Demon

DEMON. - In ecclesiastical language, it designates an angel who has fallen through rebellion against God and is punished in hell. While the "devil" or "satan" is the head of the invisible powers of evil, the d. (τὸ δαιμόνιον) is one of the evil spirits (οἱ δαίμονες, usually τὰ δαιμόνια in the New Testament) that infest the world, carrying out a harmful function opposed to that of the angels. Thus Jesus said of hell "that it was prepared for the devil and his angels" (Mt. 25:41).

The devil is one; he is not the same thing as a d.: the demons or demons (δαίμονες and δαιμόνια are not differentiated) are a multitude.

I. SACRED SCRIPTURE

From the very beginnings of humanity, the spirits of evil intervene as the cause of our fall: "Death entered the world through the envy of the devil" (Wis. 2:24). In the biblical text of Gen. 3 neither a d. nor Satan is named; the being who speaks and acts through the serpent is an evil spirit. Here it is the devil or Satan who acts, or a d. on his own account, to accuse or ruin men before God (cf. Job 1:9-11; 2:5; Rev. 12:10), v. DEVIL; SATAN.

In the Old Testament the d. often appear as fearsome mythical animals: the "hairy one" (id'ir) and the "night specter" (līlīth [v.]) in Jn. 34:14 (Vulg.: pilosus, lamia). In Lev. 17:7 it is strictly forbidden to sacrifice to the iē'irīm (Vulg. daemones); in Lev. 16:8-10 'Azā'zēl, connected with the iē'irīm, is an evil spirit opposed to Yahweh. To the true God is also opposed the iēd (Deut. 32:17; Ps. 10:37), probably analogous to the Babylonian īidu. Sēdīm are also the name given to the false gods. Animals such as the serpent were held to be connected with demonic forces (v. DRAGON). The conceptions and classifications of the d. became more complicated in later Judaism, on the basis of that popular animistic mentality which among the Arabs created the multiform gīnu.

In the New Testament the d. are mentioned more frequently (v. TEMPTATIONS). In his public life Jesus commands the d., whether he drives them out of souls, as happened with Mary Magdalene (Lk. 8:2), or drives them away from the body of many possessed persons. He confers the power to drive them out on his apostles, who at times avail themselves of it with the greatest ease (Mk. 6:13; Lk. 10:17), while at other times they fail to make the more malignant d. obey them, for these are not driven out except by fasting and prayer (Mt. 17:14-20; Mk. 9:15-28; Lk. 9:38-40).

These isolated actions are the manifestations of the more general mission that God has entrusted to the Messiah and has revealed to our first parents: the Son of the Woman par excellence will be bitten in the heel by the serpent, which will deprive him of human life; but in the course of this struggle, which ends in death, the Savior will crush the head of the serpent (cf. Gen. 3:15). Jesus announced at one and the same time both this victory and the sacrifice with which he would win the reward, when he said on the eve of his passion: "Now is the judgment of this world; now the prince of this world will be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself" (Jn. 12:31-32).

God revealed to the angels in a prophetic vision the mystery of the Incarnation which He willed from all eternity (Rom. 16:26). The majority of these pure spirits adored the future Christ. Satan, however, and other angels, drawn by his example, refused. "And a great battle was waged in heaven: Michael with his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought, but they could not prevail... And the great dragon was cast down, the ancient serpent, he who is called devil and Satan, who seduces the whole earth. He was cast down to the earth, and with him his angels were cast down" (Rev. 12:7-9).

When God introduces "again" into the world, no longer in figure but in reality, the "Firstborn of all creatures" and commands his angels to adore him (Heb. 1:6), it will not be a surprise for these, since they already awaited this event, nor will they hesitate, since they had already, at the time of their trial, demonstrated submission with a joyful act, acclaiming together God and the future Christ: "Now has come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ" (Rev. 12:10). Cf. F. Risi, Sul motivo primario della Incarnazione del Verbo, IV, Rome 1898, pp. 128-47; P. Arrighini, Gli angeli buoni e cattivi, Turin-Rome 1937, pp. 156-70).

