Daimonic Power - Sfameni

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A Long-Lasting System

In dealing with ‘daimonic power’ in the Greek religious tradition, we need to make a prem-

ise: we cannot, in fact, presume that we can reconstruct a ‘daimonology’, in the sense of a

clearly defined doctrine or a coherent and final system of ideas. Rather, ‘daimonology’ is

a more or less homogeneous and articulated set of ideas and beliefs, sometimes associatedwith ritual practice, relating to the category of the divine which the Greeks, from the time

of Homer, denoted by the term daimon/daimones. Tis set of ideas is to be assessed in the

context of the Greek religious tradition as it originated and developed over time, without

dogmas and institutions or official religious authorities with the power to impose rigid reg-

ulatory uniformity on beliefs and ritual practices. Tere is, also, the difficulty of applying

clear steps within this long historical process, establishing, as it were, the precise ‘phases’

and isolating compact, autonomous blocks within the mobile flow of ethnic–national

religious beliefs. Avoiding anachronisms by interpreting the sources of the Archaic and

Classical age in the light of subsequent developments, according to ideological schemes of a

different historical–cultural situation, seems to be key. Te more or less complex formula-tions of the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods must, therefore, be placed in relation to

earlier traditions, to measure any continuity, mutations, or innovations.

Te Sources

Tere are numerous problems stemming from the nature of the source material available

for the study of daimonic power. Literary texts outnumber ‘direct’ documents, such as

inscriptions. It is difficult, indeed sometimes impossible, to differentiate, within the literary

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tradition, between material derived from a writer’s own interpretations and ideological

views, and that which might reflect the more widespread beliefs and practices of the com-

mon people. However, the gap between learned speculations of individuals and the broadermentalities and religious experiences of Greek communities and numerous Hellenized

peoples within the Mediterranean world is not unbridgeable if we consider the stability of

religious traditions in ancient cultures, and of Greek religion in particular. In the absence of

an official normative authority, there was a deeply conservative attitude with regard to the

beliefs and cult practices of the civic communities. None of those who deal with religious

themes, be they poets, historians, philosophers, or writers, innovates in a radical fashion,

even when adopting a critical position. Rather, to a greater or lesser degree, they draw on the

common tradition, which also nourished their own ideological and cultural roots.

Different Notions ofDaimon

Tere are three basic meanings that make up the flexible and varied content of Greek

‘daimonology’ in the long course of its historical development. One meaning, which

we may term theological, uses daimones to refer to a category of superhuman beings

within a graduated hierarchy, oen including heroes, whose extremes are occupied by

gods and men. Within this continuum, the daimones constitute a group wielding spe-

cific powers and tasks, as intermediaries between gods and men. According to a sec-

ond, anthropological meaning, the daimon is conceived of as equivalent to the soul of a

person, living or dead. Tis view correlates with the protective function oen ascribedto the daimon, which is probably the oldest conception, the one most deeply rooted

in the Greek ethical and religious tradition, and is linked to that of the individual’s

destiny (moira) and his lot or fortune (tyche). In its third meaning, ‘daimonology’ also

assumes a cosmological function, since the daimones are located in either of the cosmic

levels that form the graduated structure of ‘the All’.

H O

Although the scholarly debate on the subject has generated numerous, authoritative

works, recent studies taking a broad documentary and methodological look at the whole

chronological span of Greek daimonology are still extant. Useful and praiseworthy

early studies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Hild ; Andres ;

Heinze []) aimed at providing a broad overview of the theme for the Archaic

and Classical ages, and, in part, for the early Hellenistic period. Later research, however,

focused merely on specific contexts. Tis research oen provided a philosophical reflec-

tion aimed at ‘systematizing’ the complex, shiing horizon of Greek religious tradi-

tions rather than looking at the specifically religious aspects of the topic. In this field we

should mention the many, varied studies on the Pythagorean environment, including,




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of particular interest, that by Detienne (), which also reflects on the Platonic context.

Te latter, in fact, throughout its long history, is deeply interested in the daimonological

theme, oen adopted as an interpretative key to bridge the gap between popular beliefand worship on the one hand, and rational speculation of philosophers on the other.

Aer Jensen () and the contribution of Marx-Wolf (), the documented essay

by imotin () is of interest. From an eminently philosophical perspective, this work

examines the ‘history of the notion of daimon from Plato to the last Platonists’. From

Porphyry to Iamblichos, up to Proklos and Damaskios, these ‘last Hellenes’ opposed the

increasingly pervasive and ultimately victorious affirmation of Christianity. Tey tried,

with all the tools of philosophical reflection, to propose a new interpretation of the tradi-

tional Greek religious heritage. Daimonological exegesis, variously articulated accord-

ing to context, oen offered them an interpretative key to include aspects of this heritage

deemed incompatible with the canons of the ‘philosophical religion’ they desired.

