glorification of the saints, who conquer not by propitiating
the spirits of the air, but by abiding in God._
The power delegated to the demons at certain appointed and
well-adjusted seasons, that they may give expression to their
hostility to the city of God by stirring up against it the men
who are under their influence, and may not only receive sacrifice
from those who willingly offer it, but may also extort it from the
unwilling by violent persecution;--this power is found to be not
merely harmless, but even useful to the Church, completing as it
does the number of martyrs, whom the city of God esteems as all the
more illustrious and honoured citizens, because they have striven
even to blood against the sin of impiety. If the ordinary language
of the Church allowed it, we might more elegantly call these men our
heroes. For this name is said to be derived from Juno, who in Greek
is called Hêrê, and hence, according to the Greek myths, one of her
sons was called Heros. And these fables mystically signified that
Juno was mistress of the air, which they suppose to be inhabited
by the demons and the heroes, understanding by heroes the souls of
the well-deserving dead. But for a quite opposite reason would we
call our martyrs heroes,--supposing, as I said, that the usage of
ecclesiastical language would admit of it,--not because they lived
along with the demons in the air, but because they conquered these
demons or powers of the air, and among them Juno herself, be she
what she may, not unsuitably represented, as she commonly is by the
poets, as hostile to virtue, and jealous of men of mark aspiring to
the heavens. Virgil, however, unhappily gives way, and yields to
her; for, though he represents her as saying, "I am conquered by
Æneas,"[409] Helenus gives Æneas himself this religious advice:
"Pay vows to Juno: overbear
Her queenly soul with gift and prayer."[410]
In conformity with this opinion, Porphyry--expressing, however, not
so much his own views as other people's--says that a good god or
genius cannot come to a man unless the evil genius has been first of
all propitiated, implying that the evil deities had greater power
than the good; for, until they have been appeased and give place, the
good can give no assistance; and if the evil deities oppose, the good
can give no help; whereas the evil can do injury without the good
being able to prevent them. This is not the way of the true and truly
holy religion; not thus do our martyrs conquer Juno, that is to say,
the powers of the air, who envy the virtues of the pious. Our heroes,
if we could so call them, overcome Hêrê, not by suppliant gifts, but
by divine virtues. As Scipio, who conquered Africa by his valour, is
more suitably styled Africanus than if he had appeased his enemies by
gifts, and so won their mercy.