Malleus Maleficarum
MALLEUS MALEFICARUM
Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your Chief give Ear, Fays, Fairies, Genii, Elves, and Daemons hear!
Ye know the Spheres and various Tasks assign'd, By Laws Eternal, to th' Aerial Kind.
Some in the Fields of purest ther play, And bask and whiten in the Blaze of Day.
Some guide the Course of wandring Orbs on high, Or roll the Planets thro' the boundless Sky.
Some less refin'd, beneath the Moon's pale Light Pursue the Stars that shoot athwart the Night,
Or suck the Mists in grosser Air below, Or dip their Pinions in the painted Bow,
Or brew fierce Tempests on the wintry Main, Or o'er the Glebe distill the kindly Rain.
Others on Earth o'er human Race preside, Watch all their Ways, and all their actions guide.
A. POPE, The Rape of the Lock (Canto II) T= Devil has commonly been considered a ready-made answer to the problem of evil. It is possible to see his malevolence underlying the genesis of this evil world, the fall of Adam and Eve, the power of sin which enslaves all men, and every conceivable tragedy which interrupts the harmony of the cosmic order. This argument has had some appeal for the dualist and monotheist alike. In extreme dualist theosophies Satan became a sort of Ahriman, an incarnation of the Principle of Evil, the antithetical counterpart of the Principle of Good which is
God ;! his minions, the intermediary beings which emanated from the godhead and linked the transcendent deity with the sublunary world. The battlefield on which these two principles duelled for sovereign dominion was the terrestrial world; the stakes, the salvation of men. In monotheism Satan and his forces were the highest creation of God, but through their own free choice rejected their creator and his goodness and elected evil
1 Cf. H.-I. Marrou, 'The Fallen Angel', in Satan, C. Moeller (ed.), trans.
(London, 1951), pp. 67-83, and other studies in the same collection.
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instead. In both theodicies the supreme God was innocent of evil and the satanic element was somehow responsible.
The question that naturally arises now is to what extent Clement explains evil in terms of demonic activity. In his thinking, did that mysterious realm provide an adequate solution to the problem? Given Clement's affinity with Philo in so many respects, one might expect him to be as reticent as that prolific
Jewish writer on this subject. But this does not seem to be the case.
Demonology was a constant preoccupation of the Gnostics and, therefore, an issue on which Clement was forced to take some stand. As the 'hammer of the Gnostics' Clement took great exception to their view which saw a direct connection between cosmic evil and demonic influence. On the other hand, Clement did not deny the existence of devils, but looked upon them as an explicable corruption of divine creation and a logical backcloth to the plan of redemption. The discussion which follows, then, is in a certain sense Clement's version of that celebrated fifteenthcentury encyclopaedia of demonology, the Malleus Maleficarum.
Now any society is liable at times to collective emotions, particularly when the tide of pessimism runs high. At such times in the course of history popular imagination has invoked the powers of darkness as an explanation of whatever on logical grounds seemed inexplicable—social struggle, political conspiracy, conventual hysteria, private hallucination. Second-century Alexandria was no exception. Then, 'virtually every one, pagan, Jewish,
Christian or Gnostic, believed in the existence of these beings and in their function as mediators, whether he called them daemons or angels or aions or simply "'spirits" (zvevpara)'.! In classical antiquity the daemonic played a considerable part in the Platonic world-picture. Plato defines the daemonic (ro daydvov) in the Symposium where Diotima says to Socrates, 'Everything that is daemonic is intermediate between God and mortal. Interpreting and conveying the wishes of men to gods and the will of gods to men, it stands between the two and fills the gap.
. God has no contact with man; only through the daemonic is there intercourse and conversation between men and gods, whether in the waking state or during sleep.'? In other words, they are neutral
