Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 33

XII. ON THE DIVINATION OF DEMONS. On a certain day, in the holy days of the octaves, when in the morning many lay Christian brethren had been present with me, and we had sat down together in the accustomed place, a discourse arose concerning the Christian religion against the presumption and, as it were, the marvellous and great knowledge of the pagans; which discourse, recollected and completed, I thought should be committed to writing, without expressing the persons of those who contradicted, although they were Christians and seemed to be inquiring rather by way of contradiction what ought to be answered to the pagans.

When, therefore, inquiry was made concerning the divination of demons, and it was affirmed that some one — I know not who — had foretold the overthrow of the temple of Serapis, which took place at Alexandria, I replied that it was not to be wondered at if the demons both could know and foretell that this overthrow was impending over their temples and images, just as they know and foretell many other things, in so far as it is permitted them to know and announce beforehand. And when it was put to me: Are not divinations of this kind, then, evil, nor displeasing to God — for otherwise the Almighty and just God would not permit these things to happen, if they were evil and unjust — I replied that these things ought not to seem just for the reason that the most almighty and most just God permits them to happen;

for many other things too most manifestly happen unjustly, such as murders, adulteries, thefts, robberies, and the rest of this kind: which, although without doubt they displease the just God in that they are unjust, nevertheless that same Almighty permits them to happen by a certain reason of His judgment — not indeed with impunity, but unto the condemnation of those by whom are done the things that displease the just God. And when, on the contrary, it was said that it was not indeed to be doubted that God is Almighty and just, but that these human sins, which were done against the society of men, He did not care about, while they were being done — and that for this reason they could happen, which assuredly could not happen if the Almighty had not permitted them;

but that those things which pertain to the very worship of religion are by no means to be believed to be despised by Him, and that consequently they could not have happened unless they had pleased Him, and that therefore they ought not to be thought evil — to this also I replied: Now, then, they displease Him, when the temples and images are overthrown, and those sacrifices of the nations, if they have been performed, are punished. For just as it is said that they could not have happened unless they had pleased God, and therefore are to be thought good, since they please the just One, so it can be said that they could not have been prohibited, overthrown, punished, unless they displeased God;

and consequently, if they were then rightly done, because they were thereby shown to please the just God, in that they were suffered by Him to be done, then now they are done wickedly, because they are thereby shown to displease God, in that He either commands or permits them to be overthrown. Against this it was said that these things are indeed now unjust, yet not evil; and that they are unjust for this reason, because they are done against the laws by which they are prohibited, but that they are not evil for this reason, because, if they were evil, they would surely never have pleased God; and further, if they had never pleased Him, they would never have been done, He not permitting it who can do all things and who would not despise such things — since they are so great as to be done against religion itself, by which God is worshipped, if they were done wickedly.

Here I said: If for this reason they are not evil, because they are thereby proved to please God, in that the Almighty suffers them to be done, how will that be good which they are prohibited from doing and are overthrown? But if it is not good, that things which please God are overthrown, the Almighty would not suffer this to be done, because this too is done against the religion by which God is worshipped, if the things that please God are overthrown by men. But if the Almighty permits this, though it be done wickedly, those things are not therefore to be thought good, because the Almighty permitted them to be done. It was said, on the contrary, that it must be conceded that these things are now not rightly done — nay rather, that they are for this very reason now not done at all, because they now displease the Almighty — but nevertheless that they had pleased Him when they were done;

for we do not know whence they then pleased Him, nor now whence they displease Him — provided only it be certain both that they could not have been done then, unless they had pleased the Almighty, and that they have not now ceased, unless they had displeased the Almighty. To this I said: Why, then, are such things even now done secretly, which either lie hidden perpetually or, when detected, are punished, if the Almighty suffers none of these things to be done save what pleases Him as the just One — since to the just One that which is unjust cannot be pleasing? Against this it was said that such things are now not done at all. For those sacred rites, he said, are not performed which are prescribed in the pontifical books; those indeed were then rightly done, they were then shown to please God by this very thing, that they were suffered to be done by the Almighty and just One;

but if now anything of the prohibited sacrifices is done secretly and unlawfully, it is not to be compared with that pontifical kind of sacrifices, but to be reckoned in the same class as that which is done even at nighttime, since it is certain that all these are forbidden and condemned as unlawful by the very pontifical books. Here I replied: Why, then, does God permit even such things to be done, if He despises none of those evil deeds which are done against religion — especially since even those who greatly esteem the pontifical books are compelled hereby to grant that He cares about these matters, in that they assert that the things which are prohibited by these books are prohibited assuredly by divine authority?

