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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 admon ished 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.
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