Why do we hear so little about demons in Christianity today?
The Bible is full of demons, but only in the newer part. What are demons, where did they come from, and why did they disappear again?
The story of Jesus walking on water and calming the storm is well known. Less well known is that when Jesus came ashore, he encountered two possessed men and cast the demons out of them. Matthew 8:28-32.(Detail from the painting The Two Men Possessed with Devils, painted by J.J. Tissot, around 1886 / Brooklyn Museum)
Yet demons appear as early as the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament: '“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.'
So where did the demons that Jesus cast out of people come from?
From many gods to one God
To answe that, we need to go back to the origins of Yahweh, the deity now known as God.
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He was originally one of several gods worshipped by the peoples of Israel and Judah. When the two kingdoms were occupied and the people were forced to flee around 600–700 BCE, Yahweh became an increasingly important god.
"In many older texts in the Hebrew Bible, known as the Old Testament, the authors acknowledged that other gods existed, but claimed that their God was stronger and better," says Justin David Strong. He is a professor at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society
Eventually, Yahweh became the only God – responsible for everything that happened.
"In the Old Testament, it is God who gives life and death and punishes people with illness if they sin," says Magnar Kartveit. He is professor emeritus at VID Specialized University.
Magnar Kartveit is a professor of the Old Testament.(Photo: Jeanette Larsen)
God’s own evil spirits
At times, God used evil spirits against people, as in 1 Samuel 16:14: 'Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evilspirit from the Lord tormented him.'
"These forces were not independent beings with willd of their own, but carried out God’s will," says Strong.
In modern versions of the Bible, demons are often referred to as evil or impure spirits.
The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic over several centuries, up until around 100 BCE.
Then came what is known as the silent years – the time between the Old and New Testaments.
But it was far from silent in the Middle East.
Greek demons
This is when Alexander the Great entered the scene.
Alexander the Great brought Greek demons to the Middle East.(Sculpture: British Museum / Public Domain)
He was king of Macedonia but greatly expanded his empire around 300 BCE. He secured control over Greece and conquered large parts of the Middle East. This led to the rapid spread of Greek culture.
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The Old Testament was translated into Greek around 200 BCE. The translators had to find Greek terms for a number of difficult Hebrew words.
The Greeks had the concept of daimons, which were supernatural forces that could be either good or evil. According to Plato, the philosopher Socrates had such a daimon as a guardian angel from childhood.
"The word was used as as a translation for 'other gods,' those worshipped by the peoples surrounding Israel," says Magnar Kartveit.
As a result, all gods other than Yahweh became demons.
"This is a common pattern throughout history: the victorious religion turns the gods of other religions into demons," says Justin Strong.
In Isaiah in the Old Testament, a figure named Lilith is mentioned as dwelling among the animals in the wilderness. Theologians have suggested that the name refers to an ancient Babylonian demon, but this is disputed, according to Justin Strong. People heard sounds in the wilderness and believed they were supernatural beings. “Lilith could just as well have been an owl,” says Strong.(Detail from the painting Lilith by John Collier, 1887 / Public Domain)
Demons make people ill
Jesus and his followers lived during a time of strong Roman and Greek influence, and they read the Old Testament in its Greek translation.
So did the authors of the New Testament.
"The word daimon changed meaning. For them, a daimon was an independent supernatural being that afflicted people with illness," says Magnar Kartveit.
Now it was no longer God who made people ill.
"The shift in who is responsible for misfortune and suffering becomes especially clear in two places in the Bible," says Kartveit.
In the Book of Isaiah, there is an account of a servant who is ill. The people around him thought he was 'punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.' When this passage is quoted in the New Testament, God's role as the cause of the suffering has been removed.
"In the New Testament, the understanding of illness and evil has undergone a complete transformation. There are now two forces behind life and death, and it is Satan who makes people ill, including through demonic possession," says Kartveit.
Supernatural beings
The transition from almost no demons in the Old Testament to many in the New Testament is not actually as abrupt as it seems, according to Hugo Lundhaug. He is a professor at the University of Oslo's the Faculty of Theolog.
The Book of Tobit is included in the Catholic Bible, but not in the Protestant Bible. It tells the story of Asmodeus, who is the king of the demons. Among other things, he kills the grooms of a woman, one after another, seven in total.(Image: Louis Le Breton, 1863 / Public Domain)
The explanation lies in texts that were not included in the Old Testament, but were read and circulated by Jews and Christians.
"These texts contain far more demons and reflect people’s belief in supernatural beings," says Lundhaug. "The gap between the Old and New Testaments is much smaller if you include the Book of Tobit and the other texts."
The Dead Sea Scrolls also reveal the shift in what people believed during the period between the two Testaments.
