Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 9 part 2/4

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?