the celestial gods decline contact with earthly things and
intercourse with men, who therefore require the intercession of
the demons._
That opinion, which the same Platonist avers that Plato uttered,
is not true, "that no god holds intercourse with men."[347] And
this, he says, is the chief evidence of their exaltation, that they
are never contaminated by contact with men. He admits, therefore,
that the demons are contaminated; and it follows that they cannot
cleanse those by whom they are themselves contaminated, and thus
all alike become impure, the demons by associating with men, and
men by worshipping the demons. Or, if they say that the demons are
not contaminated by associating and dealing with men, then they are
better than the gods, for the gods, were they to do so, would be
contaminated. For this, we are told, is the glory of the gods, that
they are so highly exalted that no human intercourse can sully them.
He affirms, indeed, that the supreme God, the Creator of all things,
whom we call the true God, is spoken of by Plato as the only God whom
the poverty of human speech fails even passably to describe; and
that even the wise, when their mental energy is as far as possible
delivered from the trammels of connection with the body, have only
such gleams of insight into His nature as may be compared to a flash
of lightning illumining the darkness. If, then, this supreme God, who
is truly exalted above all things, does nevertheless visit the minds
of the wise, when emancipated from the body, with an intelligible and
ineffable presence, though this be only occasional, and as it were
a swift flash of light athwart the darkness, why are the other gods
so sublimely removed from all contact with men, as if they would be
polluted by it? as if it were not a sufficient refutation of this
to lift up our eyes to those heavenly bodies which give the earth
its needful light. If the stars, though they, by his account, are
visible gods, are not contaminated when we look at them, neither are
the demons contaminated when men see them quite closely. But perhaps
it is the human voice, and not the eye, which pollutes the gods;
and therefore the demons are appointed to mediate and carry men's
utterances to the gods, who keep themselves remote through fear of
pollution? What am I to say of the other senses? For by smell neither
the demons, who are present, nor the gods, though they were present
and inhaling the exhalations of living men, would be polluted if
they are not contaminated with the effluvia of the carcases offered
in sacrifice. As for taste, they are pressed by no necessity of
repairing bodily decay, so as to be reduced to ask food from men. And
touch is in their own power. For while it may seem that contact is so
called, because the sense of touch is specially concerned in it, yet
the gods, if so minded, might mingle with men, so as to see and be
seen, hear and be heard; and where is the need of touching? For men
would not dare to desire this, if they were favoured with the sight
or conversation of gods or good demons; and if through excessive
curiosity they should desire it, how could they accomplish their wish
without the consent of the god or demon, when they cannot touch so
much as a sparrow unless it be caged?
There is, then, nothing to hinder the gods from mingling in a bodily
form with men, from seeing and being seen, from speaking and hearing.
And if the demons do thus mix with men, as I said, and are not
polluted, while the gods, were they to do so, should be polluted,
then the demons are less liable to pollution than the gods. And if
even the demons are contaminated, how can they help men to attain
blessedness after death, if, so far from being able to cleanse them,
and present them clean to the unpolluted gods, these mediators
are themselves polluted? And if they cannot confer this benefit
on men, what good can their friendly mediation do? Or shall its
result be, not that men find entrance to the gods, but that men and
demons abide together in a state of pollution, and consequently of
exclusion from blessedness? Unless, perhaps, some one may say that,
like sponges or things of that sort, the demons themselves, in the
process of cleansing their friends, become themselves the filthier in
proportion as the others become clean. But if this is the solution,
then the gods, who shun contact or intercourse with men for fear of
pollution, mix with demons who are far more polluted. Or perhaps
the gods, who cannot cleanse men without polluting themselves, can
without pollution cleanse the demons who have been contaminated
by human contact? Who can believe such follies, unless the demons
have practised their deceit upon him? If seeing and being seen is
contamination, and if the gods, whom Apuleius himself calls visible,
"the brilliant lights of the world,"[348] and the other stars, are
seen by men, are we to believe that the demons, who cannot be seen
unless they please, are safer from contamination? Or if it is only
the seeing and not the being seen which contaminates, then they must
deny that these gods of theirs, these brilliant lights of the world,
see men when their rays beam upon the earth. Their rays are not
contaminated by lighting on all manner of pollution, and are we to
suppose that the gods would be contaminated if they mixed with men,
and even if contact were needed in order to assist them? For there is
contact between the earth and the sun's or moon's rays, and yet this
does not pollute the light.