II. THE DOGMA

The starting point and the solid foundation of theological speculation in the doctrine with which we are concerned is the certainty that the demons are fallen angels. This is a truth revealed not only in the Apocalypse (v. above), but also in many other quite explicit texts. Jesus said to his disciples: "I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning" (Lk. 10:18). The devil fell because he "did not persevere in the truth" (Jn. 8:44). St. Peter speaks expressly of "angels who have sinned and whom God cast down into hell" (2 Pt. 2:4). And St. Jude (v. 6) alludes to the "angels who did not keep their principality, but who abandoned their own dwelling."

If, then, the demons are fallen angels, it is necessary to apply to them all the properties that Revelation attrib-

(Int. Alinari)
DEMON. - Detail from The Temptations of St. Anthony, by Bernardo Parentino (15th century) - Rome, Palazzo Doria.

refers to the spiritual nature of the angels, since a moral fault cannot modify the nature of the guilty one. It is not possible to attribute a body to them, as some ancient author and some scholastic did.

To say that the d. are fallen, that they have sinned, that God has punished them, is implicitly to affirm that they became wicked through their own fault and that they were not created as they now are, contrary to what certain sects of Manichaean inspiration wished to affirm, later condemned by the Council of Braga in Portugal (a. 563) and by the Fourth Lateran Council of a. 1215 (cf. F. Cavallera, Thesaurus doctrinae christianae, 2nd ed., Paris 1936, nos. 612-39; Gelasius I [492-496], Dicta adversus Pelagianam haeresim, nos. 23-33, as also the profession of faith imposed on the Waldensians by Innocent III [cited there, nos. 632-635 and 638]). One must likewise conclude that these same were created neither in the state of glory nor confirmed in good, but in the state of Grace, from which they fell without ever having enjoyed the beatific vision.

Given the spiritual nature of the d., one must absolutely reject an opinion widely diffused among certain medieval writers (cf. E. Mangenot, Démon, in DThC, IV, coll. 339-400), according to which these angels would be condemned to hell for sexual relations with women. This opinion, now abandoned, was founded on a false version of Gen. 6, 2 (cf. id., ibid., coll. 326-327). There is almost agreement in placing the fault of the angels in an act of pride (cf. the letters of the popes Hormisdas and Gregory I, in Cavallera, op. cit., nos. 626 and 640). Tradition, however, is not clear in specifying in what it consisted. Many doctors assert that Satan wanted "to be like God," but among them there is no consensus in determining the sense that befits this formula (cf. St. Thomas,

Summa Theol., 1a, q. 63, a. 3). This opinion, moreover, has as its sole foundation a reflection that Is. 14, 13-14 attributes to the king of Babylon and that has been applied to Satan. Now the accommodated sense, even less than the mystical, cannot be the foundation of faith. It rather presupposes faith. The only solid basis for determining the fault of the d., together with the circumstances, is the literal allegorical sense of chap. 12 of the Apocalypse.

Contrary to certain ancient doctors, one must hold that the d. were punished immediately after the sin (cf. Apoc. 12) and that they immediately began to undergo the double penalty of loss, that is, privation of God, and of fire. And by a special permission, they can harm men "for a little time" (ibid., 12, 12), that is to say until the Last Judgment, without meanwhile remaining exempt from the torments of hell. The number of the d. is generally considered very high. According to Apoc. 12, 14, the dragon in his fall had drawn with him "the third part of the stars of heaven," that is, of the angels. Various scriptural texts (Ez. 28, 14-16; Rom. 8, 38; Eph. 6, 12; I Cor. 15, 24) lead to the conclusion that the rebels belonged to different orders in the celestial hierarchy. Satan continues to exercise among them a real dominion (Mt. 9, 34; Lk. 11, 15), of a leader rather than of a head, since one cannot speak of hierarchy and subordination properly so called in a place that the common faith rightly considers as a kingdom of disorder (cf. Job 10, 22).

Hell is common to the angels and to reprobate men, since reprobate men are cast into the fire "prepared for the devil and his angels" (Mt. 25, 41). Similarly to that of men, the penalty of the d. is eternal and cannot meet with any attenuation, as Apoc. 2, 9-10 expressly affirms and as the Second Council of Constantinople (553), confirmed by Pope Vigilius, defined (cf. Denz-U, no. 211).

