Note 89 — Chapter III
Reading edition
Cf. the story of the appearance to Brutus of his evil genius—ho sós, ô broute, daímôn kakós, Brutus, 36. Basilides the Gnostic (the father of Isidore) is credited with describing Man as a sort of Wooden Horse with a whole army of different spirits in him (Clem. Alex. Strom, ii, 113). Plutarch makes a similar jibe at the Stoic account of arts, virtues, vices, etc., as corporeal or even animate and rational beings—making a man "a Paradise, or a cattle-pen, or a Wooden Horse," de commun. notit. adv. Stoicos, 45, 1084 B. There was a tendency in contemporary psychology to attribute all feelings, etc., to dæmonic influence; cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. ii, 110, who suggests that all páthe are imprints (as of a seal) made on the soul by the spiritual powers against which we have to wrestle. Cf. Tert. de Anima, 41, the evil of soul in part due to evil spirit.