Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 9

[I] Now we have need of a mind more intent by far than was required in the resolution of the foregoing questions and the explanation of the earlier books. For concerning the theology which they call natural, the discussion is to be held, not with any and every sort of men (for it is not the fabulous or the civil — that is, either the theatrical or the urban; of which the one flaunts the crimes of the gods, the other discloses the still more criminal desires of the gods, and through this shows them to belong to malignant demons rather than to gods) — but with the philosophers, whose very name, if we interpret it in Latin, professes the love of wisdom. And further, if wisdom is God, through whom all things were made, as the divine authority and truth has shown, then the true philosopher is a lover of God.

But since the very thing of which this is the name is not present in all who glory in this name (for not all who are called philosophers are forthwith lovers of true wisdom), assuredly out of all those whose opinions we have been able to know through their writings, there are to be chosen those with whom this question may not unworthily be treated. For in this work I have not undertaken to refute all the vain opinions of all the philosophers, but only those which pertain to theology — by which Greek word we understand to be signified reasoning or discourse concerning divinity;

and not the opinions of all such men, but only of those who, while they agree both that there is a divinity and that it cares for human affairs, nevertheless hold that the worship of the one unchangeable God does not suffice for attaining a life blessed even after death, but think that many gods, founded and established by that one God indeed, are to be worshipped for that reason. These already surpass even the opinion of Varro by their nearness to the truth;

for while he was able to extend the whole of natural theology only as far as this world or its soul, these men confess a God above every nature of soul — a God who made not only this visible world, which is often called by the name of heaven and earth, but also absolutely every soul; and who, by participation in His own unchangeable and incorporeal light, makes blessed the rational and intellectual soul, of which kind the human soul is. That these philosophers were called Platonists, from Plato their teacher, by a name derived from him, no one is ignorant who has heard even slightly of these matters.

Concerning this Plato, then, I shall briefly touch on what I judge necessary to the present question, first mentioning those who preceded him in the same kind of literature in point of time. [II] For as far as concerns Greek letters — a language held to be more illustrious among the rest of the nations — two kinds of philosophers are handed down: the one Italic, from that part of Italy which was once called Magna Graecia; the other Ionic, in those lands where even now it is named Greece. The Italic kind had as its founder Pythagoras of Samos, from whom they say the very name of philosophy also arose. For whereas before this, those were called 'sages' who seemed to excel others by a certain praiseworthy manner of life;

this man, being asked what he professed, answered that he was a philosopher — that is, a student or lover of wisdom; since to profess oneself wise seemed most arrogant. The prince of the Ionic kind, however, was Thales of Miletus, one of those seven who were called sages. But those six were distinguished by their manner of life and by certain precepts adapted to living well; whereas this Thales, that he might also propagate successors, examined the nature of things and, committing his disputations to writing, became eminent and stood out as most admirable, in that, having grasped the calculations of astronomy, he was able even to foretell eclipses of the sun and moon.

Yet he supposed water to be the principle of things, and that from it all the elements of the world, and the world itself, and whatever is generated in it, come into being. But over this work — which, when we consider the world, we behold as so marvellous — he set nothing derived from a divine mind. To him succeeded Anaximander, his hearer, and he changed the opinion concerning the nature of things. For he supposed that individual things are born, not from one thing, as Thales from moisture, but from their own proper principles. These principles of individual things he believed to be infinite, and to generate innumerable worlds and whatever arises in them; and he judged that these worlds are now dissolved, now again generated, according to how long each could endure in its own age — nor did he himself attribute anything to a divine mind in these works of things.

This man left as his disciple and successor Anaximenes, who assigned all the causes of things to the infinite air; nor did he deny or pass over the gods in silence — yet he believed that the air was not made by them, but that they themselves arose from the air. Anaxagoras, however, his hearer, perceived and declared that a divine mind was the maker of all these things which we see, out of an infinite matter that consisted of particles, like to one another, of all things; and that individual things are made from their own proper particles, but with a divine mind doing the making. Diogenes too, another hearer of Anaximenes, said indeed that air was the matter of things, from which all things came to be; but that it was possessed of a divine reason, without which nothing could be made from it. To Anaxagoras succeeded his hearer Archelaus.

He too supposed all things to consist of particles like to one another, from which each individual thing came to be, in such a way that he said there was even a mind present within, which by joining and separating the eternal bodies — that is, those particles — brought about all things. Socrates is reported to have been his disciple, the master of Plato, for whose sake I have briefly reviewed all these matters. [III] Socrates, then, is recorded to have been the first to turn the whole of philosophy toward the correcting and ordering of morals, whereas before him all had expended their greatest effort rather upon investigating physical — that is, natural — things.

But it does not seem to me possible to gather with certainty whether Socrates did this out of weariness of obscure and uncertain matters, directing his mind toward finding something plain and certain that would be necessary for the blessed life — for the sake of which alone the industry of all philosophers seems to have watched and laboured — or whether, as some more kindly suspect concerning him, he was unwilling that minds unclean with earthly desires should stretch themselves to strive after divine things. For he saw that they were inquiring into the causes of things, which he believed to be first and highest in nothing but the will of the one and highest God; and hence he thought that these could not be comprehended save by a purified mind;

and therefore he judged that one must press on to purify life by good morals, so that the mind, unburdened of the passions that press it down, might raise itself by its natural vigour into things eternal, and by purity of understanding behold the nature of the incorporeal and unchangeable light, wherein the causes of all created natures abide steadfastly. Yet it is agreed that, even in those very moral questions to which he seemed to have bent his whole mind, he did — with wondrous charm of discourse and most keen urbanity — stir up and turn about the folly of the ignorant, who imagined that they knew something, whether by professing his own ignorance or by dissembling his knowledge. Whence, having roused enmities against himself, he was condemned by a slanderous accusation and punished with death.