The principal occupation of the d. until the consummation of the ages consists in tempting men to induce them to sin. They have succeeded so well that Jesus himself gave Satan the title of "prince of this world" (Jn. 12, 31; 14, 30; 16, 11). The book of Job (chaps. 1 and 2) clearly insinuates that Satan cannot harm except when God permits him and to that measure in which he is permitted.

It is certainly correct that the d. is not the origin of every temptation (v.). He does not necessarily intervene in all the evils to which we can be subject; it does not at all conflict with the holiness of God to be the cause, even immediate, of a moral trial (such as the temptation of Abraham, Gen. 22), or of a physical evil (cf. Job 3, 6: "Can evil come upon a country without God being its author?"). But the Scriptures, on the other hand, attest that the d. are sometimes the cause of our misfortunes and infirmities (cf., besides Job 1 and 2, Mt. 12, 22; 17, 14-17). Moreover, prowling like a lion in search of prey (I Pt. 5, 8), they do not refrain from blowing on the fire of passions or of discords. Some ancient author wished to assert that to every man, from birth to death, is given a wicked angel who opposes the guardian angel. This theory is founded neither on tradition nor on Scripture, and therefore deserves no credence (cf. S. Weber, De singulorum hominum daemone impugnatore, Rome 1938).

Giovanni Francesco Bonnefoy
III. IN ART.
- The devil makes his appearance in Christian art in a significant way no earlier than the 6th century. One of the most ancient depictions of the d. is found in a fresco of the Egyptian church of Bawit (6th century). Others from the same period are found in miniatures of the Bible of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, preserved in the National Library of Paris. Characteristic of these representations is the almost angelic appearance of Satan. From the 12th century onward until the end of the Middle Ages and, one may add, until around the second half of the 16th century, the demonic image undergoes a radical transformation: the horrid is dominant. The seduction of the beautiful is replaced by the seduction of the horrible. Terror is the strongest diabolical weapon, and the artists of the Romanesque period constantly brought out the monstrous as an aspect of the demonic. Particularly interesting in this regard are the sculptures of the capitals of the cathedrals of Autun, Moissac, Beaulieu and Vézelay in Burgundy (from 1150). The accentuation of asymmetry in the architecture of Romanesque sacred buildings is due, beyond aesthetic requirements, to the belief that the diabolical tended toward the geometric. The geometric is that which allows no evasions. It was a common opinion in the Middle Ages that logic was the ars diaboli; hence the two contrasting characteristics of diabolical temptation: encircling (enclosing in a circle) and terrorizing, that is, destroying the forces needed for upright human conduct. Architectural asymmetry is against encircling, and the representation of the monstrous is the dutiful denunciation of the true nature of the demonic on the part of artist-theologians.

In the numerous representations of the temptations of monks and in particular of St. Anthony Abbot, from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, the demonic is always represented as an assault of the horrible.

Mention should be made of the great pictorial work of the Flemish and Dutch artists of the 15th and 16th centuries, Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1450-1516: most notable are the Temptation of St. Anthony in the Lisbon museum and that of the Prado), Peter Huys, Lucas van Leyden, Jan Mandyn, Pieter Bruegel (or Breughel) the Elder (Dulle Griet at the van den Bergh Museum in Antwerp, and Fall of the Rebel Angels at the Royal Museum of Brussels), Hendrik Met de Bles, Joachim Patinir. Among the German artists, Stefan Lochner, Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach, Niklaus Manuel and above all Matthias Grünewald (Isenheim Altarpiece in Colmar).

Italian art of the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries (Giotto, Gaddi, Traini, Taddeo di Bartolo and later Signorelli and Michelangelo) did not have the same characteristics as the Temptations and Hells of Flemish-German art, where the influence of the theological-mystical doctrines of Henry Suso and Ruysbroeck is evident, as well as that of certain heretical sects (especially that of the "Brethren of the Free Spirit"). While until toward the end of the 1500s the theological concern in the artist is dominant, from the 17th century onward this is lacking, and the representations of infernal scenes (Callot, Teniers, Goya) are pictorial pretexts not corresponding to apologetic ideals. Grotesque and demonic become confused. - See plate XC.