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That opinion, which the same Platonist avers that Plato uttered, is
not true, "that no god holds intercourse with men." 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," 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.
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