Daimon
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TheAncient Greek:δαίμων,spelleddaimonordaemon(meaning "god", "godlike", "power", "fate" ),[1][2]originally referred to a lesserdeityor guiding spirit such as the daimons ofancient Greek religionandmythologyand of laterHellenistic religionandphilosophy.[3] The word is derived fromProto-Indo-Europeandaimon"provider, divider (of fortunes or destinies)," from the root*da-"to divide".[4]Daimons were possibly seen as thesouls of menof thegolden age,tutelary deities,or the forces of fate.[5]See alsodaimonic:a religious, philosophical, literary and psychological concept.
Description
[edit]Daimons are lesserdivinitiesor spirits, oftenpersonificationsofabstractconcepts, beings of the same nature as both mortals and deities, similar toghosts,chthonicheroes,spirit guides,forces of nature, or the deities themselves (see Plato'sSymposium). According to Hesiod's myth, "great and powerful figures were to be honoured after death as a daimon…"[6]A daimon is not so much a type of quasi-divine being, according to Burkert, but rather a non-personified "peculiar mode" of their activity.[citation needed]
InHesiod'sTheogony,Phaëtonbecomes an incorporealdaimonor a divine spirit,[7]but, for example, the ills released byPandoraare deadly deities,keres,notdaimones.[6]From Hesiod also, the people of theGolden Agewere transformed intodaimonesby the will ofZeus,to serve mortals benevolently as their guardian spirits; "good beings who dispense riches…[nevertheless], they remain invisible, known only by their acts".[8]Thedaimonesof veneratedheroeswere localized by the construction of shrines, so as not to wander restlessly, and were believed to confer protection and good fortune on those offering their respects.[6]
One tradition of Greek thought, which found agreement in the mind ofPlato,was of a daimon which existed within a person from their birth, and that each individual was obtained by a singular daimon prior to their birthby way of lot.[6]
In theOld Testament,evil spirits appear in the book ofJudgesand inKings.In theSeptuagint,made for the Greek-speaking Jews ofAlexandria,the Greekángelos(ἄγγελος,"messenger" ) translates the Hebrew wordmal'akh,whiledaimónion(δαιμόνιον;pl.daimónia(δαιμόνια)), which carries the meaning of a natural spirit[citation needed]that is less than divine (seesupernatural), translates the Hebrew wordshedim(שֵׁדִים;singular:שֵׁד) as well as the wordse'irim(שעירים) in some verses and words foridols(foreign deities), and describes the beingAsmodeusin theBook of Tobit.[9]The use ofdaimōnin theNew Testament's original Greek text caused the Greek word to be applied to the Judeo-Christian concept of an evil spirit by the early second century AD.
In mythology and philosophy
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Homer's use of the wordstheoí(θεοί,"gods" ) anddaímones(δαίμονες) suggests that, while distinct, they are similar in kind.[10]Later writers developed the distinction between the two.[11]Plato inCratylus[12]speculates that the worddaimōn(δαίμων,"deity" ) is synonymous todaēmōn(δαήμων,"knowing or wise" );[13]however, it is more probablydaiō(δαίω,"to divide, to distribute destinies, to allot" ).[14]
Socrates
[edit]In Plato'sSymposium,the priestessDiotimateachesSocratesthat love is not a deity, but rather a "great daimōn" (202d). She goes on to explain that "everything daimōnion is between divine and mortal" (202d–e), and she describes daimōns as "interpreting and transporting human things to the gods and divine things to men; entreaties and sacrifices from below, and ordinances and requitals from above..." (202e). In Plato'sApology of Socrates,Socrates claimed to have adaimōnion(literally, a "divine something" )[15]that frequently warned him—in the form of a "voice" —against mistakes but never told him what to do.[16]The Platonic Socrates, however, never refers to thedaimonionas adaimōn;it was always referred to as an impersonal "something" or "sign".[17]By this term he seems to indicate the true nature of the humansoul,his newfoundself-consciousness.[18]Paul Shoreysees thedaimonionnot as an inspiration but as "a kind ofspiritual tactchecking Socrates from any act opposed to his true moral and intellectual interests. "[19]
Regarding the charge brought against Socrates in 399, Plato surmised "Socrates does wrong because he does not believe in the gods in whom the city believes, but introduces other daemonic beings..." Burkert notes that "a special being watches over each individual, adaimōnwho has obtained the person at his birth by lot, is an idea which we find in Plato, undoubtedly from earlier tradition. The famous, paradoxical saying ofHeraclitusis already directed against such a view: 'character is for man his daimon'".[6]
Categories
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TheHellenisticGreeks divided daemons into good and evil categories:agathodaímōn(ἀγαθοδαίμων,"noble spirit" ), fromagathós(ἀγαθός,"good, brave, noble, moral, lucky, useful" ), andkakodaímōn(κακοδαίμων,"malevolent spirit"), fromkakós(κακός,"bad, evil" ). They resemble the Arabicjinni(orgenie), and in their humble efforts to help mediate the good and ill fortunes of human life, they resemble the Christianguardian angeland adversarialdemon,respectively.Eudaimonia(εὐδαιμονία) came to mean "well-being" or "happiness". The comparable Roman concept is thegeniuswho accompanies and protects a person or presides over a place (seegenius loci).