V F P: D

A

Daimones as a Category of Superhuman

Beings in the ‘Teology’ of the Greeks

In Plutarch’s (c. – ) dialogue On the Disappearance o Oracles, Kleombrotos

focuses on the somewhat thorny issue of Providence. In his view: ‘those persons have

resolved more and greater perplexities who have set the race of demigods (ton dai-

monon genos) midway between gods and men, and have discovered a force to draw

together, in a way, and to unite our common fellowship’ (De de. or. e–a; trans.

Babbit [], with changes).

A history of the problem is proposed:

Among the Greeks, Homer, moreover, appears to use both names in common andsometimes to speak of the gods (theoi) as daimones; but Hesiod was the first to setforth clearly and distinctly four classes of rational beings: gods, daimones, heroes,in this order, and, last of all, men; and as a sequence to this, apparently, he postu-lates his transmutation, the golden race intodaimones. (a–b)

In On Isis and Osiris Plutarch also appeals to the authority of Plato, Pythagoras,

Xenokrates, and Krysippos, who,

following the lead of early writers on sacred subjects (theologoi), allege (the dai-mones) to have been stronger than men, yet not possessing the divine quality




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unmixed and uncontaminated, but with a share also in the nature of the soul andin the perceptive faculties of the body, and with susceptibility to pleasure and pain

and to whatsoever other experience is incident to these mutations, and is the sourceof much disquiet in some and of less in others. For in daimones, as in men, there arediverse degrees of virtue and of vice. (De Is. et Os. .d–e)

Some modern scholars have questioned whether the men of the golden race (Hes.

Op. –), who became daimones aer death, could have been a distinct category for

Hesiod. Instead, it has been argued that he understands daimones in the Homeric sense

of ‘gods’, beings of divine status without special connotations. Such a view contradicts

the entire ancient tradition, which always understood Hesiod’s daimones as beings of

special status within the general theological scheme, different from the great gods.

Plato provides the earliest attestation of this interpretation. In the Cratylus

(e–a) and Leg . (c–d) there is talk of a ‘race of daimons’, defined as ‘superior’, a

particular category of superhuman beings that acts as ‘guardians’ of men at the time of

Kronos. Tis notion can also be found in the Pythagoreans, whose interest in Hesiod,

whom they considered almost a ‘sacred’ writer, is well known. At the same time, this

interpretation makes nonsense of the deeper import of the myth of the four races and

certainly reflects its author’s attempt to construct a coherent framework for the disor-

derly religious inheritance that he was trying to rethink in terms of his own ethical view.

Among the various meanings of the myth, we may insist here upon its vocation, in

terms of nature and functions, as a classification of beings which operates on differ-

ent levels of reality that are notionally distinct, but does not imply any break within a

homogeneous, continuous chain of being. Te history of man is linked to that of the

gods by virtue of the metamorphosis into daimones of ‘the golden race of mortal men’

(Hes. Op. ).

Te word daimon retains, throughout Greek tradition from the Homeric poems to

the very end, its meaning as a synonym of theos. It has its own specific nuances—already

evident in Homer—which embody a supernatural presence and power, difficult for

humans to identify, and that oen intervenes unexpectedly, bringing with it risks for

people. Among the many examples analysed by François (), we need merely to

recall Menelaus’ reflection on the outcome of his fight with Hector (Hom. Il. .–).

Within the terms used to define the divine power that protects the rojan hero, daimon

alternates with theos, but takes on the meaning of an indefinite supernatural force that

directs the course of events according to its own design, which humans cannot oppose.

In Hesiod’s text, the variables of meaning of the words used to identify superhuman

powers, such as theos and daimon, are emphasized to indicate a particular status. Te

poet’s moralizing perspective represents the daimones as guardians ‘of mortal men’,

acting justly, but also as plutodotoi, ‘bestowers of wealth’. Tis is their geras basileion

or ‘royal privilege’, which characterizes their position as divine beings (Hes. T. –).

In Hesiod’s scheme we can see a whole series of ideas, familiar from different levels

of Greek religious tradition, neatly imbricated into a consistent framework. Te dai-

mones, as an ancient race of men ‘hidden beneath the earth’, are related to the souls




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of the dead. Te role of watchers ( phylakes) suggests a notion familiar from Homeric

poems, and recurrent in later Greek tradition. In lyric (Pind. Ol . .; Pind. Pyth.

.–) and gnomic (Tgn. –, –, –, –) poetry, tragedy (Aesch. Pers., and passim; Soph. OC ; Eur. Med. ; Eur. Alc. , ; Eur. Andr . , ;

Eur. Phoen. ), history (Xen. An. ...), and oratory (Lys. . f), the daimon appears

as a divine agent intervening at will in human affairs, positively or negatively, for good

or ill, oen to revenge crimes, as the Daimon Alastor in works of tragedy (Aesch. Per.

–), and invariably exercising a decisive influence upon human fate.

