(1) If, however, it be requisite to unfold to you the truth concerning the peculiar dæmon, we must say that he is not distributed to us from one part of the heavens, or from some one of the visible elements; but that from the whole world, the all-various life contained in it, and the all-various body through which the soul descends into generation, a certain peculiar portion is distributed to each of the parts in us, according to a peculiar prefecture. This dæmon, therefore, is established in the paradigm before the soul descends into generation; and when the soul has received him as its leader, the dæmon immediately presides over the soul, gives completion to its lives, and binds it to body when it descends. He likewise governs the common animal of the soul, directs its peculiar life, and imparts to us the principles of all our thoughts and reasonings. We also perform such things as he suggests to our intellect, and he continues to govern us till, through sacerdotal theurgy, we obtain a God for the inspective guardian and leader of the soul. For then the dæmon either yields or delivers his government to a more excellent nature, or is subjected to him, as contributing to his guardianship, or in some other way is ministrant to him as to his lord.

(1) Afterwards, abandoning these particulars, you pass on to the opinion of philosophy. But you subvert the whole hypothesis concerning the peculiar dæmon. For if [as you say] “ this dæmon is a part of the soul ,” such, for instance, as the intellectual part, “ and he is happy who is in possession of a wise intellect ,” there will no longer be any other more excellent or dæmoniacal order, presiding over, as transcending the human soul. But certain parts of the soul, or a certain divided power, will have dominion over many of the forms of life that are in us; and will rule over these, not connascently, but as naturally exempt, and as transcending the whole of our composition.

(1) After this, therefore, you also mention another disquisition concerning the peculiar dæmon, which represents “ some as worshiping two, but others three, dæmons of this kind .” The whole of this, however, is erroneous. For it is a false mode of proceeding to divide the causes that preside over us, and not refer them to one; since this wanders from the union which has dominion over all things. The opinion, likewise, which distributes this dæmon into body, and the government of body, draws down his domination to a certain most minute part. So that what necessity is there for those who embrace this opinion to direct their attention to sacred operations, the first principle of them being futile? There is, therefore, of each of us one peculiar presiding dæmon; but it is not proper to think that this dæmon is common to all men; nor again, that he is common, but is peculiarly present with each individual.

(2) For division, according to species and difference of matter, do not receive the communion and sameness of things essentially incorporeal. “ Why then [you say] is the peculiar dæmon invoked by a common mode by all men? ” Because the invocation of him is effected through one God, who is the lord of dæmons; who from the first defined to every one his peculiar dæmon; and who, in sacred operations, unfolds to every one his proper dæmon, according to his own proper will. For always in the theurgic order secondary are invoked through primary natures. Among dæmons, therefore, one common leader of the cosmocrators about generation sends to each of us his peculiar dæmon. Hence, when the peculiar dæmon is present with each of us, he then unfolds the worship which is proper to be paid to him and his name, and likewise delivers the proper mode of invoking him.

(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.

(1) Let us now, therefore, to the utmost of our power, endeavour to discuss the manifold doubt concerning the peculiar dæmon, and which also is subject to various objections. Since, however, to speak summarily, the consideration of the peculiar dæmon is twofold, the one being theurgic, but the other artificial; and the one drawing this dæmon down from supernal causes, but the other from the visible periods in generation; and the one making no use whatever of the calculation of nativities, but the other meddling with methods of this kind; and the one worshiping this dæmon in a way more universal and supernatural, but the other partibly conformable to nature; this being the case, you appear to me to have absurdly transferred a more perfect sacred operation to one that is human, and in this to have exercised your inquiries.

(3) By the assistance also of this reasoning, we may discover another difference between Gods and dæmons. For both the visible and invisible Gods, indeed, comprehend in themselves the whole government of whatever is contained in all heaven and the world, and in the total invisible powers in the universe. But those powers that are allotted a dæmoniacal prefecture, distributing certain divisible portions of the world, govern these, and have themselves a partible form of essence and power. They are, likewise, in a certain respect, connascent with, and inseparable from, the subjects of their government. But the Gods, though they may ride in bodies, are entirely separated from them. The providential attention, therefore, to bodies, produces no diminution in those to whom body is subservient: for it is connectedly contained by a more excellent nature, is converted to it, and is not the cause of any impediment to it. But the adhering to a genesiurgic nature, and the being divided about it, necessarily give to dæmons a more subordinate condition. In short, that which is divine is of a ruling nature, and presides over the different orders of beings; but that which is dæmoniacal is of a ministrant nature, and receives whatever the Gods may announce, promptly employing manual operation, as it were, in things which the Gods intellectually perceive, wish, and command. The Gods, therefore, are liberated from the powers which verge to generation; but dæmons are not entirely purified from these. And thus much concerning this distinction; and we trust, that from the former and the present exposition, the difference between Gods and dæmons will become more known.

