Christianity developed in a world with a well-articulated understanding of a multilayered and hierarchical universe that was, above all, animated. Most inhabitants of the ancient world envisioned cosmic energy as alive, meaning that the essence of physicality, spirituality and ethics rested in a host of supernatural sentient beings. Among those beings were demons who dwelt in the space between the earth and the Moon.
In the mid-2nd century, CE Justin Martyr explained the role of demons in Christian thought. The sons of God succumbed to intercourse with human women, and they begot children called the Nephilim (meaning giants). The progenies of the Nephilim were demons. These demons enslaved the human race, sowing wars, adulteries, licentiousness and every kind of evil. All the pagan gods, Justin warned, were, in fact, demons who haunt the earth. The North African bishop Augustine offered a different genealogy. He identified demons as the rebel angels who fought alongside and suffered the same fate as Lucifer (also known as Belial, Beelzebub, the Devil, Satan, and the ‘Day Star’) whom God cast out of heaven after he mounted a failed rebellion.
Both pagan and Christian ideologies envisioned demons in prominent roles but, for pagans, demons could be both good and bad. They resembled deities in that they shared in their immortality, but they were also subject to obnoxious, irrational cravings. Demons were positioned between humans and gods, and could act as guardian angels. Demons were corporeal, though of a material much lighter than, and superior to, the human form; they could move faster than mortals, read thoughts, and slip in and out of spaces impossible for the human body to occupy.
For the Church, all demons were malevolent. Christians saw demons as shape-shifters who copulated promiscuously with human beings, controlled the weather, sickened their victims, flew through the atmosphere, impersonated the dead, predicted the future, and were always to be feared. The 4th-century Christian writer Lactantius wrote:
Because these spirits are slender and hard to grasp, they work themselves into people’s bodies and secretly get at their guts, wrecking their health, causing illness, scaring their wits with dreams, unsettling their minds with madness.
It is important to note that in the 4th century when he wrote, the notion of a super-demon, that is Satan or ‘the Devil’, had not yet developed. Until the high Middle Ages (c1050-1200) Satan was just one more demon, albeit a particularly nasty one.
Augustine was the most instrumental of the Church fathers in articulating the theology governing the relationship between human beings and demons. Miracles are allowed by God and wrought by faith, not by incantations and spells. Marvels not performed for the honour of God are illicit sorcery accomplished by the deceitful tricks of malignant demons. Magic took place when humans trafficked with demons in order to carry out particular deeds such as divination, casting spells, love magic, raising storms, and astrology. Demons feasted on the smoke, incense and odour of blood rising into the clouds from animal sacrifices. They craved blood, so, in order to lure demons, people mixed gore with water or offered up burnt sacrifices. This exchange created a contract by which humans could enlist demons to do their bidding. Feasting on sacrificial flesh in cultic ceremonies was not the only way to attract demons. Any ritual activity that resembled pagan worship, such as honouring idols, casting spells or worshipping in the outdoors – regardless of intention – was magic. The Christian clergy had to be ever vigilant that the people under their care were not inadvertently interacting with demons.
In its attempt to distinguish itself from the many cults and belief systems that formed a veritable mosaic in the ancient world, early Christians had to confront demons, the magic they facilitated, and the contumely of other religionists. That was an awesome task because magic was ubiquitous. One of the earliest undertakings of Christian apologists was to counter slurs against Jesus and his apostles that they were nothing more than charlatans taking advantage of the superstitious disposition of the ignorant. Pagans slung insults at Christians for passing off tricks as miracles. The 2nd-century pagan philosopher Celsus referred to Christian miracles as masquerades for scandalous ‘trickery’, less impressive than the stunts of jugglers who performed in the marketplace.
Nothing filled demons with dread and kept them at bay like a sanctified church
The foundational metaphors of Christianity and paganism differed and conflicted with one another. The importance of place emerged for Christians as they crafted a new identity and a way to express it through ritual. Pagans looked to the natural world for meaning. Christian identity, on the other hand, was manifest in human-made consecrated structures such as churches and shrines. The new place of worship had to be one where demons did not feel welcome. When Christians established consecrated sites (the settings of ritual), they were often competing with pagan holy places that abounded in the world of nature – spots near lakes, beneath trees, at hallowed rocks, and in forests. Although Near Eastern and Mediterranean religions were temple-oriented with a sophisticated concept of enclosed ceremonial, the common person did not, as a rule, enter the hallowed domain, and most popular ritualistic, religious activity took place in the fields or outside the temple precinct – in short, out of doors.
Christians created a new kind of space where demons dared not tread and in which continuity with old rites and the worldview they stored were thwarted. These churches provided a clean slate on which Christians could write in the language of ritual. The building became a symbol for the new religion. It was more than just a different location from those frequented by pagan celebrants and inhabited by their demonic deities. It was a new concept of place particular to Christianity – cleansed of demons, consecrated to that special creator god who does not inhere in his creation (trees, rocks, springs) and should not be worshipped through it. Nothing filled demons with dread and kept them at bay like a sanctified church. The motif of demons fleeing in terror from a consecrating bishop was familiar in late antiquity when the fight against idolatry was a matter of openly confronting pagan cults. In the 3rd century, Gregory the Miracle-Worker prayed at the local temple, and the next