But afterwards the city of the Athenians publicly mourned that very man whom it had publicly condemned, the people's indignation being turned upon his two accusers to such a degree that one of them perished, overwhelmed by the violence of the multitude, while the other escaped a like penalty only by voluntary and perpetual exile. By so illustrious a fame, then, of his life and death, Socrates left behind very many followers of his philosophy, whose zeal it was to vie with one another in the discussion of moral questions, wherein the matter treated is the supreme good, by which a man can become blessed. And since in the disputations of Socrates — while he moves all things, asserts, destroys — this did not evidently appear, each took from thence what pleased him, and set up the end of good wherever it seemed good to him.

Now the end of good is that which, when one has reached it, he is blessed. But the Socratics held opinions concerning this end so diverse among themselves that — a thing scarcely credible, that the followers of one master could have done it — some said the supreme good was pleasure, as Aristippus; some, virtue, as Antisthenes. Thus one and another opined this and that, whom it would be long to enumerate. [IV] But among the disciples of Socrates, not indeed undeservedly, Plato shone with a most excellent glory, by which he altogether eclipsed the rest.

Since he was an Athenian, born in an honourable station among his own people, and by a marvellous natural gift far outstripped his fellow-disciples, yet judging that he himself and the Socratic discipline were too little to suffice for perfecting philosophy, he travelled far and wide, wherever the fame of some renowned knowledge to be acquired hurried him. And so, in Egypt he learned whatever great things were there held and taught; and coming thence into those parts of Italy where the fame of the Pythagoreans was celebrated, he most readily grasped whatever of Italic philosophy then flourished, having heard the more eminent teachers therein.

And because he singularly loved his master Socrates, making him speak in almost all his dialogues, he tempered even those things which he had either learned from others or himself perceived with as much understanding as he could, with Socrates' charm and moral disputations. And so, since the pursuit of wisdom is engaged in action and contemplation — whence one part of it may be called active, the other contemplative (of which the active pertains to the conduct of life, that is, to the establishing of morals; the contemplative, however, to the beholding of the causes of nature and the purest truth): Socrates is recorded to have excelled in the active, Pythagoras rather to have devoted himself to the contemplative, with such powers of understanding as he could.

Accordingly Plato is praised for having perfected philosophy by joining both together, and he divided it into three parts: one moral, which is chiefly engaged in action; another natural, which is assigned to contemplation; a third rational, by which the true is distinguished from the false. And although this rational part is necessary to both — that is, to action and contemplation — yet it is contemplation chiefly that claims for itself the perception of truth. Therefore this threefold division is not contrary to that distinction by which it is understood that the whole pursuit of wisdom consists in action and contemplation.

But what Plato thought concerning these several parts, or about them — that is, where he recognized or believed the end of all actions to be, where the cause of all natures, where the light of all reasonings — I judge it both a long matter to unfold by discussion, and I judge that it must not be rashly affirmed. For since he affects to preserve the well-known manner of his master Socrates, whom he presents disputing in his volumes — the manner of dissembling his knowledge or his own opinion, because that very manner pleased him too — it has come about that even Plato's own judgments on great matters cannot easily be discerned.

Yet out of those things which are read in him — whether what he himself said, or what he narrated and wrote down as having been said by others — those which seemed approved by him, some ought to be mentioned by us and inserted into this work: either where he supports the true religion which our faith embraces and defends, or where he seems contrary to it, insofar as concerns this question of the one God and of many, on account of the life which is to be after death, truly blessed.

For perhaps those who are praised, by a more celebrated fame, for having understood Plato — far and rightly preferred to the other philosophers of the nations — more acutely and more truly, and for having followed him, hold some such view concerning God: that in Him is found both the cause of subsisting, and the reason of understanding, and the order of living; of which three, the one is understood to pertain to the natural part, the second to the rational, the third to the moral. For if man was so created that through that which is most excellent in him he might attain to that which excels all things — that is, the one true and best God, without whom no nature subsists, no doctrine instructs, no practice profits — let Him be sought, in whom all things are secure for us; let Him be discerned, in whom all things are certain for us;

let Him be loved, in whom all things are right for us. [V] If, then, Plato said that the wise man is the imitator, knower, and lover of this God, by participation in whom he is blessed, what need is there to examine the others? None have come nearer to us than these. Let there yield to them, therefore, not only that fabulous theology which delights the minds of the impious with the crimes of the gods.

Let there yield to them not only that fabulous theology, but also that civil theology, wherein the impure demons, seducing under the name of the gods the peoples given over to earthly joys, wished to have human errors as their own divine honours — stirring up their worshippers, by most filthy zeal, to behold the games of their own crimes, as though to their own worship, and exhibiting more delightful games to themselves out of those very spectators (where, if anything seemingly honourable is performed in the temples, it is defiled by being joined to the obscenity of the theatres; and whatever base things are performed in the theatres are praised by comparison with the foulness of the temples); and let there yield also those things which Varro interpreted out of these sacred rites as referring, so to speak, to heaven and earth and the seeds and acts of mortal things (since not even those things which he himself tries to insinuate are signified by those rites, and therefore the truth does not follow him as he strives;

and even if those things were so, nevertheless to the rational soul those things which are, in the order of nature, set beneath it, ought not to be worshipped as its god, nor ought it to prefer to itself as gods those things above which the true God set it) — and let there yield also those things which Numa Pompilius, in reality pertaining to sacred rites of this kind, took care to hide by burying them with himself, and which, dug up by the plough, the senate ordered to be burned.

(In this kind belong also those things — that we may suspect something milder concerning Numa — which Alexander of Macedon writes were disclosed to him, in a letter to his mother, by a certain Leo, a great high priest of the Egyptian rites; where not only Picus and Faunus and Aeneas and Romulus, or even Hercules and Aesculapius and Liber the son of Semele and the Tyndarid brothers, and any others whom they hold to be gods out of mortal men, but even the very gods of the greater nations themselves — whom Cicero in the Tusculans seems to touch upon under unspoken names — Jupiter, Juno, Saturn, Vulcan, Vesta, and very many others, whom Varro tries to transfer to the parts or elements of the world, are betrayed to have been men.