They were discovered around 70 years ago in caves on the West Bank. They consist of 950 scrolls written in Hebrew and Aramaic between 300 BCE and the first century CE.
"These texts present a much more systematic picture of angels and demons, good and evil forces, than what is found in the Old Testament," says Justin David Strong.
Justin David Strong is a professor of the New Testament at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society(Photo: Nina Kristiansen / Science Norway)
Jesus and the evil spirits
The New Testament contains many accounts about Jesus casting out evil spirits.
The demons do not appear in cases of minor ailments such as colds. They are associated with life-threatening illnesses or severe disabilities. The blind, the deaf, the lame, the mute, and women suffering from heavy bleeding are described as being possessed by demons. When Jesus casts them out, they are healed.
"There are also several cases of what we today would call psychiatric illness. People needed an explanation, and according to their worldview, such condition were caused either by God or by demons," says Kartveit.
Mary Magdalene was one of the women who followed Jesus. She had been possessed by seven evil spirits, according to the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel of Mark states that it was Jesus who drove them out.(17th-century painting by Nicolas Régnier / Public Domain)
Even in Jesus’ own time, exorcisms attracted attention. He was accused of casting out evil spirits through the power of Beelzebul, another name for Satan or the Devil. Jesus rejects the accusation and says he was carrying out God’s work.
"He argues that evil cannot be driven out by the power of evil," says Kartveit.
External or internal enemies?
Demons were very real to the first monks of the 3rd and 4th centuries.
Anthony is regarded as the first Christian hermit monk.
The monk Anthony was tormented by demons. They did not want him to pray to God.(Illustration by Martin Schongauer, around 1480 / Public Domain)
"In a book about his life, the demons are portrayed as external enemies. They appear as people and monsters and attack Anthony in the desert," says Lundhaug.
Anthony also wrote letters to other monks, and several of these have survived.
"In those letters, the demons are portrayed quite differently. They are invisible and bodiless, entering Anthony's thoughts and tempting him to do things other than worshipping God," says Lundhaug.
As Christianity spread, it encountered older folk beliefs with their own distinctive supernatural beings.
"Existing local stories were then adapted to fit the new Christian narrative," Lundhaug explains.
Demons and Martin Luther
Demons continued to thrive among people and monks throughout the centuries.
"Martin Luther, for example, was a devoted Catholic and a monk who almost certainly believed in the existence of demons," says Lundhaug.
But in Protestantism, the angels and saints disappeared as intermediaries between God and humanity, and the same happened on the opposite side.
Hugo Lundhaug researches early Christianity at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oslo.(Photo: Private)
"Put simply, you could say that God came closer to humanity again. As a result, the intermediate realm of angels and demons shrank, and Satan became the direct opposite of God," says Lundhaug.
A few centuries later, when the witch hunts began, women were accused of having relations with the Devil himself rather than of being possessed by demons, as described in the New Testament.
Demons lose their hold
Demons gradually lost their influence with the Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason and science.
Magnar Kartveit believes that exorcisms disappeared from Western Christianity as modern medicine became more widespread.
"When people can be treated by a doctor or a psychiatrist, there is no longer any need to explain their condition through demons," he says.
But the demons live on in the Bible, because the texts have not been changed since they were finalised around the year 300. And they also live on in people’s beliefs.
"People continued to write texts within the same worldview, about demons possessing people, saints fighting demons, and the demons in hell. These texts also became important in shaping what people believed," says Lundhaug.
The demons wreak havoc on the sinners in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Many of the ideas we have about demons come from this work.(Painting by Sandro Botticelli, around 1480 / Public Domain)
In the 13th century, the Italian writer Dante Alighieri wrote Divine Comedy. It tells the story of Dante’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. In Hell, the demons serve as guards and executioners.
"Many of the images of a hell with lakes of fire, punishment, and eternal torment do not come from the Bible itself, but from Dante and all the texts that existed outside the Bible," says Lundhaug.
In today's charismatic Christian movements, belief in demons and exorcisms is extremely important, according to Hugo Lundhaug. "These are the movements that are now growing the fastest all over the world," he says.(Photo: Chris Seward / AP / NTB)
Evil spirits everywhere
Christianity’s evil spirits are not unique, according to Lundhaug. The idea of invisible beings entering the human world and influencing people exists in all religions and cultures.
"It is universal. You find them in Hinduism, in Buddhism, and in Islam as well," says Lundhaug.
In biblical times, the boundary between the supernatural and the natural was far less distinct.
"If you were wandering through the wilderness and heard a noise, you might think it was a spirit. Supernatural beings were considered part of the ecosystem in a completely different way from how we imagine them today," says Justin David Strong.
