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This book, then, ought, according to the promise made in the end of
the preceding one, to contain a discussion, not of the difference
which exists among the gods, who, according to the Platonists, are
all good, nor of the difference between gods and demons, the former of
whom they separate by a wide interval from men, while the latter are
placed intermediately between the gods and men, but of the difference,
since they make one, among the demons themselves. This we shall
discuss so far as it bears on our theme. It has been the common and
usual belief that some of the demons are bad, others good; and this
opinon, whether it be that of the Platonists or any other sect, must
by no means be passed over in silence, lest some one suppose he ought
to cultivate the good demons in order that by their mediation he may be
accepted by the gods, all of whom he believes to be good, and that he
may live with them after death; whereas he would thus be ensnared in
the toils of wicked spirits, and would wander far from the true God,
with whom alone, and in whom alone, the human soul, that is to say,
the soul that is rational and intellectual, is blessed.
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