For that Leo too, being afraid, and as it were begging on account of the mysteries revealed, admonishes Alexander that, when he has communicated these things written to his mother, he should command them to be burned in the flames.) Not only, therefore, those things which the two theologies, the fabulous and the civil, contain, let them yield to the Platonic philosophers, who said that the true God is both the author of things, and the illuminator of truth, and the bestower of blessedness;

but let those other philosophers also yield to these men, great knowers of so great a God — those who, with minds given over to the body, supposed the principles of nature to be corporeal: as Thales in moisture, Anaximenes in air, the Stoics in fire, Epicurus in atoms, that is, in the most minute little bodies which can neither be divided nor perceived, and whatever others there are (upon the enumeration of whom there is no need to dwell) who said that bodies — whether simple or compounded, whether lacking life or living, but bodies nonetheless — are the cause and principle of things. For some of them believed that living things could come to be from non-living things, as the Epicureans; while some believed that both living and non-living things come from a living thing, but nevertheless that bodies come from a body.

For the Stoics supposed fire — that is, one body out of these four elements, of which this visible world consists — to be both living and wise and the fabricator of the world itself and of all things that are in it, and that this fire was altogether God. These men and others like them were able to think only that which their hearts, bound fast by the senses of the flesh, fabricated along with them. For they had within themselves that which they did not see, and they imagined within themselves that which they had seen without, even when they did not see it but only thought of it. But this, in the view of such thinking, is now no longer a body, but the likeness of a body; and that whereby this likeness of a body is seen in the mind is neither a body nor the likeness of a body;

and that whereby it is seen, and whereby it is judged whether it be beautiful or misshapen, is assuredly better than that which is judged. This is the mind of man and the nature of the rational soul, which is certainly not a body, if indeed that likeness of a body, when it is beheld and judged in the mind of the one thinking, is not itself a body. It is therefore neither earth nor water, neither air nor fire, of which four bodies — which are called the four elements — we see the corporeal world to be compacted. Moreover, if our mind is not a body, how is God, the creator of the mind, a body? Let these too, then, as has been said, yield to the Platonists;

and let those also yield who were indeed ashamed to say that God is a body, but nevertheless supposed our souls to be of the same nature as He is; so little were they moved by the so great mutability of the soul, which it is impious to attribute to the nature of God. But they say: 'It is by a body that the nature of the soul is changed, for in itself it is unchangeable.' These men might as well say: 'It is by some body that the flesh is wounded, for in itself it is invulnerable.' Assuredly, that which cannot be changed can be changed by nothing; and accordingly, that which can be changed by a body can be changed by something, and therefore cannot rightly be called unchangeable.

[VI] These philosophers, then, whom we see not undeservedly preferred to the rest in fame and glory, saw that no body is God, and therefore they transcended all bodies in seeking God. They saw that whatever is mutable is not the supreme God, and therefore they transcended every soul and all mutable spirits in seeking the supreme God.

Then they saw that every form in any mutable thing — whereby it is whatever it is, in whatever way and of whatever nature it is — cannot exist except from Him who truly is, because He is unchangeably; and hence, whether it be the body of the whole world with its figures, qualities, and ordered motion, and the elements arranged from heaven down to earth, and whatever bodies are in them, or whether it be every life, either that which nourishes and sustains, such as is in trees, or that which both has this and has sense, such as is in beasts, or that which has these and also understands, such as is in men, or that which needs no nutritive support but only sustains, senses, and understands, such as is in angels — none of these can be except from Him who simply is;

because for Him to be is not one thing, and to live another, as though He could be while not living; nor is to live for Him one thing, and to understand another, as though He could live while not understanding; nor is to understand for Him one thing, and to be blessed another, as though He could understand while not blessed; but what it is for Him to live, to understand, to be blessed — this it is for Him to be. On account of this unchangeableness and simplicity they understood both that He made all these things, and that He Himself could be made by no one. For they considered that whatever is, is either body or life, and that life is something better than body; and that the form of the body is sensible, that of life intelligible. Accordingly they preferred the intelligible form to the sensible.

We call those things sensible which can be perceived by the sight and touch of the body; those intelligible which can be understood by the gaze of the mind. For there is no corporeal beauty, whether in the state of a body, as is its figure, or in motion, as is a melody, concerning which the mind does not judge. But this it assuredly could not do, unless there were in it a better form of this — without the mass of bulk, without the din of the voice, without any extent of place or time. But there too, unless it were mutable, one man would not judge better than another concerning sensible form: the more gifted better than the duller, the more skilled better than the less skilled, the more practised better than the less practised; and the same one man, when he makes progress, judges better afterward than before.

But whatever admits of more and less is beyond doubt mutable. Hence men of ability and learning, practised in these matters, readily concluded that the primal form is not present in those things wherein it is shown to be mutable. Since therefore, in their view, both body and soul were more or less shapely, and since, if they could be wholly without form, they would be nothing at all, they saw that there is something in which the first form is unchangeable and therefore not to be compared with any other; and there, most rightly, they believed the origin of things to reside — that which was not made, and from which all things were made. Thus what may be known of God, He Himself made manifest to them, since His invisible things were understood and beheld by them through the things that are made;

His everlasting power also and divinity; by whom likewise all visible and temporal things were created. Let this suffice concerning that part which they call physics, that is, natural philosophy. [VII] But as regards the discipline in which the second part is engaged, which they call logic, that is, rational philosophy:

far be it that those men should seem worthy to be compared with these, who placed the criterion of truth in the bodily senses and judged that all things which are learned must be measured by their unfaithful and deceptive rules — such as the Epicureans and whatever others of like mind, and even the Stoics themselves, who, though they ardently loved the skill of disputation which they call dialectic, held that it must be derived from the senses of the body, thence maintaining that the mind conceives notions — which they call *ennoiai* — namely of those things which they explicate by defining; and that from this source the whole method of learning and teaching is propagated and connected.

