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# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book IX/Chapter 1

Chapter 1.—The Point at Which the Discussion Has Arrived, and What Remains to Be Handled.
Some have advanced the opinion that there are both good and bad gods; but some, thinking more respectfully of the gods, have attributed to them so much honor and praise as to preclude the supposition of any god being wicked. But those who have maintained that there are wicked gods as well as good ones have included the demons under the name “gods,” and sometimes though more rarely, have called the gods demons; so that they admit that Jupiter, whom they make the king and head of all the rest, is called a demon by Homer. Those, on the other hand, who maintain that the gods are all good, and far more excellent than the men who are justly called good, are moved by the actions of the demons, which they can neither deny nor impute to the gods whose goodness they affirm, to distinguish between gods and demons; so that, whenever they find anything offensive in the deeds or sentiments by which unseen spirits manifest their power, they believe this to proceed not from the gods, but from the demons. At the same time they believe that, as no god can hold direct intercourse with men, these demons hold the position of mediators, ascending with prayers, and returning with gifts. This is the opinion of the Platonists, the ablest and most esteemed of their philosophers, with whom we therefore chose to debate this question,—whether the worship of a number of gods is of any service toward obtaining blessedness in the future life.  And this is the reason why, in the preceding book, we have inquired how the demons, who take pleasure in such things as good and wise men loathe and execrate, in the sacrilegious and immoral fictions which the poets have written not of men, but of the gods themselves, and in the wicked and criminal violence of magical arts, can be regarded as more nearly related and more friendly to the gods than men are, and can mediate between good men and the good gods; and it has been demonstrated that this is absolutely impossible.

## Footnotes

* ↑ See Plutarch, on the Cessation of Oracles.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book IX/Chapter 11

Chapter 11.—Of the Opinion of the Platonists, that the Souls of Men Become Demons When Disembodied.
He says, indeed, that the souls of men are demons, and that men become Lares if they are good, Lemures or Larvæ if they are bad, and Manes if it is uncertain whether they de
serve well or ill. Who does not see at a glance that this is a mere whirlpool sucking men to moral destruction? For, however wicked men have been, if they suppose they shall become Larvæ or divine Manes, they will become the worse the more love they have for inflicting injury; for, as the Larvæ are hurtful demons made out of wicked men, these men must suppose that after death they will be invoked with sacrifices and divine honors that they may inflict injuries. But this question we must not pursue. He also states that the blessed are called in Greek εὐδαίμονες, because they are good souls, that is to say, good demons, confirming his opinion that the souls of men are demons.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Apuleius, not Plotinus.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book IX/Chapter 14

Chapter 14.—Whether Men, Though Mortal, Can Enjoy True Blessedness.
It is a great question among men, whether man can be mortal and blessed. Some, taking the humbler view of his condition, have denied that he is capable of blessedness so long as he continues in this mortal life; others, again, have spurned this idea, and have been bold enough to maintain that, even though mortal, men may be blessed by attaining wisdom. But if this be the case, why are not these wise men constituted mediators between miserable mortals and the blessed immortals, since they have blessedness in common with the latter, and mortality in common with the former? Certainly, if they are blessed, they envy no one (for what more miserable than envy?), but seek with all their might to help miserable mortals on to blessedness, so that after death they may become immortal, and be associated with the blessed and immortal angels.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book IX

Book IX.
Argument—Having in the preceding book shown that the worship of demons must be abjured, since they in a thousand ways proclaim themselves to be wicked spirits, Augustin in this book meets those who allege a distinction among demons, some being evil, while others are good; and, having exploded this distinction, he proves that to no demon, but to Christ alone, belongs the office of providing men with eternal blessedness.

