CHAPTER XXIII.

These daemons and your gods are identical, as their own confession when confronted by a Christian will prove. You may further learn from them Who is the True God. Our dominion over the daemons is derived from the power of Christ.

FURTHER, if the magicians also call forth apparitions and dishonour the souls of those already dead; if they throw children into trances for the purposes of oracular response; if they palm off a number of miracles through fraudulent delusions; if they also send dreams, possessing, when once invited, the assistant power of angels and daemons, through whom both goats and tables are wont to be made instruments of divination;—how much more would that power be eager of its own accord and for its own purposes to devote itself with all its might to that same work which it performs to serve the business of another! Or if angels and daemons devote themselves to the same work as your gods, where in that case is the excellence of divinity, which surely ought to be believed to be superior to every other power? Will it not then be more becoming to assume that it is they themselves who make themselves gods, since they exhibit the same credentials as the gods, rather than to set down the gods as merely the equals of angels and daemons? The difference of places points the distinction, I suppose; so that you regard those as gods from their temples whom in another place you do not [79] call gods; and it seems one sort of madness to leap from the sacred towers, and quite another kind to jump from a neighbouring roof; and it is pronounced one kind of violence to mutilate oneself or to gash one's arms, and quite another to cut one's throat. The issue of the phrenzy is the same in both cases, and so is the manner of the instigation.

So far we have dealt in words; now we come to an actual demonstration of fact, and by it we shall shew that the nature of gods and daemons is one, though passing under different names. Let any one be brought before your tribunals, who it is agreed is possessed by a daemon. That spirit, when commanded to speak by any Christian you like to select, will as truly confess that he is a daemon, as elsewhere he will falsely claim to be a god. In exactly the same way let any one of those be produced who are deemed to be under the influence of a god,—who, by inhaling over the altars, become the recipients of the divine influence from the fumes, who are bent double with choking, and prophesy panting. That very virgin Caelestis ⁷¹, the promiser of rains; that very Aesculapius ⁷¹, the inventor of medicine, who supplied life to Socordius, Thanatius, and Asclepiodotus, men doomed to die again the next day,—if these deities of yours do not confess themselves daemons, not daring to lie to a Christian, you may there and then shed the blood of that most insolent Christian. What could be plainer than a fact like this? What could be more trustworthy than a proof of this [80] nature? The simplicity of truth is before your eyes; its own virtue attends it there; suspicion is altogether out of the question.

Will you say that this is done by magic or some deception of that kind, when you can use your own eyes and ears? What indeed can be objected against that which is transparently and openly displayed? If on the one hand they are truly gods, why do they lie by saying that they are daemons? Is it to gratify us? If so, then in that case the divinity you acknowledge is subject to the Christians; and that surely cannot be accounted divinity which is subject to man and (if it adds at all to the disgrace) to its own antagonists! If on the other hand they are daemons or angels, why do they elsewhere present themselves in the guise of gods? For just as they who are regarded as gods would naturally refuse to call themselves dsemons, if they were truly gods, lest they should depose themselves from their own high dignity, so also those whom you know with direct knowledge to be daemons would not dare to elsewhere pose as gods, if those whose names they usurp were any sort of gods at all, since they would fear to abuse the high dignity of beings undoubtedly superior to them and deserving of dread. Thus, then, that divinity which you acknowledge is naught, because if it really existed it would neither be assumed by the daemons, nor denied by the gods. Since then each side competes in making the same confession, and denying its claim to godship, you must draw the conclusion that but one kind of beings exists, namely daemons. Indeed on [81] either hypothesis you must now look out for fresh gods, for those whom you assumed to be such you learn to be only daemons.

Moreover, with this same aid of ours, from these very gods of yours, whose disclosures are not confined to the mere confession that neither they themselves nor any others are gods, you gain this additional piece of information by the same proof,—namely, Who is truly God, and whether it be He and He Alone Whom we Christians confess, and whether He ought to be so believed and worshipped as the faith and doctrine of the Christians have laid down.

Here some will say, 'And Who is that Christ with this story of His? Is He a man of ordinary lot? is He a magician? was He after His death stolen from the tomb by His disciples? is He in fact now in Hades?' Is He not rather in Heaven, thence about to come, amid the agitation of the whole universe, and the quaking of the world, and the lamentation of all except the Christians, as the Power of God, and Spirit of God, and Word, and Wisdom, and Reason, and Son of God? Whatever point you deride in this statement, see whether the daemons will join in your ridicule; see whether they will deny that Christ will judge every soul from the beginning of the world, restored to its own body. Let them assert before your tribunal that Minos and Rhadamanthus, if it be: so, have been appointed to this office, as Plato and the poets agree in saying; let them at least refute the stigma of their own disgrace and condemnation; let them deny that they are unclean spirits, — a [82] fact which cannot fail to be understood from their very food of blood and smoke and stinking burnt-offerings of animals, and from the most foul lips of their very prophets; let them deny that they are foredoomed on account of their wickedness to the same day of judgement along with all their worshippers and devotees.

And all this dominion of ours and power over them derives its force from the Naming of Christ, and from the enumeration of those judgements which they apprehend are threatening them from God through Christ the Judge. Dreading Christ in God and God in Christ, they render obedience to the servants of God and Christ. So at our touch and at our breath, seized with the idea and representation of that fire, they depart unwillingly and reluctantly at our command out of the bodies of men, and blush with shame in your presence. Believe them when they speak the truth about themselves, you who believe them when they lie. No one lies to disgrace, but rather to honour himself. Credit is more readily given to those who to their own loss confess than to those who to their own gain deny. These testimonies of your own gods, moreover, are wont to make men Christians, because by believing them most fully we believe in Christ our Lord. They themselves kindle faith in our Scriptures; they themselves build up the assurance of our hope. But you worship them, as I well know, even with the blood of Christians. Consequently they would be unwilling to lose you who are so profitable and dutiful to [83] them lest, for instance, they might perhaps be put to flight by you, if you happened some day or other to become Christians; even if it were possible for them to lie in the presence of a Christian desirous of proving to you the truth.