Demons

who, having become evil in their choice, and, instead of the good, following the apostasy of their ruler, were named demons, as deceivers and impostors.

For they sacrificed, it says, to demons and not to God, to gods whom their fathers did not know;

if you sleep, you will sleep sweetly, and you will not fear any sudden terror, nor the assaults of the impious demons coming upon you;

Their operation is the ruin of man.

What more faithful than this proof?

This is true of angels and of demons.

smite away the demon;

The scorching, spotted she-demon — I release her onto this post.

Mount the hide, sit near the fire — this god destroys all demons;

But he who worships the visible gods and the promiscuous rabble of these created things, and makes them his companions, is far more wretched than those very demons.

"For thrice ten thousand," in truth, "are upon the bountiful earth" demons — not immortal, nor yet mortal (for they have not even shared in sensation, that they might share in death), but stony and wooden masters of men, outraging and breaking faith with life through custom.

and the violence of demons is shattered, convicted by strenuous commands.

How these demons, the offspring of evil angels, long since sent forth from faith through unbelief, have striven to turn men aside by similar fables, we need not here treat more at length.

So too in magic — that is, in the second idolatry, in which the demons feign themselves dead in the same way as in the former they feign themselves gods (why not, since the gods too are dead?

For the demons are the magistrates of this world;

as David, when he had named "gods," where he says, "But the gods of the nations are demons.

For we ought to be certain, in case it escapes any through ignorance of secular literature, that even the gods of doors among the Romans—Cardea, named from hinges, and Forculus from doors, and Limentinus from the threshold, and Janus himself from the door—and surely we know that, although the names be empty and feigned, yet, when they are brought into superstition, they snatch to themselves the de …

Why, when she marks out spirits to be cursed, does she pronounce them demons?

O testimony of truth, which among the very demons makes a witness for the Christians!

But indeed, when we affirm that demons exist — to be sure, as though we did not also prove it, who alone drive them out from bodies — some flatterer of Chrysippus mocks at us.

The woman who undertakes a vow without having asked her husband—all of that goes to the demons (*rākṣasas*);

He who eats with his head covered, he who eats facing south, or he who rests his hand on his left foot—it is the demons (*rakṣasas*) who eat that food.