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In this book bl. Augustine teaches that the good angels do not want the divine honors, which are called reverence and are expressed in sacrifices, to be given to anyone other than the one God, whom they themselves serve; then he speaks against Porfiry about the beginning and about the path of spiritual purification and liberation. Chapter I. That the blessed life is communicated to both angels and people by one God, this is also recognized by the Platonists; but it is necessary to investigate whether the angels, to whom the Platonists consider it necessary to give divine veneration for this very reason, do they want sacrifices to be made to God alone, or to themselves? It is clear to everyone who is capable of using reason in one way or another that all people desire to be blessed. But as soon as the infirmities of mortals delve into the question of who is blessed or what makes him blessed, many heated debates arise. In these disputes, philosophers exhausted their scientific zeal and exhausted their leisure; to present these disputes and enter into their resolution would be both lengthy and useless. If the reader of this book remembers what we said in the eighth book regarding the choice of philosophers with whom to enter into a discussion of the question whether we can achieve a blessed afterlife through religious service and sacrifice to one God, or through the service of many gods, then there is no need for him to repeat all this again; if he has forgotten a little, he can refresh his memory by re-reading the mentioned book. Of all the philosophers, we have chosen the Platonists, who deservedly enjoy the greatest fame, both because they were able to rise to the understanding that the human soul, although it is certainly rational, cannot be blessed otherwise than through communication with the light of that God who created the world and itself, and because they did not recognize it as possible that what all people long for, that is, a blessed life, could be achieved anyone who, with the purity of immaculate love, would not cleave to the one highest being, who is the unchangeable God. But the Platonists, either succumbing to the vanity and error of the peoples, or, as the apostle says, becoming futile in their speculations (Rom. 1:21), believed or wanted to seem to believe that many gods should be worshiped; so that some of them even thought that the divine honors expressed in cult and sacrifice should also be given to demons (to which we have already partly raised several objections). Therefore now, as far as God will help in this, the following question must be subjected to consideration and discussion: what kind of religion or worship may those blessed and immortal beings who constitute the heavenly Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, Powers, whom the Platonists call gods, and some of them good demons, or together with us, angels, want from us; that is, to put it more directly, do they wish that only their God, Who is God for us, or that we also perform sacred rites and make sacrifices or perform religious ceremonies by which either certain aspects of our life, or ourselves, are sanctified? Divinity, or, more precisely, the deity, is due to that veneration, to denote which in one word I, when necessary, resort to the Greek term (λατρεία), since the Latin word (cultus) seems to me not expressive enough for what I want to say. Our writers, wherever the word λατρεία occurs only in the sacred Scriptures, translate it with the word servitus (servile service). But that service that is due to people and regarding which the Apostle commands that slaves obey their masters (Eph. VI, 5), in Greek is usually designated by another word, the word λατρεία, according to the usage of those who handed down the Divine Scriptures to us, either always, or so often that almost always the service that takes place in the worship of God is called. Worship, if it is designated only by the word cultus, seems to be due not only to God. It is said that we also honor (colere) people whom we remember with respect or in whose honor we celebrate. And it is not only recognized as an object of veneration (coli), which we obey out of religious humility, but also something that is subordinate to us. So, the names are taken from this word: agricolae (farmers), coloni (villagers), incolae (philistines). And the gods themselves are called coelicolae (celestials) precisely because they inhabit (colant) the sky, that is, not from veneration, but from their place of residence: they are, as it were, a kind of settlers of the sky - not in the sense in which people under the authority of landowners are called villagers, the rights of whose state, as an agricultural state, are determined by birth on land belonging to the owner, but in the sense that as one great Latin writer says: It was an ancient city; it was ruled by the columns of Tire 103. Here he calls them colons (villagers) from settlement, and not from agriculture. Therefore, new cities founded by large cities, like swarms of bees from hives, are called colonies. Hence, although it is absolutely true that veneration (cultus) in the strict sense of the word is due to God alone, yet since this term is used in application to other objects, the veneration due to God cannot be expressed in Latin by this one term. Apparently, the term religion (religio) much more accurately designates not any kind of veneration at all, but specifically the veneration of God; therefore our writers translate the Greek word θρησκεία with this word. But since, according to the use of this word among the Latins, not only the unlearned, but also the most learned, it is required to observe religion in relations of kinship, property and other connections, this word does not eliminate the ambiguity when it comes to the veneration due to a deity, and by religion it is required to understand precisely that veneration that should be shown only to God: this word seems inappropriately transferred from the obligatory respect to the ties of human kinship. Of course, worship of God in the proper sense is also common under the name vietas (piety), which the Greeks call εὐσέβειαν. But this name also denotes feelings that are obligatory in relation to parents. And according to popular usage, the name of piety is also applied to works of mercy; This happened, in my opinion, because God commands to do works of mercy, and says that they are pleasing to Him instead of sacrifices or even more than sacrifices. Due to this use of words, God himself is called pious (pius, merciful). In everyday speech, however, the Greeks do not call Him εὐσεβῆν, although for the most part they use the word εὐσέβεια in the sense of mercy. Therefore, in some places of Scripture, in order to make the difference clearer, they preferred to use the term not εὐσέβεια, which in its meaning means good reverence, but θεοσέβεια, meaning veneration of God. We cannot convey either one or the other in one word. So, what in Greek is called λατρεία, and in Latin is translated service, but service by which we honor God; or what in Greek is called θρησκεία, and in Latin religion, but religion as applied to God; or, finally, what the Greeks call θεοσέβεια, but which we cannot express in one word, but can call the veneration of God - we consider all this obligatory only in relation to God, Who is the true God and makes his worshipers gods. So, whoever those immortal and blessed beings are who reside in the heavenly abodes, they should not be revered if they do not love us and do not wish us bliss. If they love and wish us bliss, then, of course, they wish us to be blessed from the same source from which they themselves are blessed; or are they blessed from one source, and we from another? Chapter II. What did the Platonist Plotinus think about supreme insight? Regarding this question, however, there is complete agreement between us and these most excellent philosophers (Platonists). They fully admitted and in their writings developed in various ways the idea that these immortal and blessed beings are blessed from the same thing that makes us blessed - from a certain reflection of the intelligent light, which for them is God and something other than them - a light with which they are enlightened so that they themselves shine, and through communication with which they are perfect and blessed. Plotinus, explaining Plato's thought, often argued that the soul that they consider the soul of the world is blessed from the same source from which ours is blessed; that there is a certain light different from it, by which it was created and spiritually illuminated by which it spiritually shines. He points out the similarity of this incorporeal (light) in the visible great heavenly bodies: light is like the sun, and the soul is like the moon. For the moon, they believe, glows by light reflected from the sun. So, this great Platonist says that the rational soul (or, better, the intelligent soul, to the genus of which he includes the souls of those immortal and blessed beings who, as he had no doubt at all, live in heavenly dwellings) has no other nature higher than itself other than God, who created the world and by whom it was created; and that to those premium beings the blessed life and the light of the knowledge of truth are communicated from the same place from where they are communicated to us. In this regard, he agrees with the Gospel, in which we read: “There was a man sent from God; his name is John. He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that through him all might believe. He was not light, but was sent to testify to the Light. There was the true Light, which enlightens every person who comes into the world” (John I, 6–9). This distinction shows quite clearly that a rational or intelligent soul, such as the soul of John, could not be light in itself, but shone as a result of communication with another, true Light. This is confirmed by John himself when, giving testimony about Him, he says: “And of His fullness we have all received” (John. 1:16). Chapter III. About true worship of God, from which the Platonists, although they thought of God as the creator of the universe, deviated, giving honor to angels, whether good or evil If this is so, then - if the Platonists or any other philosophers who thought in a similar way, having come to know God, glorified and thanked Him as God, and did not fuss in their speculations, would not partly serve as the cause of popular errors, and partly would not be timid to raise their voice against them - they, of course, would admit that just like those immortal and blessed beings, so we, mortal and unfortunate, In order to be immortal and blessed, we must honor the one God of gods, Who is God both for us and for them. He is obliged to perform either in certain sacraments or in himself that service which in Greek is called λατρεία. All of us together and each of us individually constitute His church, since He has given us the honor of living both in the harmony of all and in each individual, without expanding in the mass and without diminishing in the individuals. Our heart is His altar when it rises to Him. We propitiate Him through His only begotten Priest; We offer bloody sacrifices to Him when we fight for His truth to the point of death; For Him we kindle the most pleasant incense, when before His eyes we flame with pious and holy love; We dedicate to Him and return His gifts to us: our memories; We sanctify His benefits with festivals and set days, so that ungrateful oblivion does not penetrate into the scroll of times; We offer him the sacrifice of humility and praise on the altar of the heart with the fire of fiery love. We are cleansed from all filthiness of sins and evil lusts and are sanctified by His name in order to see Him as He can be seen and to unite with Him. For He is the source of our bliss; He is the limit of all desires. By choosing (eligentes), or rather (since we lost Him through negligence) - by choosing (religentes) a second time (where, they say, the word religion comes from), we strive for Him with love, so that, having achieved, we can calm down; That is why we become blessed because we become perfect in achieving this goal. For our good, regarding the ultimate goal of which there is great disagreement among philosophers, consists in nothing else than to be united with Him; in His disembodied embrace, so to speak, the intelligent soul is filled and fertilized with true virtues. We are commanded to love this good with all our hearts, all our souls and all our strength. We must be led to this good by those who love us, and at the same time lead those whom we love. This is how those two commandments are fulfilled, in which the whole law and all the prophets are contained: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew XXII, 37:39). Since a person has already learned to love himself, he is shown the goal towards which he must direct all his actions in order to be blissful. After all, the one who loves himself wants precisely to be blessed. Achieving this goal is indicated in unity with God. So, when a person who already knows how to love himself is commanded to love his neighbor as himself, what else is he commanded but that he, as much as he can, help his neighbor to love God? This is worship of God, this is true religion, this is piety, this is service befitting only God! So, if some immortal power, no matter what power it is endowed with, loves us, it wants us, for our bliss, to be subordinate to Him to whom it is itself subordinate and, as a result of this subordination, blessed. Therefore, if she does not honor God, she is unfortunate, because she does not have God; and if she honors God, she does not want herself to be worshiped instead of God, but rather helps and with the power of love promotes that divine definition in which it is written: “He who sacrifices to the gods, except the Lord alone, shall be destroyed” (Ex. XXII, 20). Chapter IV. Sacrifice befits only the true God I will keep silent for now about something else that relates to religious service, which expresses the veneration of God; I will only note that there is no person who would dare to argue that sacrifice should be made to anyone other than God. In the course of time much of the divine cult was taken and used to express; respect for people either due to extreme humiliation, or for the sake of harmful flattery; but so, however, that those to whom all this related continued to be considered people, although worthy of veneration and reverent respect, or even, if too much was attributed to them, and deification. But has anyone ever come to the idea that sacrifices should be made to anyone other than the one whom he either knew, or considered, or thought was a god? And how ancient is the worship of God expressed in sacrifices, this is shown by two brothers, Cain and Abel, of whom God rejected the sacrifice of the elder, and accepted the sacrifice of the younger. Chapter V. God does not require sacrifices, but is pleased that they should be performed as a sign of what He requires. But who is so crazy as to believe that God needs what is offered to him in sacrifices? Divine Scripture testifies to this in many places; In order not to spread too much, it is enough to recall the following words