Chapter XXVII.—Argument:  Recapitulation.  Doubtless Here is a Source of Error:  Demons Lurk Under the Statues and Images, They Haunt the Fanes, They Animate the Fibres of the Entrails, Direct the Flights of Birds, Govern the Lots, Pour Forth Oracles Involved in False Responses.  These Things Not from God; But They are Constrained to Confess When They are Adjured in the Name of the True God, and are Driven from the Possessed Bodies.  Hence They Flee Hastily from the Neighbourhood of Christians, and Stir Up a Hatred Against Them in the Minds of the Gentiles Who Begin to Hate Them Before They Know Them.

“These impure spirits, therefore—the demons—as is shown by the Magi, by the philosophers, and by Plato, consecrated under statues and images, lurk there, and by their afflatus attain the authority as of a present deity; while in the meantime they are breathed into the prophets, while they dwell in the shrines, while sometimes they animate the fibres of the entrails, control the flights of birds, direct the lots, are the cause of oracles involved in many falsehoods.  For they are both deceived, and they deceive; inasmuch as they are both ignorant of the simple truth, and for their own ruin they confess not that which they know.  Thus they weigh men downwards from heaven, and call them away from the true God to material things:  they disturb the life, render all men91    Some read “slumbers” for “all men.” unquiet; creeping also secretly into human bodies, with subtlety, as being spirits, they feign diseases, alarm the minds, wrench about the limbs; that they may constrain men to worship them, being gorged with the fumes of altars or the sacrifices of cattle, that, by remitting what they had bound, they may seem to have cured it.  These raging maniacs also, whom you see rush about in public, are moreover themselves prophets without a temple; thus they rage, thus they rave, thus they are whirled around.  In them also there is a like instigation of the demon, but there is a dissimilar occasion for their madness.  From the same causes also arise those things which were spoken of a little time ago by you, that Jupiter demanded the restoration of his games in a dream, that the Castors appeared with horses, and that a small ship was following the leading of the matron’s girdle.  A great many, even some of your own people, know all those things that the demons themselves confess concerning themselves, as often as they are driven by us from bodies by the torments of our words and by the fires of our prayers.  Saturn himself, and Serapis, and Jupiter, and whatever demons you worship, overcome by pain, speak out what they are; and assuredly they do not lie to their own discredit, especially when any of you are standing by.  Since they themselves are the witnesses that they are demons, believe them when they confess the truth of themselves; for when abjured by the only and true God, unwillingly the wretched beings shudder in92    “Cling to” is another reading. their bodies, and either at once leap forth, or vanish by degrees, as the faith of the sufferer assists or the grace of the healer inspires.  Thus they fly from Christians when near at hand, whom at a distance they harassed by your means in their assemblies.  And thus, introduced into the minds of the ignorant, they secretly sow there a hatred of us by means of fear.  For it is natural both to hate one whom you fear, and to injure one whom you have feared, if you can.  Thus they take possession of the minds and obstruct the hearts, that men may begin to hate us before they know us; lest, if known, they should either imitate us, or not be able to condemn us.

CAPUT XXVII.

ARGUMENTUM.---Quod ut solide praestet, rem alterius et a prima sua origine repetit. Nimirum erroris fons iste: daemones sub statuis et imaginibus delitescunt, commorantur in fanis, extorum fibras animant, avium volatus gubernant, sortes regunt, oracula fundunt, falsis involuta responsis. Verumtamen haec non a Deo, sed a se ipsis facta fuisse fateri coguntur, quum a Christianis per Deum verum adjurati ab obsessis corporibus fugantur. Hinc vero Christianos de Proximo fugitant; tantumque gentilium in eos excitant odium ut illos ante incipiant odisse, quam nosse, ne cognitos aut incitari possint aut damnare non possint.

0323B Isti igitur impuri spiritus, daemones, ut ostensum 0324A a magis, a philosophis, et a Platone, sub statuis et imaginibus consecrati delitescunt, et afflatu suo auctoritatem, quasi praesentis numinis, consequuntur, dum inspirantur interim vatibus, dum fanis immorantur, dum nonnumquam extorum fibras animant, avium volatus gubernant, sortes regunt, oracula efficiunt falsis pluribus involuta. Nam et falluntur et fallunt, ut et nescientes sinceram veritatem, et quam sciunt, in perditionem sui non confitentes. Sic a coelo deorsum gravant, et a Deo vero ad materias avocant, vitam turbant, omnes inquietant, irrepentes etiam corporibus occulte, ut spiritus tenues, morbos fingunt, terrent mentes, membra distorquent, ut ad cultum sui cogant: ut nidore altarium, vel hostiis pecudum saginati remissis, quae constrinxerant 0324B curasse videantur. Hi sunt et furentes, quos in publicum 0325A videtis excurrere; vates et ipsi absque templo sic insaniunt, sic bacchantur, sic rotantur. Par et in illis instigatio daemonis, sed argumentum dispar furoris. De ipsis etiam illa quae paulo ante tibi dicta sunt, ut Jupiter ludos repeteret ex somnio, ut cum equis Castores viderentur, ut cingulum matronae navicula sequeretur. Haec omnia sciunt plerique pars vestrum, ipsos daemonas de semetipsis confiteri, quoties a nobis et tormentis verborum et orationis incendiis de corporibus exiguntur. Ipse Saturnus, et 0326A Serapis, et Jupiter, et quidquid daemonum colitis, victi dolore, quod sunt eloquuntur: nec utique in turpitudinem sui, nonnullis praesertim vestrum assistentibus, mentiuntur. Ipsis testibus, esse eos daemonas, de se verum confitentibus credite. Adjurati enim per Deum verum et solum, inviti miseris corporibus inhorrescunt: et vel exsiliunt statim, vel evanescunt gradatim, prout fides patientis adjuvat, aut gratia curantis aspirat. Sic Christianos de proximo fugitant, quos longe in coetibus per vos lacessebant. Ideo inserti 0327A mentibus imperitorum, odium nostri serunt occulte per timorem: naturale est enim et odisse, quem timeas; et quem metueris, infestare, si possis. Sic occupant animos, et obstruunt pectora, ut ante nos incipiant homines odisse, quam nosse: ne cognitos aut imitari possint, aut damnare non possint.