nothing in common with both, being neither blessed like the
gods, nor miserable like men._
If, now, we endeavour to find between these opposites the mean occupied
by the demons, there can be no question as to their local position;
for, between the highest and lowest place, there is a place which
is rightly considered and called the middle place. The other two
qualities remain, and to them we must give greater care, that we may
see whether they are altogether foreign to the demons, or how they are
so bestowed upon them without infringing upon their mediate position.
We may dismiss the idea that they are foreign to them. For we cannot
say that the demons, being rational animals, are neither blessed nor
wretched, as we say of the beasts and plants, which are void of feeling
and reason, or as we say of the middle place, that it is neither the
highest nor the lowest. The demons, being rational, must be either
miserable or blessed. And, in like manner, we cannot say that they
are neither mortal nor immortal; for all living things either live
eternally or end life in death. Our author, besides, stated that the
demons are eternal. What remains for us to suppose, then, but that
these mediate beings are assimilated to the gods in one of the two
remaining qualities, and to men in the other? For if they received both
from above, or both from beneath, they should no longer be mediate, but
either rise to the gods above, or sink to men beneath. Therefore, as
it has been demonstrated that they must possess these two qualities,
they will hold their middle place if they receive one from each party.
Consequently, as they cannot receive their eternity from beneath,
because it is not there to receive, they must get it from above; and
accordingly they have no choice but to complete their mediate position
by accepting misery from men.
According to the Platonists, then, the gods, who occupy the highest
place, enjoy eternal blessedness, or blessed eternity; men, who
occupy the lowest, a mortal misery, or a miserable mortality; and
the demons, who occupy the mean, a miserable eternity, or an eternal
misery. As to those five things which Apuleius included in his
definition of demons, he did not show, as he promised, that the
demons are mediate. For three of them, that their nature is animal,
their mind rational, their soul subject to passions, he said that
they have in common with men; one thing, their eternity, in common
with the gods; and one proper to themselves, their aerial body. How,
then, are they intermediate, when they have three things in common
with the lowest, and only one in common with the highest? Who does
not see that the intermediate position is abandoned in proportion
as they tend to, and are depressed towards, the lowest extreme? But
perhaps we are to accept them as intermediate because of their one
property of an aerial body, as the two extremes have each their
proper body, the gods an ethereal, men a terrestrial body, and
because two of the qualities they possess in common with man they
possess also in common with the gods, namely, their animal nature
and rational mind. For Apuleius himself, in speaking of gods and
men, said, "You have two animal natures." And Platonists are wont
to ascribe a rational mind to the gods. Two qualities remain, their
liability to passion, and their eternity,--the first of which they
have in common with men, the second with the gods; so that they are
neither wafted to the highest nor depressed to the lowest extreme,
but perfectly poised in their intermediate position. But then, this
is the very circumstance which constitutes the eternal misery, or
miserable eternity, of the demons. For he who says that their soul
is subject to passions would also have said that they are miserable,
had he not blushed for their worshippers. Moreover, as the world
is governed, not by fortuitous haphazard, but, as the Platonists
themselves avow, by the providence of the supreme God, the misery of
the demons would not be eternal unless their wickedness were great.
If, then, the blessed are rightly styled _eudemons_, the demons
intermediate between gods and men are not eudemons. What, then, is
the local position of those good demons, who, above men but beneath
the gods, afford assistance to the former, minister to the latter?
For if they are good and eternal, they are doubtless blessed. But
eternal blessedness destroys their intermediate character, giving
them a close resemblance to the gods, and widely separating them
from men. And therefore the Platonists will in vain strive to show
how the good demons, if they are both immortal and blessed, can
justly be said to hold a middle place between the gods, who are
immortal and blessed, and men, who are mortal and miserable. For if
they have both immortality and blessedness in common with the gods,
and neither of these in common with men, who are both miserable and
mortal, are they not rather remote from men and united with the gods,
than intermediate between them? They would be intermediate if they
held one of their qualities in common with the one party, and the
other with the other, as man is a kind of mean between angels and
beasts,--the beast being an irrational and mortal animal, the angel
a rational and immortal one, while man, inferior to the angel and
superior to the beast, and having in common with the one mortality,
and with the other reason, is a rational and mortal animal. So,
when we seek for an intermediate between the blessed immortals and
miserable mortals, we should find a being which is either mortal and
blessed, or immortal and miserable.