How, then, are these things divinely forbidden, unless because they are displeasing to God — who indeed shows, by forbidding them, not only that they displease Him, but also that He takes care about them and by no means holds them in contempt? From this it is gathered that God, being just, disapproves of something and yet, being almighty, permits it. When these things had been said, it was granted that we must not therefore suppose that anything is done justly and rightly merely because God, though He takes care to forbid such things, nevertheless allows them to be done; and it must be confessed that even those evils which are done against the religion whereby God is worshipped both displease God the just, and by the reason of His judgment are permitted by the Almighty. But now another matter must be treated: namely, from whence come the divinations, whether of demons or of whatever those beings may be whom the pagans call gods.

For it must be considered lest perchance these things be thought good, not indeed because the Almighty permits them to be done, but rather because they are so great that they seem attributable to none but the power of God. I promised that I would afterward answer this, since at that time the hour of going forth to the people was already pressing us; nor did I defer it, when space was granted for writing both to unravel the former points and to weave in these. Such is the nature of the demons that, by the sense of their aerial body, they easily surpass the sense of earthly bodies; and in swiftness too, on account of the greater mobility of that same aerial body, they incomparably outstrip not only the running of any men or beasts whatsoever, but even the flight of birds.

Endowed with these two things — as far as pertains to the aerial body, namely keenness of sense and swiftness of motion — they foretell or announce things known long beforehand, which men, on account of the slowness of their earthly sense, marvel at. There has also accrued to the demons, through so long a span of time as their life is prolonged, a far greater experience of things than can come to men because of the brevity of life. Through these powers, which the nature of the aerial body has obtained by lot, the demons not only foretell many future things, but even do many wonders.

Since men can neither say nor do such things, certain people, chiefly under the goading of the vice of curiosity and out of love for a false felicity and earthly, temporal preeminence, judge the demons worthy of being served and of having divine honors paid to them. But those who cleanse themselves from these lusts, and do not allow themselves to be carried and swept along by them, but seek and love something which in the same way ever remains, by participation in which they may be blessed — such men first of all consider that the demons are not to be preferred to themselves merely because they excel in a keener sense of body, namely of an aerial, that is, a more subtle element; since not even among earthly bodies do they think that the beasts, which keenly perceive many things beforehand, are to be preferred to them.

Take, for instance, a keen-scented hound, which by its most acute sense of smell so finds out a lurking wild beast that it affords man a kind of guidance for capturing it — not, to be sure, by any more prudent understanding of mind, but by a sharper sense of body; or the vulture, which flies from an unforeseen distance to a carcass that has been cast out; nor the eagle, which, flying aloft, is said to descry from so great an interval a fish swimming beneath the waves, and, striking heavily upon the water with feet and talons extended, to seize it; nor the many other kinds of living creatures which, while grazing, wander about among herbs harmful to their safety and touch none of those things by which they might be injured, whereas man has scarcely learned by experiment to beware of them and dreads many harmless things because they are untried.

From this it is easy to infer how much keener the sense can be in aerial bodies. Yet not on that account would any prudent person judge that the demons, who are endowed with it, ought to be preferred to good men. And I would say the same of swiftness of body. For by this excellence too men are so surpassed not only by winged creatures, but even by many four-footed beasts, that in comparison with them they must be reckoned as leaden; and yet men do not therefore think that these kinds of living creatures are to be preferred to themselves — creatures which, for capturing, taming, and reducing to the use and advantage of their own will, they command not by force of body, but of reason.

But that third power of the demons — that from the long experience of things they have learned to foreknow and foretell many matters — is likewise held in contempt by those who watchfully take care to distinguish these things from the truth of the most true Light. For just as they do not judge that wicked old men, who have experienced more and are on that account as it were more learned, therefore excel upright youths, so neither do they think that physicians, sailors, or farmers, whom they see to be of depraved will and iniquitous character, are on that account to be preferred to themselves, merely because those men foretell so much about states of health, these about storms, and these about the various kinds of trees and their fruits, that to one inexperienced in these matters they seem to divine.

But as to the fact that certain demons not only foretell some future things, but also do certain marvels — by virtue, of course, of the very excellence of their body — why should this not be held in contempt by the prudent, when very many wicked and abandoned men so exercise their bodies and are capable of so much by diverse arts, that those who do not know these arts and have never at any time seen them, scarcely believe them even when they are recounted? How many marvels have rope-dancers and other theatrical performers done, how many the craftsmen, and above all the mechanics? Are they on that account better than good men endowed with holy piety?