From Euripides (Bacch. )—who provides the first testimony—onwards, in the

semantic sphere of theos/oi and daimon/es, along with the neuter to theion attested for

the first time in Aesch. Cho. , we see the neuter to daimonion. Both forms of neuter

substantivized adjective, according to the contexts, have an abstract (‘the divine’, ‘the

daimonic’) or collective sense, that is, corresponding to theoi and daimones. Tese twonew semantic formations were to have an important role in influencing the evolution

of the meaning of Greek ‘theology’ and ‘daimonology’. Tese terms are oen used as

alternative and converging designations of the power that stands over and directs cos-

mic and human life. In the many peculiar articulations of a polytheistic scenario (on

which see, in this volume, Pirenne-Delforge and Pironti, Chapter ), they also assume a

differentiated significance and make it possible to circumscribe, in the various histori-

cal contexts, the two distinct spheres of the ‘divine’ and the ‘daimonic’.

Daimones between Folklore and LearnedSpeculations: Presocratics and Pythagoreans

In Hesiod’s scheme the ‘daimones-guardians’ appear as a well-defined category of

beings, midway between gods and men, and acting as intermediaries between them.

Tere are many elements that lead us to conclude that this notion is not the poet’s inven-

tion, but reflects popular belief that the daimones were superhuman beings related to,

but distinct from, the gods, who acted as intermediaries between gods and men.

According to a doxographic tradition, Tales of Miletos (c. – ) was the

first to establish a systematic classification of theos, daimones, and heroes: God was

the intelligence (nous) of the world, daimones were psychic essences, and heroes werehuman souls separated from the body, good or bad, according to the moral quality of

the relevant soul (Athenagoras Leg. pro Christ. ).

According to Tales, souls are intermingled in the universe, in such a way that ‘all things

are full of gods’ (De anima A .a , DK A. Cf. Plato, Leg. .b). Plato’s scholiast

affirms that, according to Tales, ‘the world is besouled and full of daimones’ (Schol. In

Remp. A: apud Hesychios DK []A. Cf. Aët., Plac. .., Dox . , – = DK A).

Daimones correspond to Aristotle’s theoi. Tis represents an attempt to express in philo-

sophical terms the conceptual categories of religious tradition. It is uncertain whether the

two terms carried different connotations in Tales’ cultural and religious contexts.




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As Detienne () shows, such a distinction between theoi and daimones seems to

be relatively clear within the Pythagorean tradition. It is significant that, among the

numerous senses of daimon in Pythagorean sources, there is a category of beings witha particular function in the life of men, to whom they are linked, inasmuch as they are

souls detached from their bodies. Te Pythagorean Commentaries cited by Alexander

Polyhistor (first century : Diog. Laert. .–) reveal that

Te whole air is full of souls. We call them daimones and heroes, and it is they whosend dreams, signs and illnesses to men—and not only to men, but also to sheepand other domestic animals. It is toward these daimones that we direct purifica-tions and apotropaic rituals, al l kinds of scryings, kledonomancy and other thingsof a similar kind.

Te date of the Pythagorean Commentaries is uncertain (an early Pythagorean work or

an expression of second or first century Neopythagorism). Te text contains different

senses of daimon because it draws upon sources of diverse age and origins: the idea that

the daimones and heroes are equivalent to the souls that swarm in the air, analogous to the

doctrine of Tales, may hark back to an Archaic idea, such as daimonic influence upon

animals. Te oracular function of these daimonic beings, and, in particular, the ascription

of purifying and apotropaic rituals, as well as scrying and kledonomancy, to the daimonic

world, probably derives from intellectual speculations in a Pythagorean milieu, similar to

that represented by commentary on the Derveni Papyrus in Plato’s Symposium, and con-

tinued in the Platonic tradition from Xenokrates to Plutarch and Porphyry.

Before examining these authors, the position of Empedocles (c. – ) should

be mentioned. He was a complex, original figure of great philosophical and religious

interest. In his poems (On Nature and Purifications), which have reached us through

an indirect fragmentary tradition, we see the notion of the daimon as a psychic entity

involved in the cosmic drama of the struggle between Neikos (Strike) and Philia (Love),

and caught in a cycle of painful transmigrations into different bodies (humans, ani-

mals, plants). Empedocles’ daimones are entities closely linked to the anthropological

sphere. In fact, the poet-philosopher, having evoked the cycle of metensomatosis (rein-

carnation) to which the murderer and perjurer must be subjected, ‘far from the blessed,

who like long-lived daimons have attained life’, can claim to be one of them, ‘exiled by

divine decree and wandering’ (fr. ; cf. Plut. De de. or. e, d).

Plato

Te intermediate and ‘intermediary’ nature of daimones reformulates the polyvalent

meaning represented by the popular notion of daimon, and appears formalized for the

first time in the well-known Platonic myth of Eros.