Here I am wont to marvel greatly: when they say that none are beautiful except the wise, with what senses of the body did they behold that beauty, with what eyes of the flesh did they gaze upon the form and comeliness of wisdom? But these men, whom we rightly set above the rest, distinguished the things that are beheld by the mind from those that are perceived by the senses, neither taking from the senses what they can do, nor granting them beyond what they can. And they declared that the light of minds for the learning of all things is that same God by whom all things were made.

[VIII] There remains the moral part, which they call by the Greek term ethics, wherein inquiry is made concerning the supreme good, to which we refer all that we do, and which we seek not for the sake of anything else but for its own sake; and having attained it, we require nothing further whereby we may be blessed. For this reason it is also called the end, because for the sake of it we will all other things, but it itself only for its own sake. This beatific good, then, some said belonged to man from the body, some from the soul, some from both.

For they saw that man himself is composed of soul and body, and therefore they believed that from one or other of these two, or from both, well-being could come to him — by a certain final good whereby they might be blessed, to which they might refer all that they did, and beyond which they would not seek that to which it should be referred. Hence those who are said to have added a third kind of goods, which is called external — such as honour, glory, money, and the like — did not so add it as to make it final, that is, to be sought for its own sake, but for the sake of something else; and this kind of thing is good to the good, but evil to the evil. Thus those who sought man's good either from the soul or from the body or from both, held that it was to be sought from nothing other than man;

but those who sought it from the body sought it from the inferior part of man; those from the soul, from the better part; those from both, from the whole man. Whether therefore from any part or from the whole, it was still from nothing but man. Nor did these differences, because they are three, on that account produce only three, but many dissensions and sects of philosophers, because concerning the good of the body, the good of the soul, and the good of both, diverse men held diverse opinions. Let all these therefore yield to those philosophers who said that man is blessed not by enjoying the body nor by enjoying the soul, but by enjoying God;

not as a soul enjoys the body or itself, nor as friend enjoys friend, but as the eye enjoys light — if indeed any likeness may be brought from these lower things to those higher; and of what sort that likeness is, if God Himself shall help, will appear, as far as we are able, in another place. For now let it suffice to recall that Plato determined the end of good to be to live according to virtue, and that this can befall him alone who has the knowledge and imitation of God, nor is there any other cause of blessedness; and therefore he does not hesitate to say that to philosophise is to love God, whose nature is incorporeal. Whence it is surely gathered that the lover of wisdom (for that is what a philosopher is) will then be blessed, when he shall have begun to enjoy God.

For although he who enjoys what he loves is not straightway blessed (since many, by loving things not to be loved, are wretched, and yet more wretched when they enjoy them): yet no one is blessed who does not enjoy that which he loves. For even those who love things not to be loved do not think themselves blessed by loving, but by enjoying. Whoever therefore enjoys that which he loves, and loves the true and supreme good — who but the most wretched of men would deny him to be blessed? But Plato says that the very true and supreme good is God; whence he would have the philosopher to be a lover of God, so that, since philosophy tends toward the blessed life, he who has loved God should, in enjoying God, be blessed.

[IX] Whatever philosophers, therefore, have held these views concerning the supreme and true God — that He is the maker of created things, the light for knowing them, and the good for doing them; that from Him come to us both the principle of nature and the truth of doctrine and the felicity of life — whether they be more fittingly called Platonists, or impose upon their sect any other name whatsoever; whether only those of the Ionic race, who were foremost among them, held these views, as did Plato himself and those who well understood him; or the Italics also, on account of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans and any others perchance of the same opinion from that quarter;

or whether among other nations also there are found some who were reckoned wise men or philosophers — Atlantic Libyans, Egyptians, Indians, Persians, Chaldeans, Scythians, Gauls, Spaniards — who perceived and taught this: all these we set above the rest, and we confess them to be nearer to us. [X] For although a Christian man, learned only in ecclesiastical letters, may perchance be ignorant of the very name of the Platonists, and may not know whether two kinds of philosophers existed in the Greek tongue, the Ionic and the Italic, he is not so deaf in human affairs as to be ignorant that philosophers profess either the study of wisdom or wisdom itself.

Yet he is on his guard against those who philosophise according to the elements of this world, not according to God, by whom the world itself was made. For he is admonished by the apostolic precept, and faithfully hears what is said: Beware lest any man deceive you through philosophy and vain seduction, according to the elements of the world. Then, lest he suppose all such men to be of this kind, he hears the same apostle say concerning certain others: Because that which is known of God is manifest in them; for God hath manifested it unto them.

For His invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, His everlasting power also and divinity. And where, speaking to the Athenians, when he had said a great thing concerning God, which can be understood by few — that in Him we live and move and have our being — he added and said: As certain also of your own have said. He knew well, to be sure, to guard against those very men in the points wherein they err; for where it is said that through the things that are made God manifested to them His invisible things to be beheld by the understanding, there also it is said that they did not rightly worship God Himself, because they rendered divine honours, due to Him alone, to other things as well, to which they ought not:

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of creeping things. Herein he gave to be understood the Romans and the Greeks and the Egyptians, who gloried in the name of wisdom. But of this we shall dispute with them hereafter.

But in that wherein they agree with us concerning the one God, the author of this universe — who is not only above all bodies, being incorporeal, but also above all souls, being incorruptible, our beginning, our light, our good — in this we set them above the rest.

Nor, if a Christian ignorant of their writings does not use in disputation words which he has not learned — so as to call in Latin 'natural,' or in Greek 'physical,' that part in which the investigation of nature is treated; and 'rational' or 'logical,' in which it is inquired how truth may be perceived; and 'moral' or 'ethical,' in which the subject is morals and the ends of goods to be sought and of evils to be shunned — does he for that reason not know that from the one true and best God we have both our nature, whereby we are made in His image, and doctrine, whereby we may know Him and ourselves, and grace, whereby by cleaving to Him we may be blessed.

