Patristics
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Revision as of 00:57, 21 February 2010
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The words daemon, dæmon, are Latinized spellings of the Greek δαίμων (daimôn) used purposely today to distinguish the daemons of Ancient Greek religion and mythology, Hellenistic religion and philosophy, good or malevolent "supernatural beings between mortals and gods, such as inferior divinities and ghosts of dead heroes" (see Plato's Symposium), from the Judeo-Christian usage demon, a malignant spirit that can seduce, afflict, or possess humans.
In Hesiod's Theogony, Phaëton becomes a daimon, de-materialized, but the ills of mankind released by Pandora are keres not daimones. Hesiod relates how the men of the Golden Age were transmuted into daimones by the will of Zeus, to serve as ineffable guardians of mortals, whom they might serve by their benevolence. In similar ways, the daimon of a venerated hero or a founder figure, located in one place by the construction of a shrine rather than left unburied to wander, would confer good fortune and protection on those who stopped to offer respect. Daemones were not considered evil. The term also referred to the souls of men of the golden age acting as guardian deities.
The daemon as a lesser spiritual being of dangerous, even evil character, an invisible numinous presence, was developed by Plato and his pupil Xenocrates, and absorbed in Christian patristic writings along with other neo-Platonic elements. In the Old Testament, evil spirits appear in the book of Judges and Kings. In the Greek translation of the Septuagint, made for the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria, the Greek angelos translates mal'ak, while daimon (or neuter daimonion) carries the meaning of a natural spirit that is less than divine and translates Hebrew words for idols, alien gods of the Hebrews' neighbors, some hostile natural creatures, and natural evils. The usage of daimon in the New Testament's original Greek text, caused the Greek word to be applied to the Judeo-Christian concept of an evil spirit by the early 2nd century AD.
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