of the psalm: “I said to the Lord: You are my Lord; You don’t need my blessings” (Ps. XV, 2). Therefore, one should think that God does not need not only animals or, in general, any corruptible and earthly object, but even human righteousness itself, and that everything in which true reverence for God is expressed is useful to man, and not to God. Of course, no one will say that he was useful to the source when he drank from it, or to the light when he saw it. If the ancient forefathers performed animal sacrifices - which the people of God now only read about, but no longer do - it must be understood that such sacrifices were a sign of what expresses our desire to be in communion with God and to help our neighbors in achieving the same goal. The visible sacrifice represents a sacrament, i.e. sacred sign of an invisible sacrifice; therefore, someone repenting from the prophet (or perhaps it was the prophet himself), trying to appease God for his sins, says: “You do not want a sacrifice, I would give it; You do not favor burnt offerings. A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; You will not despise a broken and humble heart, O God” (Ps. 51:18–19). The prophet says that God does not desire sacrifice, and at the same time shows that He desires sacrifice: how to understand this? God does not desire sacrifice in the sense of a slaughtered animal, but desires sacrifice in the sense of a broken heart. What, as the prophet says, God does not desire, indicates what, as the prophet adds, He desires. Thus, according to the prophet, God does not desire sacrifices in the sense in which He desires them according to the beliefs of foolish people, supposedly for the sake of His own pleasure. If God did not want these sacrifices, which He desires, and one of which is a heart contrite and humbled by the sorrow of repentance, to be designated by the sacrifices that He is thought to desire for His own pleasure, then, of course, He would not have commanded these latter in the Old Testament. And therefore they had to change at a certain and definite time, so that not they, but, on the contrary, those of whom they served as a prototype would be considered pleasing to God or pleasing to Him in us. Therefore, God says in the words of another psalm: “If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the universe and all that fills it are Mine. Do I eat the flesh of oxen and drink the blood of goats?” (Ps. 49:12 – 13). He seems to be saying: “After all, if I needed all this, I would not ask you for what is in My power.” Then adding what this kind of sacrifice means, he says: “Sacrifice praise to God, and render your vows to the Most High, and call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me” (Ps. 49:14 – 15). In a similar way, He speaks through the mouth of another prophet: “With what should I appear before the Lord, bow before the God of Heaven? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings and first-year-old calves? But is it possible to please the Lord with thousands of rams or countless streams of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, and the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul?” Oh man! It has been told to you what is good and what the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic. VI, 6-8). And in the words of this prophet, both are distinguished and it is clearly shown that God does not require in themselves those sacrifices that signify the sacrifices that He requires. In the epistle entitled “To the Hebrews,” the apostle says: “Do not forget also to do good and communicate, for such sacrifices are acceptable to God” (Heb. xiii. 16). And in the words: “I want mercy, not sacrifice” (Hos. VI, 6) one must understand nothing more than a sacrifice predetermined by the sacrifice, since what everyone calls sacrifice is a sign of true sacrifice. Mercy is, of course, a true sacrifice; That’s why I said what I cited a little higher: “Such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” So, everything that was prescribed in various ways regarding sacrifices in the tabernacle or church - all this served to signify love for God and neighbor; for “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew XXII, 40). Chapter VI. About the true and perfect sacrifice Therefore, a true sacrifice is every deed that we do out of a desire to be in holy communion with God, that is, a deed that is related to that final good by which we could be truly blessed. Hence, the very mercy that is shown to a person does not constitute a sacrifice if it is not performed for the sake of God. For although the sacrifice is made by man, it is nevertheless a divine act (res divina), so that the ancients called it by this name. Therefore, man himself, dedicated and promised to God, is a sacrifice, insofar as he dies for the world in order to live for God. Mercy also includes what everyone does to themselves. Therefore it is written: when you please God, have mercy on your soul (Sir. XXX, 24). Even our body becomes a sacrifice when we cleanse it with moderation, if we do it as we should do for the sake of God, that is, by committing our members not to sin as an instrument of unrighteousness, but to God as instruments of righteousness (Rom. VI, 13). Convincing you to do this, the apostle says: “I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom. XII: 1). If the body, which the soul uses as the last servant or instrument, becomes a sacrifice when the correct and good use of it is related to God, then how much more does the soul itself become a sacrifice when it ascends to God in such a way that, inflamed with love for Him, it removes from itself the image of worldly lust, and, having submitted to Him, is, as it were, transformed in His immutable image, pleasing Him with what it has received from His beauty? “Do not be conformed to this world,” continues the apostle, “but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may know what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom. XII: 2). So, if true sacrifices are acts of mercy either towards ourselves or towards our neighbors who are related to God; works of mercy are performed no other way than for the sake of our being freed from misfortune and becoming blessed, which is achieved only with the help of good, about which it is said: “But it is good for me to draw near to God” (Ps. 72:28), then it naturally follows that this entire redeemed city, that is, the cathedral and society of saints, is offered as a universal sacrifice to God by that great Priest, Who sacrificed Himself for us in suffering in the form of a slave, so that we would be a body for such a Head. He sacrificed this image of a servant; in it He brought Himself; by virtue of this image, He is the Mediator: in him He is both the Priest and the Sacrifice. Therefore, exhorting us to present our bodies as a living, holy, acceptable sacrifice to God, in reasonable service to God - so that we are not conformed to this world, but are transformed by the renewing of our minds, in order to know what the will of God is and in what respect we ourselves constitute a good, acceptable and perfect sacrifice, the apostle says: “By the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you: do not think more of yourself than must think; but think modestly, according to the measure of faith that God has allocated to each. For just as we have many members in one body, but not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another” (Rom. XII: 3-5). “We, who are many, are one body in Christ.” This is a Christian sacrifice! This is what the Church expresses through the sacrament of the altar, known to believers, by which it is shown to her that in what she brings, she herself is offered. Chapter VII. The love of the holy Angels for us is such that they want us to be worshipers not of them, but of the one true God Since the immortal and blessed beings who live in heavenly dwellings and are together comforted by communication with their Creator, whose eternity they are strong, unshakable in truth, holy gifts, love us, mortals and unfortunates, out of mercy, so that we become immortal and blessed, then they do not want, of course, for us to bring sacrifice to them, and not to the One to whom they themselves offer sacrifice along with us. With them we form one city of God, to which the words of the psalm are addressed: “Glorious things are proclaimed about you, city of God!” (Ps. 87:3). One part of him, which is in us, wanders; the other, which is in them, gives help. From this mountain city, in which the intelligent and immutable will of God serves as law, from this kind of senate (sipa), since in it the care (siga) for us abides, that holy Scripture descended to us through the mediation of angels, which says: “He who sacrifices to the gods, except the Lord alone, shall be destroyed” (Ex. XXII, 20). This Scripture, this law, these commandments are confirmed by so many miracles that it is quite obvious to whom those immortal and blessed beings who wish for us the same as for themselves would like to see us sacrifice. Chapter VIII. About the miracles with which God, through the services of angels, was pleased to accompany His promises to strengthen the faith of the pious If I were to turn to long-ago times, I would be forced to talk at much greater length than is necessary about what miracles were performed in confirmation of the promises of God, with which God foretold Abraham a thousand years ago that in his seed all future nations would be blessed (Gen. XVIII, 18). Who, in fact, will not be surprised that Abraham’s barren wife gave birth to a son at such an advanced age, when even a fertile woman can no longer give birth; that during the sacrifice of the same Abraham, a flame that appeared from heaven passed between the victims divided in two (Gen. XV, 15); that the angels, whom Abraham hospitably received as people and from whom he received a promise of future offspring, predicted to him the death of the Sodomites from heavenly fire (Gen. XVIII, 20); that the same angels announced the miraculous salvation of his brother’s son, Lot, from this destruction (Gen. XIX, 17), whose wife, looking back on the way, was instantly turned into salt, mysteriously teaching that on the path of salvation no one should desire the past? And how many miraculous things were performed by Moses in Egypt to liberate the people of God from the yoke of slavery, and the magicians of Pharaoh, that is, the Egyptian king who oppressed this people, were allowed to perform some miracles, so that they would be all the more miraculously defeated by Moses (Ex. VII, 10)? They acted with the help of sorcery and sorcery, to which the evil angels, that is, demons, are devoted; but Moses, with the help of the angels, easily surpassed them, being as much more powerful than them as he was more righteous in the name of the Lord, who created heaven and earth. Then, when at the third execution the art of the Magi proved powerless, Moses, by great and mysterious order, carried out ten executions, by which the cruel hearts of Pharaoh and the Egyptians were brought to agree to release the people of God. But they immediately repented, and when they set out after the Jews who had come out, and the Jews walked through the parted sea as if on dry land, they were covered and drowned by the waves that closed again (Ex. XIV, 22). What can we say about those miracles that were performed by a wondrous divine action at a time when the same people were wandering in the desert - about how water, which could not be drunk, lost its bitter taste and quenched those who were thirsty when, at the command of God, a tree was placed in it (Ex. XV, 25); how manna came down from heaven for the hungry (Ex. XVI, 14), which, if collected in excess of the specified amount, rotted and wormed, and collected on the eve of the Sabbath in double quantities (since it was not allowed to collect on the Sabbath), did not undergo the slightest rotting; how at the time when those who wanted meat appeared, whom it seemed impossible to satisfy such a multitude of people, the camp was filled with birds, and those who wanted meat were filled with it until they were disgusted (Num. XI, 31); how the enemies who came out to meet the Jews, blocked their path and entered into battle with them, through the prayer of Moses, who stretched out his hands like a cross, were defeated, and not a single Jew died (Exod. XVII, 11); how the rebels who appeared among the people of God, separated from the established society from above, for a visible example of invisible punishment, were swallowed up alive by the open earth (Num. XVI, 32); like a stone, when struck by a rod, flowed out abundant waters (Ex. XVII, 6); How did those dying from the deadly bites of snakes, which were the fairest punishment for sins, recover when they looked at the copper serpent hanging on a tree (Num. XXI, 6-9), so that this serpent was both a help for a people oppressed by disaster, and at the same time a sign of a destroyed death, as if nailed to a cross? This serpent, preserved in memory of the event, was then destroyed, when the erring people began to venerate it as an idol, to great praise for his piety by King Hezekiah, who served God with his religious authority (2 Kings XVIII, 4). Chapter IX. About the impermissible arts in the cult of demons, which the Platonist Porfiry discusses, approving some of them, and seeming to condemn others Such and many other similar miracles (it would take too much time to talk about all of them) were performed to glorify the veneration of one God and to prohibit the cult of many gods! And they were accomplished by simple power, combined with the pious hope of faith, and not by magic and divination, compiled according to the rules of a science invented by wicked curiosity - a science known either under the name of magic, or under the more vile name of goetia, or under the more honorable name - theurgy. Such names are given to this science by those who try to establish a distinction in this kind of things, and of the people devoted to impermissible arts, some are considered worthy of condemnation, namely those who are considered devoted to goetia and whom the people simply call: villains; and they want to present others as worthy of praise, namely those who practice theurgy; although both are equally devoted to the false rites of demons passing off as angels. Thus, Porfiry also allows for some supposed purification of the soul through theurgy, although he does this cautiously and, so to speak, bashfully; he does not recognize that this art brings anyone back to God. He clearly oscillates between two alternating moods: the vice of sacrilegious curiosity and the memory of the suggestions of philosophy. Then he urges to beware of this science, as a false science, harmful in its action and persecuted by laws; then, as if making a concession to its admirers, he says that it is useful for purifying, if not the mental part of the soul, which perceives the truths of spiritual objects that have nothing corporeal, then at least the spiritual part, which perceives the images of bodily objects. By means of theurgic consecrations, called bodies, he says, this part of the soul is made capable of intercourse with spirits and angels and of seeing the gods. But for the intelligent side of the soul, as