This, then, is the reason why we prefer these men to the rest: because, while other philosophers wore out their talents and their zeal in searching out the causes of things and the manner of learning and living, these, having come to know God, found where lay both the cause of the established universe, and the light for perceiving truth, and the fount for drinking felicity. Whether therefore these Platonists, or any other philosophers of whatever nations, hold these views concerning God, they think with us. But we have chosen to treat this matter rather with the Platonists, because their writings are the better known.

For the Greeks too, whose language is pre-eminent among the nations, celebrated these writings with great acclaim; and the Latins, moved by their excellence or their glory, learned them the more gladly, and by translating them into our tongue made them nobler and more renowned. [XI] But some who are joined to us in the grace of Christ marvel when they hear or read that Plato held these views concerning God, which they recognise to agree greatly with the truth of our religion. Whence not a few have supposed that, when he journeyed into Egypt, he heard the prophet Jeremiah, or read the prophetic Scriptures during that same sojourn; whose opinion indeed I have set down in certain of my books.

But the reckoning of times carefully computed, which is contained in chronological history, indicates that Plato was born nearly a hundred years after the time when Jeremiah prophesied; and since Plato lived eighty-one years, from the year of Jeremiah's death down to the time when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, requested the prophetic Scriptures of the Hebrew nation from Judea, and had them translated and kept by seventy Hebrew men who also knew the Greek tongue, there are found to be nearly sixty years. Wherefore, in that journey of his, Plato could neither see Jeremiah, who had died so long before, nor read those same Scriptures, which had not yet been translated into the Greek tongue in which he was proficient;

unless perchance, since he was of the keenest zeal, he learned these Scriptures, as he did the Egyptian ones, through an interpreter — not so as to translate them by writing (a thing which Ptolemy, who by his royal power could even inspire fear, is reported to have earned as an immense favour), but so as, by conversing, to learn what they contained, as far as he was able to grasp it. That this may be thought so, those indications seem to persuade, in that the book of Genesis thus begins: In the beginning God made heaven and earth. And the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God moved over the water; whereas in the Timaeus — the book which Plato wrote concerning the constitution of the world — he says that God, in that work, first joined earth and fire.

Now it is manifest that he assigns to fire the place of heaven: this sentiment therefore has a certain likeness to that in which it is said, In the beginning God made heaven and earth. Then he says that the two intermediate things, by which, being interposed, these two extremes are joined to each other, are water and air; whence it is supposed that he thus understood what is written: the Spirit of God moved over the water. For, paying too little heed to the manner in which that Scripture is wont to name the Spirit of God, since air also is called 'spirit,' he may seem to have thought that in that place the four elements are mentioned. Then, that Plato says the philosopher is a lover of God — nothing so blazes forth in those sacred writings;

and above all that (which most of all moves me almost to assent that Plato was not without acquaintance with those books): that, when the words of God are conveyed by an angel to holy Moses in such wise that, to him who asked what was the name of Him who bade him go to the Hebrew people to be delivered out of Egypt, the answer is given: I am that I am, and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, He who is hath sent me unto you — as though, in comparison with Him who truly is, because He is unchangeable, those things which are made mutable are not — Plato most vehemently held this, and most diligently commended it. And I know not whether this is anywhere found in the books of those who lived before Plato, save where it is said: I am that I am, and thou shalt say to them, He who is hath sent me unto you.

[XII] But from whatever source he learned these things, whether from the books of the ancients who preceded him, or rather — in the way the apostle says — because that which is known of God is manifest in them, for God hath manifested it unto them; for His invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, His everlasting power also and divinity: now not without reason, as I think, have I sufficiently set forth that I have chosen the Platonic philosophers as those with whom to deal, since in this question which we have just undertaken — concerning natural theology, whether for the sake of the felicity that is to come after death sacred rites ought to be performed to one God or to many — the matter is treated. For this cause, indeed, I have chosen these above all.

For inasmuch as they thought the better concerning the one God who made heaven and earth, by so much are they held more glorious and illustrious than the rest, so far preferred to others by the judgment of posterity that — although Aristotle, Plato's disciple, a man of surpassing genius and, in eloquence indeed unequal to Plato but easily surpassing many, when he had founded the Peripatetic sect (so called because he was wont to dispute while walking about) and, excelling by his brilliant fame, had gathered very many disciples into his school while his teacher was still living; and although after Plato's death Speusippus, his sister's son, and Xenocrates, his beloved disciple, succeeded him in his school, which was called the Academy, and on this account both they and their successors were called Academics — nevertheless the more recent and most noble philosophers, who chose to follow Plato, would not have themselves called Peripatetics or Academics, but Platonists.

Of these, greatly ennobled, are the Greeks Plotinus, Iamblichus, Porphyry; while in both tongues, that is, in Greek and Latin, Apuleius the African stood forth as a noble Platonist. But all these and others of like kind, and Plato himself, thought that sacred rites were to be performed to many gods. [XIII] Although therefore they dissent from us in many other and great matters, yet in this one which I have just set down — since it is no small matter, and it is on this that the present question turns — I first ask of them to what gods they think this worship should be exhibited: whether to good ones, or to evil, or to both good and evil. But we have the opinion of Plato, saying that all gods are good, and that there is no god at all that is evil. It follows, therefore, that these rites must be understood to be exhibited to good gods;

for then they are exhibited to gods, since they will not even be gods if they are not good. If this be so (for what else befits us to believe concerning gods?), then that opinion is assuredly emptied, whereby some suppose that evil gods must be appeased by sacred rites lest they harm, but good gods invoked that they may help. For there are no evil gods; and to the good, moreover, the due honour of sacred rites, as they say, is to be rendered. Who then are those who love the scenic games, and demand that these be joined to divine matters and exhibited in their honour? Their power shows them to be not non-existent; but this very inclination assuredly shows them to be evil.

