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Deferring for the present the question about the holy angels, let us
examine the opinion of the Platonists, that the demons who mediate
between gods and men are agitated by passions. For if their mind,
though exposed to their incursion, still remained free and superior to
them, Apuleius could not have said that their hearts are tossed with
passions as the sea by stormy winds. Their mind, then, that superior
part of their soul whereby they are rational beings, and which, if it
actually exists in them, should rule and bridle the turbulent passions
of the inferior parts of the soul, this mind of theirs, I say, is,
according to the Platonist referred to, tossed with a hurricane of
passions. The mind of the demons, therefore, is subject to the
emotions of fear, anger, lust, and all similar affections. What
part of them, then, is free, and endued with wisdom, so that they
are pleasing to the gods, and the fit guides of men into purity of
life, since their very highest part, being the slave of passion and
subject to vice, only makes them more intent on deceiving and
seducing, in proportion to the mental force and energy of desire they
possess?
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