1 Dodds, Pagan and Christian, p. 38.
2 Plato, Symposium 202 e-203 a. On the daemonic in antiquity, see A. D. Nock, Conversion (Oxford, 1933), pp. 222 ff.; H. J. Rose, 'Numen Inest: ''Animism" in
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agents which serve as a mediation between the world of sense and the world of ideas. Without them there could be no communication ; no entreaties and sacrifices from below, no ordinances and requitals from above.! Elsewhere, Plato describes this hierarchy of beings in relation to the elements. In the transition, however, from Plato to Plutarch through Xenocrates and others, the idea of the daemon lost its neutrality and became coloured with shades of evil. Plutarch's demigods continued to be an air-borne race as Plato had dictated and mediators between earth and sky.3
But they were not all good. Some participated in human passions and provoked plague, war, and such cosmic catastrophes. As a result of this, man gave them sacrificial worship which reaffirmed their quasi-divine authority and bribed them against further malevolence. Finally, Plutarch's demonology distinguishes three classes of daemons: permanent discarnates, souls of deceased, and the soul in us.*+ One stage later still in the pagan development of the daemon, we find Albinus echoing the same sentiments. The universe is infested with spirits: 'No part of the world is without a share of life, nor of a living being superior to the nature of man.'s In Jewish apocalyptic and Judaeo-Christianity, angelology and demonology played a large part. It is too familiar a story to merit repetition here.6 The very broad outlines are adequate for our purposes. In the Old Testament cosmic disasters were explained in terms of Yahweh, not demons, for evil spirits as distinct entities—malevolent spiritual beings—come to light only slowly
Greek and Roman Religion', Harvard Theological Review, 28 (1935), PP237—57I Symp. 202 e.
2 Epinomis 984 e-985 b (if Plato is the author of this work).
3 See Plutarch, De Js. et Os. entire. Cf. De Defectu Oraculorum, passim, but especially
10, 415 a; 12, 416 c (on demigods as spatially existent between gods and men) ; 13, 416 d (demigods like an isoceles triangle ; i.e. combining human emotions and godlike power). On Plutarch's demonology, see Inge, Plotinus, i. 88 ff.; G. Soury,
La Démonologie de Plutarque (Paris, 1942).
4 See Merlan, 'Greek Philosophy from Plato to Plotinus', Cambridge History, Pp. 14-132, but especially pp. 32-7 and 53-73. The classical example of the individual soul as the Satuwv is seen in Socrates (Plato, Apol. 31 d; cf. Tim. goa;
Laws 732 c, 877 a) ; acknowledged by Clement, Str. i. 83. 4; li. 131. 43; Vv. 91. 53 cf. Origen, C. Cels. vi. 8. On Socrates' daemon, see A. E. Taylor, Socrates (Edinburgh, 1932), pp. 42 ff.
5 Albinus, Didask., ch. 15: 'On daemons, and the elements with which they are combined'.
6 For details, see Daniélou, Jewish Christianity, ch. 6, pp. 173 ff.; S. Lyonnet, art.
'Démon' (I. Le démon dans l'Ecriture), D.S.A.M. iii, cols. 142-52.
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in revelation. In fact, Satan as a proper name occurs rarely in the Hebrew Old Testament.! In the pages of the New Testament, however, Satan and the devils may be said to be fairly ubiquitous from the beginning to the end.?
The gnostic demonology was a brew of these various elements.
It combined the intermediaries of Platonic dualism, the malevolent spirits of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and the astrological magic of Persia. The result was unique. First, the influence of the demonic was felt in the very creation of the universe. Evil originated within the Pleroma and increased in intensity as it spread through the aeonic order. Consequently, according to Basilides, the 'world-making principalities' (i.e. demons) who resided in the 365th heaven on the brink of the material world and were responsible for it, were the least good of all.3 Thus, this
'emanation hypothesis' was one account of the origin of the evil in the world. It was with this in mind that Basilides asked, "Why do we need '"'emanation" in order for God to make the universe ?"4
Secondly, the demons played a crucial role in the gnostic scheme of salvation. The Gnostic visualized his return to the Pleroma as blocked by a series of intermediary demons who only permitted entry into the next sphere when the pilgrim had demonstrated by means of the appropriate password or incantation that he possessed the requisite knowledge to proceed. All one's life was spent being schooled in gnosis for this journey. Irenaeus has preserved for us a description of this trip of the 'loved one'. The initiate says to the powers when he meets them:
I am ason from the Father—the Father pre-existent, the son in the present. I am come to see my own things and alien things; yet not wholly alien, but the things of Achamoth, who is female and made ty Chron. 21:1; cf. 2 Sam. 24:1. Satan in the opening chapter of Job is one of the Bene Elohim, not a malignant spirit. In the story of the Witch of Endor
(1 Sam. 28: 7), there'is more necromancy than diabolism. The most striking ancient example of this interest is given by the apocryphal 'Book of Jannes and Jambres'
(the magicians who withstood Moses: Exod. 7 ff.; cf. 2 Tim. 3: 8) in which Jannes goes to Memphis to consult the powers of darkness on the right way to combat
Moses. See M. R. James, 'A Fragment of the ''Penitence of Jannes and Jambres"' '
F.T.S. 2 (1901), pp. 572-7, with the text printed pp. 573 f.