## Contents

* Chapter 1
* Chapter 2
* Chapter 3
* Chapter 4
* Chapter 5
* Chapter 6
* Chapter 7
* Chapter 8
* Chapter 9
* Chapter 10
* Chapter 11
* Chapter 12
* Chapter 13
* Chapter 14
* Chapter 15
* Chapter 16
* Chapter 17
* Chapter 18
* Chapter 19
* Chapter 20
* Chapter 21
* Chapter 22
* Chapter 23
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book IX/Chapter 12

Chapter 12.—Of the Three Opposite Qualities by Which the Platonists Distinguish Between the Nature of Men and that of Demons.
But at present we are speaking of those beings whom he described as being properly intermediate between gods and men, in nature animals, in mind rational, in soul subject to passion, in body aerial, in duration eternal. When he had distinguished the gods, whom he placed in the highest heaven, from men, whom he placed on earth, not only by position but also by the unequal dignity of their natures, he concluded in these words: “You have here two kinds of animals: the gods, widely distinguished from men by sublimity of abode, perpetuity of life, perfection of nature; for their habitations are separated by so wide an interval that there can be no intimate communication between them, and while the vitality of the one is eternal and indefeasible, that of the others is fading and precarious, and while the spirits of the gods are exalted in bliss, those of men are sunk in miseries.” Here I find three opposite qualities ascribed to the extremes of being, the highest and lowest. For, after mentioning the three qualities for which we are to admire the gods, he repeated, though in other words, the same three as a foil to the defects of man. The three qualities are, “sublimity of abode, perpetuity of life, perfection of nature.” These he again mentioned so as to bring out their contrasts in man’s condition. As he had mentioned “sublimity of abode,” he says, “Their habitations are separated by so wide an interval;” as he had mentioned “perpetuity of life,” he says, that “while divine life is eternal and indefeasible, human life is fading and precarious;” and as he had mentioned “perfection of nature,” he says, that “while the spirits of the gods are exalted in bliss, those of men are sunk in miseries.” These three things, then, he predicates of the gods, exaltation, eternity, blessedness; and of man he predicates the opposite, lowliness of habitation, mortality, misery.

## Footnotes

* ↑ De Deo Socratis.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book IX/Chapter 17

Chapter 17.—That to Obtain the Blessed Life, Which Consists in Partaking of the Supreme Good, Man Needs Such Mediation as is Furnished Not by a Demon, But by Christ Alone.
I am considerably surprised that such learned men, men who pronounce all material and sensible things to be altogether inferior to those that are spiritual and intelligible, should mention bodily contact in connection with the blessed life. Is that sentiment of Plotinus forgotten?—“We must fly to our beloved fatherland. There is the Father, there our all. What fleet or flight shall convey us thither? Our way is, to become like God.” If, then, one is nearer to God the liker he is to Him, there is no other distance from God than unlikeness to Him. And the
soul of man is unlike that incorporeal and unchangeable and eternal essence, in proportion as it craves things temporal and mutable. And as the things beneath, which are mortal and impure, cannot hold intercourse with the immortal purity which is above, a mediator is indeed needed to remove this difficulty; but not a mediator who resembles the highest order of being by possessing an immortal body, and the lowest by having a diseased soul, which makes him rather grudge that we be healed than help our cure. We need a Mediator who, being united to us here below by the mortality of His body, should at the same time be able to afford us truly divine help in cleansing and liberating us by means of the immortal righteousness of His spirit, whereby He remained heavenly even while here upon earth. Far be it from the incontaminable God to fear pollution from the man He assumed, or from the men among whom He lived in the form of a man. For, though His incarnation showed us nothing else, these two wholesome facts were enough, that true divinity cannot be polluted by flesh, and that demons are not to be considered better than ourselves because they have not flesh. This, then, as Scripture says, is the “Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,” of whose divinity, whereby He is equal to the Father, and humanity, whereby He has become like us, this is not the place to speak as fully as I could.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Augustin apparently quotes from memory from two passages of the Enneades, l. vi. 8, and ii. 3.
* ↑ Or, humanity.
* ↑ Comp. De Trin. 13. 22.
* ↑ 1 Tim. ii. 5.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book IX/Chapter 10

