Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 3 part 28/87

For if they have both from the lowest or both from the highest, they will not be intermediate, but either spring up to one part or sink down to the other. Since, therefore, as has been shown, they cannot lack both of these pairs, taking one from each side they will be made intermediate. And by this, because they cannot have eternity from the lowest things, which is not there, they have this one thing from the highest; and therefore there is nothing else to complete their middle state, which they might have from the lowest, except misery. And so, according to the Platonists, the lofty gods have either blessed eternity or eternal blessedness; the lowest men either mortal misery or wretched mortality; the intermediate demons either wretched eternity or eternal misery.

For even by those five things which he posited in the definition of demons, he did not show them to be intermediate, as he was promising; since he said that they have three things in common with us — that in genus they are living beings, that in mind they are rational, that in soul they are passive; but with the gods one thing, that in time they are eternal; and one thing proper to themselves, that in body they are aerial. How, then, are they intermediate, when they have one thing with the highest, three with the lowest? Who would not see how, the middle state being abandoned, they are inclined and pressed down toward the lowest? But plainly even there they can be found to be intermediate, in that they have one thing proper to themselves, which is the aerial body, just as those of the highest and lowest each have something proper — the gods an ethereal body, and men an earthly one;

but two things are common to all, that in genus they are living beings and in mind rational. For he himself, when he was speaking of gods and men, said: 'You have two kinds of living beings,' and these men are not wont to call the gods anything but rational in mind. Two things remain: that in soul they are passive and in time eternal; of which they have one in common with the lowest, the other with the highest, so that, by a proportional reckoning, the balanced middle state is neither lifted up to the heights nor pressed down to the depths. And this very thing is that wretched eternity of the demons, or eternal misery. For he who said 'passive in soul' would have said 'wretched' too, had he not blushed before their worshippers.

Furthermore, since by the providence of the supreme God — as they themselves also confess — the world is not ruled by fortuitous rashness, never would there be that eternal misery of theirs, were there not great malice. If, then, the blessed are rightly called eudaimones, then the demons whom these men placed in the middle between men and gods are not eudaimones. Where, then, is the place of good demons, who above men and below gods might furnish to the former aid, to the latter ministry? For if they are good and eternal, surely they are also blessed. But eternal blessedness does not allow them to be intermediate, because it compares them greatly with the gods and separates them greatly from men.

Whence in vain will these men try to show how good demons, if they are both immortal and blessed, can rightly be constituted intermediate between the immortal and blessed gods and the mortal and wretched men. For since they have both things in common with the gods — namely both blessedness and immortality — but nothing of these in common with men, who are both wretched and mortal: how are they not rather removed from men and joined to the gods, than constituted intermediate between both? For then they would be intermediate, if they themselves too had two things of their own — not in common with both of either side, but in common with one of each side;

just as man is something intermediate, but between the beasts and the angels — so that, since the beast is an irrational and mortal animal, while the angel is rational and immortal, man is intermediate, but lower than the angels, higher than the beasts, having mortality in common with the beasts, reason in common with the angels — a rational, mortal animal. So, then, when we seek a middle between the blessed immortals and the wretched mortals, we ought to find that which is either mortal yet blessed, or immortal yet wretched. CHAPTER XIV. Whether men, since they are mortal, can be happy with true blessedness. Whether a man can be both blessed and mortal is a great question among men.

For some have looked upon their condition more humbly and denied that man can be capable of blessedness so long as he lives mortally. But others have exalted themselves and have dared to say that mortals, when possessed of wisdom, can be blessed. And if this is so, why are not these rather constituted intermediate between the wretched mortals and the blessed immortals — having blessedness in common with the blessed immortals, mortality in common with the wretched mortals? For surely, if they are blessed, they envy no one (for what is more wretched than envy?), and therefore they counsel the wretched mortals, as much as they can, toward attaining blessedness, so that they too may be able to be immortal after death and joined to the immortal and blessed angels. CHAPTER XV.