> 2 For the Devil in human affairs, see, e.g., Matt. 4: 5; Luke 4: 2; Rev. 12: 12.
Cf. L. Bouyer, 'Le Probléme du mal dans le christianisme antique', Dieu Vivant, 6
(1946), pp. 17-42.
3 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. i. 24. 3-6; cf. Hippolytus, Ref. vii. 26. 6.
+ Hippolytus, Ref. vii. 22. 2.
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them for herself. I derive my race from the Pre-existent, and I am journeying to my home whence I came.' When he says this the powers flee, and he comes to those about the Demiurge. To them he says, 'I am a precious vessel, more precious than she who created you.
If your Mother is ignorant of her own root, I know myself and I know whence I am, and I call upon immortal Wisdom, who is in the Father, and the Mother of your Mother, who has no Father and no Consort ; but being female and born of a female she made you, not knowing her own Mother, but imagining herself alone. But I invoke her
Mother.' When those about the Demiurge hear this they are greatly troubled, and condemn their root and the race of their Mother; and the departed goes on his way home, having cast off his chain, that is the soul.!
In addition to this intellectual side, the gnostic demonology had considerable ethical implications. It is not improbable that the licentiousness of those gnostic sects which Clement argued against in the third book of his 'Miscellanies'? had something to do with their demonology.3 The concepts of a pact with the Devil, of night-riding to the Sabbath, of incubi and succubi and the other details of popular withcraft which has from time to time plagued western civilization were not without their counterparts in secondcentury Alexandria.* (It would, however, be a mistake to overemphasize this fact. What, if anything, existed in Alexandria was not a patch on the witch-craze of the Dark Ages.) What better t Trenaeus, Adv. Haer. 1. 21. 5, quoted by Dodd, Fourth Gospel, p.
113. A similar account appears in The Gospel of Mary (Grant's Anthology, p. 67). Cf. the Mithraic conception of the soul's ascent through the planets ; see H. Chadwick's superlative note on Origen: Contra Celsum, vi. 22 (Cambridge, 1953), pp. 334 f.
2 See above, p. 22.
3 H. R. Trevor-Roper credits Clement of Alexandria's account of the followers of Carpocrates (see Str. iii, ch. 2 passim) as evidence that orgies of sexual promiscuity went hand in hand with gnostic demonology; "The Witch Craze', Encounter,
28 (1967). See also the Phibionites ; $. Benko, 'The Libertine Gnostic Sect of the Phibionites according to Epiphanius', Vig. C. 21 (1967), pp. 103-19, where this theme is worked out in unnecessary detail. Obscenities were also common among certain groups of Manichaeans. (R. P. Casey, however, denies the ethical implication in the system of Theodotus with the comment, 'It is in this respect the opposite of Manichaeism.' 'The Excerpta ex Theodoto of Clement of Alexandria', Studies and Documents, 1, K. Lake and S. Lake (eds.) (London, 1934), p. 16, n. 1.)
4 For general belief in superstition, magic, various forms of divination, tableturning, telepathy, etc. at this time, see Inge, Plotinus, i. 48 ff. Clement himself claims that the official oracles are dead and admits the popularity of private
'mediums' (éyyaorpipv0or) ; Protr. 11, cf. Minucius Felix, Oct. 27. 3, Vates absque templo. Cf. Origen, C. Cels. vii. 69 ; viii. 60, for demons invoked by incantation and the like.
826707X F
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way, then, could the convinced Gnostic imitate his exemplars, the Gnostic Aeons, than by participation in the "eternal marriages of the Syzyge ?'! Hence, the free love which Carpocrates suggests.
It is in this setting that one must consider Clement's demonology.
An anatomy of it (despite its incompleteness)? is best viewed in three phases : before the fall; after the fall; and the final judgement. Prior to their fall, Clement envisages a vast company of angels? arranged in ranks according to the scale of being, but essentially classified in three+ orders: seven first-born princes of the angels,5 archangels, then angels.° These enjoyed the direct vision of God,' and as a result were privy to the secrets of the eternal truths.' It was from this existence that the celestial beings turned of their own free will.?