Chapter 10.—That, According to Plotinus, Men, Whose Body is Mortal, are Less Wretched Than Demons, Whose Body is Eternal.
Plotinus, whose memory is quite recent, enjoys the reputation of having understood Plato better than any other of his disciples. In speaking of human souls, he says, “The Father in compassion made their bonds mortal;” that is to say, he considered it due to the Father’s mercy that men, having a mortal body, should not be forever confined in the misery of this life. But of this mercy the demons have been judged unworthy, and they have received, in conjunction with a soul subject to passions, a body not mortal like man’s, but eternal. For they should have been happier than men if they had, like men, had a mortal body, and, like the gods, a blessed soul. And they should have been equal to men, if in conjunction with a miserable soul they had at least received, like men, a mortal body, so that death might have freed them from trouble, if, at least, they should have attained some degree of piety. But, as it is, they are not only no happier than men, having, like them, a miserable soul, they are also more wretched, being eternally bound to the body; for he does not leave us to infer that by some progress in wisdom and piety they can become gods, but expressly says that they are demons forever.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Plotinus died in 270 A.D. For his relation to Plato, see Augustin’s Contra Acad. iii. 41.
* ↑ Ennead. iv. 3. 12.
# Mother Goose for Grownups/The Preposterous Performance of an Old Lady of Banbury

This poem was published in Carryl’s 1900 anthology Mother Goose for Grownups, of poems that are parodies of Mother Goose nursery rhymes.
Within a little attic a retiring, but erratic  Old lady (six-and-eighty, to be frank), Made sauces out of cranberry for all the town of Banbury,  Depositing the proceeds in the bank. Her tendency to thriftiness, her scorn of any shiftiness  Built a bustling business, and in course Of time her secret yearnings were revealed, and all her earnings  She squandered in the purchase of a horse.
“I am not in a hurry for a waggonette or surrey,”  She said. “In fact, I much prefer to ride.” And in spite of all premonishment, to everyone’s astonishment,  The gay old lady did so—and astride! Now this was most periculous, but, what was more ridiculous,  The horse she bought had pulled a car, and so The lazy steed to cheer up, she’d a bell upon her stirrup,  And rang it twice to make the creature go!
I blush the truth to utter, but it seems a pound of butter  And thirty eggs she had to sell. Of course, In scorn of ways pedestrian, this fatuous equestrian  To market gaily started on the horse. Becoming too importunate to hasten, the unfortunate  Old lady plied her charger with a birch. In view of all her cronies, this stupidest of ponies  Fell flat before the Presbyterian church!
If it should chance that one set a red Italian sunset  Beside a Beardsley poster, and a plaid Like any canny Highlander’s beside a Fiji Islander’s  Most variegated costume, and should add A Turner composition, and with clever intuition,  To cap the climax, pile upon them all The aurora borealis, then veracity, not malice,  Might claim a close resemblance to her fall.
At sight of her disaster, with arnica and plaster  The neighbors ran up eagerly to aid. They cried: “Don’t do that offen, ma’am, or you will need a coffin, ma’am,  You’ve hurt your solar plexus, we’re afraid. We hope your martyrdom’ll let you notice what an omelette  You’ve made in half a jiffy. It is great!” She only clutched her bonnet (she had fallen flat upon it),  And answered: “Will you tell me if it’s straight?”
The moral’s rather curious: for often the penurious  Are apt to think old horses of account If you would ride, then seek fine examples of the equine,  And don’t look on a molehill as a mount.
# Mother Goose for Grownups/The Fearful Finale of the Irascible Mouse

This poem was published in Carryl’s 1900 anthology Mother Goose for Grownups, of poems that are parodies of Mother Goose nursery rhymes.
Upon a stairway built of brick  A pleasant-featured clock From time to time would murmur “Tick”  And vary it with “Tock”: Although no great intelligence  There lay in either word, They were not meant to give offence  To anyone who heard.
Within the pantry of the house,  Among some piles of cheese, There dwelt an irritable mouse,  Extremely hard to please: His appetite was most immense.  Each day he ate a wedge Of Stilton cheese. In consequence  His nerves were all on edge.
With ill-concealed impatience he,  Upon his morning walk, Had heard the clock unceasingly,  Monotonously talk, Until his rage burst every bound.  He gave a fretful shout: “Well, sakes alive! It’s time I found  What all this talk’s about.”
With all the admirable skill  That marks the rodent race The mouse ran up the clock, until  He’d crept behind the face, And then, with words that no one thought  To use, and scornful squeals, He cried aloud: “Just what I thought!  Great oaf, you’re full of wheels!”
The timepiece sternly said: “Have done!”  And through the silent house It struck emphatically one.  (But that one was the mouse!) To earth the prowling rodent fell,  In terror for his life, And turned to flee, but, sad to tell,  There stood the farmer’s wife.
She did not faint, she did not quail,  She did not cry out: “Scat!” She simply took him by the tail  And gave him to the cat, And, with a stern, triumphant look,  She watched him clawed and cleft, And with some blotting paper took  Up all that there was left.
The moral: In a farmer’s home  Run down his herds, his flocks, Run down his crops, run down his loam,  But when it comes to clocks, Pray leave them ticking every one  In peace upon their shelves: When running down is to be done  The clocks run down themselves.
# Mother Goose for Grownups/The Judicious Judgment of Quite Contrary Mary

