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 honour 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.[329]
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
towards 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.