Clement depends heavily upon Jewish apocalyptic for his interpretation of the fall of the angels. Commenting on Genesis
6:2, 1 Enoch tells the tale of angels of one of the higher orders, the Watchers, who were smitten with desire for the daughters of men and came down into the world under the direction of their leader.!° Clement incorporates the basic elements of this narrative.
The sons of God" were seized by sexual desire," slipped back to the ground from carelessness, '3 and sank into pleasure with the daughters of men.'* This indulgence destroyed their former singleness of heart and gave free reign to the tendency to duplicity which 1 Exc. ex Theod. 64.
2 For a promised treatise on angelology, see Str. vi. 32. 1; iv. 85. 3 (on the Devil). Casey assumes that the notes on angels in the Excerpta were in preparation for a portion of the Stromateis which never appeared, although Str. vii. 9-11 is the principal extant passage. (Op. cit., pp. 30 f.)
3 Str. vii. 5. 6, 63. 1.
4 The 'nine choirs of angels' was an innovation of Dionysius the Areopagite (c. 500) ; see his Celestial Hierarchy (Migne, P.G. iii. 200 d, 201 a).
5 Str. vi. 143. 1: mpwrdyovor dyyéAwy dpxovres. On the mpwrdxricror, see Exc. ex
Theod. 10; Ecl. Proph. 51, 56. 7 (cf. Hermas, Vis. iii. 4. 1; Sim. v. 5. 3); Str. v. 35.
1-2. On 'archontic angels', see Celsus ap. C. Cels. vi. 27 and Chadwick's helpful note on this obscure text (op. cit., pp. 342 f.).
® See A. Recheis's excellent study of Clement's angelology: Engel, Tod und Seelenreise (Rome, 1958). Of particular interest is Clement's adoption of the Valentinian doctrine of good angels of the Right and bad angels of the Left
(pp. 56 ff.).
7 By which Clement means the Son (cf. Exc. ex Theod. 10-12; Ecl. Proph. 57), for not even the angels are permitted a direct vision.
8 Str. v. 10. 2.
9 Str. i. 83. 2. to 1 Enoch 15: 3; cf. 1 Enoch 6:1 f., 106: 13 f. See Justin's very anthropomorphic interpretation, Apol. ii. 5; and compare Dial. 57 for angelic ambrosia.
11 Cf. Paed. ii. 79. 2, angels = 'Watchers' of 1 Enoch.
12 Str. iil. 59. 2.
13 Str. vii. 46. 6.
4 Str. v. 10. 2; cf. Paed. iii, 14. 2.
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would henceforth govern their existence.! This, then, is the origin of demons, by nature a category of fallen being.2 However, although Origen saw the angelic fall as a gradual deterioration and a basic unwillingness to repent of an initial (and perhaps even slight) mistake,3 Clement sees it as an instantaneous affair, though not necessarily as a tremendous act of rebellion.+
This wilful transgression had a double effect. Ontologically, it involved a transformation which removed the demons as far as possible from the Supreme Being in the 'great chain'. 'Fornication and marriage are different things ; as far apart as God is from the devil', Clement says rather unexpectedly.5 Cosmologically, it meant that the evil angels dwelt in the lower zones of heaven,® particularly those regions which are in direct contact with the earth. Clement comments that the smoke from the pagan sacrificial picnics reaches the demons 'in some low region far beneath the densest cloud'."? As J. Daniélou observes, "This has the important consequences for the Jewish Christian world-view that souls must in their ascent to heaven after death pass through the spheres of the demons.' Quite apart from this, however, Clement paints a picture of the demonic realm which evokes the image of a Bosch canvas with demons silhouetted against the flames busy marshalling the human race into an archetypal Auschwitz.
Clement describes the devils' confinement in everlasting chains under the principality of darkness? belonging to Satan," awaiting
1 Str. vii. 46. 6.
2 On the apostasy of the demons, see Sir. iii. 38. 3; iv. 96. I.
3 For a detailed discussion of Origen's angelology in alljits complexities, see J. Daniélou, Origen, trans. by W. Mitchell (London, 1955), pp. 220-45 ; also by the same author, art. cit., 'Démon' (II. Le démon dans la littérature ecclésiastique jusqu'a Origéne), D.S.A.M. iii, cols. 182-9.
