Discourse on the Angels or Spirits of Empires

...spiritual is most clearly designated. These men, therefore, and those of this kind—that is, individuals each possessing their own types of wisdom and establishing their own doctrines dogmata and various opinions—when they saw our Lord and Savior promising and preaching that he had come into this world for this very reason: to destroy all those doctrines of false divinity, whatever they might be, which were concealed within; they immediately laid snares for him, and the kings of the earth stood up, and the princes gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. Quoting Psalm 2:2, which the author applies to the spiritual and earthly rulers opposing Jesus. When their snares were recognized and the things they plotted against the Son of God were understood—when they crucified the Lord of glory, as the Apostle says, etc. Quoting 1 Corinthians 2:8. And a little later: There are, moreover, besides these princes, certain other spiritual energies energiæ of this world; that is, certain spiritual powers performing specific works, which they themselves chose to perform by the freedom of their own will. Among these are those princes who produce the wisdom of this world; for instance, there may be a specific energy and power that inspires Poetry, another that inspires Geometry, and so they suggest each of these individual arts and disciplines. Indeed, many of the Greeks were of the opinion that the poetic art cannot exist without madness The "divine madness" or furor poeticus described by Plato, where a poet is "possessed" by a Muse.; for which reason it is recorded in their histories that sometimes those whom they call seers vates original: "vates" were suddenly filled with a spirit of a certain madness. What more should be said even of those they call diviners? From whom, through the indwelling of the demons who preside over them, responses are brought forth in artfully measured verses. Origen has other things yet—in his 8th Homily on Exodus, chapter 20—and even more wonderful and obscure things, where, explaining the ten precepts of the Decalogue The Ten Commandments, he says:

You shall have no other gods besides me. And the second: You shall not make for yourself an Idol, nor any likeness, etc.

Let us begin, therefore, from the first commandment. But I too need the help of God himself, who commanded these things, in order to speak; and you need more purified ears in order to listen. If anyone there-