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 opinion, 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.