4 Cf. Protr. 92; Str. i. 92. 1.
5 Str. iii. 84. 4.
6 Cf. Origen, C. Cels. viii. 31.
7 Str. vil. 14. 6; cf. Str. vii. 32. 1, on demonic respiration.
8 Danidlou, Jewish Christianity, pp. 191 ff. Cf. Str. iv.
117. 2, angels who take the 'toll'. (For a complete account of Clement's angelic 'tax collectors', see Recheis, op. cit., pp. 147 ff. He observes that these angels are clearly borrowed from the Gnostic intermediaries, even though in Clement's scheme they are not assigned a specific cosmological position in the heavenly geography.) Apparently the toll extracted from the heaven-bound traveller was commensurate to his degree of adGos. Only the man who had achieved d7deva was allowed to pass free of charge.
(On this, see below, pp. 86 ff.) See also, Str. vii. 57, the journey of the 'true
Gnostic' through the holy Hebdomad; cf. Str. v. 106. 2-4; Exc. ex Theod. 63. 1.
9 Paed. iii. 44. 4; cf. 1 Enoch 54: 3.
10 Str. iv. 95-6. 1; cf. Jude 6; 1 Enoch 54:1-5. Clement made Satan the generalissimo of the nether world.
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the judgement of the Great Day and the fire which the Lord has prepared for them.!
— Following the biblical tradition, however, Clement is less interested in what demons are than in what they do. Their activity in the cosmos as a whole and over individuals in particular epitomizes the second phase, their post-fall existence. On their function in the universe, Clement inherits from Jewish apocalyptic? the doctrine of the angels of nations that are assigned to countries and cities. However, this did not mean for Clement, as it did for Celsus and Origen,* that these mysterious protectors had to be venerated like gods by animal sacrifice. Failure in this regard was not a lack of Christian piety. Furthermore, Clement does not seriously entertain the thought that, say, plagues, famines, hail-storms, tempests, floods, and other evil phenomena are prompted through the anger of demons and bad angels.5 These are solely the consequences of natural effects.° So we see that the evidence of evil in the natural world could not, in Clement's mind, be attributed to supra-cosmic powers of darkness which work behind the scenes; the problem of evil was not so easily solved.
On the demonic activity in the lives of individuals, Clement gives us a fuller picture. The notion of a 'guardian angel' who was assigned by God for the care of individuals had antecedents both in Platonic demonology where, as we have seen, each man had his own datuwv, as well as in the post-Exilic biblical tradition.? Clement's use of this concept, then, was nothing new.®
* Clement derives his picture of Hell from the Apocalypse of Peter which Eusebius,
HE. vi. 14. 1, and the Muratorian Canon suggest was then an accepted part of canonical scripture. Clement, however, does not allude to the post-mortem tortures inflicted on adulterers, fornicators, and homosexuals which that apocalypse appears to describe with relish. See A. Dieterich, Nekyia (Leipzig, 1893), which in. spite of its age is still the definitive work on the tradition of the tortures of the damned.
2 Cf. 1 Enoch go: 22.
3 Str. vi. 157. 53 vii. 6. 4, derived probably from Deut. 32:8 f. Cf. Origen, Hom. in Luc. xiii, C. Cels. v. 25-9.
+ That demons feed on sacrifices, see Chadwick's useful index (p. 514) and parallel references on C. Cels, iii. 28 (p. 146), to which might be added Lucian,
Prometheus 19.
5 Str. vi. 30-1. Origen embraces the opposite view; see C. Cels. i. 31; viii. 31.
6 Str. vi. 30-1.
7 See Tobias 3: 25 and passim; in the N.T.: e.g. Matt. 18: 10; Acts 12: 15; im Judaism, Jub. 35:17.
8 Str. vi. 157. 53 vii. 3. Cf. Hermas, Man. vi. 2. 2-5; Justin, Apol. ii. 5; Origen,
Princ, iii. 2. 4: Comm. in Matt. 13, 5.
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What was novel, perhaps, was his emphasis on the part angels played in the growth and development of infants, particularly in assisting them to attain Christian gnosis. Clement writes in the Eclogae Propheticae, 'Scripture says that little children who are exposed are entrusted to a guardian angel, who brings them up and makes them grow; and they shall be .