In the myth, Diotima of Mantinea tells Sokrates (Pl. Symp. a–c), in support

of the revelation that Eros is a daimon: ‘he is a big daimon, and the entire daimonion is




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half-way (metaxu) between god and mortal’. Te power (dynamis) of the daimones is ‘to

play between heaven and earth, flying upwards with our worship and our prayers, and

descending with the heavenly answer and commandments . . . Tey form the mediumof the prophetic arts, of the priestly rites of sacrifice, initiation, and incantation, of divi-

nation and sorcery’ (d–a). Te theological aim of the discourse is clear in the

conclusion, ‘Te god will not mingle with the human, and it is only through this (to

daimonion) that the gods have intercourse and conversation with men, whether wak-

ing or sleeping.’ Te wise woman concludes, ‘Te daimones are many and of many

kinds’ (a).

Tis is probably a collective representation shared both by ordinary people and

by the learned, as the same idea is found in an increasing number of texts from the

fourth century onwards. In several dialogues, Plato develops the notion of a per-

sonal daimon who protects the individual during this life and guides him in the life tocome (Phd. d–b, d; Resp. d–e), and maybe is actually the superior, divine

part of the soul (i. a–c). Plato also makes use of the traditional tripartite scheme of

gods/daimones/heroes to define the categories of superhuman beings.

Te Platonic radition—Epinomis

Te author of Epinomis, probably Philippus of Opus (c. ), set out a cosmological

scheme with a hierarchy of beings closely linked with the five physical elements. First

comes ‘the divine host of the stars’ (e), visible, immortal, and composed of fire. Lastis the creature ‘made of earth, entirely mortal’ (b). Te author distinguishes two

kinds of daimones: ethereal and of the air. Without specifying the precise relationship

between the Olympian gods and the three elements, ether, air, and water, which fall

between the poles (d), the author puts the daimones in second and third place aer

the stars (d–e). Both are invisible and

of a kind that is quick to learn and of a retentive memory: they read all our thoughtsand regard the good and noble with signal favour, but the very evil man with deepaversion. For they are not exempt from feeling pain whereas a god who enjoysthe fullness of deity is clear above both pain and pleasure, though possessed ofall-embracing knowledge and wisdom. (e–a)

Te intermediate beings, who are subject to pain, form the link between the poles of

the universe, acting ‘as interpreters, and interpreters of all things, to one another and to

the highest gods’. Teir agency is at work in dreams and oracles, and forms the basis of

various city cults (e–a).

Te Epinomis bears witness to the process of systematization of the Pythagorean

and Platonic doctrine, with regard to the intermediate and intermediary status of the

daimones. It also foreshadows a theme developed later by Xenokrates and Plutarch by

expressing the notion of daimon as a tool for reinterpreting Greek myths and cults.




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Whereas the god is perfect and impassible, the daimones are capable of experiencing

suffering. In this intellectual context, it follows that mutability and vicissitude must

also be characteristic of the lower orders of divine being. Tis notion allows writerssuch as Xenokrates and Plutarch to reinterpret the adventures of the gods of traditional

mythology, as well as the ecstatic and orgiastic cults, with reference not to the higher

gods but to daimones, who belong to a level close to human beings, and who are suscep-

tible to suffering and, on occasion, ambiguous or downright wicked.

Te Platonic radition—Xenokrates

According to Plutarch, Xenokrates (/–/ ) accepted the compound nature of

daimones and distinguished betweendaimones that were good and those that were evil,those who were beneficent and those harmful to mankind (De Is. et Os. , b = fr.

Heinze []: ; cf. De de. or. , a = fr. Heinze []: ). Plutarch

accepts this distinction, and sometimes also attributes it to the Stoic Chrysippos (De Is.

et Os. , e; De de. or. , a). Te role of Xenokrates in the history of Greek dai-

monology must be reconsidered in the light of Pythagoras, who should be attributed

both with identifying daimon-tyche and with the distinction between good and bad

daimones, which, in turn, is rooted in ancient folk beliefs. It is important to note that,

in the age of Xenokrates, on the basis of popular notions probably filtered down from

and elaborated by the Pythagoreans, there was already a clear distinction between two

aspects in the intermediate level of the daimones, one positive and beneficial, the othernegative and malevolent in its intervention in human life.

Peculiar to Xenokrates’ daimonology, as expounded in the De deectu oraculorum

(, c–d), is the Platonic notion of the characteristically intermediate nature of dai-

mons, which is defined according to the contemporaneous presence of the ‘power of

the god’ (theou dynamis), and of ‘human emotions’ ( pathos thnetou). Te notion of dai-

mon has already been seen in the sense of a mutability typical of everything that per-

tains to the pathetic, passionate, and compatible element, peculiar to the mortal world,

and therefore capable of turning to good or bad (De Is. et Os. , e).

Although Xenokrates did not identify daimones with the gods of traditional polythe-

ism as Heinze would have him do, he did take a decisive step in this direction. Accordingto Plutarch, this occurred once he related important Greek mythical–ritual religious sys-

tems associated with figures such as Demeter and Dionysos, to those pathetic, mutable

entities that are daimons. Te result is a clear daimonization of the ritual sphere, highly

typical of ancient Greek religion, in which are involved pathetic gods, subject to a ‘vicis-

situde’ far from the detached and unchangeable stability of the Olympian gods. Under

the gaze of the philosopher, the pathetic gods reveal themselves to be incompatible with

the impassable image of the divine, being better suited to exemplifying an intermediate

category such as the daimonic and, indeed, the most disturbing and dangerous side of it.

