OF THE ORDER OF THE SUPERIOR BEINGS.

Our souls are counted among the genera of divine beings. Heroes are greater than humans; therefore, demons are much greater still. The first of the divine beings is the Good itself and the gods who follow it. The last are the individual rational souls. Between these are two intermediate groups, namely heroes, who are near to souls, and demons, who are near to the gods, just as air and water exist between fire and earth. Although heroes surpass us in power, virtue, beauty, and greatness, they nevertheless greatly conform to our soul and its life. Demons are superior to heroes and are the ministers of the gods, acting as architects in the mundane workshop. That which is ineffable and hidden in the gods, demons express and reveal. Demons and heroes adapt the universal, simple, and immovable gifts of the gods to inferior beings, and they reconcile all things, being the authors of the harmonic consensus and compassion of all things one with another. They bring divine things to us, and they lead our things equally to the divine. Furthermore, they dispose the degrees in the gifts of the superiors and in the preparation of those who receive them in equal measure. The diverse genera of divine things differ among themselves through a triple mode of properties, namely as it pertains to essences, virtues, and actions. The property of the gods...