In conformity with this opinion, Porphyry expressing, however, not so much his own views as other people's--says that a good god or genius cannot come to a man unless the evil genius has been first of all propitiated, implying that the evil deities had greater power than the good; for, until they have been appeased and give place, the good can give no assistance; and if the evil deities oppose, the good can give no help; whereas the evil can do injury without the good being able to prevent them.This is not the way of the true and truly holy religion; not thus do our martyrs conquer Juno, that is to say, the powers of the air, who envy the virtues of the pious.Our heroes, if we could so call them, overcome Here, not by suppliant gifts, but by divine virtues.
As Scipio, who conquered Africa by his valor, is more suitably styled Africanus than if he had appeased his enemies by gifts, and so won their mercy.
CHAP.22.--WHENCE THE SAINTS DERIVE POWER AGAINST DEMONS AND TRUE PURIFICATIONOF
HEART.
It is by true piety that men of God cast out the hostile power of the air which opposes godliness; it is by exorcising it, not by propitiating it; and they overcome all the temptations of the adversary by praying, not to him, but to their own God against him.
For the devil cannot conquer or subdue any but those who are in league with sin; and therefore he is conquered in the name of Him who assumed humanity, and that without sin, that Himself being both Priest and Sacrifice, He might bring about the remission of sins, that is to say, might bring it about through the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, by whom we are reconciled to God, the cleansing from sin being accomplished.
For men are separated from God only by sins, from which we are in this life cleansed not by our own virtue, but by the divine compassion; through His indulgence, not through our own power.For, whatever virtue we call our own is itself bestowed upon us by His goodness.And we might attribute too much to ourselves while in the flesh, unless we lived in the receipt of pardon until we laid it down.This is the reason why there has been vouchsafed to us, through the Mediator, this grace, that we who are polluted by sinful flesh should be cleansed by the likeness of sinful flesh.By this grace of God, wherein He has shown His great compassion toward us, we are both governed by faith in this life, and, after this life, are led onwards to the fullest perfection by the vision of immutable truth.
CHAP.23.--OF THE PRINCIPLES WHICH, ACCORDING TO THE PLATONISTS, REGULATETHE
PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL.
Even Porphyry asserts that it was revealed by divine oracles that we are not purified by any sacrifices(1) to sun or moon, meaning it to be inferred that we are not purified by sacrificing to any gods.For what mysteries can purify, if those of the sun and moon, which are esteemed the chief of the celestial gods, do not purify? He says, too, in the same place, that "principles"can purify, lest it should be supposed, from his saying that sacrificing to the sun and moon cannot purify, that sacrificing to some other of the host of gods might do so.And what he as a Platonist means by "principles," we know.(2) For he speaks of God the Father and God the Son, whom he calls (writing in Greek) the intellect or mind of the Father;(3) but of the Holy Spirit he says either nothing, or nothing plainly, for I do not understand what other he speaks of as holding the middle place between these two.For if, like Plotinus in his discussion regarding the three principal substances,(4) he wished us to understand by this third the soul of nature, he would certainly not have given it the middle place between these two, that is, between the Father and the Son.For Plotinus places the soul of nature after the intellect of the Father, while Porphyry, making it the mean, does not place it after, but between the others.No doubt he spoke according to his light, or as he thought expedient; but we assert that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit not of the Father only, nor of the Son only, but of both.For philosophers speak as they have a mind to, and in the most difficult matters do not scruple to offend religious ears; but we are bound to speak according to a certain rule, lest freedom of speech beget impiety of opinion about the matters themselves of which we speak.
CHAP.24.--OF THE ONE ONLY TRUE PRINCIPLE WHICH ALONE PURIFIES AND RENEWSHUMAN
NATURE.
Accordingly, when we speak of God, we do not affirm two or three principles, no more than we are at liberty to affirm two or three gods; although, speaking of each, of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Ghost, we confess that each is God: and yet we do not say, as the Sabellian heretics say, that the Father is the same as the Son, and the Holy Spirit the same as the Father and the Son; but we say that the Father is the Father of the Son, and the Son the Son of the Father, and that the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son is neither the Father nor the Son.It was therefore truly said that man is cleansed only by a Principle, although the Platonists erred in speaking in the plural of principles.
