Iamblichus on the Mysteries; Psellus on Demons

adapted to governance, and naturally, it provides for things in ensouled beings, being affected by various figures. Likewise, for the gods there is an order from superior causes, and beauty itself, or the causes of both; but for the soul, there is order and intellectual beauty. Likewise, in the gods there is a measure powerful over all things; but the soul determines that measure and acts through it upon other things. Demons and heroes, as intermediaries between the gods and souls, are composed by a competent proportion—as far as the extremes and themselves are concerned—of the properties of both souls and gods, which we have recounted in the preceding pages. If, therefore, you wish to apprehend the species of the gods, contemplate the properties of the ultimate rational soul, and attribute the opposites in perfection to the gods. If it pleases you to compose the species of a demon, compose it from both, while meanwhile attributing more divinity. Finally, if [you wish to compose] the species of a hero, [do so] truly from both, yet inferring more of the conditions of the soul. He criticizes Porphyry for distinguishing those which are separate through their habits toward bodies—namely, the gods through their habit toward ethereal bodies, demons toward aerial [bodies], and souls toward terrestrial [bodies]—because, obviously, that which is prior and the cause ought not to be distinguished by that which is posterior and the effect. Incorporeal substances are not in bodies; rather, they lead them from the outside and give something to them, they do not receive it...