In conclusion, Plato’s second successor expounds a keen interest in ancestral reli-

gious traditions, reinterpreted in the light of his own philosophical postulates, together




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with an organically structured and functioning daimonology in which several contri-

butions converge, not only Platonic, naturally, but also Pythagorean.

Many voices contributed to the formulation of the daimonological theories that wereparticularly in favour in Platonic environments and were more or less influenced by

Pythagorism. Te major exponents of this tradition included Antiochus of Ascalon

(late second, early first century ) and Maximus of yre (second century ),

who affected other philosophical traditions in various ways, from Aristotelianism to

Stoicism.

Te Platonic radition and the Stoics

It is worth noting the views of certain Stoics, to whom Diogenes Laertios (.) attrib-utes a doctrine of guardian daimones. Aëtius (first or second century ) records that

daimones are equated with the ousiai psychikai (Plac. ..; Dox . a – = SVF , ).

Te Stoics, like the Pythagoreans and the Platonists, attributed the working of oracles

to daimones (Stob. Ecl. ..b.). Later, Poseidonios (c. – ) accepted the idea

that the spirits of the dead became daimones (Sext. Emp. Math. , – Mutschmann

= fr. b, Teiler ). Tis view comes nearest to the Greek popular belief that per-

sisted from the Hesiodic myth of the races through the centuries to the Mediterranean

world of the Hellenistic period, and beyond, throughout the Roman imperial period.

Since various traditions shared the assumption that the dead profoundly interfered in

the existence of the living, it was one of the many themes on which the complex cul-tural amalgam of late antique civilization could converge.

Te Platonic radition—Plutarch

Te positions of Plutarch and Celsus are of particular importance in the Greek Platonic

tradition while, in the field of Latin culture strongly influenced by Greek philosophical

traditions, we should mention Apuleius. In Plutarch’s elaborate, complex daimonology

(Soury ), the two most significant aspects are those indicated by Plutarch himself as

peculiar to Xenokrates; these assume a fundamental role and a precise theoretical sys-tematization in Plutarch's religious vision. Tis vision makes the distinction between

good daimons and bad daimons—and the systematic formulation of the ‘intermediate

nature’ of the daimon category between the divine and human levels, in both its com-

ponents (positive and negative)—by virtue of the typical instability and pathetic nature

that intrinsically defines the daimon category.

Te two crucial aspects of Plutarch’s daimonology, proposed with reasoned argu-

ments in De deectu oraculorum (–, e–c), act, in De Iside et Osiride, as an

interpretive module for the mythical–ritual cycle associated with the Egyptian cou-

ple Isis–Osiris and similar Greek religious systems, such as those related to Demeter

and Dionysos. As it is understood, these religious systems do not represent the whole




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daimonological framework of Plutarch, who contemplates a dynamic communication

between different levels: the notion of daimones-souls, sometimes capable of purifi-

cation that enables their transfer to the divine rank, or degradation with subsequentimprisonment in human bodies (De de. orac. , b–c).

Plutarch was also familiar with the idea, developed in numerous forms in the Moralia

and the Vitae, of a personal daimon—the individual’s guardian (cf. De genio Socratis),

and/or the superior, divine element of the soul—a notion of clear Platonic origin (Vit.

im. a–c). Te personal daimon survives the death of the body and undergoes an

oen dramatic eschatological experience, as seen in the three great myths, respectively

of Sylla (De ac. f–d), of imarchus (De gen. f– e), and of espesios (De

sera b–f).

Te Platonic radition—Celsus

A substantially similar vision characterizes the author of the ‘rue Doctrine’; Origen

passed on long excerpts of this work in his detailed confutation. Celsus repeatedly

rebukes Christians for refusing to pay the necessary homage to the daimones, to whom

the custody of the world is entrusted (Origen, C. Cels. .). Te daimones must be wor-

shipped in accordance with the traditional laws of each city (.). Christians are thus

in a contradictory position because, while enjoying all the sustenance offered by the

world, they do not worship its guardians and guarantors (.). Celsus mentions that

these beings, if deprived of their rightful honours, may cause serious harm to human-ity (.), but will bring numerous benefits through oracles and apparitions when they

are properly venerated (.).

Origen states that ‘Celsus had said nothing about daimons being evil’ (.). Unlike

Xenokrates and Plutarch, and like Apuleius, he outlines a unitary framework where

‘the true recipients of worship were the daimones, intermediate and “pathetic” ’. Tis

worship was commonly addressed to the gods of the various traditional polytheistic

religions, but here is attributed to both daimones and gods without distinction, given

their power over cosmic events and human life. Tere is, therefore, no inherent nega-

tivity of daimones but rather a common passionate nature, since they are the source of

benefits and of harm to humans, as a result of the respectively benevolent or disapprov-ing attitude of these ‘guardians’ of worldly existence.

