496 THE OCTAVIUS OF the shrines,while sometimes they animate the fibresof the entrails,controlthe flightsof birds,directthe lots,arethe causeof oraclesinvolvedin many falsehoods.For theyare both deceived,and they deceive; inasmuch as they areboth ignorantof the simple truth,and for theirown ruin they confessnot thatwhich they know. Thus they weigh men downwards from heaven,and callthem away from thetrue God to materialthings: theydisturbthe life,renderallmen1 unquiet; creepingalsosecretlyintohuman bodies,withsub tlety,as being spirits,they feign diseases,alarm the minds, wrench about the limbs; that they may constrainmen to worship them, that,being gorged with the fumes of altars or the sacrificesof cattle,by remittingwhat they had bound, they may seem to have cured it. These ragingmaniacs also, whom you seerush about in public,are moreover themselves prophetswithout a temple; thus they rage,thus theyrave, thus they arewhirledaround. In them alsothere is a like instigationof the demon, but there is a dissimilaroccasion for theirmadness. From the same causes also arisethose thingswhich were spoken of a littletime ago by you,that Jupiterdemanded the restorationof his games in a dream, thatthe Castorsappearedwith horses,and that a smallship was followingthe leadingof the matron'sgirdle. A great many, even some of your own people,know allthosethings that the demons themselvesconfessconcerningthemselves, as often as they are driven by us from bodies by the tor ments of our words and by the firesof our prayers. Saturn himself,and Serapis,and J upiter,and whatever demons you worship,overcome by pain,speak out what they are; and assuredlythey do not lie to theirown discredit,especially when any of you are standingby. Since they themselves are the witnessesthat they are demons, believethem when they confessthe truthof themselves; forwhen adjuredby the only and true God, unwillinglythe wretched beings shudder in2 theirbodies,and eitherat once leap forth,or vanish by degrees,as the faithof the suffererassistsorthe 1 Some rend" slumbers"for" allmen." 3 " Clingto" isanotherreading.