For what Plato thought concerning the scenic games is well known, since he judges that the poets themselves must be expelled from the city, because they composed songs so unworthy of the majesty and goodness of the gods. Who then are these gods who contend with Plato himself concerning the scenic games? He indeed does not suffer the gods to be defamed by false charges; these command that their own honours be celebrated by those very charges. Finally, these gods, when they had ordered those same games to be instituted, in demanding foul things wrought also malignant deeds — taking away from Titus Latinius his son and sending a disease upon him, because he had refused their command, and withdrawing that disease when he had fulfilled their bidding;

but Plato thinks that they, evil as they are, are not on that account to be feared; rather, most steadfastly retaining the strength of his opinion, he does not hesitate to remove from a well-ordered people all the sacrilegious trifles of the poets, in whose fellowship of uncleanness those gods take delight. But this same Plato — as I have already recalled in the second book — Labeo places among the demigods. This Labeo thinks that the evil deities are appeased by bloody victims and supplications of that kind, but the good ones by games and such matters as pertain, as it were, to gladness. What is it then that the demigod Plato dares so steadfastly to take away — not from demigods, but from gods, and those good ones — these amusements, because he judges them base? Yet these gods assuredly refute Labeo's opinion;

for in the case of Latinius they showed themselves not only wanton and sportive, but also savage and terrible. Let the Platonists therefore expound these things to us — they who, according to the opinion of their master, hold that all gods are good and honourable and companions of the virtues of the wise, and who count it impious to think otherwise of any of the gods. 'We do expound it,' they say. Let us then attentively listen. [XIV] Of all living beings, they say, in which there is a rational soul, there is a threefold division: into gods, men, and daemons. The gods hold the most exalted place, men the lowest, daemons the middle. For the seat of the gods is in heaven, of men on earth, of daemons in the air. As their dignity of places is diverse, so also is that of their natures.

Accordingly the gods are more excellent than men and daemons; but men are placed below both gods and daemons, in the order of the elements as in the difference of merits. The daemons therefore, being in the middle, as they are to be ranked below the gods, in whose realm they dwell lower, so are they to be preferred to men, above whom they dwell higher. For they have immortality of bodies in common with the gods, but the passions of souls in common with men. Wherefore it is no marvel, they say, if they are also delighted with the obscenities of games and the figments of poets, since indeed they are captured by human affections, from which the gods are far removed and in every way estranged.

From this it is gathered that Plato, by detesting and forbidding the figments of the poets, did not deprive the gods — who are all good and exalted — of the pleasure of the scenic games, but the daemons. If these things are so (which, though they may be found among others also, yet Apuleius the Platonist of Madaura alone wrote one book upon this matter by itself, whose title he chose to be 'On the God of Socrates,' wherein he discusses and expounds of what kind of divinities was that one which Socrates had attached to him and reconciled to himself by a certain friendship, by whom he is said to have been wont to be admonished to desist from acting whenever what he wished to do was not going to turn out prosperously;

for he says most openly and asserts most copiously that it was not a god, but a daemon, treating in careful disputation that opinion of Plato concerning the sublimity of the gods, the lowliness of men, and the middle position of daemons) — if therefore these things are so, in what manner did Plato dare, even if not from the gods, whom he set apart from all human contagion, yet certainly from the daemons themselves, to take away theatrical pleasures by expelling the poets from the city, unless because by this means he admonished the human soul — though as yet placed in these dying members — for the splendour of honesty to despise the impure commands of daemons and to detest their uncleanness? For if Plato most honourably censured and forbade these things, assuredly the daemons most basely demanded and commanded them.

Either therefore Apuleius is mistaken, and Socrates did not have a friend of that kind of divinity; or Plato holds contradictory views, now honouring daemons, now removing their delights from a well-mannered city; or the friendship of a daemon is not to be congratulated to Socrates — a friendship of which Apuleius himself was so far ashamed that he entitled the book 'On the God of Socrates,' which, according to his own disputation, wherein he so carefully and copiously distinguishes gods from daemons, he ought to have called not 'On the God,' but 'On the Daemon of Socrates.' But he preferred to put this in the disputation itself rather than in the title of the book.

For so, through the sound doctrine which has shone upon human affairs, all or almost all shudder at the name of daemons, so that whoever, before Apuleius's disputation in which the dignity of daemons is commended, should read the title of a book 'On the Daemon of Socrates,' would by no means think that man to have been sane. But what did Apuleius himself find to praise in the daemons, besides the subtlety and firmness of their bodies and the loftier place of their habitation? For concerning their morals, when he spoke of them all generally, he not only said nothing good, but very much of evil.

Finally, when that book has been read, absolutely no one wonders that they even wished to have scenic baseness among divine matters, and that, though they wish to be thought gods, they could take delight in the crimes of the gods, and that whatever in their sacred rites, by obscene solemnity or base cruelty, is either laughed at or shuddered at, agrees with their affections. [XV] Wherefore far be it that a soul truly religious and subject to the true God, considering these things, should on that account think the daemons to be better than itself because they have better bodies. Otherwise it will have to prefer to itself many beasts also, which surpass us in keenness of senses, in most easy and swift motion, in strength of powers, and in the most long-lived firmness of their bodies.

What man in seeing will be equalled to eagles and vultures? Who in smelling to dogs? Who in swiftness to hares, stags, and all birds? Who in great strength to lions and elephants? Who in long living to serpents, which are said, even by putting off their skin, to put off old age and return to youth? But just as by reasoning and understanding we are better than all these, so also by living well and honourably we ought to be better than the daemons.

