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SOME have advanced the opinion that there are both good and bad
gods; but some, thinking more respectfully of the gods, have
attributed to them so much honor and praise as to preclude the
supposition of any god being wicked. But those who have maintained
that there are wicked gods as well as good ones have included the demons
under the name "gods," and sometimes though more rarely, have called
the gods demons; so that they admit that Jupiter, whom they make the
king and head of all the rest, is called a demon by Homer. Those,
on the other hand, who maintain that the gods are all good, and far
more excellent than the men who are justly called good, are moved by
the actions of the demons, which they can neither deny nor impute to
the gods whose goodness they affirm, to distinguish between gods and
demons; so that, whenever they find anything offensive in the deeds or
sentiments by which unseen spirits manifest their power, they believe
this to proceed not from the gods, but from the demons. At the same
time they believe that, as no god can hold direct intercourse with
men, these demons hold the position of mediators, ascending with
prayers, and returning with gifts. This is the opinion of the
Platonists, the ablest and most esteemed of their philosophers, with
whom we therefore chose to debate this question, whether the worship of
a number of gods is of any service toward obtaining blessedness in the
future life. And this is the reason why, in the preceding book, we
have inquired how the demons, who take pleasure in such things as good
and wise men loathe and execrate, in the sacrilegious and immoral
fictions which the poets have written not of men, but of the gods
themselves, and in the wicked and criminal violence of magical arts,
can be regarded as more nearly related and more friendly to the gods
than men are, and can mediate between good men and the good gods; and
it has been demonstrated that this is absolutely impossible.
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