Dissertation on the Natural Knowledge of Angelic Existence

...created, and finite, complete, and distinct from the human soul. Which acceptation, as it excludes those former ones, so it is also the one intended here.

§. III.

(ε) book 1, Stoic Physiology, D. 19.
(ζ) in the book on the Definition of Things, p. 160. seqq.
(η) book 2, Pneumatics, chapter 2.
(θ) book 1, Saturnalia, chapter 24.
(ι) book 9, on the City of God, chapter 19.
(κ) book 2, Natural Theology, chapter 3.
(λ) on the Divine Names, chapter 3.

Regarding the synonymy of the word, angels are graced with various names, both in Sacred Scripture and among other writers. We leave the former to the Theologians; among the latter, it is most frequent to call them δαίμονες daemons/demons, the etymon of which word Posidonius Stoic philosopher investigates in the books titled On Heroes and Daemons, according to Lipsius (ε), and Francisc. Piccolhomineus philosopher (ζ) has much on this. It is used indiscriminately for both good and evil spirits, which many passages among the Greeks show—Homer, Hesiod, Aristophanes, Pindar—as Kipping (η) testifies. And Macrobius Roman philosopher (θ) says: Plato joins the name of Daemons with the appellation of Gods, either because the Gods are δαήμονες knowledgeable, that is, knowing the future, or, as Posidonius writes (in the books just named), because an ethereal substance having been obtained (some read "shared") and divided, quality belongs to them, either from δαίειν to divide, that is, to burn, or from δαιομένω being divided, that is, μεριζομένω being partitioned. But the matter is otherwise in Sacred Letters, where, as Augustine (ι) warns, that appellation is usually proper to malevolent spirits. Hence there are also δαιμονιζόμενοι those demon-possessed, Matthew 4:24. The Greeks call those νυμфоλήπτες nympholepts who are not entirely deprived of their minds, but are agitated and seized by the power of malignant spirits. Among the Latins, angels are for the most part called Genii. However, a Genius is from gignendo begetting, because, as was held as certain among many pagans, it takes up men once born (males, that is, for they attached Junos to girls) immediately from birth, and protects them if they act well, or, if badly, is the executor of vices, as those authors cited by Clasenus (κ) hand down. Hence Censorinus Roman grammarian (λ) says: A Genius is a God under whose protection each person lives as soon as they are born. Whether he cares for us because we are born, or because he is born together with us, or even because he receives and protects us having been born: certainly, Genius is called from begetting.

§. IV.

For us now, the things which look more closely...