he himself admits, no purification is obtained from the theurgic bodies that would make it capable of seeing God and perceiving what really exists. From this it is clear what kind of gods or what kind of vision is obtained from theurgic consecrations, if in it, as Porfiry admits, what really exists is not visible. Then, according to him, the rational (or, as he prefers to say, intelligent) part of the soul can penetrate into the higher region, even if its soul part has not been purified by any theurgic science; the spiritual part, although it is purified by theurgists, is not so clear that it can achieve immortality and bliss. So, although he distinguishes between demons and angels, saying that the demons belong to the airy places, and the angels to the ethereal or fiery; although he urges to use the friendliness of every demon, so that with its help everyone after death can rise at least a little from the earth, arguing, on the other hand, that another path leads to the highest community of angels; However, he clearly indicates that communication with demons should be avoided when he says that the soul, suffering punishment after death, turns away with horror from the cult of demons by which it was deceived. At the same time, he could not deny that theurgy, which he presents as a reconciliator with the gods and angels, is an instrument of forces that either themselves hate or serve the art of people who hate the purification of the soul. He cites a complaint from a Chaldean on this subject. “One virtuous man in Chaldea,” he says, “complains that his successes in the great feat of purifying the soul are becoming futile for the reason that a man, imbued with hatred of him and very knowledgeable in this matter, cursed the powers with sacred spells so that they would not listen to his prayers. Thus,” notes Porfiry, “he cursed, but this one did not allow.” From this example of his it is clear that theurgy is, in the hands of gods and people, the art of doing both good and bad - that even the gods experience those emotions and passions that Apuleius attributes to demons and people, separating the gods from people only by the height of the ethereal thrones and defending the opinion of Plato on this subject. Chapter X. About theurgy, which promises false purification of the soul by invoking demons So another Platonist, who is considered even more learned, Porphyry, says that through some kind of theurgic knowledge the gods themselves can become an instrument of passions and submit to spiritual disturbances; because they can be cursed with sacred prayers and made afraid to give cleansing to the soul; Moreover, the one who demands evil can instill such horror on them, from which, through the same theurgic knowledge, he is not able to free them and provide the opportunity to provide a benefit to another who asks for the good. Who, except the most unfortunate slave of demons and a person who is decidedly alien to the grace of the true Liberator, will not understand that everything is the fabrication of lying demons? After all, if people were dealing with good gods this time, the latter would have more weight with the one who wanted the purification of the soul than with the one who prevented this. And if the person in question seemed to the gods unworthy of purifying the soul, they in any case would have to refuse to assist him, not out of timidity before the evil theurgist or, as Porfiry says, out of fear of a stronger deity, but out of free will. Meanwhile, an amazing thing: this virtuous Chaldean, who wanted to purify the soul with theurgic rites, did not find any higher god who would either bring even greater horror to the timid gods and force them to help in a good deed, or would tame the god who kept them in fear and thereby give them freedom to do good; unless, of course, the most virtuous theurgist found spells through which he could first cleanse the gods themselves, whom he invokes as purifiers of the soul, from the ulcer of this fear! For why is it impossible to admit such a powerful god by whom they were purified, if one by whom they were terrified can be admitted? Or is there really a God who accepts the prayers of a person with an evil heart and fear keeps the gods from doing good deeds, but there is no God who would listen to the prayers of a person with a benevolent heart and free the gods from fear of helping in good deeds? So this is what this famous theurgy is, this is what this notorious cleansing of the soul is like! In it, impure hatred extorts more than pure benevolence begs. Doesn't it encourage us to beware and turn away from the deceit of evil spirits and listen to saving teaching! And that those who engage in these vile purifications performed through sacrilegious rites see, as if through the eyes of a purified spirit, some, according to Porphyry, beautiful images of either angels or gods (if, however, they see something like that), this is what the apostle says: “And it is not surprising: for Satan himself takes the form of an Angel of light” (II Cor. XI, 14). These visions are the work of one who, wishing to entrap unfortunate souls in the vile rites of many and false gods and turn them away from the veneration of the true God, by whom alone they are purified and saved, just as it is said of Proteus: In various forms there are 104, sometimes he persecutes as an enemy, sometimes he comes to the aid deceitfully, but he causes harm both here and here. Chapter XI. About Porphyry’s letter to the Egyptian Anebont, in which he asks him to clarify the difference between demons This Porphyry argues much better in his letter to the Egyptian Anebon, in which, under the guise of a person seeking admonition and an answer to the questions that occupy him, he divulges and refutes sacrilegious knowledge. Although in this letter he makes an unfavorable review of all demons, saying that they recklessly absorb moist vapors and therefore live not in the ether, but in the air under the moon and on the moon itself; but he does not dare to attribute that deceit and malice, that obscenity that rightly outraged him to all demons. So, following others, he calls some of them benevolent demons, although he recognizes all of them as unreasonable. On the other hand, he expresses surprise that sacrifices not only attract the gods, but also force them and force them to do what people want; and if the difference between gods and demons lies in corporeality and incorporeality, then somehow the sun, moon and other visible heavenly bodies, which, in his opinion, are undoubtedly corporeal, can be considered gods; and if they are gods, then how are some of them called beneficent and others evil, and how, being corporeal, they join the incorporeal. He also asks, as if in doubt, the question of whether soothsayers and people who perform certain miracles have a more powerful soul, or whether some spirits come to them from outside, with the help of which they are able to perform these miracles. For his part, he considers it more likely that these spirits come from outside, because the people mentioned bind some, open closed doors, and perform other similar miracles, using stones and herbs for this. Therefore, according to him, others believe that there is some special kind of beings that fulfills human desires in such cases - a kind that is evil by nature, appearing under all kinds of forms and images, taking the form of either gods, or demons, or the souls of dead people; that it is he who does everything that seems good or bad, although he does not provide any help in truly good things, and does not even have an idea about it; zealous champions of virtue are forced to achieve it through difficult trials and sacrifices, harming and hindering them in every possible way; that, finally, he is filled with insolence and pride, enjoys the stench, and is carried away by flattery. Porfiry expresses all this about this kind of deceitful and evil spirits that enter the human soul from the outside and make fun of the lulled and awake human feelings, not as his positive beliefs, but as witty assumptions or dubious things, claiming that others supposedly think so. It is difficult for such a philosopher to both comprehend and confidently refute all this devilry, which any old Christian woman immediately recognizes and despises with complete freedom. Or maybe he was afraid of offending the one to whom he wrote, that is, Anebon, the most famous priest of this cult, as well as other admirers of such things, as things divine and related to the veneration of the gods. What flows out, however, by itself (and he, as if subjecting them to investigation, mentions them) are things that, according to common sense, cannot be attributed to anyone except evil and deceitful forces. So, he asks why those who are addressed in prayer as the best are forced, as the worst, to carry out unjust human orders? Why don’t they listen to the prayers of someone excited by unclean passion, although they themselves, without thinking, push one or another to commit incest? Why do they order their priests to move away from animals for fear of being defiled by the fumes of the body, and yet they themselves are attracted both by other fumes and by the stench of sacrificial animals - the minister is forbidden to touch the corpses, and they themselves are mostly honored by the corpses? What does it mean that a person subject to any vice threatens not a demon or some soul of the deceased, but the sun, the moon and any other heavenly body in general, and instills false fear in them in order to obtain the truth from them? They threaten the sky to enter into a fight with him, they also express other things of this kind that are impossible for humans, so that the gods, like the most senseless children, frightened by these false and ridiculous threats, do what they are ordered. He also says that a certain Chaeremon, a man very knowledgeable in this kind of sacred, or better - sacrilegious things, wrote that the rites performed among the Egyptians have extraordinary power and force the gods to do what they are ordered by means of loudly expressed displeasure with Isis or her husband Osiris, when the conjuring person threatens to divulge the sacraments or destroy the cult, and in the latter case even tear Osiris to pieces if they do not will carry out orders. Porfiry, not without reason, is surprised that man lavishes such empty and senseless threats on the gods, and not just any gods, but with heavenly and shining radiant light; and his threats do not remain without consequences, but have a coercive force and, instilling terror, force him to do what he wants. But at the same time, under the guise of a man wondering and investigating the reasons for such things, he makes it clear that this is done by those spirits, the type of which, supposedly following someone else’s opinion, he described above - spirits that are false not by nature, as he believes, but by corruption, who take the form of gods and souls of dead people and do not appear only in the form of demons, but in reality they are precisely demons. And everything that seems to him to be happening on earth by people with the help of various means that bring into action forces capable of this: with the help of herbs, stones, animals, any sounds and words, various inventions and things, even observations of the movements of the stars in the rotation of the sky - all this is the work of these same demons, mocking the souls submissive to them and turning human errors into amusing amusement for themselves. So, Porfiry either actually had doubts and investigated such things and therefore mentioned what serves to expose and refute, and presented all this as the work not of those forces that help us in acquiring a blessed life, but of deceiving demons; or (to have a better opinion of this philosopher) he did not want to offend, so to speak, the proud authority of the scientist and confuse him with an open dispute, but he wanted to challenge him to discuss these things under the guise of a humble person, exploring and wanting to learn - he wanted to show him how much he should despise and even avoid this. Finally, at the conclusion of the letter, he asks the Egyptian to explain to him which path Egyptian wisdom shows to a blessed life. At the same time, by the way, he says that those, apparently, seek wisdom in vain, who turn to the gods in order to disturb the divine mind, or for the sake of achieving temporary benefits, or for the sake of acquiring property, or for the sake of marriages, or for the sake of trade, or for the sake of anything else of that kind. And the deities themselves, to whom they turn, although they predict something true about other things, but since they do not give any true and sufficiently suitable instructions regarding bliss, they are not gods or even good demons, but either that kind that is called false, or the purest human fiction. Chapter XII. About the miracles that the true God performs through the mediation of holy angels But since with the help of this knowledge such things are created that exceed human capabilities, it remains to assume that what is predicted and accomplished is apparently miraculous and speaks of the participation of some power, as if from above, but does not, however, relate to the veneration of the one God, to be in communion with Whom constitutes the only blessed-creating good, as the Platonists recognize and prove with sufficient thoroughness; (all this) prudence requires us to consider them mockery on the part of evil demons and crafty traps that must be eliminated by true piety. Regarding those miracles that are performed either through angels, or in some other supernatural way, but in such a way that they turn minds to the veneration and religion of the one God, in Whom alone lies the blessed life, regarding these miracles we must believe that they are performed by the action of God by those and through those who love us truly and piously. At the same time, one should not listen to those who do not admit that the invisible God performs visible miracles. After all, in their opinion, God created the world, the visibility of which they can in no way deny. And whatever miraculous things happen in this world, all of this is undoubtedly less than this whole world, that is, heaven, earth and everything that exists in them; all this was created, of course, by God. And both the One who created it and the way in which He created it are hidden and incomprehensible to man. So, although the miracles of visible nature have lost their value for the reason that we see them constantly, however, if we pay wise attention to them, they will turn out to be more amazing than the most extraordinary and rare (miracle). And man himself is a greater miracle than any miracle performed by man. Therefore, God, who created the visible heaven and earth, does not hesitate to perform visible miracles in heaven and on earth, through which he arouses the soul, still devoted to visible objects, to the veneration of the invisible Himself; but where and when to create them, the immutable advice for this is found in Himself, in whose plans all future times are times already existing. For, giving movement to temporary objects, He himself does not move in time; He knows what must be done as well as what is done; He listens to those who call, just as