On the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. But if — as is argued much more credibly and probably — all men, so long as they are mortal, must also of necessity be wretched, then a mediator must be sought who is not only man, but also God, so that, by the interposition of this Mediator's blessed mortality, He may lead men from mortal misery to blessed immortality; one who ought neither not to become mortal, nor to remain mortal. He was indeed made mortal, not by the weakening of the Word's divinity, but by the taking on of the flesh's weakness; yet He did not remain mortal in that very flesh, which He raised from the dead;

since this is the very fruit of His mediation: that not even those, for whose deliverance He was made a mediator, should remain in the perpetual death even of the flesh. Accordingly, the Mediator between us and God had to have a passing mortality and an abiding blessedness, so that by that which passes He might be in harmony with those who are to die, and by that which abides He might bring them over from the dead. The good angels, therefore, cannot be intermediate between the wretched mortals and the blessed immortals, because they too are both blessed and immortal; but the evil angels can be intermediate, because they are immortal with the former, wretched with the latter.

Opposed to these is the good Mediator, who, against their immortality and misery, willed to be both mortal for a time and able to abide blessed in eternity. And thus, by the humility of His own death and the kindness of His own blessedness, He destroyed in them—those proud immortals and harmful wretches—their power, lest by the boasting of immortality they should seduce men into misery; and cleansing the hearts of these men through faith in Him, He freed them from that most unclean domination. Man, therefore, being mortal and wretched, set far apart from the immortal and blessed beings, what middle term should he choose by which he may be joined to immortality and blessedness? Whatever might delight in the immortality of the demons is wretched; whatever might offend in the mortality of Christ now no longer exists.

There, then, eternal misery is to be guarded against; here, death is not to be feared, since it could not be eternal, and eternal blessedness is to be loved. For the immortal and wretched mediator interposes himself for this end: that he may not permit men to pass over to blessed immortality, since that which hinders—namely misery itself—abides. But the mortal and blessed Mediator interposed Himself for this end: that, mortality once accomplished, He might make immortal those who were mortal—which He showed by rising again in Himself—and blessed those who were wretched, from which blessedness He Himself never departed. There is therefore one evil mediator who separates friends, and another good Mediator who reconciles enemies. And so the mediators who separate are many, because the multitude that is blessed is made blessed by participation in the one God;

while by the privation of that participation the multitude of evil angels is wretched. This multitude sets itself up rather as a hindrance than interposes itself as a help toward blessedness; and by its very multitude it in a certain way clamors against us, lest we be able to attain to that one beatifying good. To be led to which, there was need not of many mediators, but of one—and that the very One by participation in whom we are made blessed, namely the Word of God not made, through whom all things were made. Yet He is not Mediator on this account, that He is the Word; for the Word, being most immortal and most blessed, is far from wretched mortals;

but He is Mediator in that He is man, thereby clearly showing that, in order to reach that good which is not only blessed but also beatific, no other mediators are to be sought through whom we might suppose we must contrive steps of approach—because the blessed and beatific God, by becoming partaker of our humanity, has provided a shortcut to a sharing in His own divinity. For neither does He, in freeing us from mortality and misery, lead us to the immortal and blessed angels in such a way that by participation in them we too should be immortal and blessed; but rather to that Trinity, by participation in which even the angels are blessed. Therefore, when He took on the form of a servant in order to be Mediator, He willed to be below the angels; while in the form of God He remained above the angels;

the same being in the lower regions the way of life, who in the higher is Life. CHAPTER XVI. Whether the Platonists reasonably defined that the celestial gods, shunning earthly contagion, are not mingled with men, on whose behalf the demons act as advocates for friendship with the gods. For it is not true, as that same Platonist says Plato declared: 'No god is mingled with man'; and he says this is the chief mark of their sublimity, that they are defiled by no contact with men. Therefore he admits that the demons are defiled, and on that account those by whom they are defiled they cannot cleanse, and all alike become unclean—both the demons by contact with men, and men by the worship of demons.

But if the demons can be touched and mingled with men, and yet cannot be defiled, then they are surely better than the gods, since the gods, if they were mingled, would be defiled. For this is said to be the chief excellence of the gods, that their sublime separation cannot be defiled by human contact. He affirms that the supreme God, the Creator of all, whom we call the true God, is so proclaimed by Plato to be the one and only Being who cannot be even slightly grasped by any human speech, however poor; but that scarcely to wise men, when they have withdrawn their soul as far as they may from the body by vigor of mind, does the understanding of this God now and then flash forth, like a brilliant white light glittering through the deepest darkness by a most rapid coruscation.

