PROCLUS, THE PLATONIC SUCCESSOR

to that of the angelic choir. There are,
therefore, some who speak of the passions of
daemons, and these, indeed, such as are
according to nature, when they tragically
narrate their different deaths and generations.
But of other daemons, the passions are from
choice alone, and these they denominate
wicked and evil daemons, who defile souls
through iniquity, lead them to matter, and draw
them down from their celestial journey to the
subterranean place. The authors of these
assertions, likewise, think that thev have Plato
as the patron of this doctrine, who establishes
twofold exemplars in the universe; the one
divine, luminous and boniform, but the other
without
a In Morbeka, " Medii enim potentiâ;" but for
"potentiâ," it is requisite to read potentia.
[99] God, dark and malefic. Of souls, also,
according to them, some tend to the former, but
others to the latter, at which when they arrive,
they suffer the punishment of their crimes. As,
again, of those that are in Hades, some fly from
the mouth of the opening which is there; but
others are dragged along by fiery and fierce
phantasms, are torn on thorns, and hurled into
Tartarus a . What is asserted by these men,
therefore, insinuates that every such genus of
daemons which, is seductive, malignant and
destructive of souls, is susceptive of primary
evil, and that the nature of daemons is
distinguished by good and evil. It is requisite,
however, to inquire of these, if we ask them
nothing else,— for the fathers of these
assertions are divine men b —whether are the
daemons which you call evil, such to
themselves; or are they not evil to themselves,
but to others ? For if, indeed, they are evil to
themselves, one of two things must follow;
either that they must remain in evil for ever, or