he sees those who call. And when His angels listen, He listens in them as in His true church, not made by hands, just as He listens in His holy people; in time, His commands, provided for by His eternal law, are carried out. Chapter XIII. About the invisible God, who often appeared visible, not as He is, but as those to whom He appeared were able to see Him One should not be embarrassed that, being invisible, He, as is narrated, often appeared to the forefathers (Genesis 33, Exodus 33, Numbers 12). For just as the sound through which a thought is heard, arising in the silence of consciousness, is not what this thought itself is; so the image in which God, invisible by nature, was visible, was not what He himself is. And yet God himself was visible in a bodily image, just as thought itself is heard in the sound of a voice. The forefathers also knew that, seeing the invisible God in a bodily form, they saw something other than what He was. So, Moses talked with Him (face to face), and, however, asked: “If I have found favor in Your sight, then I pray: open Your way to me, so that I may know You” (Ex. XXXIII, 13). Therefore, when it was necessary to announce the law of God through the angels in a formidable manner and declare it not to one person or a few wise men, but to a whole race and numerous people, then great miracles were performed before this people on the mountain, where this law was given through the medium of one in the presence of many people who stood in fear and horror of what was happening. For the people of Israel did not believe Moses in the same way as the Lacedaemonians believed their Lycurgus, thinking that he received the laws that he composed from Jupiter or Apollo. When the law was given to the Jewish people, by which it was commanded to honor the one God, then in the presence of the people themselves, as far as Divine Providence considered it necessary, it was shown by miraculous phenomena and earthquakes that with this giving of the law the creature served the Creator. Chapter XIV. About the veneration of the one God not only for eternal, but also for temporary blessings, since everything is in His providential power Just as the correctly organized education of one person proceeds, so the education of the human race, as far as the people of God were concerned, took place at certain periods of time, as if according to age, raising it from the temporary and visible to the understanding of the eternal and invisible; so that even at a time when visible rewards were promised as divine rewards, the veneration of the one God was still commanded, so that the human mind, even for the sake of the most earthly blessings of transitory life, would not submit to anyone other than the true Creator of the soul and Lord. For no one, except a madman, will deny that everything that either angels or people can serve people is in the power of the one Almighty. As is known, the Platonist Plotinus 105 also discussed providence: he said that from the highest God, whose beauty is incomprehensible and inexpressible for man, it extends to the most earthly and lowest objects; and, citing as an example the beauty of small flowers and leaves, he argued that all this, so despicable and fleeting, could not have such perfection of form if it had not received formation from where the incomprehensible and immutable form, containing everything within itself, resides. The Lord Jesus also points to this when he says: “Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you that Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like any of them; But if God clothes the grass of the field, which exists today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, then God will clothe it more than you, you of little faith!” (Matt. VI, 28–30). So, it is good that the human soul, still unstable due to earthly desires, learns to expect even those lower blessings that it desires temporarily, which are necessary only for an earthly transitory life and are worthy of contempt in comparison with the eternal blessings of the future life, only from the one God, so that even if it desires this kind of blessing, it does not deviate from the One to whom it comes through contempt and renunciation of them. Chapter XV. About the ministry of holy angels when they are instruments of God's providence So, divine providence was pleased to arrange the course of times in such a way that, as I said and as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, the law about the veneration of the one God was given “in the ministry of angels” (Acts 7:53). In the person of them (the angels), God himself apparently appeared - not as His substance, which always remains invisible to damaged eyes, but through certain signs through the creation subordinate to the Creator; and He spoke with the articulate sounds of human language in time, He Who by nature is not bodily, but spiritual, not sensual, but rational, not temporary, but, so to speak, eternally, does not begin and does not cease to speak; and he said such things that His servants and messengers, who, being immortally blessed, enjoy His immutable truth, listen with the ears not of the body, but of the mind, listen to what needs to be done, and immediately and without any difficulty lead into the realm of the visible and sensible. But this law was given in relation to the conditions of the time, so that, as has been said, it initially contained earthly promises, which prefigured eternal promises, which were performed by many through visible sacraments, but understood by few. The veneration of the one God was prescribed there by the clearest evidence of both law and nature; and the veneration of one was prescribed, not from among many, but of the One Who created heaven and earth, every soul and every spirit, which is not what He Himself. For He is the Creator, and all this is created and needs the creator in order to exist and be maintained in a good state. Chapter XVI. Should we expect a blessed life from those angels who demand divine honors for themselves, or from those who teach to serve religion not to themselves, but to God alone? From which angels should we expect a blessed and eternal life? Whether from those who wish to be revered in a religious manner, demanding cults and sacrifices for themselves; or do they teach from those who say that all this veneration befits God the Creator that true piety must render all this to Him, from the contemplation of Whom they themselves are blessed and promise to be blessed to us too? This contemplation of God is a contemplation of such beauty and worthy of such love that Plotinus, without any hesitation, calls a person gifted in abundance with all kinds of blessings, but deprived of this blessing, the most unfortunate person. Therefore, if some of the angels are aroused by miraculous signs to the veneration of God, and others to the veneration of themselves, and moreover, in such a way that the first prohibit the veneration of the latter, and these do not dare to prohibit the veneration of God, then let the Platonists or whatever philosophers, theurgists, or better yet, periurgists tell us (for all this knowledge is more worthy of such a name), which of these angels should we believe more? Then let people tell us, if only there is at least a little natural sense in them, thanks to which they were created as rational beings - let, I say, say: should we make sacrifices to those gods or angels who command us to bring them to ourselves, or to the only one who is commanded to offer them by those who forbid us to bring them to both ourselves and others? Even if neither one nor the other of them performed miracles, and some ordered sacrifices to be made to themselves, while others forbade them to sacrifice to themselves, and ordered them to offer only to God, then piety itself would have to discern what in this case comes from pride and what from true religion. I will say even more: if only those angels who demand sacrifices for themselves acted with miracles on the human mind, and those who forbid this and order sacrifices to be made only to God were absolutely not endowed with the power to perform miracles, then even in this case the authority of these latter would have to be placed higher; not according to the instructions, of course, of the bodily sense, but on the basis of the mind. If, in confirmation of the truth He spoke, God arranged it in such a way that through these immortal messengers, preaching not about their pride, but about His greatness, He worked even greater, most undoubted and clear miracles, so that those who demand sacrifices for themselves could not easily persuade pious people, but not yet strengthened, to a false religion, presenting to their feelings something amazing; then who would be so mad as not to see the truth that he should follow, where he finds more that excites his surprise? In fact, the miracles of the pagan gods that history tells us about (I do not mean by them those monstrous phenomena that occur from time to time for hidden, pre-established and legitimized world reasons by divine providence, and which, as the false cunning of demons claims, are supposedly prevented and pacified by demonic rites, such as: extraordinary births of animals or extraordinary phenomena in heaven and on earth, sometimes causing only horror, sometimes causing actual harm; and those miracles that are obviously performed by the power and power of these gods, as it is said, for example, that the images of the Penate gods, which the fleeing Aeneas took from Troy, moved from place to place; that Tarquin crossed the whetstone with a razor; that the Epidaurian serpent stuck as a companion to Aesculanius, sailing on a ship to Rome, that the ship on which the idol of the Phrygian Mother was carried, despite all the efforts of people; and the ox, which remained motionless, was moved and dragged as proof of her chastity by one woman, hooking it with a belt; that the Vestal Virgin, who was suspected of violating her chastity, eliminated this suspicion by filling the sieve with water from the Tiber and not spilling it) - all these and similar miracles in no way can be compared in their power and greatness with those miracles that, as we read, were performed among the people of God. How many times less can those who are recognized as prohibited and subject to criminal punishment by the laws of these peoples themselves, who worship such gods, that is, magical or theurgic miracles, be compared with them? Very many of them, by imagining things, deceive human feelings, mocking them with the presentation of non-existent images, as happens, for example, when the moon is brought down from the sky, as Lucan says: “Until it covers the only crops that have risen with foam” 106. And if some, in reality, seem to be suitable for other actions performed by the pious, then the goal that distinguishes them makes it possible to see that ours are incomparably higher than theirs. Those miracles indicate many gods, who should be venerated the less by sacrifices, the more they demand them; and ours point to the one God, who, by the testimonies of His Scriptures and the prohibition of this kind of sacrifice, shows that He does not need anything like that. So, if the angels demand sacrifices for themselves, then those angels who demand these sacrifices not for themselves, but for God, the Creator of everything, whom they themselves serve, should be placed above them. By this they show how sincerely they love us when they want us to be submissive to Him from the sight of Whom they themselves are blessed, and to reach Him from Whom they themselves have not retreated. If the angels, who want sacrifices to be offered not to one God, but to many gods, demand sacrifices not to themselves, but to those gods whose angels they are, then even in this case those angels should be placed above them who are angels of the one God of gods and who order sacrifices to be made to Him alone, and forbid anyone else, since no one of them forbids making sacrifices to the One Who alone is commanded to make these. But if they are neither good angels, nor angels of good gods (as their proud deceit clearly shows), but are evil demons, demanding that we honor with sacrifices not the one and highest God, but themselves, then where should we look for help against them, if not in the only God, Whom the good angels serve - angels who command us to serve sacrifices not to themselves, but to God, the victim Which one should we be ourselves? Chapter XVII. About the Ark of the Covenant and the miraculous signs that were performed by power from above to confirm the authority of the law and promises Further, the law of God, given in angelic sayings, in which it was ordered to honor the one God of gods by religious institutions and the veneration of other gods was prohibited, was placed in the ark, which was called the ark of the covenant. This name made it clear that it was not God, Who was honored by all those sacrifices, who contained or contained this ark, when His answers and some signs accessible to the senses of man were given from the place of the ark; but that from here the covenants of His will were spoken. And when the law was written on tablets of stone and placed, as I have mentioned, in the ark, which the priests carried with due reverence during their wanderings in the wilderness, together with the tabernacle, also called the tabernacle of the covenant (Ex. xiii. 21), there was a new sign, which was that a cloud appeared during the day, which shone like fire at night. When this cloud moved, the camp also moved, and when it stopped, the camp stopped (Ex. 40:34). Besides these signs which I have spoken of, and the voices which were heard from the place where the ark was, other great miracles also testified in favor of this law. So, when, upon entering the promised land of the covenant, it was carried through the Jordan, the river, stopping at the upper part, made it possible for both the ark and the people to pass on dry land (Joshua III, 1). Then the walls of the city, which, according to the custom of the pagans, honoring many gods, met the Jews with hostility, instantly fell when the ark was surrounded seven times around it; although not a single hand touched the walls and not a single battering machine broke them (Joshua VI, 19). After this, when the Jews were already in the promised land and the same ark was taken captive by enemies for their sins, those who took it captive placed it with honor in the church of their most revered god, and when they came out, they locked it; but when morning came, they found the idol to which they had prayed overthrown and disfigured (1 Sam. V, 1). Then, embarrassed by the miracles and most shamefully punished, they returned the ark of the covenant to the people from whom it had been taken. And how they returned it! They put him on a chariot, harnessed young cows to it, separated the calves that were suckling from them, and allowed them to go wherever they wanted, wanting to test the power of God. And so the heifers, steadily directing their path to the Jews and not responding to the lowing of the hungry cubs, themselves brought the great shrine to its admirers (1 Kings VI, 7). Such and similar miracles were small for God, but great for the saving terror and teaching of mortals. We praise the