A distorted view ofHomer's daemon results from an anachronistic reading in light of later characterizations byPlatoandXenocrates,his successor as head of theAcademy,of the daemon as a potentially dangerous lesser spirit:[6][20]Burkert states that in theSymposium,Plato has "laid the foundation" that would make it all but impossible to imagine thedaimonin any other way withEros,who is neither god nor mortal but a mediator in between, and his metaphysical doctrine of an
incorporeal, pure actuality,energeia... identical to its performance: ‘thinking of thinking’,noesis noeseosis the most blessed existence, the highest origin of everything. ‘This is the god. On such a principle heaven depends, and the cosmos.’ The highest, the best is one; but for the movement of the planets a plurality ofunmoved moversmust further be assumed.
In the monotheism of the mind, philosophical speculation has reached an end-point. That even this is a self-projection of a human, of the thinking philosopher, was not reflected on in ancient philosophy. In Plato there is an incipient tendency toward theapotheosisofnous.... He needs a closeness and availability of the divine that is offered neither by the stars nor by metaphysical principles. Here a name emerged to fill the gap, a name which had always designated the incomprehensible yet present activity of a higher power,daimon.[6]
Daemons scarcely figure inGreek mythologyorGreek art:they are felt, but their unseen presence can only be presumed,[citation needed]with the exception of theagathodaemon,honored first with alibationin ceremonial wine-drinking, especially at the sanctuary ofDionysus,and represented iniconographyby thechthonicserpent. Burkert suggests that, for Plato, theology rests on twoForms:the Good and the Simple; which "Xenocrates unequivocally called the unity god" in sharp contrast to the poet's gods of epic and tragedy.[6]Although much like the deities, these figures were not always depicted without considerable moral ambiguity:
On this account, the other traditional notion of the daemon as related to the souls of the dead is elided in favour of a spatial scenario which evidently also graduated in moral terms; though [Plato] says nothing of that here, it is a necessary inference from her account, just as Eros is midway between deficiency and plenitude.... Indeed, Xenocrates... explicitly understooddaemonesas ranged along a scale from good to bad.... [Plutarch] speaks of ‘great and strong beings in the atmosphere, malevolent and morose, who rejoice in [unlucky days, religious festivals involving violence against the self, etc.], and after gaining them as their lot, they turn to nothing worse.’... The use of such malign daemones by human beings seems not to be even remotely imagined here: Xenocrates' intention was to provide an explanation for the sheer variety of polytheistic religious worship; but it is the potential for moral discrimination offered by the notion ofdaemoneswhich later... became one further means of conceptualizing what distinguishes dominated practice from civic religion, and furthering the transformation of that practice into intentional profanation... Quite when the point was first made remains unanswerable. Much the same thought as [Plato's] is to be found in an explicitly Pythagorean context of probably late Hellenistic composition, thePythagorean Commentaries,which evidently draws on older popular representations: ‘The whole air is full of souls. We call themdaemonesand heroes, and it is they who send dreams, signs and illnesses to men; and not only men, but also to sheep and other domestic animals. It is towards thesedaemonesthat we direct purifications andapotropaic rites,all kinds of divination, the art of reading chance utterances, and so on.’... This account differs from that of the early Academy in reaching back to the other, Archaic, view ofdaemonesas souls, and thus anticipates the views of Plutarch and Apuleius in the Principate... It clearly implies thatdaemonescan cause illness to livestock: this traditional dominated view has now reached the intellectuals.[21]
In theArchaicor earlyClassicalperiod, thedaimonhad been democratized and internalized for each person, whom it served to guide, motivate, and inspire, as one possessed of such good spirits.[citation needed]Similarly, the first-century Romanimperial cultbegan by venerating thegeniusornumenofAugustus,a distinction that blurred in time.
