DEMON (THEOLOGY OF)

It is clear that anything like a developed demonology among the Jews arose during the intertestamental period. An exception must be made for the Book of Tobit, which is, however, late and probably reflects the impetus given to this area of speculation by Persian ideas after the Exile. The detailed demonology of the apocryphal Book of Enoch—so important because of the allusions to it in the New Testament (1 Cor 10.19–22; Jude 6–7; 2 Pt 2.4)—is based on an interpretation of Gn 6.1–4, rather than on any extraneous material. For this reason it won acceptance among the Jews and remained normative both for them and for the Christians of the first few centuries.

Fathers. The most elaborate presentation of this misunderstanding of Gn 6.1–4 in a Christian document appears in the Clementine Homilies (Hom. 8), which are assigned by some scholars to the second century and by others to the fourth. There is no question, however, that the doctrine it teaches was widely held. Tertullian accepted it in the West (De virg. vel. 7), as did Athenagoras in the East (Leg. 24). St John Chrysostom rejected it (Hom.

22 in Gen. 2), but St. Augustine hesitated to do so (Quaest. hept. 1.3). Interestingly, St. Augustine came very close to a correct understanding of Gn 6.1–4 in his City of God (3.5), for he compared that account to the Greco-Roman legend of Venus and Anchises begetting Aeneas; had he known of the Sumero-Babylonian heroes such as gilgamesh, who were half human and half divine, he would have been able to cite the apparent source of the curious tale of Genesis.

According to the Clementine account, the giants born of intercourse between the lustful angels and women did not survive the flood, but their souls did, and these disembodied souls became nothing less than the gods of the pagan world. God commanded them through an angel to "trouble no one, unless anyone of his own accord subject himself to you, worshipping you, and sacrificing and pouring libations, and partaking of your table …."The belief that idols were inhabited by demons was, of course, a commonplace among the Christians of the first five centuries, and one can see in the Clementine exposition an attempt to attribute a superhuman reality to the gods of the pagans without straying from the revelation of the Bible and without acknowledging any need to worship them. This made discussion with their idolatrous neighbors possible.

If what one may call the Clementine explanation of who the demons were and how they came into being (remembering always that this explanation is founded on the book of Enoch's misinterpretation of Gn 6.1–4) was widespread in antiquity, it was not the only one. Justin Martyr assumed that the devil fell from grace when he tempted Eve (Dial. 124), and in another passage he identified the leviathan of Is 27.1 with satan (Dial. 112). This latter interpretation is not without interest for the modern theologian, who knows that Leviathan was the Canaanite monster of primordial chaos. Such an identification suggests a line of development worthy of pursuit. Similarly, Athenagoras, though he accepted the general view that demons are angels who fell through lust, seems not to have implicated their leader in this action. Satan, rather, became "heedless and wicked in the administration of his charge," and that charge was "the regulation of matter and its patterns" (Leg. 24). This too has more relevance for contemporary theological speculation than most patristic contributions to demonology.

As might be expected, Origen had some original ideas in this area; he initiated a trend in the exegesis of certain Biblical texts that was to dominate Christian demonology for more than 17 centuries. In the Lucifer of Is 14.12–15 and in the king of Tyre of Ez 28.12–19, he saw a supernatural being who could be none other than Satan. Accordingly, the fall of the devil was due to pride (as indicated in these texts) and not to any lustful cravings. Origen was correct in judging that these texts use language applicable to superhuman beings. What he could not know, but what one does now, is that the Prophets both borrowed from Canaanite mythology and poetically applied what they took to the human kings to whom these oracles were addressed. The original material (Canaanite) did indeed speak of gods or demigods but not, obviously, of the devil.

The extent of patristic literature precludes a more detailed analysis than has been given, but the teaching presented is representative, and no other significant schools of thought in this matter existed. One may conclude by noting, once again, that the impact of the apocryphal book of Enoch on early Christian demonology cannot be overestimated. Even though the views of Chrysostom and Origen ultimately prevailed, the Clementine exposition was responsible for the unfortunate and unhealthy medieval speculations about incubi and succubi and for the yet present readiness to attribute sins of the flesh to diabolical activity.

As to the authority of patristic teaching on this subject, it is of utmost importance to remember that there was no unanimity regarding the time and manner of the fall of the angels. In point of fact the Fathers, where they did attempt to answer these questions on the basis of Biblical texts, were in error. On the other hand, unanimity did exist as to the existence of evil spirits who tempt man and otherwise create disturbance in the cosmos.

Later Thought. During the Middle Ages philosophical speculation supplied the need, previously met by the fictitious tales of the apocrypha, to satisfy the curiosity of the faithful about those matters that had not been clearly revealed. Such speculation used the Scriptures as a starting point, however, and as indicated previously, the cited texts from Ezekiel and Isaiah were generally regarded as relevant to the fall of Satan and his followers.

It is not surprising, consequently, that one finds more or less general agreement as to the nature of the sin of the angels as well, namely, pride. Duns Scotus is characteristically original in this respect, however, and describes Satan's sin as one of inordinate self-love, a kind of narcissistic lewdness. This would be, of course, a kind of pride, but Scotus classifies it as luxuria. The sin of pride envisioned by the other scholastics, of whom St. Thomas Aquinas is representative, consisted in wishing to be entirely independent of God; Satan wished, that is, either to attain supernatural beatitude by his own power or to enjoy a natural beatitude and reject the supernatural beatitude given by God (Summa theologiae 1a, 63.2–3). There is unanimity about the idea that God did not create the demons evil (inasmuch as, had He done so, He would have been directly responsible for evil), and Scotus maintains that even after his fall Satan is capable of willing some good although, through malice, he probably does not do so. St. Thomas affirms that Satan was created in grace, but sinned from the first instant of his creation. The Angelic Doctor admits, however, the possibility of an interval of time having elapsed between creation and fall, and this is definitely the view propounded by Scotus.