Te observance of traditional cults is thus seen as an essential tool for the mainte-

nance of cosmic equilibria and the correct relationship between men and daimones.

Te foundation for harmonious functioning of cosmic and human life is perceived

as being based on the religious vision of a polytheistic structure characterized by the

functional breakdown of tasks and attributes among the various divine figures, and the

celebration of ancestral rites by the city community. Celsus’ restraint regarding man’s

relationship with the lords of cosmic life, leads him to firmly distance himself from

blood sacrifice. Tis reveals the changed spiritual climate as well as Celsus’ attitude;

the latter seems similar to the positions of contemporary Platonism. He warns readers




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not to be absorbed by the worship rendered to the daimones, which leads away from the

higher god. He evokes the opinion of the ‘wise men’, according to whom

most of the earthly daimones are absorbed with created things, and are rivetedto blood and burnt offerings and magical enchantments, and are bound to otherthings of this sort, and can do nothing better than healing the body and predictingthe coming fortune of men and cities, and that all their knowledge and power con-cerns merely mortal activities. (.; trans. Chadwick )

Te two key themes of Porphyry’s discourse are evoked: first, there is the close con-

nection between daimonic power and the practice of blood sacrifice. Tese terrestrial

beings nourish themselves with the vapours emanating from the victim, and, in partic-

ular, with its blood, causing that thickening of the pneumatic vehicle that binds them

firmly to the corruptible and passionate world. Te second key notion is that the power

of daimons is concerned solely with bodily and worldly goods, whose possession nev-

ertheless risks, as Celsus stresses, distancing man from those ‘higher goods’ in which

can be found his true spiritual and religious dimension. A daimonic presence was con-

sidered necessary for the maintenance of cosmic order, although such a presence pos-

sessed disturbing and even dangerous aspects due to its ability to distract man from the

real spiritual good. Te uninterrupted tension of the soul must be directed towards the

supreme, transcendent deity.

Te Platonic radition—Daimones and Blood Sacrificein Porphyry

Porphyry’s extensive and complex argument is aimed at demonstrating the obsolete

and improper nature of blood sacrifice, with the consequent consumption of meat, the

central act of worship in the polis. In it, he states that he ‘shall not attempt to dissolve

the legal institutes which the several nations have established . . . But as the laws . . .

permit us to venerate divinity by things of the most simple, and of an inanimate nature,

hence . . . let us sacrifice according to the law of the city’ ( Abst. .; trans. aylor ).

Porphyry continues: ‘Let us therefore also sacrifice, but let us sacrifice in such a manneras is fit, offering different sacrifices to different powers’ (.).

Having proposed the notion of diverse dynameis (powers) to which the thysia (sac-

rifice) of man is addressed, he outlines an initial theological framework that seems to

have been borrowed partially from the treatise On Sacrifices by Apollonios of yana

(see quotation in Euseb. Praep. evang . ., , ).

Aer the highest god there is a second level of ‘the intelligible Gods’ who are derived

from him. Addressed to these gods are ‘hymns orally enunciated’ (..). Te third

divine level is that of the stars, in whose honour, according to Pythagorean teaching,

there must be lit a fire of a similar nature to them. Tis means that no animate being

must be sacrificed, but only vegetable elements (..–): ‘For he who is studious of




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piety knows, indeed, that to the Gods no animal is to be sacrificed, but that a sacrifice

of this kind pertains to daimons, and other powers, whether they are beneficent, or

depraved’ (..).o illustrate the practice of animal sacrifice, with all the related miasma (‘contami-

nation’) that springs from it and from relative dietary practices, Porphyry appeals to a

second theological scheme, attributed to the ‘Platonists’, which partly coincides with

that of Apollonios of yana already mentioned, to offer the basis for an articulated and

solidly constructed daimonological doctrine.

At the top of a ladder of divine beings is the protos theos (‘First God’), ‘incorporeal,

immoveable, and impartible’, completely self-sustaining. Tis First God is followed by

the Soul of the world, ‘incorporeal, and liberated from the participation of any passion’.

Te other gods are the heavens (kosmos) ‘and the fixed and wandering stars who are

visible Gods’. While the First God and the Soul of the world do not require anythingoutside themselves, meaning that no material homage need be made to them, thanks

are given to the visible gods for the benefits received through offerings of inanimate

objects (..). Porphyry speaks of ‘the multitude . . . of those invisible beings . . . who

Plato indiscriminately calls daimones’ (..). Using this wide and varied categori-

zation Porphyry situates traditional polytheistic structures within the theological

vision of contemporary Platonism. Te result is the establishment of a clear dichotomy

between the planes of belief and worship, at least in relation to the central act of the lat-

ter, consisting in offering the gods an animal victim.

