Johannine Studies
IV. ORIGEN’S DEMONOLGY
Johannine Studies
IV. ORIGEN’S DEMONOLGY
Our purpose: survey Origen’s response to demonology – an important aspect of the world-view of Greeks, Romans, and Jews. 1
Second-century Christian apologetics had accepted the views shared by the common people and philosophers alike that the demons were objective brings intermediary between the divine and the human. Justin Martyr, for instance, blamed on them all that was opposed to Christianity – pagan religion with its mythology, magic, and sacrificial rituals; moral evils such as murder, war, adultery, and wickedness; persecution; and heresy. 2 Origen, as is shown below, continued this apologetic argument.
There were other strands of thought in Origen’s background. Greek physicians had identified demon possession with mental illness. 3 The association of the word demon with madness or being out of one’s mind characterized the usage of the Gospel of John (7:20; 8:48f., 52; 10:20f.). Another interiorization of demons occurred in some Jewish sources (followed by Christians), which attributed to evil spirits the sinful impulses within a person. 4 Clement, Origen’s predecessor at Alexandria, said the demons cause sin and testified to the Gnostic appropriation of the idea. 5 Because of sins, spiritual powers rule over human beings.6 The trend toward psychologizing the demons was carried further by Origen and became almost the exclusive use of demons in monastic literature, as exemplified by another Alexandrian, Athanasius, in his Life of Antony.
This brief attempt to situate Origen in relation to both the objective and the subjective strands of thought about demons will introduce a more detailed description of his comments.
Origen repeated the Jewish view,7 which Christians also adopted, that the heathen gods were demons. “It is then not the idols but the demons living in the idols who are called ‘gods,’” he says.8 An extended discussion in Contra Celsum brings out the viewpoint, one which is basic to Origen’s demonology: “It is not only we who say that there are evil daemons, but almost all people who hold that daemons exist. . . . However, in the view of the majority of people who hold that daemons exist, it is only the evil daemons who do not keep the law of God but transgress it. But in our opinion all daemons have fallen from the way of goodness, and previously they were not daemons; for the category of daemons is one of those classes of beings which have fallen away from God. That is why no one who worships God ought to worship daemons.”
“The worship of the supposed gods is also a worship of daemons. For ‘all the gods of the heathen are daemons’ (Ps. 95.5, LXX). . . . That is the reason why we have decided to avoid the worship of daemons like a plague. And we maintain that all the supposed worship of gods among the Greeks with altars and images and temples is a worship offered to daemons.”9
Origen adopted the criticisms directed by certain philosophers against the popular religion. This criticism attributed the grosser features of paganism, and indeed all activities which brought the divine into direct contact with human beings (something which philosophers, particularly those influenced by Platonism, deemed unworthy of spiritual being), to the working of demons.10 These criticisms against the popular religion had already been turned by Christian apologists against paganism as a whole.11
For instance, Origen frequently refers to the idea that the demons fed on the sacrifices and so delighted in these because they were dependent on them.12 Particularly pointed are his remarks in Exhortation to Martyrdom 45; “Some do not consider the truth concerning daemons, namely that if they are to remain in this gross air near the earth they need food from sacrifices and so keep where there is always smoke and blood and incense. . . . Indeed. I think that because of the misdeeds committed by the daemons who work against mankind those who feed them with sacrifices are no less responsible than the daemons who commit wicked deeds. For both the daemons and those who keep them on earth have injured men in like degree, since without the smoke and sacrifices and the food thought to be suited to their bodies the daemons would not be able to subsist.”13
The demons were said to have given the oracles,14 and Origen’s cynical comment was that “the daemons seem to perform the petitions of those who bring requests to them more because of the sacrifices they offer than because of their virtuous actions.”15 The demons, as immaterial beings having some perception of the future, entered into animals and made possible divination through them.16
Origen seems especially concerned to attribute magic to the demons. “The truth about daemons is also made clear by those who invoke daemons for what are called love-philtres and spells for producing hatred, or for the prevention of actions, or for countless other such causes. This is done by people who have learnt to invoke daemons by charms and incantations and to induce them to do what they wish. On this account the worship of daemons is foreign to us who worship the supreme God.”17
Celsus had charged that Christians did miracles by calling on demons18 and argued that Jesus performed his miracles by sorcery, not by divine power. Origen did not deny the possibility of demon-worked miracles; his approach rather was to appeal to the moral character of those performing the wonders and the moral effects of their works in order to determine which were from God and which from demonic powers: “What is accomplished by God’s power is nothing like what is done by sorcery . . .If we once agree that it is a corollary from the existence of magic and sorcery, wrought by evil daemons who are enchanted by elaborate spells and obey men who are sorcerers, that wonders done by divine power must also exist among men, then why should we not also examine carefully people who profess to do miracles, and see whether their lives and moral characters, and the results of their miracles, harm men or effect moral reformation? We should know in this wav who serves daemons and causes such effects by means of certain spells and enchantments, and who has been on pure and holy ground . . .”19
