Si altera parte daemones sunt vel angeli, cur se alibi pro deis agere respondent? Nam sicut illi qui dei habentur daemones se dicere noluissent, si vere dei essent, scilicet ne se de maiestate deponerent, ita et isti, quos directo daemonas nostis, non auderent alibi pro deis agere, si aliqui omnino dei essent, quorum nominibus utuntur.
If, on the other hand, they are demons or angels, why do they reply that elsewhere they act the part of gods? For just as those beings which pass for gods would have been reluctant to call themselves demons, if they really were gods,'they would not wish, of course, to abdicate their majesty!'so those creatures, whom you definitely know to be demons, would not dare elsewhere to pass themselves off as gods, if those whose names they use were gods at all.
final_alignments\Tertullian_Apology.json