philosophers, especially the Platonists, as having a more sound way of thinking than others, because they, as I mentioned before, taught that divine providence cares even about earthly and base objects; they were based on harmonious beauty, noticeable not only in the bodies of animals, but even in plants. How much more clearly do these miracles that accompany preaching about Him testify to the Divinity? And these miracles confirm that religion which forbids offering sacrifices to everything in heaven, earth and the underworld, but orders them to be offered only to one God, Who alone makes us blessed by loving us and being loved by us, - Who, allocating certain times for sacrifices and predicting their changes for the better through His best Priest, testifies by the fact that He does not desire these sacrifices, but points them to the best; and indicates not in order to exalt Himself with this kind of honors, but in order to, igniting us with the fire of love for Him, arouse us to honor Him and to unite with Him, which is good for us, and not for Him. Chapter XVIII. Against those who say that the sacred books should not be believed regarding the miracles by which the people of God were educated But perhaps someone will say that these miracles are false, that they did not happen and that what is written about them is a deception? He who says this, if he denies any possibility of believing any books on this subject, can say about the gods in general that they do not care about mortals. For they forced themselves to be revered by nothing other than the power of miraculous actions, about which the history of the pagans tells, whose gods were able to show themselves more worthy of surprise than to prove their usefulness. Therefore, in our present work, the tenth book of which is now at our fingertips, we have set ourselves the task of refuting not those who deny all divine power or claim that it does not protect human affairs; but those who prefer their gods to our God, the Creator of the holy and most glorious city, not knowing that He is the invisible and immutable Creator of the present visible and changeable world and the true Giver of a blessed life - blessed not from what was created by Him, but from Himself. His true prophet says: “But it is good for me to draw near to God” (Ps. 72:28). Philosophers talk about the final good, towards the achievement of which all human efforts should be directed. But the prophet does not say: “It is good for me to have riches in abundance, to rise above others with purple, scepter and diadem”; or, as some of the philosophers were not ashamed to say: “The good for me is bodily pleasure”; does not even say, as the best of them say much better: “My spiritual virtue is good for me.” And he says: “It is good for me to draw closer to God.” With these words he teaches about the One to whom His holy angels urged him to offer sacrifices, confirming their words with miracles. Therefore, he himself became a victim of the One for Whom he burned, engulfed in intelligent fire, and strived with holy desire into His inexpressible and incorporeal embrace. If the worshipers of many gods (no matter how they imagine their gods) believe on the basis of civil history or magical and theurgic books that miracles were performed by their gods, then what reason do they have not to believe our sacred books regarding the mentioned miracles, when they need to be believed all the more, the higher is He to whom alone they teach to make sacrifices? Chapter XIX. What is the meaning of visible sacrifices that true religion teaches to make to the one true and invisible God? Those who believe that visible sacrifices are appropriate to other gods, and to Him, as invisible, invisible ones are appropriate, as greater - greater, as better - better, what are the essence of the movements of a pure heart and good will - they do not know that sacrifices of the first kind are signs of sacrifices of the second kind, just as the sounds of words are signs of things. Just as when we pray and glorify, we address words to the One to whom we offer our heartfelt feelings, designated by these words, just as when we make a sacrifice, we know that the visible sacrifice must be offered to none other than the One to Whom we ourselves must be an invisible sacrifice in our hearts. In these cases, the angels and all the highest and most powerful forces in their goodness and piety help us, rejoice and help us whenever possible. But if we wanted to offer something similar to them themselves, they would greet it with displeasure; they positively prohibit all this when they are sent to us in such a way that we feel their presence. There are examples of this in the holy books. Some thought that the angels should give worship or sacrifice the honors due to God, but the angels persuaded them not to do this, but ordered them to give this honor to the One to whom alone they considered it appropriate (Apoc. 19-22). The holy people of God imitated the holy angels in this regard. Thus, Paul and Barnabas, who performed some miracle of healing in Lycaonia, were accepted there as gods and the Lycaonians wanted to make sacrifices to them; but they, abandoning this with humble piety, preached to the Lycaonians God in whom they believed (Acts 14). The pride of lying spirits demands these honors for themselves because these honors, as they know, befit the true God. It is not in the stench of corpses, as Porfiry says and as some believe, that they find pleasure, but in divine honors. The stench is quite enough for them everywhere and, if they wanted it more, they could find it for themselves. Consequently, the spirits who appropriate divine dignity to themselves delight not in the smoke from the combustion of some body, but in the soul of the person praying, over which, having seduced and subjugated it, they dominate, blocking its path to the true God and thus preventing a person from being a sacrifice to God while he makes a sacrifice to someone other than God. Chapter XX. About the highest and true sacrifice, which was made by the Mediator himself between God and people Therefore, this true Mediator, Who, having taken the form of a servant, became the Mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus, although in the form of God he accepted the sacrifice together with the Father, with whom He is one God, yet in the form of a servant he preferred to be the sacrifice Himself rather than to accept it, so that on this occasion no one would think that the sacrifice was befitting of some creature. Thus, He is both the Priest offering the sacrifice, and at the same time He Himself is the sacrifice being offered. By this daily sacrament He deigned to be a sacrifice to the Church, which, being the body of this Head, considers itself to be offered through Him. The Old Testament sacrifices of the saints were many different and varied signs of this true sacrifice; she alone was depicted by many of them, just as one thing is called by many names when they try hard to pay attention to it. This highest and true sacrifice replaced all false sacrifices. Chapter XXI. About the image of the power given to demons for the glorification of saints through their enduring suffering - saints who defeat air spirits not by propitiating them, but by faithfulness to God But when the times were thus established and predetermined, the power and demons were allowed to barbarously antagonize the city of God, inciting against it the people over whom they rule, and not only accept sacrifices from those who offer and demand from those who want, but also by force, through persecution, extort them from those who do not want; this power, however, turned out to be not only harmless for the Church, but even useful, replenishing the number of martyrs, who are the more glorious and honorable citizens of the city of God, the more courageously, even to the point of bloodshed, they resist the sin of dishonor. If church usage allowed this, we would call them by a more elegant name: our heroes. This name is taken from Juno, who in Greek is called Hera, and therefore one of her sons (I don’t remember which one) was called Hero in Greek mythology; This myth supposedly contained the mysterious meaning that Juno was given air (aёr), where, together with demons, heroes were placed, whose name is given to the souls of dead people who accomplished something valiant and glorious during their lifetime. But our martyrs, if, as I noted, this allowed church usage, they would be called heroes not because they have communication with demons in the air, but because, on the contrary, they defeated these demons, that is, these aerial powers, and in their person Juno herself, whom - no matter what they think she means - the poets, in any case, not in vain represent hostile to virtues and envious of strong men, thirsty for heaven. Virgil, however, unluckily retreats and bows before her; so even though she says to him: Aeneas defeats me 107; but Gelen gives supposedly pious advice to Aeneas himself, saying: Bring a vow and gifts to Juno and, having shown submission, You will sooner subdue this mistress with humility... 108 Based on these words, Porfiry, following, however, not his own, but someone else’s opinion, says that a good god or genius does not enter a person unless the evil god is first appeased. Evil deities seem to them to be stronger than good ones, because the evil ones, if they are not appeased, prevent the good ones from providing help; so that the good cannot be useful if the evil do not want it, and the evil, on the contrary, can harm in such a way that the good are not able to resist them. This is not the path indicated by the true and truly holy religion: this is not how they defeat Juno, that is, the aerial authorities, our martyrs, who are envious of the virtues of the pious. Our heroes, if we could call them by this name, overcome Hera (Juno) not with “gifts, showing obedience,” but with divine virtues. And Scipio was given the nickname Africanus because he defeated Africa with military valor, and not because he appeased his enemies with gifts in order to receive mercy from them. Chapter XXII. Where do saints get power over demons and where does true purification of the heart come from? The people of God who profess the true religion expel the air power hostile and contrary to piety by exorcism, and not by propitiation; and overcome the temptations of a hostile force through prayer, but prayers not to her, but to God. She conquers or subjugates everyone to herself only by fellowship in sin. Therefore, she herself is overcome by the name of the One who took upon Himself and represented as Himself a person without sin, so that in this Priest and in this Sacrifice the remission of sins would be obtained, that is, through the Mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus, through whom we are reconciled with God after cleansing from sins. For people are separated from God by sins, the purification from which in real life occurs not by our virtue, but by divine mercy, by divine condescension, and not by our power. And virtue itself, whatever it may be, although it is called ours, is given to us by divine goodness. We would take much credit for ourselves in this flesh if our life to separate it were not a matter of mercy. For this reason grace was given to us by the Mediator, so that, defiled by the flesh of sin, we might be cleansed in the likeness of the flesh of sin. By this divine grace, by which God has shown His great mercy to us, we are guided both in the present life through faith, and in the future we achieve complete perfection through the contemplation of the most immutable Truth. Chapter XXIII. On the principles on which, according to the teachings of the Platonists, the purification of the soul depends And Porphyry says that the answer was given by the divine oracles that we are not purified by the bodies of the sun and moon; so from this it is clear that man cannot be purified by the bodies of any gods. Whose bodies, in fact, are purified if the bodies of the sun and moon, which are considered among the main heavenly gods, are not purified? The same oracle, he further says, said that the beginnings can purify - it was said, probably, so that, having heard that the bodies of the sun and moon do not purify, they would not think that the bodies of some other god from the crowd of many have purifying power. We know what principles this Platonist is talking about. He speaks of God the Father and God the Son, whom in Greek he calls the mind, or thought of the Father; about the Holy Spirit he either says nothing, or speaks very vaguely, because I don’t understand who he means by the middle ground between one and the other. If, speaking about the three main substances, he meant, like Plotinus, by the third the nature of the soul, then, of course, he would not call it the average between one and the other, that is, the average between the Father and the Son. For Plotinus places the nature of the soul below the mind of the Father; and Porfiry, speaking about the average, places it not lower, but between them. In this case, he speaks, undoubtedly, about what we call the Holy Spirit, the Spirit not only of the Father and the Son, but also of both of them - he speaks as he thought or wanted (to think). After all, philosophers express themselves in free language and in difficult to understand subjects are not afraid to offend the ears of pious people. We should speak in accordance with the rule of faith, so that by arbitrary use of words we do not give rise to an impious opinion about the objects that they denote. Chapter XXIV. About the one and true Beginning, which alone purifies and renews human nature So, when we talk about God, we do not say that there are two or three principles, just as it is equally impermissible to say that there are two or three Gods; although, when we talk about one person, about the Father or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, we recognize that each of them in particular is God, but at the same time we do not say, as the Sabellian heretics say, that the Father is the same as the Son, the Holy Spirit is the same as the Father and the Son; but we say that the Father is the Father of the Son, the Son is the Son of the Father, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, but neither the Father nor the Son. So, it is true that a person can receive purification only from the Beginning, although they speak of the beginnings in the plural. But Porfiry, who was enslaved by the envious authorities, for whom he was ashamed, but whom he did not dare to condemn openly, did not want to understand that this Beginning is the Lord Christ, by whose incarnation we are purified. He despised Him for the flesh that the Lord took upon Himself for the sake of the cleansing sacrifice for us; did not understand this great mystery because of the pride that was destroyed by his humiliation by the true and good Mediator, who revealed Himself to mortals in that mortality, the lack of which the evil and false mediators were most proud of and promised deceptive help to unfortunate people, like immortals to mortals. So, the good and true Mediator showed that evil is sin, and not the substance or nature of the flesh, because it, together with the human soul, could be received, and worn, and laid down in