Friday, June 29, 2012

A Voice from the Past - Tertullian

Every spirit is winged; so it is with angels, so it is with demons. Thus in a moment they are everywhere; all the world is to them one spot; what is being done, and where, it is easy for them to know as to tell. Their swiftness passes for divinity, because their real nature is unknown. So they sometimes wish to appear as doing what they merely report; and they obviously are at times the authors of mischief but never of good.

Tertullian, Apology, 160-220 AD, XXII, 8 (Loeb Classical Library, Tertullian and Minucius Felix, G. P. Goold, translated T. R. Glover, Harvard University Press, 1931, p. 121)

Is this true? What perspective does it give us on demons? Are there real events it helps to explain?

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