This poem was published in Carryl’s 1900 anthology Mother Goose for Grownups, of poems that are parodies of Mother Goose nursery rhymes.
Though Mary had the kind of face  The rudest wind would softly blow on; Though she was full of simple grace,  Sweet, amiable, and kind, and so on; I would not have you understand  That she was meek. You’d be mistaken. She worked out logarithms, and  Her favorite essayist was Bacon.
And, though not positive, I think  She’d heard about Savonarola, Had studied Maurice Maeterlinck,  And read the works of Emile Zola, And Emerson’s and some of Kant’s,  And all of mine and Shopenhauer’s; But still she cultivated plants,  And spent her life in tending flowers.
She had a little hedge of box,  Azalias, and a bed of tansy, A double row of hollyhocks,  And every different kind of pansy: And, though so innocent of look,  She’d lovers by the scores and dozens, And learned, by talking with the cook,  To tell her friends that they were her cousins.
The first was French, the second Greek,  The third was born upon the Mersey, The fourth one came from Mozambique,  The fifth one came from the Isle of Jersey. I cannot tell about the rest,  But, judging from their dress and faces, They came from north, east, south, and west,  But all of them from different places.
Now, such was Mary’s sense of pride,  Despite their fervent protestations, Before she vowed to be a bride  She set them all examinations: She asked each one to tell the date  Of Washington and Cleopatra, Name Dickens’ novels, and locate  The site of Yonkers and Sumatra.
But so it chanced that, from a score  Of suitors resolute and haughty, One gained a mark of sixty-four,  And all the rest were under forty. One swain alone the rest outclassed;  Because of one audacious guess, he This strict examination passed  When Mary asked the date of Creçy.
The moral shows that when a maid  Her life devotes unto a garden, When horticultural skill’s displayed  Her heart she does not dare to harden. So crafty suitors, scorn the fates  And you may lay this flattering balm to Your souls; if you but get your dates  The chances are you’ll get the palm, too!
# Mother Goose for Grownups/The Gastronomic Guile of Simple Simon

This poem was published in Carryl’s 1900 anthology Mother Goose for Grownups, of poems that are parodies of Mother Goose nursery rhymes.
Conveniently near to where  Young Simple Simon dwelt  There was to be a county fair,  And Simple Simon felt  That to the fair he ought to go  In all his Sunday clothes, and so,  Determined to behold the show,  He put them on and went. (One-half his clothes was borrowed and the other half was lent.)
 He heard afar the cheerful sound  Of horns that people blew,  Saw wooden horses swing around  A circle, two and two,  Beheld balloons arise, and if  He scented with a gentle sniff  The smells of pies, what is the dif-  Ference to me or you? (You cannot say my verse is false, because I know it’s true.)
 As Simple Simon nearer came  To these attractive smells,  Avoiding every little game  Men played with walnut shells,  He felt a sudden longing rise.  The sparkle in his eager eyes  Betrayed the fact he yearned for pies:  The eye the secret tells. (’Tis known the pie of country fairs all other pies excels.)
 So when he saw upon the road,  Some fifty feet away,  A pieman, Simple Simon strode  Toward him, shouting: “Hey!  What kinds?” as lordly as a prince.  The pieman said: “I’ve pumpkin, quince,  Blueberry, lemon, peach, and mince”  And, showing his array, He added: “Won’t you try one, sir? They’re very nice to-day.”
 Now Simon’s taste was most profuse,  And so, by way of start,  He ate two cakes, a Charlotte Russe,  Six buns, the better part  Of one big gingerbread, a pair  Of lady-fingers, an eclair,  And ten assorted pies, and there,  His hand upon his heart, He paused to choose between an apple dumpling and a tart.
 Observing that upon his tray  His goods were growing few,  The pieman cried: “I beg to say  That patrons such as you  One does not meet in many a moon.  Pray, won’t you try this macaroon?”  But soon suspicious, changed his tune,  Continuing: “What is due I beg respectfully to add’s a dollar twenty-two.”
 Then Simple Simon put a curb  Upon his appetite,  And turning with an air superb  He suddenly took flight,  While o’er his shoulder this absurd  And really most offensive word  The trusting pieman shortly heard  To soothe his bitter plight: “Perhaps I should have said before your wares are out of sight.”
 The moral is a simple one,  But still of consequence.  We’ve seen that Simon’s sense of fun  Was almost too intense:  Though blaming his deceitful guise,  We with the pieman sympathize,  The latter we must criticize  Because he was so dense: He might have known from what he ate that Simon had no cents.
# Mother Goose for Grownups/The Mysterious Misapprehension Concerning a Man in Our Town

