(65) And a command has gone forth from the presence of the Lord concerning those who dwell on the earth that their ruin is accomplished because they have learnt all the secrets of the angels, and all the violence of the Satans, and all their powers--the most secret ones--and all the power of those who practice sorcery, and the power of witchcraft, and the power of those who make molten images for the whole earth:

(65) And He said unto me: "Because of their unrighteousness their judgement has been determined upon and shall not be withheld by Me for ever. Because of the sorceries which they have searched out and learnt, the earth and those who dwell upon it shall be destroyed."

(22) And the evil spirit, who perceived his own impotence and the annihilation of the demons, became confounded, and fell back to the gloomy darkness; even so as is declared in revelation, that, when one of its (the Ahunavar's) three parts was uttered, the evil spirit contracted his body through fear, and when two parts of it were uttered he fell upon his knees, and when all of it was uttered he became confounded and impotent as to the harm he caused the creatures of Aûharmazd, and he remained three thousand years in confusion.

(5) And against the angels whom He had sent upon the earth, He was exceedingly wroth, and He gave commandment to root them out of all their dominion, and He bade us to bind them in the depths of the earth, and behold they are bound in the midst of them, and are (kept) separate.

(10) And one of us He commanded that we should teach Noah all their medicines ; for He knew that they would not walk in uprightness, nor strive in righteousness, n. And we did according to all His words : all the malignant evil ones we bound in the place of condemnation, and a tenth part of them we left that they might be subject before Satan * on the earth.

(68) And it came to pass when he stood before the Lord of Spirits, Michael said thus to Raphael: 'I will not take their part under the eye of the Lord; for the Lord of Spirits has been angry with them because they do as if they were the Lord. Therefore all that is hidden shall come upon them for ever and ever; for neither angel nor man shall have his portion (in it), but alone they have received their judgement for ever and ever.'

(60) And I besought the other angel that he should show me the might of those monsters, how they were parted on one day and cast, the one into the abysses of the sea, and the other unto the dry land of the wilderness.

(8) And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjâzâ taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, Armârôs the resolving of enchantments, Barâqîjâl, (taught) astrology, Kôkabêl the constellations, Ezêqêêl the knowledge of the clouds, 〈Araqiêl the signs of the earth, Shamsiêl the signs of the sun〉, and Sariêl the course of the moon. And as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to heaven . . .

(10) And Thou knowest how Thy Watchers, the fathers of these spirits, acted in my day : and as for these spirits which are living, imprison them and hpld them fast in the place of condemnation, and let them not bring destruction on the sons of thy servant, my God ; for these are malignant, and created in 1 ». e. the spirits which issued from the children of the angels and the daughters of men. order to destroy.

(4) The sorrowful departure of the Gods from men takes place; bad angels only stay, who mingled with humanity will lay their hands on them, and drive the wretched folk to every ill of recklessness,—to wars, and robberies, deceits, and all those things that are opposed to the soul’s nature. Then shall the Earth no longer hold together; the Sea no longer shall be sailed upon; nor shall the Heaven continue with the Courses of the Stars, nor the Star-course in Heaven. The voice of every God shall cease in the [Great] Silence that no one can break; the fruits of Earth shall rot; nay, Earth no longer shall bring forth; and Air itself shall faint in that sad listlessness. XXVI

(1) These things also admit of another explanation of the following kind. The theurgist, through the power of arcane signatures, commands mundane natures, no longer as man, nor as employing a human soul; but as existing superior to them in the order of the Gods, he makes use of greater mandates than pertain to himself, so far as he is human. This, however, does not take place as if he effected every thing which he vehemently threatens to accomplish; but he teaches us by such a use of words the magnitude and quality of the power which he possesses through a union with the Gods, and which he obtains from the knowledge of arcane symbols. This, likewise, may be said, that the dæmons who are distributed according to parts, and who guard the parts of the universe, pay so much attention to the parts over which they preside, that they cannot endure a word contrary [to the safety of these], but they preserve the permanency of mundane natures immutable. They preserve this permanency, therefore, in an unchanged condition, because the order of the Gods remains invariably the same. Hence they cannot endure even to hear that threatened in which the aerial and terrestrial dæmons have their existence.

(4) You please yourselves with this, that the Devil is in Subjection to you, and you suppose that you are Gods: Here I will describe the Original and Ground of Necromancy, for I am become also a Searcher into Nature, but not after your Way and Manner, but to discover your Shame by a divine Revelation, for an Advertisement to this last World, and for a Sentence of Condemnation upon their Skill and Knowledge; for the Judgment follows upon Knowledge.

