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But here we have another and a much more learned Platonist than
Apuleius, Porphyry, to wit, asserting that, by I know not what
theurgy, even the gods themselves are subjected to passions and
perturbations; for by adjurations they were so bound and terrified that
they could not confer purity of soul, were so terrified by him who
imposed on them a wicked command, that they could not by the same
theurgy be freed from that terror, and fulfill the righteous behest of
him who prayed to them, or do the good he sought. Who does not see
that all these things are fictions of deceiving demons, unless he be a
wretched slave of theirs, and an alien from the grace of the true
Liberator? For if the Chaldaean had been dealing with good gods,
certainly a well-disposed man, who sought to purify his own soul,
would have had more influence with them than an evil-disposed man
seeking to hinder him. Or, if the gods were just, and considered the
man unworthy of the purification he sought, at all events they should
not have been terrified by an envious person, nor hindered, as
Porphyry avows, by the fear of a stronger deity, but should have
simply denied the boon on their own free judgment. And it is
surprising that that well-disposed Chaldaean, who desired to purify
his soul by theurgical rites, found no superior deity who could either
terrify the frightened gods still more, and force them to confer the
boon, or compose their fears, and so enable them to do good without
compulsion, even supposing that the good theurgist had no rites by
which he himself might purge away the taint of fear from the gods whom
he invoked for the purification of his own soul. And why is it that
there is a god who has power to terrify the inferior gods, and none who
has power to free them from fear? Is there found a god who listens to
the envious man, and frightens the gods from doing good? and is there
not found a god who listens to the well-disposed man, and removes the
fear of the gods that they may do him good? O excellent theurgy! O
admirable purification of the soul!, a theurgy in which the violence
of an impure envy has more influence than the entreaty of purity and
holiness. Rather let us abominate and avoid the deceit of such wicked
spirits, and listen to sound doctrine. As to those who perform these
filthy cleansings by sacrilegious rites, and see in their initiated
state (as he further tells us, though we may question this vision)
certain wonderfully lovely appearances of angels or gods, this is what
the apostle refers to when he speaks of "Satan transforming himself
into an angel of light." For these are the delusive appearances of
that spirit who longs to entangle wretched souls in the deceptive
worship of many and false gods, and to turn them aside from the true
worship of the true God, by whom alone they are cleansed and healed,
and who, as was said of Proteus, "turns himself into all shapes,"
equally hurtful, whether he assaults us as an enemy, or assumes the
disguise of a friend.
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