Porphyry, in fact, distinguishes between two classes of daimon, good and bad

respectively, and identifies the first with the gods of polytheism:

Te remaining multitude is called in common by the name of daimones. Te gen-eral persuasion, however, respecting all these invisible beings, is this, that if theybecome angry through being neglected, and deprived of the religious reverencewhich is due to them, they are noxious to those by whom they are thus neglected,and that they again become beneficent, if they are appeased by prayers, supplica-tions, and sacrifices, and other similarities. (..)

In the opinion of Porphyry, the information related to daimones is confusing, and leads

to incorrect judgements about them.

Porphyry illustrates a doctrine that, by being linked to the theological schema setforth in Daimones as a Category of Superhuman Beings in the 'Teology' of the Greeks’,

above, places the daimones in direct relation to the Universal Soul (Psyche). Tey are,

in fact, none other than psychai (souls) derived from the Universal Soul and destined

to govern the sublunary regions. Te souls, with pneumatic support, that is, a sort of

material garment, are distinguished from each other with regard to the relationship

established with this inferior component, later defined as ‘corporeal, passive and cor-

ruptible’ (..). Tose souls that manage to dominate the pneuma by directing it ‘in

agreement with reason’ become good daimones and exert a beneficial power on the

various cosmic regions and on human activity (..). Tey are thus identified with




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the gods, as functioning typically in the polytheistic tradition. Porphyry adds a cat-

egory of ‘intermediary’ daimons. He explicitly appeals to the Platonic doctrine of the

Symposium (e) to define these beings as those ‘who announce the affairs of mento the gods, and the will of the gods to men; carrying our prayers, indeed, to the gods

as judges, but oracularly unfolding to us the exhortations and admonitions of the gods’

(..).

o these beings, man mistakenly attributes feelings of revenge and the ability to

cause injury if they are not worshipped. Tis malevolent capacity is instead charac-

teristic of those souls who, overwhelmed by the passionate support of the pneuma, are

themselves prey to sensitive appetites. Although belonging to the common category

of daimones, these souls can rightly be termed malevolent (..). Porphyry then

expounds a complex daimonology that uses various elements already present in an

extensive and well-established tradition that, in Greece, flowing from a diverse andmobile substrate of Archaic folk beliefs, seems to have found, in ancient Pythagorism, a

fruitful soil where it could take root to assume more or less elaborate shapes and move

towards new solutions.

Having defined the unique character of the daimons as being invisible and imper-

ceptible to the senses, Porphyry affirms their ability to assume various guises so that

they can manifest themselves visibly. Te evil daimons occupy the regions near to the

earth and attempt to commit all sorts of evil and violent acts against men. Instead, the

intervention of the good daimons, even when aimed at correcting human behaviour, is

distinguished by its regularity and moderation (..–).

Porphyry concludes that: ‘On this account a wise and temperate man will be afraid,in a religious sense, to use sacrifices of this kind, through which he will attract to him-

self such-like daimones; but he will endeavor in all possible ways to purify his soul’

(..). Porphyry’s perspective, with its firm condemnation of blood sacrifice, reveals

the specific originality of some of its aspects, primarily the fundamental anthropologi-

cal motivation of the entire context, oriented to the salvation of the soul. Tis perspec-

tive nevertheless presents itself as a last, radical result of attitudes and trends variously

present in the Greek tradition, where sometimes the criticism of sacrifice is found

within a theological framework with a structure that, by degrees, links ritual practice,

or other aspects of worship considered somewhat at odds with divine dignity, with the

daimonic rank, seen as intermediate between gods and men.

D C

Some documents, particularly epigraphic, reveal more clearly traditional popular

beliefs and rituals and show the process by which Greek religious thinking came to dis-

tinguish between the words theoi and daimones so as to define two categories of divine

beings. In the inscriptions from the oracular sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona, a couple

‘ask Zeus Naios and Dione by praying to which of the gods or heroes or daimones and




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sacrificing will they and their household do better both now and for all time’ (SGDI

A: fourth century ; cf. B, A). Daimones are oen evoked in the curses

and defixiones, or curse formulae, usually placed in tombs against adversaries by whomone feels threatened or for purposes of love magic (Sfameni Gasparro ).