. like the faithful here who are a hundred years old.'!
But the good angels placed over man by divine providence for his protection do not go unopposed. As a result of the Fall, man is continually subject to temptation at the hands of Satan and his evil spirits. In fact, Clement describes the raison d'étre of the demonic order as an attempt to make man fall,? lead him into slavery,3 and, exacting vengeance,* ally him with themselves.5
Clement portrays their manner of accomplishing this with remarkable vividness, engendered perhaps by painful personal experience. The devil is like a conjuror who indulges in magical arts which alter physical reality. He and his subjects are capable of assuming the form of beasts in human shape crawling on their bellies, after the image of their father, the voracious beast,' or the form of men who emulate their activities in this earthly life.®
In addition to these machinations, however, the most successful gambit of the devil is to appeal to man's basic love for pleasure, thereby distorting the reasoning faculty of the human soul.9
Fraud, craft, and subtlety' are the distinctive features by which the Devil and his minions skilfully work their mischief. When this fails, the enraged 'deceiver'!! resorts to force!? and subjects his victim to a 'stormy blast'.'3 Thus, man must undergo conflict in every conceivable form before the heinous powers relent and 1 Ecl. Proph. 41. 1; cf. ibid. 48. 1, regarding angelic care of aborted infants.
2° Str. u. 56. 2; cf. Str. iii. 96. 3.
3 Str. ii. 111.
4 Protr. 7. 4.
5 Str. li. 110. 3.
6 Protr. 7. 4. Cf. Paed. ii. 125. 1, where in a similar manner jewellery is said to disfigure the natural beauty of women.
7 Paed. ii. 7. 5; cf. Protr. 7. The closest Clement comes to the common JewishChristian interest in associating a special demon with a particular vice is the 'belly-demon' of Paed. ii. 15. 4.
8 Str. iv. 96. 1.
9 Str. ii.
111. Cf. Str. v. 93. 1: 'the devil has mingled pleasure with most things'
(cf. Plato, Phaedrus 240 ab). On the nature of 'pleasure', see Str. ii. 106. 3 (cf.
Stahlin's extensive list of parallel references thereon; vol. 2, p. 171 (1960 edn.)),
119. 2-3.
10 Str. ii. 56-7.
TL) Protre7. 4.
120 Sirs i. 57.
13 Str. iii. 96. 2.
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'admire' the victor for his constancy.! Yet, in all of this, Clement is mindful that the demonic activity over the individual is restricted. Demons are only capable of performing those actions which are allowed to them by the omnipotent deity.? Furthermore, though knowing 'what we are', they are unable to manipulate the human will directly so as to force man to succumb to their temptations.3 Ideally speaking, the autonomy ofmankind remains unhampered. Moral evil was no more explained by the demonic element in Clement's world-view than physical evil had been.
The hard facts, however, do not encourage much optimism.
Man does sin as a result of Satan's wiles. Clement characterizes the assaults on true religion as perhaps the most pernicious of demonic temptations which the orthodox Christian is forced to endure. With this in mind, Clement exposes the faulty exegesis of John 10: 8: 'All who came before me are thieves and robbers.'"*
Philosophy was not the invention of the Devil, nor of certain maleficent powers which descended from heaven and inspired it among men, as the simple faithful supposed.' Another temptation against religion was levelled against the more sophisticated.
The Devil deafened their ears to the divine teaching® and bred dissatisfaction with traditional dogmas and ritual observance, prompting them to turn to heterodox sects—'to spirits of error and doctrines inspired by demons'.' Finally, the eating of meat offered to idols was a constant source of vexation to Clement as to most Christian writers of this period. Clement, however, had read St. Paul's advice to the Church at Corinth on this subject and repeated that practically verbatim. Partaking of sacrificial meats was outlawed not because of any effect that it might conceivably have (the demons venerated by pagan sacrifice were the fallen angels of Genesis) ,? but as a protest against the pagan belief in this practice.'° Yet man's contest is not solely against the wild beasts without, as Clement puts it,!! but also against the wild passions within. The demonic realm affected private morality as well as public be1 Str. ii. 110. 3. Man's defence against Satan is watchfulness (Str. v. 93. 2) and the 'panoply of God' (Str. ii. 109. 2).
