Traduction Masquer
The City of God

Chapter 9.--Of the Friendship of the Holy Angels, Which Men Cannot Be Sure of in This Life, Owing to the Deceit of the Demons Who Hold in Bondage the Worshippers of a Plurality of Gods.

The philosophers who wished us to have the gods for our friends rank the friendship of the holy angels in the fourth circle of society, advancing now from the three circles of society on earth to the universe, and embracing heaven itself. And in this friendship we have indeed no fear that the angels will grieve us by their death or deterioration. But as we cannot mingle with them as familiarly as with men (which itself is one of the grievances of this life), and as Satan, as we read, ¹ sometimes transforms himself into an angel of light, to tempt those whom it is necessary to discipline, or just to deceive, there is great need of God's mercy to preserve us from making friends of demons in disguise, while we fancy we have good angels for our friends; for the astuteness and deceitfulness of these wicked spirits is equalled by their hurtfulness. And is this not a great misery of human life, that we are involved in such ignorance as, but for God's mercy, makes us a prey to these demons? And it is very certain that the philosophers of the godless city, who have maintained that the gods were their friends, had fallen a prey to the malignant demons who rule that city, and whose eternal punishment is to be shared by it. For the nature of these beings is sufficiently evinced by the sacred or rather sacrilegious observances which form their worship, and by the filthy games in which their crimes are celebrated, and which they themselves originated and exacted from their worshippers as a fit propitiation.

Edition Masquer
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput IX: De amicitia sanctorum angelorum, quae homini in hoc mundo non potest esse manifesta propter fallaciam daemonum, in quos inciderunt, qui multos sibi deos colendos putarunt.

In societate uero sanctorum angelorum, quam philosophi illi, qui nobis deos amicos esse uoluerunt, quarto constituerunt loco, uelut ad mundum uenientes ab orbe terrarum, ut sic quodammodo conplecterentur et caelum, nullo modo quidem metuimus, ne tales amici uel morte nos sua uel deprauatione contristent. sed quia nobis non ea, qua homines, familiaritate miscentur, quod etiam ipsum ad aerumnas huius pertinet uitae, et aliquando satanas, sicut legimus, transfigurat se uelut angelum lucis ad tentandos eos, quos ita uel erudiri opus est uel decipi iustum est: magna dei misericordia necessaria est, ne quisquam, cum bonos angelos amicos se habere putat, habeat malos daemones fictos amicos, eos que tanto nocentiores, quanto astutiores ac fallaciores, patiatur inimicos. et cui magna ista dei misericordia necessaria est nisi magnae humanae miseriae, quae ignorantia tanta premitur, ut facile istorum simulatione fallatur? et illos quidem philosophos in inpia ciuitate, qui deos sibi amicos esse dixerunt, in daemones malignos incidisse certissimum est, quibus tota ipsa ciuitas subditur, aeternum cum eis habitura supplicium. ex eorum quippe sacris uel potius sacrilegiis, quibus eos colendos, et ex ludis inmundissimis, ubi eorum crimina celebrantur, quibus eos placandos putarunt eisdem ipsis auctoribus et exactoribus talium tantorumque dedecorum, satis ab eis qui colantur apertum est.