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DEMONS, A CULTURAL HISTORY: part
one, the sources
Researchers must be
careful to consider the context of demonological
works.
Unlike modern historians or folklorists, who are concerned
with the
reliability of sources and the verifiability of
findings, medieval and
early modern writers on the infernal
hierarchy are often quick to accept
tradition as truth, to
give credence to stories told by
friends-of-friends, and to
let their own bias into their writing. Indeed,
many
demonological works are polemic; that is, the information
they
provide about demons merely serves as ammunition in a
larger argument.
Much late antique (200-500 AD) Christian
thinking on demons is a reaction
against the polytheistic
traditions of the Roman and Germanic worlds; the
gods or
guardian-spirits of non-Christian cultures were quickly
re-labeled
and re-packaged as demons by Christian
intellectuals and missionaries.
During the period of the
Protestant reformation, the struggle between
Catholic
orthodoxy and the newer sects animated demonological
discussions:
Protestant writers claimed that Catholic
traditions were demon-worship in
disguise, or, taking a
slightly different approach, decried the Catholic
fear of
demons as unreasonable superstition. For those who believe in
the
possibility of supernatural beings, the earlier
writings of demonologists
might very well provide useful
evidence, but only when approached
critically. One must
always realize that a demonological work is more
likely to
give information about the cultural and intellectual
environment
of its time than to offer the "truth" about
extra-natural entities.
I would also argue that our
concept of "demon" is uniquely western
and uniquely
informed by the Christian thought of the middle
ages.
Although we can point to dark or evil gods in pagan
pantheons, we often do
them an injustice when we squeeze
them into the "war in heaven" mythology
that has developed
in the Christian church. For example, Loki is not
simply
the "Satan" of the Norse pantheon; his role is far more
ambiguous
-- after all, in many stories he's Thor's
drinking buddy.
Diana Lynn Walzel has argued that the
medieval conception of
demons comes from four sources:
greco-roman mythology, hebrew traditions,
celtic and
germanic mythology, and early Christian cosmology.
This
medieval conception is largely consistent with the
writings of later
demonologists such as Johannes Nider,
John Weyer and Martin Del Rio, and
is still with us today
in popular culture, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
to
Dungeons and Dragons to heavy-metal record covers and horror
novels.
So, what were these traditions and what did
each of them
contribute to our ideas of demons? The
following paraphrases Walzel's
argument.
One of the
most influential classical writers on demonology
is
Apuleius, who is most famous for his novel The
Metamorphoses, more
popularly known as The Golden Ass for
its main character, an unfortunate
rogue who is transformed
into a donkey. Apuleius became an invaluable
source for
later generations because Saint Augustine included
excerpts
from and discussions of his writings in his famous
City of God.
For Apuleius, demons were neutral
messengers between the gods and
humankind. The greek word
daemon, in fact, means a messenger. Like humans,
demons had
souls; unlike humans, they were bodiless.
Many of the
names later applied to demons come from Hebrew
mythology.
In the late antique period, a Jewish folklore of demons
began
to develop. As E.M. Butler discusses, the Jewish
Testament of Solomon
(written sometime between 100 and 400
A.D.), tells of Solomon summoning
demons to build the
temple at Jerusalem. The tale contains a list of
demons
including Asmodeus and Ornias. Butler points out that even
this
text, one of the oldest remaining to us, already
contains signs of
cultural mixing and overlapping: the
names of Mesopotamian deities and
spirits pop up along with
Hebrew names. The later books of "Solomonic"
magic that
appear during the middle ages and renaissance come from
this
folkloric tradition, or at least purport
to.
The early Christian contribution took the neutral
spirits of the
Greeks and the lively usual suspects of
Jewish mythology and placed them
in the cosmic context of a
war between good and evil. As Walzel points
out, Christians
explained demons as the fallen angels from the Bible
and
saw them as their enemies. As a way of distancing
themselves from their
non-believing counterparts, early
Christians quickly identified the gods
of Rome as demons.
This doctrine became solidified in Augustine's City of
God,
when Christianity had become more accepted and widespread.
Augustine
clearly identified the gods of Rome as demons who
had deceived men into
worshipping them, and he carefully
refuted Apuleis's claim that demons
were
neutral.
Walzel is less clear about the contribution of
celtic or germanic
mythology to medieval demon-lore. One
might imagine that as Christianity
spread throughout
northern europe, the rich and imaginative depictions
of
monsters and fairies of non-Roman culture shaped
people's idea of what a
demon might look like. A good
example of this unstable mix of
german-tribal-monster and
Christian demon is Beowulf's Grendel: a giant
worthy of
myth who in the poem is called a descendant of
Cain.
These traditions mixed to create the medieval
conception of demons
that was further elaborated in
theological and legal texts, and described
in the magical
grimoires that circulated in the period.
Works Cited:
Butler, Elizabeth M. Ritual Magic. Reprint.
University Park: Penn State
UP, 1998.
Kors, Alan Charles and Edward Peters. Witchcraft
in Europe: 400-1700, A
Documentary History. 2nd edition.
Philadelphia: Penn UP, 2001.
Walzel, Diana Lynn. "Sources of Medieval
Demonology" repr. in Witchcraft
in the Ancient World and
the Middle Ages ed. Brian P. Levack. New York:
Garland,
1992.
-Jim Parker
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