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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.
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