For on this account also divine providence has given certain more excellent gifts of bodies to those beings over whom it is agreed that we are superior, in order that that whereby we are set above them might in this very way be commended to us as needing to be cultivated with much greater care than the body; and that we might learn to despise that very bodily excellence which we knew the daemons to have, in comparison with the goodness of life whereby we are set before them — we who are also to have immortality of bodies, not such as the eternity of punishments may torment, but such as the purity of souls may precede. But as for being so moved by the loftiness of place — that daemons dwell in the air, while we dwell on earth — as to think that on this account they are to be preferred to us, that is utterly ridiculous.

For by this reasoning we prefer all flying things also to ourselves. But, they say, the flying things, when they are wearied by flying, or have a body needing to be refreshed with food, seek the earth again, either for rest or for feeding, which the daemons do not do. Do they then wish that flying things should excel us, and daemons should excel even flying things? But if it is most senseless to suppose this, there is no reason why we should think the daemons worthy, on account of the habitation of a higher element, that we should subject ourselves to them by the affection of religion. For just as it was possible that the birds of the air should not only not be preferred to us who are of the earth, but even subjected to us, on account of the dignity of the rational soul which is in us:

so it was possible that the daemons, although they are more aerial, should not on that account be better than us who are of the earth, because the air is higher than the earth; but rather men are to be preferred to them, since the hope of pious men is in no way to be compared with the despair of those daemons. For that very reasoning of Plato also, whereby he weaves and orders the four elements in proportion — so interposing the two middle ones, air and water, between the two extremes, fire the most mobile and earth immovable, that as air is to water and fire to air, so also the waters are higher than the lands — sufficiently admonishes us not to estimate the merits of living beings according to the degrees of the elements.

And indeed Apuleius himself, with the rest, calls man a terrestrial animal, who yet is far preferred to the aquatic animals, whereas Plato prefers the very waters to the lands: so that we may understand that the same order is not to be maintained when the merits of souls are treated, as appears to be the order in the degrees of bodies; but that it may come to pass that a better soul inhabits an inferior body, and a worse a superior one. [XVI] When therefore this same Platonist spoke of the morals of daemons, he said that they are agitated by the same perturbations of soul as men, are provoked by injuries, appeased by services and gifts, rejoice in honours, are delighted by diverse rites of sacred worship, and are disturbed if aught therein has been neglected.

Among other things he also says that the divinations of augurs, soothsayers, seers, and dreams belong to them; that from these too come the miracles of the magicians. Defining them briefly, he says that demons are, in genus, animals; in soul, passive; and that of these five properties the three former are those which are ours, the fourth is their own, and the fifth they hold in common with the gods. But I observe that of the three higher properties which they share with us, two they share with the gods as well. For he says the gods too are animals, and, distributing to each their own elements, he placed us among the terrestrial animals together with the rest that live and feel upon the earth, among the aquatic the fishes and other swimming things, among the aerial the demons, and among the ethereal the gods.

And by this—that demons are in genus animals—this property is common to them not only with men, but even with the gods and the beasts; that they are rational in mind, they share with gods and men; that they are eternal in time, with the gods alone; that they are passive in soul, with men alone; that they are aerial in body, this they alone possess. Accordingly, that they are in genus animals is nothing great, for the beasts also are this; that they are rational in mind is not above us, for we too are so; that they are eternal in time—what good is it, if it be not blessed? For temporal felicity is better than a miserable eternity. That they are passive in soul—how is this above us, since we too are this, and would not be so unless we were miserable?

That they are aerial in body—how highly is this to be esteemed, when the nature of the soul, of whatever kind, is preferred above every body, and therefore the worship of religion, which is owed from the soul, is by no means owed to a thing that is inferior to the soul? Moreover, if among those things which he says belong to demons he had reckoned virtue, wisdom, and felicity, and had said they possess these as eternal and shared with the gods, then indeed he would be naming something to be longed for and greatly prized; yet not even on this account ought we to worship them as God, but rather Him from whom we should know that they had received these gifts.

How much less, then, are aerial animals now worthy of divine honor—rational for this, that they may be able to be miserable; passive for this, that they may be miserable; eternal for this, that they cannot bring their misery to an end! Wherefore, to pass over the rest and treat this alone which he said the demons have in common with us—namely, the passions of the soul—if all four elements are full of their own animals, fire and air of immortal ones, water and earth of mortal ones, I ask why the souls of demons are agitated by the tumults and tempests of the passions. For a perturbation is that which in Greek is called *pathos*; whence he chose to call them passive in soul, since, word for word, *pathos* would be rendered passion, a motion of the soul contrary to reason.

Why, then, are these things in the souls of demons, which are not in the beasts? For if anything similar appears in a beast, it is not a perturbation, because it is not contrary to reason, of which beasts are wholly devoid. But in men, that these perturbations should exist, folly or misery brings this about; for we are not yet blessed in that perfection of wisdom which is promised us at the end, when we are set free from this mortality. But the gods, they say, do not suffer these perturbations, because they are not only eternal but also blessed.

For they maintain that these gods too possess rational souls, but most pure from every stain and plague. Wherefore, if the gods are not perturbed because they are animals blessed and not miserable, and if the beasts are not perturbed because they are animals that can be neither blessed nor miserable, it remains that the demons, like men, are perturbed because they are animals not blessed but miserable. With what folly, then—or rather madness—are we made subject to demons through some religion, when through the true religion we are set free from that viciousness in which we are like them?

For since the demons—as even this Apuleius, however much he spares them and deems them worthy of divine honors, is nevertheless compelled to confess—are goaded by anger, the true religion enjoins us not to be goaded by anger, but rather to resist it. Since the demons are enticed by gifts, the true religion enjoins us to show favor to no one for the acceptance of gifts. Since the demons are soothed by honors, the true religion enjoins us to be moved in no way by such things. Since the demons are haters of some men and lovers of others, not by prudent and tranquil judgment, but by a soul which he himself calls passive, the true religion enjoins us to love even our enemies.

