The demons who issue commands to men are not the souls of men. For how could they be active even after death—unless, while living, a man becomes senseless and powerless, but, once dead, is then believed to take on a more active power? But neither is this so, as we have shown elsewhere. And it is hard to suppose that the immortal soul, hindered by the parts of the body, becomes wiser when it has migrated from it. For the demons, raving against men in their own malignity, by manifold and lying dramaturgies pervert their minds, which are already bowed downward, so that they may be unable to soar upward to the journey in the heavens. But neither do the things in the world escape our notice, and to us the divine is easily comprehended, since the power that immortalizes souls has come to us. And the demons are seen even by the merely soul-bound, the demons sometimes showing themselves to men, either that they may be thought to be somebody, or that they may do some harm—being, like wicked friends with the disposition of enemies—or that they may furnish to those like themselves occasions of honor toward themselves. For if it were possible for them, they would assuredly have dragged down heaven itself together with the rest of creation. But now they do not do this at all, for they are unable; rather, they make war upon the lower matter with matter like themselves. And whoever would conquer these, let him renounce matter. For one who is armed with the breastplate of the heavenly spirit will be able to save all that is encompassed by it. There are, indeed, diseases and disturbances of the matter within us; but the demons themselves, when these occur, ascribe the causes to themselves, coming upon a man whenever exhaustion lays hold of him. And there are times when they themselves, by the tempest of their own folly, shake the constitution of the body; but, smitten by the word of God's power, they depart in fear, and the sufferer is healed.