(1) After this, you pass on to another division into contraries, viz. the division of Gods with reference to dæmons. For you say, “ that the Gods are pure intellects ;” but you propose this opinion as an hypothesis, or you narrate it as a dogma adopted by certain persons. And you infer, “ that dæmons are psychical essences participating of intellect .” Neither, therefore, am I ignorant that this is the opinion of many philosophers; but to you, I do not think it is proper to conceal what appears to me to be the truth. For all such opinions are full of confusion; since they wander from dæmons to souls, which also participate of intellect; and from the Gods to an immaterial intellect in energy, which the Gods entirely excel by a priority of nature. Why, therefore, is it requisite to attribute to them these peculiarities, which are by no means appropriate? And thus much concerning this division, for it would be superfluous to make any further mention of it. But it is requisite that your doubts respecting this distinction should be properly considered, as the discussion of them pertains to the sacerdotal province.

(2) For dæmons, indeed, are invisible, and by no means to be apprehended by sense; but the Gods transcend rational knowledge and material intelligence. And, because they are unknown and unapparent to these, they are thus denominated; but are said to be invisible in a way very different from that in which this is asserted of dæmons. What, therefore, have the invisible Gods, so far as they are invisible, more excellent than the visible Gods? Nothing. For that which is divine, wherever it may be, and whatever allotment it may possess, has the same power and dominion over all the natures that are arranged under it. Moreover, though the invisible Gods should become visible, yet they rule over invisible dæmons. For neither the place, which is the recipient of divinity, nor a certain part of the world, produces any mutation in the dominion of the Gods. But the whole essence of the Gods remains everywhere the same, indivisible and immutable, which all subordinate beings similarly venerate, in the order assigned them by nature.

(2) Neither is any man able to fashion, as by a machine, certain forms of dæmons; but, on the contrary, he is rather fashioned and fabricated by them, so far as he participates of a sensible body. But neither is a certain dæmoniacal multitude generated from the elements of sensibles; since, on the contrary, this multitude is simple, and energizes uniformly about composite natures. Hence, neither will it have sensibles more ancient, or more stable than itself; but being itself more excellent than sensibles, both in dignity and power, it imparts to them the permanency which they are able to receive. Unless indeed, you denominate idols dæmons, not rightly employing an appellation of this kind. For the nature of dæmons is one thing, and that of idols another. The order of each, likewise, is very different. Moreover, the leader of idols is different from the great leader of dæmons. And this, also, you admit. For you say, “ that no God or dæmon is drawn down by idols .” What, therefore, will be the worth of a sacred deed, or of the foreknowledge of what is future, if it is entirely destitute of divinity and a dæmon? So that it is requisite to know what the nature is of this wonder-working art, but by no means to use or confide in it.

(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.

(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.

(1) What you introduce, however, for the purpose of obtaining a knowledge of these things, whether it be your own opinion, or whether you have heard it from others, is neither true nor rightly asserted. For you say, “ that to speak boastingly, and to exhibit an adumbrative phantasm, are common to Gods and dæmons, and to all the more excellent genera of beings .” But the thing is not as you apprehend it to be. For a God, an angel, and a good dæmon, instruct men in what their proper essence consists; and never use an addition in their language which transcends their power, or their appropriate good. For truth is coexistent with the Gods, in the same manner as light with the sun. And, at the same time, we say, that divinity is not in want of any beauty or virtue which it is possible to add to him through language. Moreover, angels and dæmons always receive truth from the Gods, so that they never assert any thing contrary to this, each of them being essentially perfect, nor can they add any thing to it for the sake of commendation.

(1) After this, you again resume the same inquiries, of which what has been already said may be considered as a sufficient solution. Since, however, it is necessary, according to the proverb, frequently to speak of and consider things that are beautiful, neither shall we pass over these particulars, as if they had been now sufficiently answered, but by repeatedly discussing them we may, perhaps, obtain from all of them a certain perfect and great scientific good. For you doubt “ what it is which distinguishes dæmons from the visible and invisible Gods, since the visible are conjoined with the invisible divinities .” But I, beginning from this as the first thing, shall demonstrate what it is in which they differ. For, because the visible are united to the intelligible Gods, and have the same idea with them, but dæmons are far distant from them, according to essence, and scarcely adumbrate them through similitude, on this account they are separated from the visible Gods; and they differ from the invisible Gods, according to the difference itself of the invisible.

(1) From these things, therefore, it is easy to answer your next question. For the peculiar dæmon does not rule over one of the parts in us, but, in short, over all the parts at once, and extends to every principle within us, in the same manner as he was distributed to us from the total orders in the universe. For that which it appears to you proper to add as an indication “ that dæmons preside over the parts of our body, so that one is the guardian of health, another of the form of the body, and another of the corporeal habits, and that there is one dæmon who presides in common over all these ;” this you should consider as an argument that there is one dæmon who is the guardian and governor of every thing that is in us. You must not, therefore, distribute one dæmon to the body, but another to the soul, and another to intellect: for it is absurd that the animal should be one, but the dæmon that presides over it multiform. For every where the natures that govern are more simple than the natures that are governed. And it will be still more absurd if the many dæmons that rule over the parts are not connascent, but separated from each other. But you also make contrariety among them. For you speak as if “ some of them were good, but others bad .” Evil dæmons, however, have no where a ruling allotment, nor are they oppositely divided to such as are good with equal authority and power.