death, and changed for the better in the resurrection; that death itself, although it was a punishment for sin, but which, being sinless, He endured for our sins, should not be avoided in a state of sin, but, on the contrary, as soon as the opportunity presents itself, it should be endured for the truth. That is why He was able to resolve our sins by His death, because He died, and did not die for His sin. Porfiry did not recognize the Beginning in Him, because in that case he would have recognized that He is the Purifying Beginning. It is not the flesh or soul of man that is the beginning, but the Word, by whom all things were created. The flesh purifies itself not through itself, but through the Word, by which it was received, when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John I, 14). For, speaking about the mysterious eating of His flesh, the Savior, when those who did not understand His words and offended by them withdrew from Him, saying: “What strange words! who can listen to this? (John. VI, 60), - answered the rest: “The Spirit gives life, the flesh does not benefit the least” (John VI, 63). Thus, the Beginning, having accepted soul and flesh, purifies the flesh and soul of believers. Therefore, when the Jews asked who He was, the Savior answered that He was “from the beginning” (John VIII, 25). Being carnal, weak, subject to sin, and darkened by ignorance, we certainly could not understand this unless we were cleansed and healed by Him; because we were, and at the same time we weren’t. They were people, but they were not righteous. In His incarnation there was human nature, but it was righteous, not sinful. This was the mediation by which a helping hand was extended to the fallen and lying; this is the seed contained by the angels (Gal. III, 19), in whose sayings the law was given, commanding the worship of one God, and the promises of the future coming of this Mediator. Chapter XXV. All the saints who lived both during the time of the law and in the centuries preceding it were justified by the sacrament and faith in Christ Through faith in this sacrament, the ancient righteous, who lived not only before the time when the law was given to the Jewish people (since God and the angels did not abandon them), but also during the time of the law itself, could be purified by a pious life; although it seemed that under the guise of spiritual objects they had carnal promises, which is why that covenant is called the Old. There were also prophets at that time who predicted the same promise as the angels; from among them was the one whose so sublime and divine saying about the ultimate human good I cited a little higher: “But it is good for me to draw near to God” (Ps. 73:28). His psalm quite clearly indicates the difference between the two testaments, the Old and the New. Seeing that carnal and earthly promises are poured out in abundance on the wicked, the prophet says that his legs could hardly move, his feet almost stumbled, as if he served God in vain, since those who despise Him enjoy everything that he desired from Him; and he labored to study this subject, wanting to understand why this was so, until he entered the sanctuary of God and understood the final fate of those who seemed happy to him, who was deluded. Then he realized that what they were proud of had been overthrown, disappeared and perished because of their immorality, and that all the splendor of their temporary happiness turned out to be the dream of an awakening person who suddenly finds the deceptive joys he saw in his dreams destroyed. And since on this earth, in the earthly city, they seemed great, he says: “You, Lord, having awakened them, will destroy their dreams” (Ps. 73:20). But that it was useful for him to seek even earthly things only from God, in whose power everything is, he shows this by saying: “I was like cattle before You. But I am always with You” (Ps. 72:22–23). “Like cattle,” he says, foolish, i.e. I should have wanted from You what could not be common to me with the wicked, and not what they enjoyed in abundance and at the sight of which I thought that I served You in vain: since they, who did not want to serve You, had all this. However, “I am always with You,” because in the desire for even these objects I did not look for other gods. And therefore it is said further: “You hold my right hand; You guide me with Your counsel” (Ps. 72:23-24), that is, everything that abounded in the wicked and at the sight of which he almost fell - all this relates, as it were, to the left hand. “Who is in heaven for me? and with You I want nothing on earth” (Ps. 73:25). He reproaches himself and expresses justified dissatisfaction with himself, because having in heaven, as he later understood, such a great good, he sought on earth from his God a transitory happiness, perishable and, so to speak, fragile. “My flesh and my heart fail: God is the rock of my heart” (Ps. 73:26); exhausted, of course, by doing good for the lower for the sake of the higher. Why does another psalm say: “My soul is weary, longing for the courts of the Lord” (Ps. 83:3); and in another: “My soul faints for Thy salvation” (Ps. 119:81). However, although he speaks about both, that is, about both the heart and the flesh, he does not add: “God is the stronghold of the heart and flesh,” but says: “God is the stronghold of my heart”; for through the heart the flesh is also cleansed. Therefore, the Lord says: “First cleanse the inside... so that the outside may also be clean” (Matthew XXIII, 26). Then the prophet calls God himself his part, not anything that comes from Him, but Himself: “God is the rock of my heart and my part forever” (Ps. 73:26), since of all that people choose for themselves, he chose to choose God himself. “For behold, those who remove themselves from You perish; You destroy everyone who turns away from You” (Ps. 72:27), that is, everyone who wants to give themselves up to debauchery with many gods. From here follows the conclusion for which the other sayings of this psalm were necessary: ​​“But it is good for me to draw near to God!” , i.e., do not go far, do not debauch with many. But it will be entirely possible to cleave to Him only when everything that should be free becomes free. At the present time, only what is stated below is possible: “I have placed my trust in the Lord God, that I may proclaim all Your works” (Ps. 72:28). “But hope, when it sees, is not hope; for if anyone sees, what can he hope for? But when we hope for what we do not see, then we wait with patience” (Rom. VIII, 24–25). Abiding in this hope, we must do what is discussed below, and be in our own way angels of God, that is, messengers singing the will of God and praising the glory and grace of God. Having said: “I have placed my trust in the Lord God,” the prophet adds: “To proclaim all Your works.” This is the most glorious city of God. He knows and worships one God. This city was announced by the holy angels, who invited us into its society and wanted us to be its citizens. These angels wanted us not to honor them themselves as holy gods, but together with them - them and our God, and not to make sacrifices to them, but together with them to be a sacrifice to God. So, for anyone who discusses this subject without crafty stubbornness, it is certain that all the immortally blessed beings who do not envy us (for if they were envious, they would not be blessed), but on the contrary, love us in order to make us blessed, patronize and help us much more when we, together with them, honor the one God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, than if we honored them themselves with sacrifices. Chapter XXVI. About the inconsistency of Porfiry, wavering between the recognition of the true God and the veneration of many gods I don’t know why, but Porfiry, it seems to me, was ashamed of his theurgist friends. For, whatever his manner of thinking on a certain subject, he did not defend it with due sincerity against polytheism. By the way, he says that there are some angels who, descending to the theurgists, proclaim to them the divine; and there are others who reveal on earth what relates to the Father: His height and depth. Is it likely, then, that those angels, whose ministry consists in declaring the will of the Father, would want us to obey someone other than the One whose will they proclaim to us? This time the Platonist himself gives excellent advice: rather imitate them than call upon them. So, we should not be afraid that we will offend the immortal and blessed beings, subordinate to the one God, by not making sacrifices to them. For knowing that they should be offered only to the one true God, by whose union they themselves are blessed, they, no doubt, do not want us to offer them to them, either by means of some symbolic action, or in the form of the most signified sacramental action. The opposite desire to this is fitting only for the arrogance of proud and ill-fated demons, with whom the piety of the angels, submissive to God and blessed from nothing other than unity with Him, has nothing in common. To achieve this good, we also need them to help us with sincere goodwill - not to insist that we obey them, and to proclaim to us about the One under whose authority we would live peacefully in communion with them. Why are you, philosopher, afraid to raise your free voice against envious authorities in favor of the true virtues and gifts of the true God? You have distinguished the angels who proclaim the will of the Father from the angels who descend to the theurgists, attracted by some, I don’t know what, art. Why do you honor the latter to such an extent that you say that they proclaim the divine? What divine things do they proclaim who do not proclaim the will of the Father? After all, it was their envious person who obliged with sacred spells not to help cleanse the soul; so that the virtuous and desirous of spiritual purification could not, as you say, free them from this obligation and return power to them. Do you still doubt that these are evil demons? Or perhaps you pretend that you do not know, for fear of offending the theurgists, from whom you learned these harmful and stupid things as a great benefit? Do you really dare to raise this envious, I won’t say power, but an infection, not a mistress, but on the contrary, as you yourself admit, slave of the envious ones through the air space into the sky and place even among your star gods, dishonoring these very stars with similar shame? Chapter XXVII. About the wickedness of Porphyry, with which he surpassed even the errors of Apuleius Your co-religionist, the Platonist Apuleius, erred much more humanely and tolerably. Although he revered the demons occupying a place below the moon, he, willingly or unwillingly, had to admit that only these demons are subject to passions and disturbances of the mind; the highest and heavenly gods, living in ethereal spaces, whether visible, shining with their light, such as the sun, moon and other heavenly bodies, or those whom he recognized as invisible, and, if possible, imagined as alien to any passionate excitement. Not from Plato, but from the Chaldean teachers, you learned to attribute the ethereal or fiery heights of the world and the firmament to human vices, in order to imagine it possible that your gods spoke such divine things to the theurgists. However, you place yourself above these things due to your smart life. For you, as a philosopher, theurgic purifications do not seem necessary; but you introduce them for others. In order to repay, so to speak, your teachers, you persuade those who cannot philosophize to do what you yourself, as a person capable of something more sublime, recognize as useless; so that everyone who is alien to philosophical virtue, a virtue that is extremely difficult and accessible to few, relying on your authority, seeks the theurgists, from whom they would be cleansed, if not in the intelligent, then in the sensitive part of the soul; and since the number of those for whom philosophizing is a difficult matter is very large, the majority were forced to go to your secret and unauthorized teachers, and not to Plato’s schools. That those purified through the theurgic art in the spiritual part of the soul do not go to the Father, but will dwell in ethereal countries among the ethereal gods, this was promised to you by the most unclean demons, posing as gods, whose preacher and angel you are. This is not heard by the multitude of people for whose liberation Christ appeared from the power of demons. In Him they receive the most merciful purification of mind, soul, and body. For for this purpose He took upon Himself the whole man, except sin, in order to save from the plague of sins everything that man consists of. Oh, if only you knew Him and trusted Him with your complete healing, and not your human, feeble and weak virtue and the most dangerous curiosity! He, Whom, as you also write, was recognized as holy and immortal by your oracles, would not have deceived you. True, the most famous poet speaks about Him poetically, under the fictitious image of another person, but the most famous poet speaks quite correctly if his words refer specifically to Him: Under your guidance, the consequences of crimes, If any remain, they will leave, redeemed, Having cleansed the earth forever from the ever-present fear 109. The poet understands, without a doubt, if not crimes, then the consequences of crimes, which, due to the infirmities of this life, can remain even in people who have made great strides in virtue, and which are healed only by the Savior about whom this verse speaks. In the fourth verse of the same eclogy, Virgil shows that he did not say this from himself, saying: The time has come: the time has come for the Kumean prophecy. From this it is clear that his words are a prophecy of the Cumaean Sibyl. But theurgists, or better yet, demons, taking on the form and image of gods, rather defile than cleanse the human soul with the deceit of ghosts and the crafty deceitfulness of empty images. For how can those who have their own uncleanness purify the human soul? If they could do this, they would not be bound by the spells of an envious person, and they would not be held back by fear or refused out of envy from the good deeds that were expected of them. It is enough, however, for your words that theurgic purifications cannot purify the rational soul, that is, our mind, and the sensory soul, that is, the lower part of the soul compared to the mind, although they can, according to you, purify, they cannot, however, as you yourself admit, make eternal and blissful. Christ promises eternal life; That’s why the world strives for Him, despite your chagrin, to your surprise and amazement. What good is it that you do not deny that theurgic science is misleading, that it deceives many with blind and unreasonable beliefs, and that resorting to the principles and angels by performing rituals and prayer is the most obvious error; if then, as if out of fear that your work in studying this science would not seem lost, you direct people to theurgists, so that with the help of the latter those who do not live with an intelligent soul can purify the sensual soul? Chapter XXVIII. By what beliefs was Porfiry blinded that he could not recognize true wisdom, that is, Christ? So you are