I have mentioned these things so that whoever considers them without obstinacy and without a vain, contentious spirit of resistance may at the same time reflect thus: if, from the underlying grosser matter — whether of each man's own body, or of earth and water, of stones and wood and various metals — certain men are capable of so much that those who cannot do these things, being often struck with amazement, call them divine in comparison with themselves (although some of those are more powerful in arts, and some of these are better in morals), how much greater and more wonderful things can the demons do, by the faculty and facility of their most subtle, that is, aerial body — and yet they are, by the depravity of their will, and above all by the arrogance of pride and the malice of envy, unclean and perverse spirits!

But how great is the power of the element of air, by which their bodies excel, to contrive, move, change, and turn about invisibly many visible things, it would take long to demonstrate now; and I think that even to one who considers it but moderately it readily occurs. Since these things are so, first of all it must be known — seeing that the question is about the divination of demons — that they for the most part foretell those things which they themselves are about to do. For they often receive power both to send diseases and, by corrupting the very air, to render it pestilential, and to persuade to evil deeds the perverse and lovers of earthly advantages, of whose characters they are certain that such men will consent to them when they suggest such things.

They persuade, moreover, by wondrous and invisible means, through that subtlety of their bodies, penetrating the bodies of men who do not perceive it, and mingling themselves with their thoughts by means of certain imaginary visions, whether of those awake or of those asleep. Sometimes, however, they foretell beforehand not the things which they themselves do, but the things which they foreknow to be future by natural signs — signs which cannot come into the perception of men. For not because the physician foresees what one ignorant of his art does not foresee is he therefore to be held as a diviner.

But what wonder is it if, just as the physician, in the disturbed or moderated temperament of the human body, foresees future states of health, whether good or bad, so the demon, in the disposition and ordering of the air — known to him but unknown to us — foresees future storms? Sometimes too they most readily learn the dispositions of men, not only those uttered by the voice, but also those conceived in thought, when certain signs from the mind are expressed in the body; and from this too they foretell many future things, marvelous, of course, to others who have not perceived these dispositions arranged within.

For just as a more agitated motion of the mind appears in the countenance, so that even by men something outward is recognized of what is being done within, so it ought not to be incredible if even gentler thoughts give certain signs through the body which cannot be recognized by the dull sense of men, but can be by the acute sense of demons. By this and the like faculty the demons foretell many future things, although far removed from them is the loftiness of that prophecy which God works through the holy angels and the prophets. For if they foretell anything of that disposition of God, they hear it in order to foretell it; and when they announce those things which they hear thence, they neither deceive nor are deceived — for the angelic and prophetic oracles are most truthful.

But it is taken with such indignation that the demons hear and foretell even some such things, as though it were something unworthy that what is said in order that it may become known to men should be uttered not only by the good, but even by the wicked. Whereas among men themselves we see even the precepts of a good life sung alike by the just and the perverse, and this does no harm — nay, it even profits toward a greater knowledge and renown of the truth — when even those declare of it whatever they know who by their perverse ways contradict it. But in their other predictions the demons are for the most part both deceived and deceive. They are deceived, indeed, because, when they foretell their own dispositions, something is unexpectedly commanded from above which throws all their plans into confusion.

It is as if any men whatsoever, subject to certain authorities, should plan something which they suppose their superiors will not forbid, and should promise that they will do it, but those in whose hands the greater power lies should, out of another higher counsel, suddenly forbid the whole thing that has been planned and prepared. They are deceived also in natural causes — even as physicians and sailors and farmers, but far more acutely and far more excellently they foreknow, by the more skilled and more practiced sense of their aerial body — because these things too are unexpectedly and suddenly changed by the angels who piously serve the most high God, out of another disposition unknown to the demons.

It is as though something should befall a sick man from without, whereby he dies, though the physician, by preceding signs of true recovery, had promised that he would live; or as if, the quality of the air being foreseen, some of the sailors had foretold that a certain wind would blow long — the wind which the Lord Christ, sailing with His disciples, commanded to be still, and there came a great calm; or as if a farmer should promise that a certain vine would bear fruit that year, being of course well versed in the nature of the soil and the number of the seeds, yet in that very year an unforeseen inclemency of the sky should wither it, or the command of one more powerful should uproot it.

So too many things pertaining to the foreknowledge and prediction of the demons, which are foreseen as future by lesser and more usual causes, are hindered and changed by these same greater and more hidden causes. Moreover, they also deceive out of an eagerness for deceiving and out of an envious will, whereby they rejoice at the error of men. But lest among their own worshippers they lose the weight of their authority, they contrive that the blame be laid upon their interpreters and the conjecturers of their signs, whenever they have been either mistaken or lying. What wonder, then, is it if, when the overthrow of the temples and idols was now impending — which the prophets of the most high God had foretold so long before — the demon Serapis betrayed this beforehand, close at hand, to one of his worshippers, so that, withdrawing or fleeing, he might commend as it were his own divinity?

