throughout the middle ages until very recent times. The Apostle Peter, in the Recognitions of Clement, informs Clement that when God made the world He appointed chiefs over the various creatures, even over the trees and the mountains and springs and rivers, and over everything in the universe. An angel was set over the angels, a spirit over spirits, a star over the stars, a demon over the demons, and so on.(1) He provided different offices for all His creatures, whether good or bad,(2) but certain angels having left the course of their proper order, led men into sin and taught them that demons could, by magical invocations, be made to obey man.(3) Ham was the discoverer of the art of magic.(4) Astrologers suppose that evils happen in consequence of the motions of the heavenly bodies, and represent certain climacteric periods as dangerous, not knowing that it is not the course of the stars, but the action of demons that regulates these things.(5) God has committed the superintendence of the seventy-two nations into which He has divided the earth to as many angels.(6) Demons insinuate themselves into the bodies of men, and force them to fulfil their desires;(7) they sometimes appear visibly to men, and by threats or promises endeavour to lead them into error; they can transform themselves into whatever forms they please.(8) The distinction between what is spoken by the true God through the prophets or by visions, and that which is delivered by demons, is this: that what proceeds from the former is always true, whereas that which is foretold by demons is not always true.(9) Lactantius says that when the {133}