If, then, the truly supreme God, above all things, by a certain intelligible and ineffable presence—though now and then, though as it were a brilliant white light flashing in a most rapid coruscation—is nevertheless present to the minds of the wise, when they have withdrawn themselves as far as they may from the body, and cannot be defiled by them: what reason is there that these gods should be placed far off in a lofty region, lest they be defiled by human contact? As if those ethereal bodies were anything other than what it suffices merely to behold, by whose light the earth, as far as is sufficient, is illuminated. Moreover, if the stars are not defiled when they are seen—which he calls gods, all of them visible—neither are the demons defiled by the sight of men, however near at hand they are seen.

Or perhaps they would be defiled by human voices, who are not defiled by the gaze of eyes, and therefore have demons as intermediaries through whom the voices of men, from whom they are far removed, may be announced to them, that they may remain wholly undefiled? What now shall I say of the other senses? For neither could the gods be defiled by smelling, if they were present, nor can the demons, when they are present, be defiled by the vapors of living human bodies, if they are not defiled by such great cadaverous stenches of sacrifices. As for the sense of taste, they are pressed by no necessity of refreshing their mortality, so as to seek food from men, driven by hunger. And touch is within their own power.

For although contact seems to be named chiefly from that sense, yet to this extent they would, if they wished, be mingled with men, namely that they might see and be seen, hear and be heard. But what necessity is there for touching? For neither would men dare to desire it, when they enjoyed the sight or conversation of the gods or of good demons; and if curiosity should go so far as to wish it, by what means could anyone touch against his will a god or a demon, who cannot touch a sparrow unless it be caught? By seeing, then, and by offering themselves to sight, and by speaking and hearing, the gods could be bodily mingled with men. But if in this manner the demons are mingled, as I have said, and are not defiled, while the gods would be defiled if they were mingled:

then they declare the demons incapable of defilement and the gods capable of defilement. But if even the demons are defiled, what do they confer on men toward a blessed life after death—they who, being defiled, cannot cleanse those whom they would join, as cleansed, to the undefiled gods, among whom and whom they are set as intermediaries? Or if they confer no such benefit upon them, what profit is the friendly mediation of demons to men? Is it that after death men should not pass over to the gods through the demons, but that both should live together defiled, and thereby neither be blessed? Unless perhaps someone should say that, after the manner of sponges or things of this kind, the friendly demons cleanse their friends, so that they themselves become the dirtier the cleaner men become, as if by their wiping.

But if that is so, then the gods mingle with demons more defiled than themselves—demons who, to avoid being defiled, shunned nearness to men and contact with them. Or perhaps the gods can cleanse the demons defiled by men, yet not be defiled by them, and in that manner could not men also be so cleansed? Who would hold such opinions, save one whom the most deceitful demons have deceived? And what of this: if to be seen and to see defiles, the gods are seen by men—those whom he calls visible, 'the brightest lights of the world' and the other stars—and the demons are safer from this human defilement, since they cannot be seen unless they will?

Or if to be seen does not defile, but to see does, then let them deny that men are seen by these brightest lights of the world—which they suppose to be gods—since they stretch their rays even to the lands. Yet those rays of theirs, diffused through all manner of unclean things, are not defiled; and would the gods be defiled if they were mingled with men, even if contact were necessary in coming to their aid? For the earth is touched by the rays of the sun and moon, and does not defile that light. CHAPTER XVII. That to attain the blessed life, which consists in participation in the supreme good, man does not need such a mediator as a demon is, but such as is the one Christ.

But I greatly marvel that men so learned, who have judged that all bodily and sensible things are to be set below the incorporeal and intelligible, should, when treating of the blessed life, make mention of bodily contacts. Where is that saying of Plotinus, where he says: 'We must flee, therefore, to our dearest fatherland, and there is the Father, and there are all things. What, then,' he says, 'is the fleet or the flight? To become like God.' If, then, the more like to God one becomes, the nearer one is, there is no other distance from Him than unlikeness to Him. And the soul of man is the more unlike to that incorporeal, eternal, and unchangeable Being, the more covetous it is of temporal and mutable things.

That this may be healed—since to the immortal purity which is in the highest, those things that are in the lowest, being mortal and unclean, cannot be joined—there is indeed need of a mediator; yet not such a one as has a body indeed immortal and near to the highest, but a soul diseased and like the lowest (by which disease he would rather envy us, lest we be healed, than help us that we be healed); but such a one as, fitted to us who are lowest by the mortality of His body, and by the immortal righteousness of His spirit—through which, not by distance of places but by excellence of likeness, He remained in the highest—may afford us a truly divine help in being cleansed and set free.