(1) It is also necessary to demonstrate to you, in what dæmons, heroes, and souls differ from each other, and whether this difference is according to essence, or according to power, or according to energy. I say, therefore, that dæmons are produced according to the generative and demiurgic powers of the Gods, in the most remote termination of progression, and ultimate distribution into parts. But heroes are produced according to the reasons [or effective principles], of life in divine natures; and from these, the first and perfect measures of souls receive their termination and distribution into parts. Since, however, the nature of dæmons and heroes is thus generated from different causes, it is also necessary that the essence of the one should be different from that of the other. Hence, the essence of dæmons is effective, and perfective of mundane natures, and gives completion to the superintendence of generated individuals. But the essence of heroes is vital and rational, and is the leader of souls. And, with respect to the powers of each, those of dæmons must be defined to be prolific, inspective of nature, and of the bond by which souls are united to bodies. But it is requisite to attribute to heroes vivific powers, which are the leaders of men, and are liberated from generation.

(8) And that the devil so spoken of by the Barbarian philosophy, the prince of the demons, is a wicked spirit, Plato asserts in the tenth book of the Laws, in these words: "Must we not say that spirit which pervades the things that are moved on all sides, pervades also heaven? Well, what? One or more? Several, say I, in reply for you. Let us not suppose fewer than two - that which is beneficent, and that which is able to accomplish the opposite." Similarly in the Phoedrus he writes as follows: "Now there are other evils. But some demon has mingled pleasure with the most things at present." Further, in the tenth book of the Laws, he expressly emits that apostolic sentiment, "Our contest is not with flesh and blood, but principalities, with powers, with the spiritual things of those which are in heaven;" writing thus: "For since we are agreed that heaven is full of many good beings; but it is also full of the opposite of these, and more of these; and as we assert such a contest is deathless, and requiring marvellous watchfulness."

(8) Wherefore I've ever heard, my son, Good Daimon also say - (and had He set it down in written words, He would have greatly helped the race of men; for He alone, my son, doth truly, as the Firstborn God, gazing on all things, give voice to words (logoi) divine) - yea, once I heard Him say: "All things are one, and most of all the bodies which the mind alone perceives. Our life is owing to [God's] Energy and Power and Aeon. His Mind is good, so is His Soul as well. And this being so, intelligible things know naught of separation. So, then, Mind, being Ruler of all things, and being Soul of God, can do whate'er it wills."

(2) In souls, however, which rule over bodies, and precedaneously pay attention to them, and which, prior to generation, have by themselves a perpetual arrangement, essential good is not present, nor the cause of good, which is prior to essence; but to these a certain participation and habit, proceeding from essential good, accedes; just as we see that the participation of beauty and virtue is very different [in these souls] from that which we behold in men. For the latter is ambiguous, and accedes to composite natures as something adventitious. But the former has an immutable and never failing establishment in souls, and neither itself ever departs from itself, nor can be taken away by any thing else. Such, therefore, being the beginning and end in the divine genera, conceive two media between these extreme boundaries, viz. the order of heroes, which has an arrangement more elevated than that of souls, in power and virtue, in beauty and magnitude, and in all the goods which subsist about souls, and which, though it entirely transcends the psychical order, yet, at the same time, is proximately conjoined to it, through the alliance of a similar formed life. But the other medium, which is suspended from the Gods, though it is far inferior to them, is that of dæmons, which is hot of a primarily operative nature, but is subservient to, and follows the beneficent will of the Gods.

(5) Shall we say, then, that it is because they afford a certain utility to those that behold them? But what advantage can be derived from falsehood? If, therefore, this is not the case, may it not be natural to divinity to extend a phantasm from itself? But how can that which is firmly established in itself, and which is the cause of essence and truth, produce in a foreign seat a certain deceitful imitation of itself? By no means, therefore, does divinity either transform himself into phantasms, nor extend these from himself to other things, but emits, by illumination, true representations of himself, in the true manners of souls. Conformably to this, also, the attendants of the Gods are emulous of the self-visible truth of the Gods. But that which you now say, “ that it is common to Gods and dæmons, and the rest of the more excellent genera, to produce fictitious images, and to speak boastingly of themselves ,” confounds all the genera of superior beings in each other, and leaves no difference whatever between them. For thus all things will be common to them, and nothing singularly excellent will be given to transcendent natures. It will, therefore, be more just to ask, in opposition to you, in what will the genus of the Gods be superior to that of dæmons? These genera, however, have nothing in common, nor is the communion between them phantastic, nor is it fit from such natures as are last, and from the errors which take place in them, to estimate first essences, and the true impressions of forms which are in them. For by thus thinking concerning these essences, we shall think justly, and in a way pleasing to the Gods.