Porro, si et magi phantasmata edunt et iam defunctorum infamant animas, si pueros in eloquium oraculi elidunt, si multa miracula circulatoriis praestigiis ludunt, si et somnia immittunt habentes semel invitatorum angelorum et daemonum adsistentem sibi potestatem, per quos et caprae et mensae divinare consuerunt, quanto magis ea potestas de suo arbitrio et pro suo negotio studeat totis viribus operari quod alienae praestat negotiationi! Aut si eadem et angeli et daemones operantur quae et dei vestri, ubi est ergo praecellentia divinitatis, quam utique superiorem omni potestate credendum est? Non ergo dignius praesumetur ipsos esse qui se deos faciant, cum eadem edant quae faciant deos credi, quam pares angelis et daemonibus deos esse?
To proceed, if magicians produce phantoms and give a bad name to the souls of the dead; if they kill children to make an oracle speak; if by mountebank tricks they play off no end of miracles; if they send dreams to people; assisted by the power of the angels and demons invoked, those same beings by whose aid she-goats and tables have acquired the habit of divining; how much more, think you? would that power, acting on its own behalf and in its own business, take pains to use its full strength to achieve what it does in the affairs of others? Or, if angels and demons do exactly what your gods do; where, then, is the pre-eminence of divinity, which we surely should count superior to every other power? Will it not be a worthier supposition that it is they who make themselves into gods when they do what wins credence for gods, than that gods should be on a level with angels and demons?
final_alignments\Tertullian_Apology.json