Minucius Felix, Marcus, Octavius

Spiritus sunt insinceri, vagi, a caelesti vigore terrenis labibus et cupiditatibus degravati. Isti igitur spiritus, posteaquam simplicitatem substantiae suae onusti et inmersi vitiis perdiderunt, ad solacium calamitatis suae non desinunt perditi iam perdere et depravati errorem pravitatis infundere et alienati a deo inductis pravis religionibus a deo segregare.

There are spirits, impure and wandering, weighed down from their heavenly vigour by earthly stains and desires. These spirits, then, after they lost the simplicity of their substance, burdened and sunk in vices, do not cease, as a consolation for their own calamity, being lost already, to bring others to ruin; being depraved, to pour in the error of depravity; and, being estranged from God, to separate [others] from God by introducing depraved religions.

Eos spiritus daemonas esse poetae sciunt, philosophi disserunt, Socrates novit, qui ad nutum et arbitrium adsidentis sibi daemonis vel declinabat negotia vel petebat.

That these spirits are demons the poets know, the philosophers discuss, and Socrates knew, who at the nod and judgement of the demon that sat beside him would either decline undertakings or pursue them.

Magi quoque non tantum sciunt daemonas sed etiam quicquid miraculi ludunt, per daemonas faciunt: illis adspirantibus et infundentibus praestigias edunt, vel quae non sunt videri, vel quae sunt non videri.

The magicians too not only know the demons, but whatever wonder they play at, they do through demons: it is with the demons breathing on them and pouring into them that they produce illusions, making what does not exist be seen, or what exists not be seen.

Eorum magorum et eloquio et negotio primus Hostanes et verum deum merita maiestate prosequitur et angelos, id est ministros et nuntios, dei sedem tueri eiusque venerationi novit adsistere, ut et nutu ipso et vultu domini territi contremescant. Idem etiam daemonas prodidit terrenos, vagos, humanitatis inimicos.

Hostanes, the foremost of those magicians both in eloquence and in practice, both honours the true God with the majesty that is his due, and knows that angels, that is, ministers and messengers, guard the throne of God and stand by to venerate him, so that, terrified, they tremble at the very nod and countenance of the Lord. He also made known that demons are earthly, wandering, enemies of humanity.

Isti igitur impuri spiritus, daemones, ut ostensum magis ac philosophis, sub statuis et imaginibus consecratis delitiscunt et adflatu suo auctoritatem quasi praesentis numinis consequuntur, dum inspirant interim vatibus, dum fanis inmorantur, dum nonnumquam extorum fibras animant, avium volatus gubernant, sortes regunt, oracula efficiunt, falsis pluribus involuta.

These impure spirits, then — demons, as the magicians and philosophers have shown — lurk beneath consecrated statues and images, and by their breath acquire the authority of a deity as if present, while at times they inspire seers, while they linger in shrines, while they sometimes animate the fibres of entrails, steer the flights of birds, govern lots, and produce oracles wrapped in many falsehoods.

Nam et falluntur et fallunt, ut et nescientes sinceram veritatem et quam sciunt, in perditionem sui non confitentes. Sic a caelo deorsum gravant et a deo vero ad materias avocant, vitam turbant, somnos inquietant, inrepentes etiam corporibus occulte, ut spiritus tenues, morbos fingunt, terrent mentes, membra distorquent, ut ad cultum sui cogant, ut nidore altarium vel hostiis pecudum saginati, remissis quae constrinxerant, curasse videantur.

For they are both deceived and deceivers, since they do not know the pure truth, and what they do know they do not confess, to their own ruin. Thus they weigh [men] down from heaven and call them away from the true God to material things; they disturb life, make sleep restless; creeping secretly into bodies too, as fine spirits, they contrive diseases, terrify minds, twist limbs, so as to force [people] to worship them, so that, fattened on the reek of altars or on sacrifices of cattle, they may seem, by loosening what they had bound tight, to have cured them.

Hinc sunt et furentes, quos in publicum videtis excurrere, vates et ipsi absque templo, sic insaniunt, sic bacchantur, sic rotantur: par et in illis instigatio daemonis, sed argumentum dispar furoris.

From this source too come the frenzied, whom you see running out into public, themselves seers though without a temple: so they rave, so they revel like Bacchants, so they whirl about. In them too there is the same prompting of a demon, but a different occasion for the frenzy.

De ipsis etiam illa, quae paulo ante tibi dicta sunt, ut Iuppiter ludos repeteret ex somnio, ut cum equis Castores viderentur, ut cingulum matronae navicula sequeretur.

From them also come those things that were told to you a little before: that Jupiter demanded the games again through a dream, that Castor and Pollux were seen with their horses, that the boat followed the matron's girdle.

Haec omnia sciunt pleraque pars vestrum ipsos daemonas de semetipsis confiteri, quotiens a nobis tormentis verborum et orationis incendiis de corporibus exiguntur.

Most of you know that the demons themselves confess all these things about themselves whenever they are driven out of bodies by us with the tortures of our words and the fires of our prayer.

Ipse Saturnus et Serapis et Iuppiter et quicquid daemonum colitis, victi dolore quod sunt eloquuntur, nec utique in turpitudinem sui, nonnullis praesertim vestrum adsistentibus, mentiuntur.

Saturn himself, and Serapis, and Jupiter, and whatever demons you worship, overcome by pain, declare what they are; and surely they do not lie to their own disgrace, especially when some of you are standing by.

Ipsis testibus, esse eos daemonas, de se verum confitentibus credite: adiurati enim per deum verum et solum, inviti, miseri corporibus inhorrescunt et vel exiliunt statim vel evanescunt gradatim, prout fides patientis adiuvat aut gratia curantis adspirat. Sic Christianos de proximo fugitant, quos longe in coetibus per vos lacessebant.

Believe them as witnesses when they confess the truth about themselves, that they are demons: for when adjured by the true and only God, unwilling and wretched, they shudder in the bodies and either leap out at once or vanish by degrees, as the faith of the sufferer helps or the grace of the healer breathes upon them. So they flee at close quarters from Christians, whom at a distance, in your gatherings, they used to harass through you.