Iamblichus in reply states that as heroes are elevated above souls, so demons are inferior and subservient to the gods and translate the infinite, ineffable, and invisible divine transcendent goodness into terms of visible forms, energy, and reason.[1368] He further distinguishes “the etherial, empyrean, and celestial gods,” and angels, archangels, and archons.[1369] As for corporeal, visible, aerial, and aquatic gods, he affirms that the gods have no bodies and no particular allotments of space, but that natural objects participate in or are related to the gods etherially or aerially or aquatically, each according to its nature.[1370] “The celestial divinities,” for example, “are not comprehended by bodies but contain bodies in their divine lives and energies. They are not themselves converted to body, but they have a body which is converted to its divine cause, and that body does not impede their intellectual and incorporeal perfection.”[1371] Iamblichus denies that there are any maleficent gods, saying that “it is much better to acknowledge our inability to explain the occurrence of evil than to admit anything impossible and false concerning the gods.”[1372] But he admits the existence of both good and evil demons and makes of the latter a convenient scapegoat upon whom to saddle any inconsistencies or impurities in religious rites and magical ceremony. [Sidenote: Nature of demons.] Iamblichus does not, however, hold the view of Apuleius that demons are subject to passions. They are impassive and incapable of suffering.[1373] He scorns the notion that even the worst demons can be allured by the vapors of animal sacrifice or that petty mortals can supply such beings with anything;[1374] it is rather in the consumption of foul matter by pure fire in the act of sacrifice that they take delight. Demons are not, however, like the gods entirely separated from bodies. The world is divided up into prefectures among them and they are more or less inseparable from and identified with the natural objects which they govern.[1375] Thus they may serve to enmesh the soul in the bonds of matter and of fate, and to afflict the body with disease.[1376] Also the evil demons “are surrounded by certain noxious, blood-devouring, and fierce wild beasts,” probably of the type of vampires and _empousas_.[1377] Iamblichus further holds that there is a class of demons who are without judgment and reason, each of whom has some one function to perform and is not adapted to do anything else.[1378] Such demons or forces in nature men may well address as superiors in invoking them, since they are superior to men in their one special function; but when they have once been invoked, man as a rational being may also well issue commands to them as his irrational inferiors.[1379] [Sidenote: The art of theurgy.]