This poem was published in Carryl’s 1900 anthology Mother Goose for Grownups, of poems that are parodies of Mother Goose nursery rhymes.
There was a man in our town,  Half beggar, half rapscallion, Who, just because his eyes were brown,  Was thought to be Italian: And, though with much insistence  He said that people erred, And bitterly to Italy  He frequently referred,  The false report, as is the way  Of false reports, had come to stay!
So every one who’d been to Rome  By aid of Cook’s or Gaze’s, Would call upon him at home  To flaunt Italian phrases. “Capite Questa lingua?”  The inquiry would be: “Pochissimo? Benissimo!  Vi prego, ditemi,  Siete voi contento qua,  Lontano dall’ Italia?”
The victim, plunged in deep disgust,  Grew nervous, could not slumber; Said he, “I’m called Italian, just  Because my eyes are umber, And if this persecution  Is ever to be stopped, Some stern and stoic, hard, heroic  Course I must adopt!”  And so, to everyone’s surprise,  He calmly scratched out both his eyes!
The neighbors said: “So strange a thing  Might seem to be an omen. We thought his wits were wandering,  But now we know they’re Roman!” And so at him by legions,  By bevies, hosts, and herds, Professors, purists, tramps, and tourists  Screamed Italian words.  Perceiving all he’d done was vain,  He scratched his eyesight in again.
The moral: If your neighbors say  You’re one thing or another, You’ll find there isn’t any way  Their predudice to smother. What matter if they think you  From Italy or Greece? I beg you, treasure no displeasure:  Bow and hold your peace.  Like Omar, underneath the bow  You’ll find there’s paradise enow!
# Mother Goose for Grownups/The Linguistic Languor of Charles Augustus Sprague

This poem was published in Carryl’s 1900 anthology Mother Goose for Grownups, of poems that are parodies of Mother Goose nursery rhymes.
A child of nature curious  Was Charles Augustus Sprague; He made his parents furious  Because he was so vague: Although his age was nearly two Eleven words were all he knew, These sounded much as sounds the Dutch  That’s spoken at the Hague.
A few of his errata  ’Tis just I should avow, He called his mother “Tata,”  And “moo” he dubbed a cow, Nor was it altogether plain Why “choo-choo” meant a railway train. He called a cat “miouw,” and that  No purist would allow.
Within his father’s orchard  There stood, for all to see, With branches bent and tortured,  An ancient apple tree: That Charles Augustus Sprague might drowse His mother on its swaying boughs His cradle hung, and while it swung,  She sang with energy.
A sudden blow arising  One day, the branches broke, With suddenness surprising  The sleeping babe awoke, And crashing down to earth he fell. Ah me, that I should have to tell The words that mild and genial child  On this occasion spoke!
His face convulsed and checquered  With passion and with tears, He blotted out the record  Of both his speechless years: His mother stupefied, aghast, Heard Charles Augustus speak at last; He opened wide his mouth and cried  These ill conditioned sneers.
“Sapristi! Accidente!  Perchance my speech is late, But, be she two or twenty,  A nincompoop I hate! What idiot said that woman’s ‘planned To warn, to comfort, and command?’” His words I quench. Excuse my French—  Je dis que tu m’embêtes!
The moral: Common clocks, we find, In silence take a sudden wind, But only heroes, as we know, In silence take a sudden blow.