Apuleiův spis De deo Socratis

The article contains brief exposition on the tradition of the ancient daemonology, explains the position of Apuleius' treatise De deo Socratis within this tradition and presents the translation of Apuleius' treatise into Czech language. -- Apuleius' treatise is one of the most comprehensive ancient expositions of daemonology which has survived up to the present time, besides the dialogue of Plutarch and the treatise of Maximus of Tyrus on the same subject. The god mentioned in the title of Apuleius' treatise is in fact a mysterious daemonion, which led Socrates. According to Apuleius, gods are absolutely transcendent therefore communication and interaction between gods and humans is performed by daemons. For this reason, daemonology was considered as being very important. Socrates' god can be identified with one of the good daemons mentioned by Plato. The contradiction between a title of the treatise, referring to "a god", and its content concerning "daemons" was reflected already by ancient authors. Apuleius' treatise can be divided into three parts: chapters 1-16 represent a general introduction to the daemonology, chapters 17-20 deal with Socrates' daemonium and chapters 21-24 are an exhortation to the veneration of the personal guardian daemon, which is realized by the study of philosophy. The end of the treatise is lost. However, Socrates' daemonium remained an interesting topic even for Christian authors.