Far be it that this truly undefilable God should fear defilement from the man with whom He was clothed, or from the men among whom, in that man, He dwelt. For these two things which He saliently showed by His incarnation are no small matters: that true divinity cannot be defiled by flesh, and that the demons are not therefore to be thought better than ourselves because they have no flesh. This is, as Holy Scripture proclaims Him, the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus; concerning whose divinity, by which He is ever equal to the Father, and humanity, by which He was made like to us, this is not the place to speak fittingly according to our capacity. CHAPTER XVIII.

That the deceit of the demons, while it promises a way to God by their intercession, aims at this: to turn men away from the way of truth. But those false and deceitful mediator-demons, who—though by the uncleanness of their spirit they are wretched and malign, becoming conspicuous by many effects—nevertheless, through intervals of bodily places and through the lightness of their aerial bodies, strive to call us off and turn us away from the advancement of our souls, do not provide a way to God, but hinder, lest the way be held. For even in that very bodily way (which is most false and full of error, by which righteousness does not journey;

since we ought to ascend to God not by bodily height, but by spiritual—that is, incorporeal—likeness)—even in that bodily way which the friends of the demons arrange by gradations of the elements, setting the aerial demons as intermediaries between the ethereal gods and the earthly men, they suppose the gods to have this chief privilege: that on account of this interval of places they are not defiled by human contact. Thus they believe that the demons are defiled by men rather than that men are cleansed by the demons, and that the gods themselves could have been defiled, had they not been fortified by the height of place.

Who is so wretched as to think himself cleansed by this way, where men are proclaimed as defiling, demons as defiled, and gods as defilable—and would not rather choose the way where the defiling demons are the more shunned, and where men are cleansed from defilement by the undefilable God, that they may enter into fellowship with the undefiled angels? CHAPTER XIX. That the name of demons is no longer taken, even among their own worshippers, in the signification of anything good.

But lest we too seem to be contending about words, since some of these (so to speak) demon-worshippers—among whom is Labeo—maintain that the same beings whom they themselves call demons are by others called angels, I now see that I must say something about the good angels, whose existence these men do not deny, but whom they prefer to call good demons rather than angels. We, however, as Scripture speaks—according to which we are Christians—read indeed that there are angels partly good and partly evil, but never of good demons; rather, wherever in those writings this name is found set down, whether they be called demons or demonia, none but malign spirits are signified.

And this usage of speech the peoples have everywhere followed to such a degree that even among those who are called pagans and contend that many gods and demons are to be worshipped, scarcely anyone is so lettered and learned as to dare, in praising even his own slave, to say: 'You have a demon'; but whoever should wish to say this could not doubt that he means nothing other than to curse. What cause, then, compels us—after the offense of so many ears, now almost all, which have grown accustomed to hear this word only in a bad sense—to be forced to expound what we have said, when by employing the name of angels we could avoid that same offense which could arise by the name of demons? CHAPTER XX.

On the quality of knowledge that makes demons proud. Although even the very origin of this name, if we look into the divine books, brings something most worthy of recognition. For demons are so called (since the word is Greek) as being named from knowledge. But the Apostle, speaking by the Holy Spirit, says: 'Knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies'; which is rightly understood in no other way than that knowledge then profits when charity is present, but without it puffs up—that is, exalts into the pride of a most empty, as it were, windiness.

There is therefore in the demons knowledge without charity, and on that account they are so puffed up—that is, so proud—that they have striven to have divine honors and the service of religion, which they know to be due to the true God, displayed toward themselves, and they still do this as much as they can among those whom they can. Now against the pride of the demons, by which the human race was held as their due deserts, what great power the humility of God, which appeared in Christ, possesses, the souls of men, puffed up with the uncleanness of haughty elation, do not know—being like the demons not in knowledge but in pride. CHAPTER XXI. In what manner the Lord willed to be made known to the demons. But the demons themselves know even this so far, that to the same Lord, clothed with the weakness of the flesh, they said: 'What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth?'