The demons were conceived of as spiritual beings, although this did not preclude the possession of a corpus subtile as Cajetan called it, but the lingering influence of the misinterpreted text in Genesis ch. 6 prevented medieval theologians from ruling out sexual activity on their part. This was supposed to have been possible through the temporary assumption of human bodies; a demon who performed the male role was called an incubus, while the demon who assumed the female role was called a succubus (Peter Comestor, St. Albert the Great). It was taken for granted that anyone might be the prey of such lustful demons. Ordinarily, the demons were thought to inhabit the stormy, dark, and cloudy regions of the atmosphere (author of the Summa sententiarum, St. Bonaventure, St. Albert the Great, etc.). In this respect medieval opinion merely reflected man's ageless fears and superstitions. It was their residence in the atmosphere, moreover, that made it possible for them to tempt man.

Toward the very end of the scholastic period, F. Suárez explained that these demons, removed though they are from the site of hell, suffer the pain of fire by "virtual contact." Moreover, he continued, the demons in the atmosphere take turns of duty in the underworld, being replaced by those who act as tormentors there. Suárez is also to be credited with the suggestion that Satan's sin of pride lay in this, that he wished his own angelic nature to be hypostatically united to the divine Word rather than that God should, as He had determined, choose a human nature for this union. This can only be classified as extravagant speculation, although it enjoyed a vogue in popular theology for many centuries—simply because it gave a detailed answer to a question that is inevitably raised.

Magisterium. The official teaching of the Church on demons is far from being extensive. The earliest documents were negative in character, refuting (1) Origen's theory of apocatastasis (final restitution, i.e., salvation), according to which Satan and his angels would be restored to grace and admitted into glory, and (2) the Manichaean doctrine that Satan was not originally an angel, good by nature and created by God, but an independent, evil principle who emanated from primordial darkness. The first condemnation was contained in the canons of the synod held at Constantinople (543 a.d.), and these were, according to Cassiodorus, approved by Pope Vigilius. The second was formulated by the Council of Braga (561 a.d.) and expressed the view of Pope Leo the Great as his letter to Turibius, Bishop of Astorga, reveals. Certainly both of these errors may be said to stand condemned implicitly in the many definitions affirming the eternity of hell and the attribution of everything apart from God to His creative power (e.g., Vatican I; H. Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum 3025) so that the dogmatic value of these early documents—which is difficult to evaluate—is not crucial in this matter. By contrast, the solemn profession of faith drawn up by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215 a.d.) is of prime importance. In it one finds the following sentence concerning demonology: "For the devil and the other demons were created good by nature, by God, but of their own doing they became evil" (Enchiridion symbolorum 428). In this document one also finds it stated that after the resurrection the good will achieve eternal glory with Christ whereas the wicked will be allotted "perpetual punishment together with the devil" (Enchiridion symbolorum 429). The Church has, then, defined only those truths that are contained implicity or explicitly in the Scriptures. Nothing is stated regarding the nature of the sin committed by Satan and the other demons, nor is the time of its commission specified, although the wording of the decree issued by the Fourth Lateran Council assumes that these angels had fallen before the creation of man. Neither are the demons said to dwell in any place or region other than hell. The Council of Trent declared, in obliquo, that the devil rules the kingdom of death (Enchiridion symbolorum 1511), which means that he is responsible for it—a teaching found in both Old and New Testaments (Wis 2.24; Jn 8.44). In his encyclical humani generis Pius XII listed as an error the view that angels may not be "personal beings" (Enchiridion symbolorum 3891), from which it certainly follows that demons, too, are personal beings.

Contemporary Appraisals. The demonology of the Middle Ages remained standard until fairly recent times. The advances made in the natural sciences have, however, considerably altered this state of affairs. The present, more detailed knowledge of the universe has forever destroyed the crude concept of a three-storied world in which angels and demons materialize with ingenuous frequency. Psychiatry, moreover, has shown that the workings of the subconscious explain many, if not most, of the abnormal conditions that earlier generations had attributed to diabolical activity. For these reasons and because the need to reorient theology along more positive lines has been recognized, demonology has not been the object of very much serious study in the 20th century.

Yet the need for such study is apparent. The Church is committed to a belief in angels and demons, but the meaning of this belief in terms that are both comprehensible and relevant to modern man has not been adequately presented. K. Rahner has written that the angels belong to the world "in a permanent and continuous fashion…. They are in fact principles … of the world. Tobe somewhat more specific, they are the ultimate foundations of the natural order of things, determining the right order of events in this world because of their essential relationship to the universe" [On the Theology of Death, tr. C. H. Henkey (New York 1961) 32]. Conversely, it might be said that demons determine the disorder of events in the world. This is really nothing more than a restatement of the view of Athenagoras or a development of Justin Martyr's identification of Satan with the monster of chaos. The appeal of such an interpretation rests in the fact that it can be integrated with the evolutionary view of the universe that is all but universally accepted today. There is a regressive factor in evolution, and at the close of his Phenomenon of Man P. Teilhard de Chardin asks: "is it really sure that, for an eye trained and sensitised by light other than that of pure science, the quantity and the malice of evil hic et nunc, spread through the world, does not betray a certain excess, inexplicable to our reason, if to the normal effect of evolution is not added the extra-ordinary effect of some catastrophe or primordial deviation?" [tr. B. Wall (New York 1959) 311].

See Also: angels; diabolical possession (theology of): diabolical obsession; exorcism.

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[l. j. elmer]