misleading people. You are not ashamed of such great evil, although you present yourself as a lover of wisdom. If you had loved her truly and as you should, you would have come to know Christ, God’s power and God’s wisdom, and would not have shunned His saving humiliation, boasting with the pride of vain knowledge. You also admit, however, that the sensual soul can be purified by the virtue of abstinence even in addition to the theurgic art and bodies, the study of which you studied, as it turns out, in vain. Sometimes you even assert that bodies do not elevate souls after death; so that they do not bring any benefit to that part of the soul that we call sensory. Nevertheless, you interpret and repeat about them in different ways for the purpose, in my opinion, to seem like a person supposedly experienced in such things, to please those curious about these impermissible arts and to arouse curiosity about them in others. But it is good that you say that this art should be guarded both because it is punishable by law and because it is dangerous in itself. Oh, if the unfortunate only heard these words from you and then either ran away from these arts, or did not approach them at all, so as not to get carried away by them! You say, finally, that ignorance and many vices can be purified not through bodies, but only through πατρικόν νοῦ, that is, by the thought, or mind, of the Father, who knows the Father’s will. But you do not believe that this mind is Christ: you despise Him for the body received from a woman, and for the shame of the cross; that is, you consider yourself capable, having despised and rejected the base, to grasp the highest wisdom in the heavenly heights. Meanwhile, Christ fulfills what the holy prophets predicted about Him: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will reject the understanding of the prudent” (1 Cor. I, 19; Exod. XXIX, 14). What He destroys and rejects in them is not His wisdom, not the wisdom that He bestowed, but that which is appropriated by people who do not have His wisdom. Therefore, having brought the above-mentioned prophetic testimony, the apostle says: “Where is the wise man? where is the scribe? where is the questioner of this century? Has not God turned the wisdom of this world into foolishness? For when the world through its wisdom did not know God in the wisdom of God, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. For both the Jews demand miracles, and the Greeks seek wisdom; and we preach Christ crucified, for the Jews a stumbling block, and for the Greeks foolishness, but for those who are called, Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God; because the foolish things of God are wiser than men, and the weak things of God are stronger than men” (1 Cor. I, 20-25). It is this unwise and weak thing that people who are supposedly wise and strong in virtue despise. But it is the grace of God, which heals the weak, who are not proud of their false bliss, but, on the contrary, humbly aware of their true misfortune. Chapter XXIX. About the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is ashamed to admit the wickedness of the Platonists You speak of the Father and His Son, whom you call the thought, or mind, of the Father, and of the mean between one and the other, meaning by this, in our opinion, the Holy Spirit, and, as is your custom, you call them three gods. Although you use inaccurate expressions this time, nevertheless, in some way, as if through the shadow of a light ghost, you see where you should look for a point of support; but you do not want to acknowledge the incarnation of the unchangeable Son of God, who saves us, so that we can achieve what we believe or understand to some extent. Yes, be that as it may, even from a distance, even with a clouded gaze, you see the fatherland in which you should settle, but you do not take the path that leads there. However, you acknowledge grace when you say that few are given the ability to comprehend God through intellectual virtue. Don’t say “few wanted” or “few wanted”; but you say “it is given to few,” by which you undoubtedly acknowledge divine grace and the insufficiency of human strength for this. You speak of it even more clearly, using this very word, when, following the opinion of Plato, you yourself affirm that in this life a person in no way achieves perfection in wisdom, but that everything that those who live according to the mind lack here, divine providence and grace can fill in the future life. Oh, if you knew the grace of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and His incarnation, in which He took upon Himself the soul and body of man, you could see the greatest example of this grace! But what am I doing? I know I'm wasting words talking to the dead. But this is only as far as you are concerned; as far as this concerns those who highly value and respect you, either out of some love of wisdom, or out of curiosity about arts that you should not have studied, and with which, turning to you, I primarily speak, it may very well not be in vain. The grace of God could not have been expressed better than it was expressed in the fact that the only begotten Son of God, immutably abiding in Himself, clothed itself in man and gave us the hope of His love through man, so that through Him people would come to Him who was so far from them, as the immortal is from mortals, the blessed from the unfortunate. And since He by nature put into us the desire to be blessed and immortal, then, being blessed and taking upon Himself a mortal to give us what we love, through His suffering He taught us to despise what we fear. But for this truth to satisfy you, humility is needed; and it is very difficult to persuade you to this humility. What, in fact, is incredible, especially for you, who hold such views, which in themselves should lead you to such a faith - what, I say, is incredible if it is preached that God took on the soul and body of man? After all, do you attribute so much to the intelligent soul, which in any case is the human soul, that you assert that it can be identical in substance with the mind of the Father, which you recognize as the Son of God? What, therefore, is incredible in the fact that some one intelligent soul was perceived by Him in some ineffable and extraordinary way for the salvation of many? And that the body can be united with the soul to form a complete man, we know this from the experience of our own nature. If this phenomenon were not the most ordinary, it would, without a doubt, be even more incredible. After all, it is much easier to believe that the human is united with the divine and the changeable with the unchangeable, but, in any case, the spiritual with the spiritual, or, as you usually put it, the incorporeal with the incorporeal, than that the body is united with the incorporeal. Or maybe the stumbling block for you is the unusual birth of a body from a virgin? But the fact that the Wonderful One was miraculously born should not only not have stopped you, but rather should have led to the acceptance of Christianity. Or are you puzzled by the fact that He took up into heaven the body that He left behind after death and changed it for the better by resurrection, making it incorruptible and immortal? Perhaps you refuse to believe this because Porfiry, in his books “On the Return of the Soul,” from which I have given many quotes, very often advises avoiding any body so that the soul can remain blessed with God? But you should rather correct Porfiry himself on this point, especially because of those incredible ideas that you have with him about the soul of the real visible world, this immense corporeal vastness. Following Plato, you call this world a living being - a blissful and even eternal being. How can this world never be separated from the body and never cease to be blissful, if for the bliss of the soul it is necessary to avoid any body? In the same way, you not only recognize in your books the sun and other luminaries as bodies - in which all people will not fail to agree with you and say the same thing - but on the basis of the highest, as you believe, knowledge, you even affirm that they are living, blissful and eternal beings along with these bodies. What does it mean that when the Christian faith is instilled in you, you then forget or pretend to be ignorant of what you talk about and what you usually teach? Why, because of your opinions, which you yourself refute, do you not want to be Christians, if not because Christ appeared in humiliation, and you are proud? What the bodies of the saints will be like in the resurrection, this question can be discussed much more thoroughly by people who deeply know the Holy Scriptures; we have no doubt, however, that they will be eternal, and will be the same as the body of Christ was in His resurrection. But whatever these bodies may be, as long as it is preached that they will be incorruptible, immortal and in no way interfere with the contemplation of the soul by which it strives towards God; since you yourself say that in heaven there are immortal bodies of the immortally blessed, then why do you think (and you think in such a way as to seem like people avoiding the Christian faith, supposedly on a rational basis) that every body must disappear for us to be blessed, if not because Christ - I repeat again - appeared in humility, and you are proud? Perhaps you are ashamed to correct yourself? And this is again the vice of the proud. It is a shame for learned people to turn from the disciples of Plato into disciples of Christ, Who by His Spirit taught the fisherman to reason and say like this: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was in the beginning with God. Everything came into being through Him, and without Him nothing came into being that came into being. There was life in him, and life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John I, 1–5). One Platonist, as we often heard from the holy elder Simplician, who was later bishop of the Mediolan Church, said that this beginning of the holy Gospel, called the “Gospel of John,” should be inscribed in gold letters and displayed in all churches in the most prominent places. But in the opinion of the proud, this God and Teacher has no price because “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”; so for these unfortunate people it is not only that they are sick, they are also proud of their illness itself, and are ashamed of the treatment from which they could recover. They do this not in order to rise, but so that, when they fall, they break even more. Chapter XXX. What of Plato’s teachings did Porfiry reject, and what did he correct by his disagreement with him? If correcting anything after Plato seems to you an unworthy task, then why did Porfiry himself correct something, and quite a lot, too? It is known that, according to Plato, the souls of people after death even return to the bodies of animals. Porphyry’s teacher Plotinus also held this opinion; but Porfiry quite rightly did not like it. He, for his part, believed that the souls of people enter the bodies of people, but not into their own, which they left, but into other, new ones. It seemed to him ashamed to believe that a mother, turned into a mule, could, perhaps, carry her son; but it did not seem shameful to think that the mother, turned into a maiden, could perhaps be the wife of her son. Isn’t it much more pious to believe what the holy and unlying angels taught, what the prophets spoke about under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, what He preached, about whom the messengers who were sent foretold as the coming Savior, and what the apostles He sent, who filled the whole world with the Gospel, taught? Is it not, I say, much more pious to believe that the souls of people return to their own bodies than to believe that they return to completely different bodies? However, Porfiry, as I said, largely corrected this opinion: he thought that human souls can only enter people; He destroyed animal prisons for them and even said that God gave the world a soul for this purpose, so that, recognizing the evil of matter, it would strive back to the Father and would never again fall into contaminating contact with this evil. Although in this regard he does not reason as he should, because the soul was given to the body rather to do good, and it would not recognize evil if it did not do it; nevertheless, he corrected the opinion of other Platonists in the important respect that he recognized that the soul, cleansed from all evil and abiding with the Father, will never again experience evil. With this opinion he completely eliminated another, considered predominantly Platonic, namely 110: that the dead constantly appear from the living, and the living from the dead; and showed the falsity of what Virgil says, following Plato 111, that purified souls, having been sent to the Elysian fields (by the name of which in mythology the joys of the blessed are signified), are called to the river Lethe in order to receive oblivion of the past there: Those deprived of memory see the vault of heaven again And again they begin to desire to return to their bodies 112. Porfiry rightly did not like this. And in fact, it is stupid to believe that in that life, which could not be blessed if it were not eternal, souls desire the abomination of corruptible bodies and return to them from there, as if the highest purification produces the effect that the soul strives for impurity! For if perfect purification consists in the fact that souls forget about all evil, and the oblivion of evil produces the desire for bodies in which the soul could again indulge in evil: then the highest happiness will obviously be the cause of misfortune, the perfection of wisdom the cause of stupidity, and the highest purity the cause of impurity. And in reality the soul will not be blissful where, while it is there, it must be deceived so that it will be blissful. She will not be blissful if she is not confident in her bliss. And for her to be confident, she will have to have the false belief that she will be blessed forever; because someday she will be unhappy again. And for whom a lie will be a source of joy, how is true joy possible for him? Porfiry took this into account and said that the purified soul strives for the Father, so as never again to fall under defiling contact with evil. So, some of the Platonists falsely believe that this circle is necessary, through which the same ones pass and return again. And even if this were so, what would be the use of this knowledge? Will not the Platonists dare to put themselves above us on the basis that we do not yet know in this life what they, the purest and wisest, will not know in a future, better life, and will be blessed as a result of a false belief? If to say this means to speak the greatest absurdity and stupidity, then the opinion of Porfiry deserves, of course, preference in comparison with the opinion of those who assume the circulation of souls with bliss and misfortune, eternally replacing one another. And if this is so, then in the person of Porfiry we have a Platonist who contradicts Plato for the better: he saw what he did not see, and did not shy away from making amendments after such a teacher, but put the truth above man. Chapter XXXI. Against the argument