Although Origen accepted the reality of magical power, Christians, according to him, were not subject to its influence: “We affirm that we know by experience that those who worship the supreme God through Jesus according to the way of Christianity, and live according to his gospel, and who use the appointed prayers continually and in the proper way day and night, are not caught either by magic or by daemons.”20
It might go without saying, but Origen makes it explicit, that, whereas on the Greek view demons might be either good or bad beings,21 Christians never used “demon” in a good sense. This was necessary to say because it was an important difference in terminology between Origen and Celsus. “Celsus fails to notice that the name of daemons is not morally neutral like that of men, among whom some are good and some bad; nor is it good like the name of gods, which is not to be applied to evil daemons or to images or to animals, but by those who know the things of God to beings truly divine and blessed. The name of daemons is always applied to evil powers without the grosser body, and they lead men astray and distract them, and drag them down from God and the world beyond the heavens to earthly things.”22
In accord with this negative view of demons, Origen shared with early Christian thought in attributing various evils to demons. The demons did not give food, drink, and air to human beings, as Celsus asserted, but brought natural disasters on the earth. “[The daemons] are responsible for famines, barren vines and fruit trees, and droughts, and also for the pollution of the air, causing damage to the fruits, and sometimes even the death of animals and plague among men. Of all these things daemons are the direct creators; like public executioners, they have received power by a divine appointment to bring about these catastrophes at certain times, either for the conversion of men when they drift towards the flood of evil, or with the object of training the race of rational beings.”23
They led men astray by teaching false doctrine.24 The activity most on the minds of early Christian apologists was persecution; this too was attributed to the working of demons.25 Origen states that those who “condemn Christians and betray them, and delight in fighting against them, are filled by evil daemons.”26 The demons “have stirred up the emperors, and the Senate, and the local governors everywhere, and even the populace . . . to oppose the Gospel and those who believe in it.”27 This charge was perhaps the more readily made because the demons (“the opposing powers”) were generally identified with the “rulers of this world” who stood behind the existing political authorities.28
In spite of this malevolent activity of demons, Origen insists that “the word of God is mightier than them all . . . so that it has advanced and won over more souls.”29 Christians are not subject to the demons and are not hurt by them directly. Rather they are guarded and protected by the angels of God. “The Christian, the real Christian who has submitted himself to God alone and His Logos, would not suffer anything at the hands of daemons, since he is superior to them. . . . For even if daemons are slighted, they are able to do nothing to us who are devoted to the Person that is alone able to help all those who deserve it. He does no less than set His own angels over those whose lives are devoted to Him, that the opposing angels and the so-called ruler of this world who governs them may be unable to do anything against those who are dedicated to God.”30
Christians do not have to fear the demons because Christ has triumphed over them. At the birth of Jesus “the demons lost their strength and became weak”; the coming of the Magi to worship Jesus indicated their recognition that a superior power had appeared.31 After the coming and teaching of Jesus souls of believers have freedom from demons.32 At Jesus’ crucifixion in particular the evil powers were defeated.33 The benefits of Jesus’ victory were extended through the preaching of the gospel. “God, who sent Jesus, destroyed the whole conspiracy of daemons, and everywhere in the world in order that men might be converted and reformed He made the gospel of Jesus to be successful.”34 The Christian entered the sphere of safety at his baptism. As the waters of the Red Sea destroyed the army of Pharaoh, so the waters of baptism destroyed the demons: “Paul calls that crossing accomplished by Moses in the cloud and the sea a baptism [1 Cor. 10:1-4] in order to bring home to you who were baptized in Christ, in water and the Holy Spirit, that the Egyptians are pursuing you, striving to subject you to them, I mean, the ‘rulers of this world’ and the ‘spirits of wickedness’ to whom you gave your allegiance. They strive to follow you, but you go down into the water, where you are safe, and when you have been purified from all stain of sin, come forth a new man, to sing the new song.”35
The martyrs especially demonstrated Christ's victory over the evil powers and were themselves conquerors. “The powers of evil suffer defeat by the death of the holy martyrs,” Origen affirmed.36 The martyrs, by sharing in Christ’s sufferings shared in his triumph over the “principalities and powers.”37
A special instance of the Christians’ power over demons was the ability to cast them out of a person in whom they had come to dwell.38 Origen attributed this power to “the name of Jesus,”39 prayer, and words from the scriptures.40 Origen knew that the Jews accomplished the same task by invoking “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”41 and that there were pagan accounts of exorcism.42 In all cases the potency was supposed to reside in the words or formulas recited.43 Origen contrasted the simplicity of Christian practice with the elaborate incantations and magical procedures in paganism: “. . . the race of daemons which many Christians drive out of people who suffer from them, without any curious magical art or sorcerer’s device, but with prayer alone and very simple adjurations and formulas such as the simplest person could use. For generally speaking it is uneducated people who do this kind of work. he power of the word of Christ shows the worthlessness and weakness of the daemons; for it is not necessary to have a wise man who is competent in the rational proofs of the faith in order that they should be defeated and yield to expulsion from the soul and body of a man.”44
Elsewhere Origen said that Christians did not use adjuration, invocations, or direct address to the impure spirit but only prayer and fasting.45
Thus far the material covered may be regarded as standard Christian thought in the first centuries of our era. For the most part Origen’s arguments in Contra Celsum stand in the mainstream of earlier Christian apologetics; but even here some of his more distinctive emphases stand out. Origen had his own views on some subjects about which early Christians differed, e.g. the origin of demons. He rejected the view of I Enoch that demons were the souls of the giants produced by the union of angels with women, pointing out that I Enoch was “not generally held to be divine by the churches.”46 He preferred to interpret Genesis 6:1-4 about the “sons of God” marrying the “daughters of men” as referring to souls afflicted with a desire for bodily life.47
Origen emphasized that demons were not created evil but became that way through transgression. The thought of a fall of good spiritual beings was certainly not original with Origen,48 but he integrates it with ideas which were so strongly characteristic of his own religious philosophy that this may serve to introduce his more distinctive approach. Here the key factor was free will, a central element in Origen’s thought.49 He began his discussion of spiritual beings (angels, demons, principalities, powers) in De principiis I. 5.3 by raising the question whether some were made incapable of evil, some capable of both virtue and evil, and some incapable of virtue. He laid it down that goodness and wickedness were not part of the essence of the rational powers, for that would mean that God created some things intrinsically evil. “We conclude then, that the position of every created being is the result of his own work and his own motives, and that the powers above mentioned which appear as holding sway or exercising authority or dominion over others, have gained this superiority and eminence over those whom they are said to govern or on whom they exercise their authority, not by some privilege of creation but as the reward of merit.”50
As a corollary the evil powers departed from good of their own free will. The “opposing powers” were at one time “stainless” and dwelt among those who have remained pure, but they became “fugitives.”51 Origen interpreted the “prince of Tyre” in Ezekiel 28 and “Lucifer” in Isaiah 14 as Satan, who had once been among the pure angels, an interpretation which has had a long history in Christianity.52 The demons were not God’s servants any more, but they were “servants of the evil one, the prince of this world, who tries to persuade any whom he can win over to forsake God.”53 Satan is himself called an “evil daemon.”54 The demons, like the Devil whom they serve, have fallen away from goodness. Previously they were not demons, “for the category of daemons is one of those classes of beings which have fallen away from God.”55 Nevertheless, they remained under God’s ultimate providential rule; they “have received power by a divine appointment to bring about” evil.56 They served as “public executioners” to punish the wicked.57 Even their worst actions were finally subject to God’s government of the world.
The demons, as one of their evil works, tempt to sin.58 “According to the scriptures, the opposing powers and the devil himself are engaged in a struggle with the human race, provoking and inciting men to sin.”59 To commit sin is to be initiated into the cult of demons,60 and no sin is committed without their collaboration.61 The victory of Christ on the cross was a foreshadowing of what will be consummated at the second coming,62 in the meantime the Christian is engaged in a continual combat against the “spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12 – often cited by Origen in his homilies). The moral application of the Old Testament in Origen’s homilies frequently employs the motif of fighting against the evil powers.63 “There is a diabolical race of opposing powers against whom we fight and struggle with great effort during this life.”64 The Christian must slay the demons within himself.65 He can overcome them by following Jesus and thus will come to dwell in their heavenly realm.66 The struggle against the demonic forces actually serves a useful purpose: “If the demons were deprived of free will, the athletes of Christ would have no adversaries; without adversaries they would have no contest; and without a contest they would have neither reward nor victory.”67
Although Origen attributes the cause of sin to demons, he seems more especially concerned to point out that the demons find their occasion and opportunity in the natural drives and desires of human beings. “We derive the beginnings and what we may call the seeds of sin from those desires which are given to us naturally for our use.”68 So the demons are not the only cause of sin, but they gain their hold on human life because no resistance is offered to them. “The daemons have been allowed to occupy a place in their minds, a place which intemperance has first laid open, and have then taken complete possession of their intelligence, especially as no thought of the glory of virtue aroused them to resistance.”69
Human beings in their free will yield to demonic influence. “It is possible for us, when an evil power has begun to urge us on to a deed of evil, to cast away the wicked suggestions and to resist the low enticements and to do absolutely nothing worthy of blame; and it is possible on the other hand when a divine power has urged us on to better things not to follow its guidance since our faculty of free will is preserved to us in either case.”70
God provides help to resist temptation.71 A good angel fights on behalf of the person.72 and without divine help one could not overcome the opposing powers. But this divine assistance by itself does not guarantee victory. “This strength, therefore, which is given to us in order that we may be able to conquer, we by the exercise of our free will either use diligently and conquer or feebly and suffer defeat.”73 The purpose of Jesus is to conquer the kingdom of sin in mankind.74
Origen moved toward a psychological explanation of the working of demons in the following passage: “The soul of man, while in the body, can admit different energies, that is, controlling influences, of spirits either good or bad. Now the bad spirits work in two ways; that is, they either take whole and entire possession of the mind, so that they allow those in their power neither to understand nor to think as is the case, for example, with those who are popularly called ‘possessed’ whom we see to be demented and insane, such as the men who are related in the Gospel to have been healed by the Saviour; or they deprave the soul, while it still thinks and understands, through harmful suggestion by means of different kinds of thoughts and evil inducements, as for example Judas was incited to the crime of the betrayal. . . .On the other hand a man admits the energy and control of a good spirit when he is moved and incited to what is good and inspired to strive towards things heavenly and divine. . . . From this we learn to discern clearly when the soul is moved by the presence of a spirit of the better kind, namely, when it suffers no mental disturbance or aberration whatsoever as a result of the immediate inspiration and does not lose the free judgment of the will.”75
There is, according to Origen, for every sin a particular demon. He can speak of the “spirit of fornication . . . the spirit of anger and wrath, the demon of avarice” etc.76 There is only one spirit for each of the vices, but each has innumerable servants under him to invade different persons.77
Some features of Origen’s teachings about demons go beyond concurrence with his characteristic emphases and become part of his peculiar teachings. This is notably the case with his view that God’s love and disciplinary judgments will persuade even the rebellious spiritual powers to submit to him. In commenting on 1 Corinthians 15:28 Origen says as follows: “If therefore that subjection by which the Son is said to be subjected to the Father is taken to be good and salutary, it is a sure and logical consequence that the subjection of his enemies which is said to happen to the Son of God should also be understood to be salutary and useful; so that, just as when the Son is said to be subjected to the Father the perfect restoration of the entire creation is announced, so when his enemies are said to be subjected to the Son of God we are to understand this to involve the salvation of those that have been lost. But this subjection will be accomplished through certain means and courses of discipline and periods of time; that is, the whole world will not become subject to God by the pressure of some necessity that compels it into subjection, nor by the use of force, but by word, by reason, by teaching, by the exhortation to better things by the best methods of education.”78
Much of what Origen says about the demons in an apologetic context can be paralleled from the second-century apologists. Origen seems to be the first, however, to develop the view that the decline of demonic influence in the world is associated with the spread of the gospel. The standpoint seems quite modern, almost rationalist. Whether the change be attributed to the preaching itself, some objective change in reality, the lack of belief any longer in the demons, or whatever factor, Origen points to the end of antiquity in seeing the advance of Christianity as continuing the victory won by the death and resurrection of Christ over the demonic powers. Their defeat was internalized in the moral triumphs of the individual believer, but this was more than a psychological experience, because the demons (although causing psychological experiences) were more than something psychological. The defeat of the demons also had a cosmic significance. “If by living a chaste and modest life, for example, one has triumphed over a spirit of fornication, it is no more permitted to this spirit who has been conquered by the saint to attack another man. . . . Each spirit conquered by the saints is sent by Christ, the jest judge who presides over the struggles of mortals in this life, ‘into the abyss’ or ‘into the outer darkness’ or some such place as it deserves. It follows, then, that since many demons have already suffered defeat, the nations may more readily come to the faith, something which would have been impossible if the legions of demons remained intact as they did formerly.”79
Conversion from sin to God and a life of virtue is a punishment of the demons.80
This promise of victory over demonic power was no doubt an important part of the appeal of the Christian faith in the ancient world. We may concur with the judgment of Harnack that deliverance from demons “formed one very powerful method of [Christian] mission and propaganda.”81 And so Origen affirmed the confident stance which Christians took toward the demonic: “We do not, then, deny that there are many demons upon the earth. but we maintain that they exist and exercise power among the wicked, as a punishment of their wickedness. But they have no power over those who ‘Put on the whole armour of God’ [Eph. 6:11].”82