For these beings are put to flight, or even, bound by higher commands, are dragged away and estranged from their places, so that concerning the things over which they held sway and by which they were worshipped, the will of God may be done — God, who so long before foretold that this would come to pass among all nations, and commanded that it should be done through His faithful ones. But why should the demon not be permitted to foretell this, when it now foreknew that this was impending against itself, since this prediction both bore witness to the prophets, by whom these things were written, and gave the prudent to understand how watchfully the deceit of the demons was to be guarded against and their worship to be fled?

For these beings, when through so long a time they had kept silence in their temples about these future things — which, foretold through the prophets, they could not be ignorant of — after they had begun to draw near, wished as it were to predict them, lest they be thought ignorant and vanquished. Since therefore it had been foretold and written so long before — to pass over other matters for the moment — that which the prophet Zephaniah says:

'The Lord shall prevail against them, and shall utterly destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth; and each one shall worship Him from his own place, all the islands of the nations' — either those who were worshipped in the temples of the nations did not believe that these things would befall them, and therefore were unwilling to have them proclaimed frequently through their seers and fanatics (just as their poet brings in Juno not altogether believing what Jupiter had said about the death of Turnus — Juno, who by these people is proclaimed an aerial power, who in Virgil thus speaks: 'Now a heavy end awaits the guiltless one, or I am borne along by empty semblances of truth. Oh, that I may rather be mocked by a false fear, and that thou, who hast the power, mayest bend thy undertakings to the better!')

— either, then, the demons, that is, the aerial powers, doubted whether these things, which they knew to have been foretold through the prophets, could befall them, and on that account were unwilling to celebrate the proclamation of them (and from this it must be understood what sort of beings they are); or else, since they knew most certainly that those things would come, they therefore kept silence in their temples, lest even then they should begin to be forsaken and despised by understanding men, because they would be bearing witness to those prophets, concerning the future overthrow of their temples and idols, who forbade that they be worshipped. But now, after the time has come in which the prophecies were being fulfilled of the one God of the prophets, who calls these false gods, and —

— most vehemently commands that they be not worshipped: why should not they themselves be permitted to foretell this too as accomplished, whereby it might appear more clearly that they had previously either not at all believed these things, or feared to declare them to their worshippers; but in the end, as though having nothing further that they might do, they wished to display their divination even there, where they are now shown to have long dissembled a divinity?

But as to what the rest of their worshippers say — that these things were foreknown and are contained in certain of their own books — although these must be thought fabricated from things already fulfilled (for if they were true, they ought to have become known so long beforehand to their peoples in their temples, just as our writings are recited, most ancient and most well known, not only in our churches, but even — what avails as a graver testimony against all enemies — in the synagogues of the Jews):

— nevertheless not even these very things, which are brought forth by them only rarely and in secret, ought to move us, if it has been extorted from some demon to betray to its worshippers what it had learned from the utterances of the prophets or from the oracles of the angels; for why should this not happen, since this too is not an assault upon, but an attestation of, the truth? For that one thing which alone is to be demanded of them they have never brought forth before, nor will they ever afterward attempt to bring forth, except perhaps in fabricated form: namely, that their gods, through their seers, ever dared to foretell or to say anything against the God of Israel — concerning whom their most learned authors, who could read and know all those writings, rather inquired who that God might be, than could deny that God.

Furthermore, this God, whom none of them dared to deny to be the true God — who, even if one had denied Him, would not only lie subject to the due penalties, but would also be convicted by certain effects: this God, then, whom no one of them, as I have said, dared to deny to be the true God, foretold by open declaration through His seers, that is, the prophets, that those were false gods and utterly to be forsaken, and that their temples and idols were to be overthrown; commanded it by open power; and fulfilled it by open truth. Whence who would be so foolish as not rather to choose to worship Him whom those gods, which he was worshipping, do not forbid to be worshipped? And when he has begun to worship Him, he assuredly will not be about to worship those whom the One he worships forbids to be worshipped.

But that the very nations would become worshippers, once the false gods whom they formerly worshipped had been exterminated, I mentioned a little before to have been foretold by His prophets, and now I repeat it. 'The Lord,' He says, 'shall prevail against them, and shall utterly destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth; and each one shall worship Him from his own place, all the islands of the nations.' And not the islands alone, but so all the nations, that even all the islands of the nations should worship — since elsewhere He names not the islands, but the whole circle of the lands, saying: 'All the ends of the earth shall be reminded and shall be converted to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship in His sight; for the kingdom is the Lord's, and He shall have dominion over the nations.'

But that these things were to be fulfilled through Christ appears sufficiently both by many other testimonies and in that very psalm from which I have quoted this. For when, a little before, He Himself was speaking through the prophet of His future passion, saying: 'They have pierced my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones; but they themselves have looked and gazed upon me. They have divided my garments among them, and upon my vesture they have cast lots,' a little after He adds that which I have set down: 'All the ends of the earth shall be reminded and shall be converted to the Lord,' and the rest. Although that testimony too, which I first adduced, where it is said:

'The Lord shall prevail against them, and shall utterly destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth' — in the fact that it is set down 'shall prevail,' it is sufficiently shown that this too was foretold: that the pagans would first assault the Church and the Christian name, and persecute it as far as they were able, so that, if it could be done, it might be utterly wiped off the earth. And because He was going to overcome them by the patience of the martyrs, by the greatness of miracles, and by the ensuing faith of the peoples, therefore it was thus said: 'The Lord shall prevail against them.' For it would not be said 'shall prevail against them,' unless they were to resist by assaulting. Whence also in the psalm it is thus prophesied: 'Why have the nations raged, and the peoples imagined vain things?'

'The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers took counsel together, against the Lord and against His Christ.' And a little after it says: 'The Lord said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and for thy possession the ends of the earth.' Behold whence it was said, also in another psalm which I interposed above: 'All the ends of the earth shall be reminded and shall be converted to the Lord.'

By these and suchlike prophetic documents it is shown to have been foretold, what we see fulfilled through Christ, that the God of Israel, whom we understand to be the one true God, would be worshipped not in that one nation alone which was called Israel, but among all nations, and would remove all the false gods of the nations both from their temples and from the hearts of their worshippers. Let these men now go and still dare to keep defending against the Christian religion, against the true worship of God, their former vanities — so that they may perish with an uproar. For this too was foretold of them in the Psalms, the prophet saying: 'Thou hast sat upon the throne, Thou who judgest righteousness. Thou hast rebuked the nations, and the impious one has perished; Thou hast blotted out their name for ever and ever.'

'The enemy's swords have failed unto the end, and Thou hast destroyed their cities; their memory has perished with an uproar. And the Lord abideth for ever.' It is necessary, therefore, that all these things be fulfilled; nor ought we to be moved that those few who still remain yet dare to parade their vain-talking doctrines and to mock the Christians as most ignorant, while we see fulfilled in them the very things that were foretold. For that very foolishness, as it were, of the ignorance of Christians, which to the humble and holy and to those diligently devoted to Him appears the lofty and only true wisdom — that same, I say, seeming foolishness of Christians reduces them to this fewness, since, as the Apostle says, 'God hath made foolish the wisdom of this world.'

Then he subjoins a matter wonderful, if anyone understand it, and thus continues: 'For seeing that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe; since indeed the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, but to the Gentiles foolishness; but to those very ones who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God; because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.' Let them therefore mock, as much as they can, our supposed ignorance and foolishness, and let them boast of their doctrine and their wisdom.

This I know, that these mockers of ours are fewer this year than they were the year before. For from the time when 'the nations raged and the peoples imagined vain things' against the Lord and against His Christ — when by them the blood of the saints was being shed and the Church laid waste — up to this present time and henceforth, they are daily diminished. But us, against their reproaches and proud mockeries, the oracles of our God render most steadfast — oracles which we see and rejoice to be fulfilled in this matter also. For thus speaks the prophet: 'Hearken unto me, ye who know judgment, my people, in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, and be not overcome by their detraction, nor count it a great thing that they despise you.'

'For like a garment shall they be consumed by time, and like wool shall they be eaten by the moth; but my righteousness abideth for ever.' Let them, however, read these our writings, if they deign to. When their contradictions reach us, we shall answer, as far as the Lord aids us. Passages of the book of Retractations. On the divination of demons, p. 608, 3-5. Retractations II 30. But in a certain passage of it, where I said that the demons sometimes learn with all facility the dispositions of men, not only those uttered by the voice, but even those conceived in thought, when certain signs from the mind are expressed in the body, I stated a most hidden matter with bolder assertion than I ought. For it has been ascertained, even by some experiments, that these things do come to the knowledge of the demons;

but whether certain signs are given forth from the bodies of those thinking, signs perceptible to them but hidden from us, or whether they know these things by some other and that a spiritual power, either can only with the greatest difficulty be found out by men, or cannot be found out at all.