(1) Or this thing may likewise be explained as follows: Dæmons preside with a guardian power over arcane mysteries, and this in so remarkable a degree, because the orderly distribution of things in the universe is primarily contained in dæmons. For the parts of the universe remain in order, because the beneficent power of Osiris continues sacred and undefiled, and is not mingled with any opposing error and perturbation. The life of all things likewise remains pure and incorruptible, because the occult vivific beauties of the productive principles in Isis do not descend into body which is born along, and is the object of sight. But all things continue immoveable and perpetual, because the course of the sun is never stopped. And all things remain perfect and entire, because the arcana in the adytum are never disclosed. Hence, in those particulars in which the whole of things possesses its safety, I mean in arcana being always preserved occult, and in the ineffable essence of the Gods, never receiving a contrary condition; in these, terrestrial dæmons cannot endure, even in words, to hear that they subsist otherwise than they do, or that they become profaned; and on this account threatening language has a certain power when employed against them. No one, however, threatens the Gods, nor is such a mode of invocation addressed to them. Hence with the Chaldeans, by whom words used to the Gods alone are preserved distinct and pure, no threats are employed. But the Egyptians, mingling dæmoniacal words with divine signatures, sometimes employ threats. You have, therefore, an answer to these doubts, concise indeed, but I think sufficiently free from error.

(2) Because, likewise, they are excluded, through certain defilements, from an association with pure spirits, they become connected with evil spirits, are filled from them with the worst kind of inspiration, are rendered depraved and unholy, become replete with intemperate pleasures, and every kind of vice, are emulous of manners foreign to the Gods, and, in short, become similar to the depraved dæmons, with whom they are connascent. These, therefore, being full of passions and vice, attract to themselves, through alliance, depraved spirits, and are excited by them to every kind of iniquity. They are also increased in wickedness by each other, like a circle conjoining the beginning to the end, and similarly making an equal compensation. Hence deeds which are the nefarious offences of impiety, which are introduced into sacred works in a disorderly manner, and which are also confusedly performed by those who betake themselves to such works, and at one time, as it seems, cause one divinity to be present instead of another, and again, introduce depraved dæmons instead of Gods, whom they call equal to the Gods ( αντιθεους )—such deeds as these you should never adduce in a discourse concerning sacerdotal divination. For good is more contrary to evil than to that which is not good.

(1) And this order is adapted to dæmons; one part of it being allied to those that are invoked; another being derived from more ancient causes; and the third part effecting a common completion from both the others. Do not, therefore, assimilate divine invocations to such as are human, nor those that are ineffable to those that are effable; nor compare those that are prior to every boundary, and every indefinite mode, to those that are defined by men, or to indefinite actions. For our concerns have nothing in common with theirs, whose whole genus and whole order transcend and govern the whole of our essence and nature. But here, especially, the greatest errors happen to men, when from human imbecility they infer any thing concerning the domination of dæmons, and from things which are small, of no worth, and distributed into parts, form a conjecture of great, excellent, and perfect natures. And thus much in answer to you concerning the peculiar dæmon, in addition to what has been before said.

(19) And Uriel said to me: 'Here shall stand the angels who have connected themselves with women, and their spirits assuming many different forms are defiling mankind and shall lead them astray into sacrificing to demons ⌈⌈as gods⌉⌉, (here shall they stand,) till ⌈⌈the day of⌉⌉ the great judgement in which they shall be judged till they are made an end of.

(10) And the chief of the spirits, Mastfima, ' , t came and said : " Lord, Creator, let some of them ' • •' remain before me, arid let them hearken to my voice, and do all that I shall say unto them ; for if some of them are not left to me, I shall not be able to execute the power of my will on. the sons of men ; for these are for corruption and leading astray before my judg- , ment, for great is the wickedness of the sons of men."

(1) Again, therefore, still worse than this is the explanation of sacred operations, which assigns as the cause of divination, “ a certain genus of dæmons, which is naturally fraudulent, omniform, and various, and which assumes the appearance of Gods and dæmons, and the souls of the deceased .” I shall, therefore, relate to you, in answer to this, what I once heard from the prophets of the Chaldeans. Such Gods as are truly divinities, are alone the givers of good; alone associate with good men, and with those that are purified by the sacerdotal art, and from these amputate all vice, and every passion. When these, also, impart their light, that which is evil, and at the same time dæmoniacal, vanishes from before more excellent natures, in the same manner as darkness when light is present; nor is it able to disturb theurgists in the smallest degree, who receive from this light every virtue, obtain worthy manners, become orderly and elegant in their actions, are liberated from passions, and purified from every disorderly motion, and from atheistical and unholy conduct. But those who are themselves flagitious, and who leap, as it were, to things of a divine nature in an illegal and disorderly manner, these, through the imbecility of their proper energy, or through indigence of inherent power, are not able to associate with the Gods.