Chapter IV. That the Prophetic and Oracular Shrines Among the Heathen Belonged to Evil Daemons

[PLUTARCH] ‘Now though they are right who say that Plato, by his discovery of the element which underlies the qualities generated (which element they call matter), released the philosophers from many great difficulties: yet to me it seems that those men solved more and greater difficulties, who set the race of daemons midway between gods and men, and discovered that it, in a manner, brings together and unites our society with them; whether this doctrine comes from the Magi and Zoroaster, or is Thracian and derived from Orpheus, or Egyptian, or Phrygian, as we conjecture from seeing that with the initiations in both regions there are mingled many symbols of mortality and mourning in the orgiastic performance of their sacred rites. Among the Greeks Homer is seen to make use of both the names indifferently, and occasionally to call the gods daemons. But Hesiod is the first who plainly and definitely set forth four races of rational beings----gods, then daemons, then heroes, and, last of all, men: he seems, however, to make a change from this order, so that the men of the golden age are set. apart as a numerous class of good daemons, and the demi-gods as heroes.’

Then he says next:

‘But upon these matters it is not necessary for us to dispute with Demetrius: for whether the time be more or be less, whether it be fixed or indefinite, in which the soul of a daemon and the life of a hero undergo change, it will none the less be proved, in the judgement of whomsoever he chooses, by the testimony of wise men of old, that there are certain natures on the confines, as it were, between gods and men, susceptible of mortal influences and involuntary changes, whom it is right for us, according to the custom of our fathers, to regard and address as “daemons,” and to hold in reverence.’

To this, after other matters, he adds:

‘It seems to me to be no unreasonable postulate that those who preside over the oracles are not gods, who ought rightly to be kept clear from matters pertaining to earth, but daemons in the service of gods. But to take as it were a handful out of the verses of Empedocles, and charge these daemons with sins, and infatuations, and heaven-sent wanderings, and to imagine them dying deaths like men, I consider too bold and barbaric.’ [1]

Again he adds to what has been quoted the following:

‘For in daemons also, as in men, there are degrees of virtue; some having but a feeble and obscure remnant, a sort of residue, of the part subject to passion and destitute of reason, while in others this part is large and hard to be extinguished; and traces and symbols of this are in many places preserved by sacrifices and initiations and mythologies, and retained in scattered fragments. Now with respect to the Mysteries, in which we might obtain the, chief indications and elucidations of the truth concerning daemons, ‘I must keep a religious silence,’ as Herodotus says: but as to festivals and sacrifices, as well as days of ill omen mourning, on which the eating of raw flesh and the rending of victims, and fasting and beating of the breast are practised, and again in many places obscene language at the temples, “and other frantic excitements with tumult and tossing of the head,” these, I should say, are performed not in honour of any god, but as propitiatory offerings for the sake of averting evil daemons. And it is neither credible that gods demanded or accepted the human sacrifices offered of old, nor, without cause, would kings and generals have submitted to them by giving up their sons and devoting and sacrificing them; but they were trying to avert and to satisfy the anger and sullenness of harsh and stubborn powers of vengeance, or the furious lusts of some, who were neither able nor willing to have intercourse of bodies with bodies. But just as Heracles besieged Oechalia for the sake of a maiden, so oftentimes strong and violent daemons, demanding a human soul that is enveloped in a body, . . . bring pestilences upon cities and barrenness of the soil, and stir up wars and seditions, until they succeed in obtaining the object of their desire.’ [2]

Hereby the philosopher before mentioned clearly proved that the sacrifices described above were offered in honour of evil daemons in all the cities. Or even if among these there were, as they say, some who were by nature good, or even gods, what need was there to offer worship to the bad, when they ought to have been driven away by the good?

For if indeed they had some good champions, surely it was right to have confidence in these without caring at all for the worse kind, and to turn away the adverse powers by modest words and prayers, not by obscene language.

But when they did nothing of this kind, but tried to make supplication to the evil daemons by a foul and licentious life and unseemly words, and by feeding on raw flesh, and rending victims asunder, and by human sacrifices, how was it even possible that doing such deeds, and pursuing practices pleasing to the wicked, they should be received as friends by the Supreme God, or by the divine Powers subject to Him, or by any good beings at all?

But in fact it is. manifest to all that he who practises the things that are dear to the wicked can never be a friend of the good. So then it was not to gods, nor yet to good daemons, but only to the wicked, that those of whom I have spoken paid worship.

And this argument is still further confirmed by Plutarch, in the passage where he says that the mythical narratives told as concerning gods are certain tales about daemons, and the deeds of Giants and Titans celebrated in song among the Greeks are also stories about daemons, intended to suggest a new phase of thought.

Of this kind then perhaps were the statements in the Sacred Scripture concerning the giants before the Mood, and those concerning their progenitors, of whom it is said, ‘And when the angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, they took unto them wives of all that they chose,’ and of these were born ‘the giants the men of renown which were of old.’

For one might say that these daemons are those giants, and that their spirits have been deified by the subsequent generations of men, and that their battles, and their quarrels among themselves, and their wars are the subjects of these legends that are told as of gods. Plutarch indeed, in the discourse which he composed On Isis and the gods of the Egyptians,speaks as follows word for word: [3]