'Have You come to destroy us?' It is clear in these words that in them there was indeed so much knowledge, yet no charity. For they dreaded their own punishment from Him; they did not love righteousness in Him. And He became known to them only so far as He willed; but He willed only so far as was fitting. Yet He became known to them not as to the holy angels, who enjoy Him, according to that whereby He is the Word of God, in shared eternity; but as He had to become known to them for their terrifying—from whose tyrannical power, as it were, He was about to set free those predestined to His kingdom and to a glory ever truthful and truthfully everlasting. He became known, therefore, to the demons not through that

which is eternal life and unchangeable light, which illumines the godly, by seeing whom—through the faith which is in Him—hearts are cleansed; but through certain temporal effects of His power and most hidden signs of His presence, which could be perceptible to the angelic senses even of malign spirits, rather than to the weakness of men. Finally, when He judged that these should be a little suppressed and lay hidden somewhat more deeply, the prince of the demons doubted concerning Him and tempted Him, probing whether He were the Christ, so far as He Himself permitted Himself to be tempted, that He might temper the man whom He bore to the example of our imitation.

But after that temptation, when the angels—as it is written—ministered to Him, good ones surely and holy, and thereby to be feared and trembled at by unclean spirits, it became more and more known to the demons how great He was, so that to Him commanding, although in Him the weakness of the flesh might seem contemptible, none dared to resist. CHAPTER XXII. What difference there is between the knowledge of the holy angels and the knowledge of the demons. To these good angels, therefore, all knowledge of corporeal and temporal things, by which the demons are puffed up, is of little worth—not that they are ignorant of them, but because the charity of God, by which they are sanctified, is dear to them, in comparison with whose not only incorporeal but also unchangeable and ineffable beauty

with the holy love of which they are inflamed, all things that are below, and which He is not, they esteem as nothing, and despise even themselves among them, that out of the whole of that whereby they are good they may enjoy that Good from which they are good. And on that account they know even these temporal and mutable things more surely, because they behold their principal causes in the Word of God, through whom the world was made—causes by which some things are approved, some rejected, and all are ordered. But the demons do not contemplate the eternal and, as it were, cardinal causes of times in the wisdom of God, but by a greater experience of certain signs hidden from us they foresee far more things to come than men do; sometimes too they announce beforehand their own dispositions.

Finally, the demons are often deceived, but the angels never at all. For it is one thing to conjecture temporal things by temporal and mutable by mutable, and to insert into them the temporal and mutable mode of one's own will and capacity—which has been permitted to the demons by a fixed plan; but it is another thing to foresee, in the eternal and unchangeable laws of God which live in His wisdom, the changes of times, and to know, by participation in His Spirit, the will of God, which is the most certain as well as the most powerful of all—which has been granted to the holy angels by a right discernment. And so they are not only eternal but also blessed. And the Good by which they are blessed is God, by whom they were created.

For by participation in and contemplation of Him they enjoy unfailing fruition. CHAPTER XXIII. That the name of gods is falsely ascribed to the gods of the nations, which name nevertheless, by the authority of the divine Scriptures, is common to the holy angels and to just men. If the Platonists prefer to call these gods rather than demons and to number them among those gods whom Plato, their author and master, writes were created by the supreme God: let them say what they will; for there is no need to labor with them over a controversy of words. For if they say that they are immortal in such a way as nevertheless to have been made by the supreme God, and blessed not through themselves but by cleaving to Him by whom they were made: they say what we say, by whatever name they call them.

That this is the opinion of the Platonists—whether of all or of the better ones—can be found in their writings. For even concerning the very name by which they call such immortal and blessed creatures 'gods,' there is, on that account, almost no disagreement between us and them, since in our sacred writings also it is read: 'The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken'; and elsewhere: 'Give thanks to the God of gods'; and elsewhere: 'A great King above all gods.' But where it is written: 'He is terrible above all gods,' why this is said is shown next. For it follows: 'Since all the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens.' He said therefore 'above all gods,' but of the nations—that is, those whom the nations hold for gods, which are demons;

therefore He is terrible, under which terror they said to the Lord: 'Have You come to destroy us?' But that passage where it is said: 'The God of gods,' cannot be understood as the God of demons; and 'a great King above all gods'—far be it that it be said 'a great King above all demons.' But the same Scripture also calls men in the people of God 'gods.' 'I said,' it says, 'you are gods, and all sons of the Most High.' It can therefore be understood that the God of these gods is He who is called the God of gods, and the great King above these gods is He who is called the great King above all gods. Yet nevertheless, when it is asked of us: