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Loading...I am very pleased that my erstwhile PhD student, Travis Proctor, has published a revised version of his dissertation with Oxford University Press. See: Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture: Proctor, Travis W.: 9780197581162: Amazon.com: Books
Travis was one of the best students I ever had, and this is an unusually learned book. In celebration of the event — and to let you know of the development — I have decided to repost his discussion of his work from two years ago, with a brief introduction to bring us up to date.
Here is what he says.
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Long-time members of the blog may recall my guest post from two years ago, when I shared a summary of my dissertation project on demonic bodies in early Christian literature (see original post below). For those wanting to delve deeper into the subject, I am happy to announce that the manuscript has been published with Oxford University Press, under the title Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture. The book represents a thorough updating of the dissertation, including a re-written chapter on exorcism and the Gospel of Mark as well as a new chapter on “magical” demons in the writings of the early Christian apologist Justin Martyr. More details on the book can be found at the OUP website. Copies can be ordered at Bookshop.org, Amazon, and other book retailers.
(Original Post) Demons and Christians in Antiquity (February 2020)
Clement of Alexandria, one of the most famous philosophers and ethical teachers of early Christianity, was no fan of eating meat. But Clement’s rationale for avoiding animal flesh would never occur to most people today.
According to Clement, Christians ought to keep their diets simple: fruits, nuts, and vegetables were sufficient fare. But while modern vegetarians might appeal to environmental or health reasons to argue for such a diet, Clement turned to a different justification: demonic corruption. According to Clement, demons were infatuated with the blood of red meat, and so anyone who overindulged in the flesh of animals would inevitably attract evil demons, with the result that their bodies would become full of evils spirits bent on their ruin.
But why are demons so attracted to meat, and the people that eat it? To answer that question sufficiently, one must delve back into ancient Christian concepts of the demonic body. Readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear that early Christians, despite their general agreement regarding the existence of demons, often disagreed regarding demons’ physical appearance and substance. On the one hand, several early Christian texts portray demons as disembodied entities. This is likely due to the notion, found especially in Second Temple Jewish texts, that evil demons are the lingering souls of monstrous giants who were destroyed in Noah’s flood. Thus, demons are, by definition, entities deprived of a body as part of the punishment for their primordial iniquity. On the other hand, other early Christian writers, including Clement, frequently portray demons as possessing some form of autonomous, if subtle, corporeality. We see this especially in the writings of early Christian apologists, who claim that demons possess a “pneumatic” or “airy” body that, while invisible to the human eye, is nonetheless corporeal in its own right.
Why did Christians disagree so thoroughly on this matter? My dissertation seeks to show that early Christian discordance over demonic bodies is intimately connected to related divergences concerning the makeup of the Christian (human) body. Namely, I argue that early Christian disagreements over demonic corporeality simultaneously reflect and reproduce associated Christian dissimilarities regarding the nature and performance of proper Christian embodiment.
The dissertation consists of two parts, each comprising two chapters. Part I examines early Christian traditions regarding “bodiless” demons. In Chapter 1, I focus on traditions of demonic possession and exorcism in the texts and reception histories of the New Testament gospels. I note that, as mentioned previously, the gospels collectively assume the disembodied nature of demons, in part informed by ancient Jewish traditions wherein demons are in fact the residual souls of antediluvian giants. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that the primary activity of demons within several early Christian texts is the usurpation of human bodies. Contrasted with the disembodiment of the demons is the potent corporeality of the Christian exorcist, beginning with Jesus of Nazareth and extending to depictions of his followers in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
In Chapter 2, I turn to another tradition of “bodiless” demons, found in the Letter to the Smyrnaeans, a text written by the 2nd century church father Ignatius of Antioch. The letter attempts to counter the idea, popular among some Christians, that Jesus only “seemed” to have a body during his earthly ministry. Ignatius claims that any Christian who believes in such a phantasmal Jesus will be “just like what they believe,” that is, they will be “bodiless and demonic.” Furthermore, Ignatius condemns his opponents to a “bodiless” and “demonic” afterlife. Ignatius is here countering a belief, found in certain Christian sources, that anticipates liberation from a fleshly body and the enjoyment of an unencumbered spiritual afterlife. The Antiochean bishop twists this eschatology into a sardonic parody: these Christians will not become benevolent spiritual beings, but evil demons! Ignatius insists that to avoid this unsavory end, his readers must recognize the “fleshly” reality of Jesus’ body by participating in the Eucharist, which, he claims, represents the “flesh and spirit” of Christ.
In Part II, I examine early Christian constructions of demonic corporeality that, unlike those traditions in the canonical gospels and letters of Ignatius, emphasize demons’ possession of subtly material bodies. In Chapter 3, I explore the function and interpretation of Paul’s exhortation to his readers in 1 Corinthians that they not mix the “body of the Lord” with the “table of demons” by participating in both the Christian Eucharist and the traditional Hellenic animal sacrifice. Paul’s statement itself, which draws on a long line of Jewish condemnation of non-Jewish sacrifice, implies that demons possessed some form of body that was nourished by the meat offerings of animal sacrifice. Later interpreters of 1 Corinthians, including Clement of Alexandria, build on Paul’s rhetoric by portraying the demonic body as one that has become “fattened” and grotesque due to its excess consumption of sacrificial fumes. Clement contrasts the demons’ corpulence with his construal of the ideal Christian body: chaste, thin, and constantly engaged in ritual contemplative practices designed to “strip away” the material body.
In the fourth chapter, I explore the entwining of demonic and Christian bodies in the writings of Tertullian of Carthage. In his On the Soul, Tertullian emphasizes the pervasive attachment of demonic spirits to the human soul that stems from inadvertent participation in demonolatry via Roman “religious” rites (i.e., worship of the Roman gods, or participation in any activities that are associated with certain deities). The only method by which Roman citizens can remove their attendant demonic spirit is through Christian baptism, a rite that Tertullian views as essential in the creation of a new, demon-free Christian body. The only way to ensure the endurance of one’s Christian corporeality, Tertullian argues, is by maintaining Christian habits in daily life and eschewing all activities infected by Roman demonolatry.
As can be seen by this brief overview, early Christians depicted the demonic body in widely divergent ways. Whether disembodied or corporeal, fattened or ethereal, depictions of demonic corporeality were as diverse as the Christians who articulated them. And yet, a consistent feature of early Christian demonologies is the way in which demonic bodies are connected with their human counterparts. On the one hand, demons served Christian writers well in articulating ideal visions of the Christian body – Ignatius’ “bodiless” demons help him articulate positive understandings of human “flesh,” while Clement’s gluttonous demons helped him make the case for more restrained diets among his readers. Thus my research shows how early Christian demonology can be enlightening not only for what ancient thinkers said about demons, but how they understood other aspects of the human experience and culture.
As an additional point, my work stresses that ideas regarding demons did not remain “merely” ideas (if there is such a thing) – rather, they formed important rationales and explanations for various early Christian rituals (e.g., exorcism, baptism, and the Eucharist). In this way, ideas regarding demonic bodies had material effects on how Christians carried out their faith.
Finally, with its attention to nonhuman entities, my project strives to situate the human body as one entity amidst a complex ecosystem of assorted things and organisms. For many ancient Christians, the human body did not exist in a discrete realm separate from and superior to “nature.” Rather, there existed only a fluid and permeable boundary between the tenuous materiality of the human body and its adjacent environments. In better appreciating this aspect of Christian embodiment and the Christian cosmos, we might not only come to a better understanding of Clement’s disdain for meat, but begin to consider how our own bodies are themselves part of the many environments that make up our world.
He gets extra points for using “comprising” properly.
I found your article intriguing. So much so that I went to order your book online. My wife was looking over my shoulder as I did so and said “If you are going to pay that much for a book, you must be possessed!” Oh well, I guess I was because I ordered it. Sometimes the price for knowledge is corpulent.
Thanks for your support! And I know, the book is a bit pricey, and I sure wish more of that made its way to the author. But hope you enjoy the read!
Clement had a number of unusual (to us) beliefs, such as reincarnation, that in Genesis angels had sex with human women, and that Eve was created from Adam’s body after he ejaculated during the night. Were these beliefs and his views on meat-eating obscure, or the majority opinion in early Christianity?
Great question. Clement indeed did have some distinctive views. I think some of his views were more widely held during his time – e.g., it was common during the 2nd century for Christians to hold that (fallen) angels had engaged in sexual intercourse with women (usually this was supported through reference to Genesis 6 and/or Enochic writings), though this would fall out of favor among later Christian thinkers. Regarding meat-eating, we do find other Christian sources that espouse vegetarianism – Andrew McGowan and Colin Spencer are two scholars who have charted these views – and a few do make the connection between meat and demons. Origen of Alexandria and the apocryphal Acts of Andrew, for example, held that the sacrifice of animal meat as part of Greco-Roman religious ceremonies help give “sustenance” to demons, thus implying a connection between meat and demonic “food.” One of the most interesting things I found is that these ideas are paralleled in the writings of the non-Christian neo-Platonist Porphyry of Tyre – similar to Clement, he argues that demons feed on the fumes of sacrifices, and thus corrupt any meat that is associated with these rites.
How did first century Jews view demons in comparison to first century followers of Jesus?
Since Jesus and his earliest followers were themselves Jews, I don’t think there was any wide-ranging difference in demonologies between the two. That said, there certainly was diversity in beliefs regarding demons among ancient Jews – Philo of Alexandria, for example, held views on demons and fallen angels that differed from what we see elsewhere among ancient Jewish writings. But the first chapter of my book makes the case that the demonology of the Gospel of Mark, which emerged when Christians were still seen as sect of Judaism, is best understood within the broader demonologies of Second Temple Judaism.
As a doctor it seems to me that the demon possessions cited in the Gospels sound like neuropsychiatric disorders. I have no doubt that ancient people saw seizures or psychotic behavior and assumed demon possession. My question: Do you think the Gospels portray Jesus as an exorcist because he actually tried to exorcise such people, or do you think such stories were developed as a result of the kind of theological tussles you describe in your article?
Many historians have made the connection between contemporary diagnoses of mental disorders and what are described as demonic possessions in the gospels. Interestingly, the debate about such diagnoses was also an ancient one – we have ancient Hippocratic treatises, for example, that criticize other thinkers for mistaking medical ailments for religious ones (though even these treatises don’t necessarily get the diagnosis “right” by modern standards). Regarding Jesus’s role as exorcist – I think the best we can say is that some of Jesus’s earliest followers definitely believed he was an exorcist, and likely even during his lifetime. This idea is consistently present in our earliest gospels, and it was a common understanding among ancient Jews that messianic or prophetic figures would have the miraculous ability to defeat evil – so it is plausible that if Jesus or his followers believed he was a special messianic/prophetic figure, they would also believe in his exorcistic power.
Great post! As someone very interested in what demons meant to people of early Christianity this is really informative. Since Christians lumped pagan gods into the evil demons category, did they think Roman gods as the same type of entities as Jesus was casting out? eg. was Artemis a disembodied evil giant? Were there demon categories, or was the entire demon world more of a vague expression of any spiritual power that isn’t explicitly Christian/Jewish?
Christians are a bit inconsistent on whether they explicitly connect the Greco-Roman gods with the spirits of the giants. Athenagoras of Athens, a second-century apologist whom I discuss in Chapter Four (“Belly-Demons”) of the book, does directly say that the “pagan” gods are one and the same with the surviving souls of the giants from the time of Noah. Other Christians aren’t as direct – Justin Martyr (Chapter Three), for example, clearly holds to a version of the Enochic myth regarding fallen angels, and argues that this was the origin for the “pagan” gods, but does not explicitly mention the giants. In the the periods that I study (second and third centuries), the demon world is a bit more “vague”, as you put it, when it comes to these details. We get fuller expressions of demon categories and more extensive treatment of demonic origins in later Christian writings, such as those found among late antique monastic writers.
This is fascinating material.
I hadn’t previously been aware of a Second Temple era Jewish tradition that “evil demons are the lingering souls of monstrous giants who were destroyed in Noah’s flood.” Can you suggest where I might learn more about that?
Thanks.
The primary source for this is the book of 1 Enoch, which narrates a primordial “fall of the angels” – according to 1 Enoch, angels were tempted by mortal women, came to the earth and had illicit relations with those women, and gave birth to gigantic offspring (gigantic likely because these children were an illicit combination of mortal flesh and semi-divine spirit). According to 1 Enoch, these fallen angels and giants wreaked so much havoc and helped introduce so much evil that God decided to wipe out the earth through the flood of Noah. Evil spirits or “demons” come into the picture after the flood – according to 1 Enoch, the giants drowned in the flood, but their spirits departed their drowned bodies and lives on as “evil spirits.”
For secondary sources, Chapter One of my book gives full coverage of the demonology of Second Temple Judaism and its relation to the Gospel of Mark, so that might be a good place to start. I would also recommend the work of Annette Reed – her book Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity provides the definitive book-length treatment of the issue.
Excellent! Glad I dropped in after several months away.
It’s curious that antediluvian giant souls were able to flit about as menacing spirits while Jewish concepts of afterlife excluded souls until Hellenizing concepts crept in to Christian ideas. I always liked the translational choices and borrowing of semantics with “daimon” or, say, “Lucifer,” that found their way into the Greek and Latin Christian texts and that then became the predominant sense of the terms as we use them now.
The final paragraph concerning a holism of person, society, and organism is also a shared trait with many of the pagan traditions around the early Christians–and predating them. I don’t think this is a case of borrowing, however, but just the general character of ancient societies. It’s only our later classificatory/explanatory frameworks that began to build more distinct boundaries between us and our environments.
Great points here. One of the things I like to talk about with my students has to do with the origins of terms like “daimon,” and how the use of the term can be so different depending upon which type of Greek text you’re reading. One point my research makes is that while Christians certainly change the positive/negative valence of “daimon” (following Greek-speaking Second Temple Jews), they nonetheless still do pick up other ideas regarding “daimons” that they share with non-Christian writers – e.g., the association of demons with dead spirits (we see this in Clement of Alexandria alongside many Greco-Roman writers). So Christians both align with and diverge from broader Greco-Roman traditions regarding demons/daimons.
“Travis Proctor’s Demonic Bodies is a fascinating and original work, one that will be of interest to many scholars of early Christian ideas on demons and the body. Its sophisticated analysis of numerous early Christian texts using the lens of disability, ecological, and post-humanist studies makes an important contribution to the field. His overarching argument that regardless of whether ancient thinkers argued for the incorporeality/immateriality of demons or for their embodiment, the development of their arguments were inseparable from their development of early Christian anthropologies is a compelling one.” — Heidi Marx, Professor, University of Manitoba
Steve Campbell, Author of Historical Accuracy:
“Or the embodiment of demons” — beyond mere personifications of deviance, do demons exist?
Angels “report to” God. Do demons report to Satan or some other entity and does Satan or this entity exist?
In the Bible, Jesus was tempted by Satan. That could have been merely the personification of temptation.
Peter, for a moment, was Satan, a personification of the adversarial “don’t harm yourself.”
So, “evil” thoughts in consciousness are writ large as having personhood; holy positive thinking can be writ large as the Holy Spirit.
“Christian authors constructed the bodies that inhabited their cosmos–human, demon, and otherwise.”
To inhabit means to exist.
I think that *eventually* within Christian thought demons do come to be something like “metaphors” or “personifications” for deviance or interior sins. But among earlier Christian authors, such as the ones I cover in my book, they did hold to a rather “literal” sense of demons existing autonomously – with their own bodies, personalities, etc. This slowly shifted, due largely to the influence of monastic writers in late antiquity, who “interiorized” the demonic to align with the interior struggle of the monk.
Thank you.
I like the explanation of demons as metaphors. It’s a lot easier to comprehend.
I am having a discussion with some one regarding the NT and is knowledgable in Greek . Is there a more accurate greek translation for the word ‘generation’ as used in Matthew 24:34. Could you also give me a few names of Biblical scholars who understand the Xtian scriptures and early Xtianity in the same light you do?
Good question. I haven’t researched the specific translation history of Matt 24:34; the translations I know use “generation”, though of course this term is sometimes debated because of its implications for Jesus’s expectations regarding the apocalypse. I would recommend consulting some of the commentaries on Matthew (two academic-oriented commentary series are Hermeneia and the Yale Anchor Bible series) to see if they devote extended time to the meaning and background of this word/phrase.
As for recommendations for other scholars that similarly approach Christian scriptures and early Christianity: there are so many! It all just depends on which area you’re thinking of. One good place to start would be Bart’s book Lost Christianities – the notes and bibliography for that book would be a good place to start identifying other authors/books that take similar approaches.
Regarding your reference to “the writings of early Christian apologists, who claim that demons possess a ‘pneumatic’ or ‘airy’ body” that is “invisible to the human eye,” would there be any evidence from ancient sources to suggest whether such ancient demonic experiences were akin to: (1) the perception one has of an unseen threat due to panic/anxiety; or (2) a delusion/hallucination due to psychosis?
I don’t know of any ancient sources who would characterize visions of demons in quite those terms. However, there are some ancient accounts that try to provide alternative explanations for what were otherwise explained via demons – e.g., the Hippocratic treatise The Sacred Disease argues that what looks like demonic (or divine) “attacks” are actually just medical ailments brought about by environmental conditions; the satirist Lucian of Samosata also seems to think of demonic possession as some kind of delusion, as he tells mocking stories of visions of deceased spirits as well as satirical parodies of supposed “exorcists.” So, I do think that there was some skepticism in the ancient world regarding demons, at least among certain thinkers/writers.
Is there a difference between demonic possession and severe mental illness today?
My research mostly looks at ancient Christian perspectives on this issue, but modern Christian views of possession’s relation to illness are very diverse. Some Christians do not believe in the reality of demonic possession, and so would diagnose these ailments using the insights of modern medicine; other Christian groups reject modern medicine completely, relying instead on “faith healing” (which often includes elements of exorcism to treat what they view as demonic possession). Other Christian groups combine both or alternate between these approaches, depending on the situation.
A very broad church indeed!
Fascinating! I believe this ancient Christian approach is still organically present in the modern Eastern Orthodox Christian worldview (implicitly if not always explicitly). I’ve actually been listening to a podcast where that connection between the antediluvian giants and the demons has been referenced (such as in regards to the demoniac possessed by “Legion”). Regarding the book: wow, even the Kindle version is pricey! I wonder why it’s so high and why you aren’t able to reap the benefits? My regrets!
That’s a really fascinating connection with contemporary Christian worldviews – thanks for sharing! And yes, I know – the book is rather pricey. Many academic books such as this one are priced more for purchase by university libraries (who have larger book budgets than you or I). For the author, the reward isn’t really in the proceeds (which are rather small), but in the academic merit that a published book can garner – e.g., in helping to secure tenure, promotion, etc.
this then would imply that clement would agree that eatting meat possessed by demons would defile, so things from outside can cause corruption to the human body.
15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”
not true, clement says :demonic corruption.
I think you’ve picked up on an important tension within the Christian tradition, largely created by variant readings between the passage you mention from the Gospels and the tradition from Paul regarding “idol meat” (see 1 Corinthians 8 and 10). While Paul didn’t seem that concerned with literal “corruption” whenever a Christian ate food that had been sacrificed to idols – he seemed more concerned about power dynamics and discord among the Corinthians – his later readers began to take him quite literally, thinking that Paul was meaning to say that anyone who ate food sacrificed to non-Christian gods was inviting literal corruption by demonic beings. This reading of Paul seemed to take precedence, at least among some Christian readers, over the Gospel passages regarding cleanliness being unrelated to outside corruption.
Can you read Coptic?
Yes, anyone who studies early Christianity and the ancient world must learn several ancient languages to be able to read their sources in the original form. My main research languages are Greek and Latin, but I also know Coptic so that I can study the Nag Hammadi treatises (e.g., the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter, which I discuss in Chapter Two of the book).
Very timely post as I am beginning work on developing a master’s thesis in religious studies, and just within the past couple days I started thinking about a possibly developing a topic regarding how the apocalypticism of Jesus (as extended through the time of Paul and then the writing of the synoptic gospels) is reflected in the roles of Satan and demons vis a vis Jesus and the imminent arrival of the kingdom.
I don’t know if Travis agrees with Bart’s view of the apocalyptic Jesus but I find that when I read the NT through that particular lens, that the way Satan and demons are portrayed seems very much as if they are in the transition period involving their last hooray before the kingdom fully arrives. Indeed, I find it difficult to read the NT treatment of Satan and demons in any way other than apocalyptic.
Thanks, I’m buying Travis’ book right now.
Glad you found my write-up helpful, Miles, and thanks for buying the book! I think you’re absolutely right that the Gospel portrayals of demons and Satan should be read through an apocalyptic lens (I agree with Bart’s view of Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher). In chapter 1 I discuss the apocalyptic views of demons in detail – there you’ll find references to many other books and articles that have advanced this hypothesis, which I’m sure you’ll find useful as you develop your own thesis. Good luck with your studies!
You note that Travis Proctor was one of your students and so presumably you supervised his dissertation and perhaps were even involved in his viva. If this was the case how do you go about the task of overseeing and then ‘marking’ such a dissertation? I always understood that a PhD dissertation has to present a unique thesis and new knowledge. If that is the case how do you keep abreast of this innovative point of view being presented by, I assume, at that point in time, the leading expert on the subject? Is it simply a matter of ensuring that the information that is being presented is justifiable and logical? Surely you cannot know the subject as well as the candidate given that he has been focused on it for so long.
I won’t pretend to speak for Bart here (he’s the one doing the advising!), but I’ll say that in my experience advisors are expected to have a pretty wide-ranging knowledge of their broader field (in this case, early Christianity and the Bible) such that they can judge the quality of new work produced in that field, even if it’s not within their narrow areas of expertise. So even though Bart hasn’t extensively researched demons specifically, he can advise and critique regarding my use of sources, interpretations of various passages or narratives, whether or not I convincingly make my case in comparison to other approaches, etc. Also, dissertation committees will sometimes invite an “external” reader who is more of an expert on the specific topic to help advise in those areas – in my case, I was lucky to have Annette Yoshiko Reed (formerly of New York University, now at Harvard), who is an expert in ancient Jewish and Christian demonology, serve as a reader on my committee.
We are fortunate — as is every grad program in our field — to have committees that examine the dissertation, five scholars with relevant expertise. There need to be three from our department, and the other two can be from Duke or elsewhere. If we don’t have any real experts on the precise topic (we often have one or more), between the five of us we cover most of the waterfront. Durign the writing process the candidate can consult anyone on the committee for direction (or anyone else, for that matter…). So it usually works out well. Some dissertations are furhter removed from my wheelhouse than others, and that’s often true for other advisors as well.
Travis, on the matter of demons. It seems to me that early Judahites and Israelites were Henotheistic and that over time, especially after the exile, they rebranded their ideas about lesser gods and subordinate deities for an angels/demons model. Ba’al Zebul/Beelzebub etc. What do you think?