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| The Point at Which the Discussion Has Arrived, and What Remains to Be Handled.
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Chapter 1.—The Point at Which the
Discussion Has Arrived, and What Remains to Be Handled.
Some have
advanced the opinion that there are both good and bad gods; but
some, thinking more respectfully of the gods, have attributed to
them so much honor and praise as to preclude the supposition of any
god being wicked. But those who have maintained that there are
wicked gods as well as good ones have included the demons under the
name “gods,” and sometimes though more rarely, have called the
gods demons; so that they admit that Jupiter, whom they make the
king and head of all the rest, is called a demon by Homer.334
| 334 See Plutarch, on the Cessation of
Oracles. | Those, on
the other hand, who maintain that the gods are all good, and far
more excellent than the men who are justly called good, are moved
by the actions of the demons, which they can neither deny nor
impute to the gods whose goodness they affirm, to distinguish
between gods and demons; so that, whenever they find anything
offensive in the deeds or sentiments by which unseen spirits
manifest their power, they believe this to proceed not from the
gods, but from the demons. At the same time they believe that, as
no god can hold direct intercourse with men, these demons hold the
position of mediators, ascending with prayers, and returning with
gifts. This is the opinion of the Platonists, the ablest and most
esteemed of their philosophers, with whom we therefore chose to
debate this question,—whether the worship of a number of gods is
of any service toward obtaining blessedness in the future life.
And this is the reason why, in the preceding book, we have inquired
how the demons, who take pleasure in such things as good and wise
men loathe and execrate, in the sacrilegious and immoral fictions
which the poets have written not of men, but of the gods
themselves, and in the wicked and criminal violence of magical
arts, can be regarded as more nearly related and more friendly to
the gods than men are, and can mediate between good men and the
good gods; and it has been demonstrated that this is absolutely
impossible.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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