Chapter 2.—Whether Among the
Demons, Inferior to the Gods, There are Any Good Spirits Under
Whose Guardianship the Human Soul Might Reach True
Blessedness.
This book, then, ought, according
to the promise made in the end of the preceding one, to contain a
discussion, not of the difference which exists among the gods, who,
according to the Platonists, are all good, nor of the difference
between gods and demons, the former of whom they separate by a wide
interval from men, while the latter are placed intermediately
between the gods and men, but of the difference, since they make
one, among the demons themselves. This we shall discuss so far as
it bears on our theme. It has been the common and usual belief
that some of the demons are bad, others good; and this opinon,
whether it be that of the Platonists or any
other sect,
must by no means be passed over in silence, lest some one suppose
he ought to cultivate the good demons in order that by their
mediation he may be accepted by the gods, all of whom he believes
to be good, and that he may live with them after death; whereas he
would thus be ensnared in the toils of wicked spirits, and would
wander far from the true God, with whom alone, and in whom alone,
the human soul, that is to say, the soul that is rational and
intellectual, is blessed.