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^A. Delahunty,From Bonbon to Cha-cha: Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases(p. 90),Oxford University Press, 2008ISBN0199543690
- ^J. Cresswell,Little Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins(p. 146),Oxford University Press, 2014.
- ^daimōn"δαίμων".A Greek–English Lexicon.
- ^"Demon",Etymology Online
- ^2323243Perseus Digital LibraryConsulted 2017-05-05
- ^abcdefghBurkert, Walter (1985).Greek Religion.Harvard University Press. pp.179–181, 317, 331, 335.ISBN978-0-674-36281-9.LCCN84025209.
- ^"ποιήσατο, δαίμονα δῖον"; Hesiod,Theogony991.
- ^Hesiod,Works and Days122-26.
- ^Trimpi, Helen P (1973). "Demonology". In Wiener, Philip P (ed.).Dictionary of the History of Ideas.Scribner.ISBN0-684-13293-1.Retrieved2009-12-02.
- ^As par example inHom. Il. 1.222:ἣ δ᾽ Οὔλυμπον δὲ βεβήκει δώματ᾽ ἐς αἰγιόχοιο Διὸς μετὰ δαίμονας ἄλλους:"Then she went back to Olympus among the other gods [daimones]".
- ^p. 115,John Burnet,Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito,Clarendon 1924.
- ^"Because they were wise and knowing (δαήμονες) he called them spirits (δαίμονες) and in the old form of our language the two words are the same "– Cratylus398 b
- ^EntryδαήμωνatLSJ
- ^"daimōn"Archived2011-08-07 at theWayback Machine,inLiddell, HenryandRobert Scott.1996.A Greek-English Lexicon.
- ^Plato,Apology31c–d, 40a; p. 16, Burnet,Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito.
- ^pp. 16–17, Burnet,Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito;pp. 99–100, M. Joyal, "To Daimonionand the Socratic Problem ",Apeironvol. 38 no. 2, 2005.
- ^p. 16, Burnet,Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito;p. 63, P. Destrée, "TheDaimonionand the Philosophical Mission ",Apeironvol. 38 no. 2, 2005.
- ^Paolo De Bernardi,Socrate, il demone e il risveglio,from "Sapienza", no. 45, ESD, Naples 1992, pp. 425–43.
- ^The Republic,volume 2, p. 52, note, italics added.
- ^Samuel E. Bassett, "ΔΑΙΜΩΝ in Homer"The Classical Review33.7/8 (November 1919), pp. 134-136, correcting an interpretation in Finsler,Homer1914; the subject was taken up again by F.A. Wilford, "DAIMON in Homer"Numen12(1965) pp. 217–32.
- ^Ankarloo, Bengt; Clark, Stuart (1999).Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome.Vol. 2. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 226.ISBN978-0-8122-1705-6.LCCN99002682.
External links
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- Maureen A. Tilley, "Exorcism in North Africa: Localizing the (Un)holy"explores the meanings ofdaimonamong Christians in RomanAfricaand exorcism practices that passed seamlessly into Christian ritual.
- Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol V:Cyprian, "On the Vanity of Idols" e-text Daemons inhabiting the images of gods
- Abstract Personifications (a list of daimones of Greek mythology)