingulo promotam , et barbam tactu irrufatam , ut numina lapides crederentur, et Deus verus non quaereretur ?