On the Divination of Demons

Contents

1. 1Augustine explains that the work records a discussion with Christian laymen about whether a demon's prediction of the fall of the Serapeum at Alexandria proves anything.
2. 2God's permitting something does not make it just, as his permission of murder and adultery shows.
3. 3If God's permission once proved the pagan rites pleasing to him, his permitting their overthrow now proves them displeasing.
4. 4Augustine replies that if permission proved goodness, the permitted overthrow of the rites would have to be good as well.
5. 5Even the pagans' pontifical books forbid some rites as displeasing to God, so God can disapprove of what he nevertheless permits.
6. 6The remaining question, whether divinations are so great that they must come from God, is deferred and answered in writing.
7. 7Demons have keener perception, greater speed, and longer experience than men because of their airy bodies, but such advantages do not make them better than good men, any more than keen-scented dogs or experienced but wicked old men are.
8. 8The wonders demons perform no more prove their goodness than the feats of acrobats and engineers prove theirs.
9. 9Demons mostly foretell what they themselves intend to do, or what they read from natural signs or from bodily signs of human thoughts.
10. 10Demons repeat true prophecy only when they overhear it; otherwise they are often wrong, because God's angels change what they foresaw, and they also lie deliberately.
11. 11The demon of Serapis foretold the Serapeum's fall only when it was already imminent, after long silence about what the prophets had foretold centuries before.
12. 12Pagan claims of earlier predictions are probably invented after the event, and no pagan god ever dared to speak against the God of Israel, who foretold and brought about their overthrow.
13. 13Zephaniah and the Psalms foretold that through Christ all nations would turn from their gods to the God of Israel, after first opposing the church.
14. 14The dwindling pagans who mock Christian foolishness are fulfilling Scripture, which also strengthens believers against their scorn.