of the Platonists, on the basis of which they assert that the soul is co-eternal with God So, why don’t we, regarding objects that we are not able to investigate with the help of human reason, rather believe in the Divine, Who calls the soul itself not co-eternal with God, but created, which did not exist before? If the Platonists do not want to believe this, it is on the basis, in their opinion, that what was not eternal before cannot become eternal after. Although Plato speaks very clearly about the world and about the gods created by God in the world, that they began to be and have a beginning; however, he claims that they will have no end, but by the mighty will of the Demiurge they will remain eternal. But they decided to understand this in the sense that in this case the beginning is understood not in time, but in succession. “If,” they say, “one’s foot had stood on the sand from eternity, then from eternity there would have been a footprint underneath it; nevertheless, no one would doubt that the footprint was made by foot and that neither of these two objects was before the other; thus,” they add, “both the world and the gods created in it could exist forever with the eternal existence of the one who created them, and at the same time be created.” But if the soul existed forever, shouldn’t it be said that its misfortune also existed forever? If something that was not in her from eternity began to exist in time, then why couldn’t it happen that she herself began to exist in time, although she did not exist before? On the other hand, its bliss, which is likely to be more reliable after the experience of evil and, as he himself admits, endless, undoubtedly began in time; despite this, it will always exist, although it did not exist before. Thus, the whole argument on the basis of which they think that there is nothing that could not be infinite in time, except that which has no beginning in time, is destroyed. It turned out that there is a bliss of the soul that, having a beginning in time, will have no end in time. Thus human infirmity must yield to divine authority; and we must, with regard to true piety, believe in those blessed and immortal beings who do not demand for themselves the veneration due, as they know, to their God, Who is also God for us, and command that we make sacrifices only to Him, to Whom we should be sacrifices along with them (as I have often said and will say again). We must be this sacrifice to Him through that Priest, Who, having taken upon Himself a man and graciously agreed to be a priest in him, deigned to become a sacrifice for us even to death. Chapter XXXII. About the universal path to spiritual salvation, which Porfiry, looking for evil, did not find, and which is revealed only by the grace of Christ This is religion, which represents the universal path to spiritual salvation; since it cannot be obtained in any religion other than this. This, so to speak, is the royal path, which alone leads to that kingdom that does not waver on a temporary surface, but is established on the unshakable foundation of eternity. When Porfiry, at the end of the first book “On the Return of the Soul,” says that no philosophical school has yet been formed, which would represent a general path to the salvation of the soul, and that, having thoroughly studied history, he did not receive information about this path from any true philosophy: neither from the customs and teachings of the Indians, nor from the initiations of the Chaldeans, nor from any other source, then he admits that some path exists, only he has not yet come to know it. Thus, he was not satisfied with what, regarding the salvation of the soul, he tried to learn with such diligence and what, as it seemed to him, he learned and assimilated. He felt that he still lacked some higher authority that he should follow in such an important matter. And when he said that from any true philosophy he had not yet learned a doctrine that would contain a universal path to spiritual salvation, then, in my opinion, he sufficiently showed that either the philosophy that he followed was not a true philosophy, or it did not contain such a path. And how can it be true if it does not contain this path? For what other universal path exists to the salvation of the soul, except that by which all souls are saved and apart from which not a single soul is saved? And when he says: “neither from the customs and teachings of the Indians, nor from the initiations of the Chaldeans, nor from any other source,” he clearly shows that neither what he learned from the Indians, nor what he learned from the Chaldeans contains such a universal path to the salvation of the soul; and was unable to hide the fact that he borrowed from the Chaldeans those divine sayings that he constantly mentions. What path does he mean by the universal path to the salvation of the soul, which has not yet been received through historical study from any of the truest philosophy and from any of the teachings of the mentioned peoples, who are considered great and, as it were, divine: since they had primarily developed a curiosity for the knowledge and veneration of certain angels? What kind of universal path is this, if not the one that was indicated from above, not to each people as a special path, but to all peoples as a common path? And that such a path really exists, this man gifted with remarkable abilities had no doubt about it. He believed that divine providence could not leave the human race without such a universal path to spiritual salvation. He said that there is such a way, but that this good and great help has not yet been found for them, not yet known. And no wonder. Porfiry lived at a time when this universal path to the salvation of the soul, which is nothing more than the Christian religion, was allowed to be attacked by worshipers of idols and demons and earthly kings in order to increase the number and perpetuate the memory of martyrs, that is, witnesses of the truth who showed that for the sake of pious faith and for the sake of proving the truth, one must endure all bodily evil 113. Porfiry saw this and believed that as a result of this kind of persecution this path would soon perish and that, therefore, it was not the universal path to spiritual salvation; he did not understand that the suffering that amazed him and which he himself feared to be exposed to if he chose this path served rather as confirmation and the strongest evidence in his favor. So, here is this universal path to the salvation of the human soul, indicated by divine mercy to all peoples. For some it has already opened, for some it will open later. And it was not necessary, and there will be no need to tell him: “Why only now? Why is it so late? For the ways of the Revealer are incomprehensible to the human mind. Porfiry was also aware of this when he said that this gift of God had not yet been received and that he did not yet have information about it. He did not consider it possible to doubt his reality just because he did not believe in him or did not recognize him. So, I say, this is the universal path to spiritual salvation, about which faithful Abraham received a divine promise: “In your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. XXII, 18). Although he was a Chaldean race, so that he could receive this kind of promise and so that the seed could spread from him, given “through angels, by the hand of a mediator” (Gal. III, 19), in which this universal path to the salvation of the soul lies, given to all peoples, he was ordered to leave his land, his family and the house of his father (Gen. XII, 1). Having thus freed himself from Chaldean superstitions, Porfiry later became an admirer of the one true God and immutably believed in His promises. This is the heavenly path about which the holy prophecy says: “God! be merciful to us and bless us; illuminate us with Your face, so that on earth we may know Your way; Your salvation is among all nations” (Ps. 66:1-3). Therefore, much later, after taking flesh from the seed of Abraham, the Savior himself says about Himself: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John XIV, 6). This is the universal path, about which the prophet said much earlier: “And it will come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the house of the Lord will be set at the top of the mountains and will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will flow to it. And many nations will go and say: Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for out of Zion will come the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Isa. II, 2 – 3). So, this path is not the path of one people, but of all nations. The law and the words of the Lord did not remain in Zion and Jerusalem, but came out from there to spread throughout the entire universe. Therefore, the Intercessor himself, after His resurrection, says to His horrified disciples: “Everything that was written about Me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said to them: Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke XXIV, 44-48). So, here is the universal path to the salvation of the soul, which the holy angels and holy prophets indicated and predicted first to a few people who acquired, where it was possible for them, the grace of God, and then to the Jewish people, whose very sacred republic was, so to speak, a prophecy and foreshadowing of the city of God, which was to be composed of all nations - indicated by the tabernacle, church, priesthood and sacrifices, were predicted in some clear, and in some mysterious sayings. The Intercessor himself, who appeared in the flesh, and His blessed apostles, revealing the grace of the New Testament, more clearly indicated what in former times was designated with some secrecy in relation to the ages of the human race, as it pleased the wise God to arrange; Moreover, miraculous divine deeds served as confirmation, some of which I have already mentioned above. Not only did angels appear and the words of heavenly servants sound, but also sincerely pious people, acting with the word of God, expelled unclean spirits from the body and feelings of man; healed bodily defects and diseases, forced wild animals, birds of the air, trees, elements, and luminaries to fulfill the divine commands; subjugated the forces of hell; raised the dead. Not to mention the special and extraordinary miracles of the Savior himself, and most importantly, the miracle of His birth and resurrection. In the first, He showed the secret of the mother’s purity, and in the second, the example of those who will be resurrected at the end of the ages. This path purifies the whole man and prepares the mortal for immortality in all the parts of which man is composed. For the truest and most powerful Purifier and Savior then took upon Himself the whole man, so that they would not seek another purification for that part which Porfiry calls intellectual, another for that which he calls sensual, and another for the body itself. Apart from this path, which has always been open to the human race: partly when all this was foreshadowed as something that would happen, partly when it was announced as something that had already happened, no one was saved, no one is being saved and no one will be saved. Porfiry says that the study of history has not yet given him information about the universal path to spiritual salvation. But what can be found more glorious and more true than history, which has conquered the whole world with such sublime authority and in which such a great past is narrated, as well as such a future is predicted, from which much we see already accomplished, and what has not yet happened must certainly happen? Porfiry, or whatever Platonists there may be, cannot, regarding this path, despise predictions and prophecies about earthly objects, supposedly related to real mortal life, as they deservedly treat with contempt all other predictions and prophecies made with the help of any methods or arts. They deny that these latter should be considered the work of great men or generally a great thing. And fair enough. Such prophecies and divinations are either made as a result of the foresight of some lower causes, just as with the help of medical science, based on symptoms, assumptions are made about the outcome of the disease; or are proclaimed by unclean demons as their own actions, the right to which they in some way appropriate to themselves both in relation to the minds and desires of wicked people, in order to guide them in the fulfillment of these desires, and in relation to the lower matter of weak human nature. It was not such things that the holy people who walked along the universal path of spiritual salvation tried to prophesy about as great things; although such things did not escape them and often, in order to be believed, they predicted things that could not be accessible to the senses of mortals and could not be easily explained by experience. There was something else, truly great and divine, which, having known, as far as it was given, the will of God, they predicted as destined to happen. In the Scriptures pointing out this path, the following are foretold and promised: Christ who would come in the flesh, and what was accomplished in Him and fulfilled in His name; repentance of people and turning their will to God; forgiveness of sins; the grace of righteousness; the faith of the pious and throughout the entire universe there are many believers in the true Divinity; overthrowing the veneration of idols and demons, and strengthening through temptations; cleansing the successful and freeing them from all evil; day of judgment; resurrection of the dead; eternal condemnation of the society of the wicked and the eternal kingdom of the most glorious city of God, enjoying the immortal sight of God. From all this we see so much fulfilled that with true piety we hope for the fulfillment of the rest. Those who, according to the testimony of the sacred Scriptures, predicting and confirming this path, do not believe and therefore do not understand that this path leads directly to the very vision of God and to eternal communion with Him, they can attack this path, but they cannot destroy it. Therefore, in the ten books we have already completed, although we have not fully satisfied the demands of others, we have satisfied, to the extent that the true God and Lord was pleased to help us in this, the love of some, refuting the objections of the wicked, who prefer their gods to the Creator of the holy city, about which we have set ourselves the task of discussing. Of these ten books, the first five were directed against those who think that the gods should be worshiped for the sake of the benefits of this present life, and the last five - against those who believe that the worship of the gods should be preserved for the sake of the life that is to come after death. Now, according to the promise given in the first book, I will set forth, with the help of God, what I consider necessary to say about the beginning, spread and destined end of both cities, which, as we said, are intertwined and mutually mixed in the present century. Plotinus. Enneads. “On Providence” (III, 2–3). Porfiry lived under Diocletian, under whom the most severe persecutions were instituted against Christians You might be interested in: