The City of God by Augustine - 9 - Demons Are Not Intermediaries
Book Nine
Quote
📝 I do not say that He is Mediator becaues He is the Word, for as the Word He is supremely blessed and supremely immortal, and therefore far from miserable mortals; but He is Mediator as He is man.
Notes
🔥 Some of the Platonists believe there are both good and bad demons. Augustine sets out to refute this, too.
🔥 Demons are apparently subject to emotions, just like foolish men, only worse. The philosophers agree that wise men are not perturbed by the passions, at least not to the extent that they would allow them to violate righteousness. As an extra note, God can experience anger, as evidenced by many stories in the Bible, but Augustine says he (God) is not perturbed by it.
🔥 At the same time, we can be moved by compassion, fellow feeling with our fellow man, but this is a virtue.
🔥 Demons have eternal bodies (they never die), but vicious souls subject to emotions and vices. How then can they be intermediaries between us and God? Their body, the inferior part, is of the gods, and their soul, the superior part, is of men. This is the worst of both worlds.
🔥 According to the Platonists, the gods enjoy eternal blessedness, men a mortal misery. And demons have an eternal misery (because they're immortal and suffer man's vices). How can they be intermediaries then? The only thing they share with the gods is immortality. In all the rest they are corrupt and evil.
🔥 We need a proper intermediary, says Augustine. One "who is not only man, but also God." He must become mortal, but not continue mortal.
🔥 By the Platonists own logic, who say the gods are blessed because they're uncontaminated by conduct with men, the demons must be contaminated. So, again, how can they be intermediaries?
🔥 Demons have knowledge. In fact, the Greek word for demon means 'knowing'. But knowledge without charity does no good. It's merely pride.
🔥 Jesus, by contrast, was not proud. He came as a humble servant. The demons recognized Jesus, but they feared him.
🔥God is God of all gods, and is to be feared above all gods, says Augustine. For all gods of the nations are idols, and God made the heavens.
Key Takeaways
💬 It looks like Augustine is slowly starting to move away from the original topic about whether or not the fall of Rome was Christianity's fault. And he's moving to a much larger comparison between the Roman pagan religion and Christianity more generally, arguing that Christianity is a superior and even more rational religion. It even has points of agreement with Plato, the greatest of the philosophers, as he discussed in Book Eight.
It's unclear how much of this whole work was premeditated for Augustine, or if he just started with his defense against the charges against Christianity and kept going as new thoughts and ideas occurred to him from there.