Finally, every motion of the heart and surge of the mind, and all the tumults and tempests of soul with which he asserts the demons seethe and toss, the true religion bids us lay aside. What cause is there, then, save folly and pitiable error, that you should make yourself humble in venerating one to whom you would wish to be unlike in your living; and that you should worship with religion one whom you refuse to imitate, when the very sum of religion is to imitate the one you worship? In vain, therefore, did Apuleius, and whoever thinks thus, confer this honor upon them, setting them thus in mid-air between the ethereal heaven and the earth, so that—since no god mingles with man, which they report Plato to have said—these might bear the prayers of men up to the gods, and thence bring back to men the things granted which they ask.

For those who believed these things deemed it unworthy that men should mingle with gods and gods with men; but worthy that demons should mingle with both gods and men—conveying from the one side petitions, bringing from the other the things granted; so that, namely, a chaste man, a stranger to the crimes of the magic arts, might employ them as patrons, through whom the gods might give him a hearing—those gods who love the very things which he, by not loving, becomes the more worthy, and whom they ought therefore the more readily and gladly to hear. For they love the obscenities of the stage, which chastity does not love; they love, among the maleficences of the magicians, the thousand arts of doing harm, which innocence does not love. Therefore, if chastity and innocence should wish to obtain anything from the gods, they could not do so by their own merits except through the intervention of their own enemies.

There is no reason why this man should attempt to justify poetic fictions and theatrical mockeries. We have against these their own master, and one of such great authority among them, Plato—if indeed human shamelessness so deserves ill of itself that it not only loves base things, but even reckons them pleasing to the divinity. Furthermore, against the magic arts, in which certain most wretched and most impious men even delight to glory, shall I not summon as witness the very light of common day? For why are these things punished so gravely by the severity of the laws, if they are works of divinities to be worshiped? Or was it perhaps the Christians who established these laws by which the magic arts are punished?

In what other sense—except that these maleficences are, beyond doubt, ruinous to the human race—did that most illustrious poet say: 'I call to witness the gods, dear one, and you, my sister, and your sweet head, that against my will I gird myself to the magic arts'? That other passage, too, which in another place he says of these arts: 'And I have seen him carry off the standing crops sown into another field'—because by this pestilent and wicked teaching the fruits of one man's field are said to be transferred to other lands—does not Cicero record that it was written down in the Twelve Tables, that is, the most ancient laws of the Romans, and that a punishment was appointed for him who should do this? Finally, was Apuleius himself ever accused of the magic arts before Christian judges?

These charges brought against him—if he had known them to be divine and pious and in accord with the works of divine powers—he ought not only to have confessed, but even to have openly professed, rather blaming the laws by which such things were prohibited and thought worthy of condemnation, which things ought instead to be held marvelous and venerable. For thus he would either have persuaded the judges of his opinion, or, if they judged according to unjust laws and punished with death one who proclaimed and praised such things, the demons would have repaid fitting gifts to his soul—demons for the proclaiming of whose divine works he would not have feared to have his human life taken from him;

just as our martyrs, when the Christian religion was charged against them as a crime—that religion by which they knew themselves to be made saved and most glorious for all eternity—did not choose to escape temporal punishments by denying it, but rather by confessing, professing, and proclaiming it, and by faithfully and bravely enduring all things for its sake, and by dying with pious serenity, compelled the laws by which it was forbidden to blush, and caused them to be changed. But of this Platonic philosopher there is extant a most copious and eloquent oration, in which he defends that the crime of the magic arts is foreign to him, and wishes to be seen as innocent in no other way than by denying those very things which cannot be committed by an innocent man.

But all the miracles of the magicians, whom he rightly judges deserving of condemnation, are wrought by the teachings and works of demons—demons whom let him see why he judges worthy of honor, asserting them to be necessary for conveying our prayers to the gods, though we ought rather to shun their works, if we wish our prayers to reach the true God. Next I ask: what kind of prayers of men does he think are conveyed to the good gods through demons—magical or lawful? If magical, they do not want such; if lawful, they do not want them through such intermediaries. But if a penitent sinner pours forth his prayers, especially if he has committed some act of magic: is it then, forsooth, by the intercession of those very ones at whose instigation or favor he laments having fallen into fault, that he receives pardon?

or do the demons themselves, that they may be able to merit indulgence for the penitent, first do penance, because they have deceived them? No one has ever said this of demons; for if it were so, they would by no means dare to seek divine honors for themselves—they who, by repenting, would desire to belong to the grace of pardon. For there, in the gods' case, is detestable pride; here, in penitence, is pitiable humility. But indeed, they say, an urgent and most straitened cause compels the demons to act as mediators between gods and men, so that they may bring from men the things desired, and bring back from the gods the things obtained. What at last is this cause, and how great the necessity? Because, they say, no god mingles with man. Excellent, then, is the holiness of God, who does not mingle with a supplicating man, yet mingles with an arrogant demon;

does not mingle with a penitent man, yet mingles with a deceiving demon; does not mingle with a man taking refuge in the divinity, yet mingles with a demon feigning divinity; does not mingle with a man seeking indulgence, yet mingles with a demon urging wickedness; does not mingle with a man who, through philosophical books, expels the poets from a well-ordered city, yet mingles with a demon who, through stage-plays, demands from the city's princes and pontiffs the mockeries of the poets; does not mingle with a man forbidding the fabrication of crimes against the gods, yet mingles with a demon delighting in false crimes charged against the gods; does not mingle with a man who punishes the crimes of the magicians by just laws, yet mingles with a demon teaching and carrying out the magic arts;

does not mingle with a man fleeing the imitation of a demon, yet mingles with a demon lying in wait to deceive man. But doubtless there is great necessity for this so great absurdity and unworthiness—namely, that the ethereal gods, who care for human affairs, would surely be ignorant of what earthly men were doing, unless the aerial demons announced it; since the ether is far from the earth and suspended on high, but the air is contiguous to both the ether and the earth. O marvelous wisdom!