A text of one of the gold tablets from two tomb mounds at Turii in Magna Graecia,

also from the fourth century , relates to the Orphic tradition that extensively per-

meates the whole of Greek religious history, from the Archaic Age to its last expres-

sions in late antiquity. Te dead person declares: ‘I come from among the pure, pure,

Queen of the subterranean beings, Eukles, Eubouleus, and the other gods and dai-

mons’ (Turioi Graf and Johnston ). An Orphic ritual environment, which

involves the daimones, is referred to in the Papyrus recovered from a funeral pyre at

Derveni (Macedonia), dated to the fourth century (see, in this volume, Edmonds,

Chapter ). Te text is the oldest by nearly a century and is an allegorical commen-tary on an Orphic theogony, although it opens with the exegesis of a rite relating to

the same environment. Tis text assumes extraordinary importance in terms of the

religious significance of daimones, and is the subject of extensive literature and differ-

ent interpretations due to its extremely fragmentary nature. In addition to some occur-

rences in excessively fragmentary contexts, the mention of these beings as the object

of apotropaic propitiatory rites is clear in Col. VI of the Papyrus. It accompanies the

exegesis of the commentator, who identifies ‘daimones hindering’ with the ‘vengeful

souls’. Between the fih and fourth centuries there was a well-established tradi-

tion, with religious implications, that distinguished a class of superhuman beings—the

daimones—which could be identified with the souls of the dead.Plutarch tells us that, at Opuntian Locris, there were two priests, ‘one of them in

charge of the worship of the gods, the other of daimones’ (Quaest. graec. .b–c). At

the very beginning of the Hellenistic period several texts addressed to a broad public

make it clear that the distinction between gods and daimones had, by then, become tra-

ditional. We need do no more than recall an exclamation by a character in Menander’s

Arbitrator , ‘by the gods and daimones’ (Epitr . ; ed. Sandbach : , fr. ) or the

orator Aischines’ invocation of ‘the earth, the gods, the daimones and men’ as witnesses

(In Ctes. ). It is the funerary inscriptions, however, which provide the clearest proof

of the lively presence of daimones within the popular religious consciousness (Nowak

). Tere is a series of texts from Asia Minor, and Caria in particular, which may wellhave ritual implications, despite being expressly funerary. Tere is plenty of epigraphic

evidence, from Carian Olymos, of a public cult and priests of the Daimones Agathoi

from the first century . Tese Carian documents, both funerary and cultic, suggest

a local form of belief and public worship directed towards a specific category of super-

human beings distinct from the gods. Te association between the Daimones Agathoi

of the Carian chthonic funerary beliefs and practices does not mean that these beings

cannot have enjoyed a specific status within the sacred sphere. Moreover, the same con-

ception is present, albeit with lesser frequency and intensity, in other parts of the Greek

and Hellenized world, from Athens and several Aegean Islands, to Macedonia, Lykia,

Egypt, Arabia, and Rome (Sfameni Gasparro ).




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S R

Aer Detienne () and Jensen (), who emphasize the importance of the Pythagoreansin the history of Greek daimonology, few monographs have been devoted to the theme inrecent years. Marx-Wolf (, ) investigates the way in which third-century

Platonists used daimonology as a medium to establish a hierarchy in the realm of spirits and

to organize a complex ritual praxis (theurgia). imotin () tracks changes in the notion ofdaimon in the Platonic tradition, from the Old Academy to the last Neoplatonists. He analy-

ses the relationship between daimonology, cosmology, and theories of the soul.

R

Andres, F. . ‘Daimon’, RE, suppl. : –.Babbit, F. C. [].Plutarchus’ Moralia V. London.

Chadwick, H. . Origen. Contra Celsum. Cambridge.

Detienne, M. . De la pensée religieuse à la pensée philosophique. La notion de daïmôn dans

le pythagorisme ancient . Paris.

François, G. . Le polythéisme et l’emploi au singulier des mots QEOS, DAIMWN dans lalittérature grecque d’Homère à Platon. Paris.

Graf, F. and Johnston, S. I. . Ritual exts or the Aferlie (nd edn). London.Heinze, R. []. Xenokrates. Darstellung der Lehre und Sammlung der Fragmente.

Leipzig.

Hild, J. A. . ‘Daemon’, in Dictionnaire des Antiquités grecques et romaines, ed. Ch.

Daremberg and E. Saglio, –. Paris.Jensen, S. S. . Dualism and Demonology: Te Function o Demonology in Pythagorean andPlatonic Tought . Munksgaard.

Marx-Wolf, H. . ‘Platonists and High Priests: Daemonology, Ritual and Social Order in

the Tird Century CE’. Diss., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.Nowak, N. . ‘Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Begriffes Daimon. Eine Untersuchung

epigraphischer Zeugnisse von Jh. v. Chr. bis zum .Jh. n. Chr.’. Diss., Bonn.Sandbach, F. H. . Menandri Reliquiae Selectae . Oxford.

Sfameni Gasparro, G. . ‘Daimôn and uchê in the Hellenistic Religious Experience’, inConventional Values in the Hellenistic World. International Conerence Rungstedgaard

– January , ed. B. Bilde, P. Engberg-Pedesen, and L. Hannestad, –. Aarhus.

Sfameni Gasparro, G. . ‘Magie et démonologie dans les Papyrus Graecae Magicae’, in ResOrientales, vol. : Démons et merveilles d’Orient , ed. R. Gyselen, –. Bures-sur-Yvette.

imotin, A. . La démonologie platonicienne. Histoire de la notion de daimon de Platonaux derniers néoplatoniciens. Leiden.




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Documents

Daimonic Power - Sfameni