Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily IX/Chapter 12

Chapter XII.&#8212;Theory of Disease.

&#8220;Whence many, not knowing how they are influenced, consent to the evil thoughts suggested by the demons, as if they were the reasoning of their own souls.&#160; Wherefore they become less active to come to those who are able to save them, and do not know that they themselves are held captive by the deceiving demons.&#160; Therefore the demons who lurk in their souls induce them to think that it is not a demon that is distressing them, but a bodily disease, such as some acrid matter, or bile, or phlegm, or excess of blood, or inflammation of a membrane, or something else.&#160; But even if this were so, the case would not be altered of its being a kind of demon.&#160; For the universal and earthly soul, which enters on account of all kinds of food, being taken to excess by over-much food, is itself united to the spirit, as being cognate, which is the soul of man; and the material part of the food being united to the body, is left as a dreadful poison to it.&#160; Wherefore in all respects moderation is excellent.