Daemonologie

“Pagan images in Christian eyes were not just lifeless objects of shaped stone, metal and wood, they were thought to be the seat of malignant demons.”

Luke Lavan and Michael Mulran, The Archeology of Late Antique Paganism

Statues, the very seat of the demons themselves, suffered some of the most vicious attacks. It was not enough merely to take the statue down; the demon within had to be humiliated, disgraced, tortured, dismembered and thus neutralized.

Catherine Nixey The Darkening Age

 

St. Benedict, St. Martin, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine and other such fiery church orators added fuel to the campaign of violence that began with temples and statuary and ended in people’s private homes, and endangered people’s lives. They exhorted their followers to such wanton destruction by sermonizing that these objects were possessed by demons. Their God wanted this violent destruction of art, culture and even life - their god was a jealous god indeed.

The Christian mobs, and sometimes the Roman military, were so intent on destruction that many intellectuals of the time were said to have burned their valuable personal libraries in order to escape with their lives. Many did not escape. I’ve read many a Christian apologist that claimed the church had little to do with the destruction during early Christianity. They claim the Roman state fostered the violence with the laws they wrote. But there was no separation of church and state then. Augustine and others simply asked the Christian emperor for the laws, and he decreed them. The mobs, whipped into a frenzy by violent rhetoric carried out the destruction. Once the fight started, the bishops stood back, folded their hands in prayer and benefited. Historians, mostly Christian, failed to make these connections.

As time went on, Christians became more systematic and dangerous. Fast forward and one can follow this line of reasoning about demonic possession through to its next incarnation - the obsessive preoccupation with demonic possession seen in the European and then American witch hunts. Some estimate that nine million people were tortured and executed for being possessed, 85 – 90% of them women.

Originally though, a daemon was believed to be similar to a personal guardian angel linked to the individual’s soul. But with the Christian militarization beginning in the late 3rd century, anything could harbor a demon, especially the statues depicting the old gods who were clearly demons themselves. A small percentage of the population (estimated at 10% in the beginning of the 4th century) were trying to overthrow the dominant culture, and to do that, they resorted to joyful violence and destruction.