2 Str. iv. 85. 13 cf. Str. ii. 56.
3 Str. iv. 85. 1.
4 Str. i. 81.
5 Str. i. 80. 5.
® Protr. 104. 4.
7 1 Tim. 4:1 (= Str. iii. 51. 2).
8 Cf. the debate between Celsus and Origen, C. Cels. viii. 24-8.
9 Paed. iii, 3-15.
10 Paed. ii. Q—10.
1 SY. V1. 1 L5s 2,
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q1 haviour. The idea of demons entering into bodies, which then become the objects of genuine possession, was an important doctrine assumed by the Gospels,! and utilized by the Gnostics. The Basilidians, for example, regarded the passions as 'appendages'
(mpocapryara) or spirits attached to the rational soul as a result of some original confusion and to which clung other bastard and heterogeneous natures in the form of animals. These bestial properties transformed the soul to their appearance in the course of imitative actions.? The Valentinian doctrine was not so different from Basilides' menagerie. Each evil spirit contaminates the soul in its own distinctive way by prompting the agent to perform certain characteristic activities. Thus, for Valentinus, the heart resembles a caravanserai which contains the filth of foreigners and is a hostelry for wayfarers who have no real interest in its welfare.3
These ideas are clearly in the back of Clement's mind when he comes to discuss the Satan-dominated man, the man securely in his power, the man given to sin.t This transformation occurs,
Clement suggests,5 'by choosing the same things as demons, by sinning, being unstable, and light and fickle in his desires, like a demon, he becomes a demonic man'. Clement adduces Barnabas as his witness that 'the possessed' is one whose actions resemble those of demons.® The passions are the signatures (€vaepeiopara) of the interior spiritual powers with whom we have to struggle."
Each deceit of the devil presses its mark on the pliable soul and, as a result, man carries about the image of that passion.' This
T e.g. Luke 8:2. On the importance of this issue, see Danid¢lou, Jewish Christianity, p. 191.
2 Str. ii. 112; for Stoic influence, see Marcus Aurelius, xii. 3, 4. Héring notes that the 'appendages' might be traces of a belief that the soul passes through the three categories (i.e. animal, vegetable, mineral). They also might profitably be examined in conjunction with primitive religions. (Doctrine de la chute, p. 25, n. 29.)
Plato has something remarkably similar to the 'appendages' theory of the soul in Rep. 611 c-612 a.
3 Str. ii, 114.
4 Str. 1. 92. 2.
5 Str. vi. 98. 1.
© Str. ii.
116-17 (cf. Barnabas, Epist. 16). In this text Clement denies that men are in any sense inhabited by evil spirits, as the Gnostics would have us believe.
Forgiveness of sins is only symbolically to be equated with the expulsion of demons.
7 Str. ii. 110. Cf. Q.D.S. 25. 5: man carries his enemy about within him. See G. J. M. Bartelink's interesting essay, "Les Démons comme brigands', Vig. C. 21
(1967), pp. 12-24, which interprets Clement's discussion of the 'Good Samaritan' parable in Q.D.S. 28-9 as suggesting that the powers of darkness are our inner passions.
8 Str. i.
111. 4. Cf. above, p. 30, for choice moulding man's character,
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is the way Clement saw the 'image of God' giving way to 'the image of the Devil'. By means of this psychological interpretation,
Clement made some attempt at demythologizing the belief in Satan as a personal demon.
But this is not totally representative of Clement's point of view.
He vacillates between this type of demythologization on the one hand and the reality of Satan on the other.' Unlike other apologetes,? Clement was not embarrassed by our adversary, the Devil, who 'prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour'.3 For him, Satan was something more than the rabbinic yeser ha-ra' of Genesis 6:5. As a serpent, he beguiled Eve in the Garden ;+ he tempted Christ in the desert ;5 he wins from time to time all men in every walk of life.
The third and final stage of Clement's demonology concerns the possibility of ultimate reconciliation with God. Despite the use of traditional language which sees torment in store for the Prince of Evil and the fires of Hell as a fait accompli 'already prepared for the Devil and his angels'," Clement offers more hope for a reconciliation than did Justin who regarded their former choice as irreversible.' On the other hand, Clement is not as clear in his own mind as Origen whose confidence is unmistakable: on the Last Day there would be a final restoration or apocatastasis when the healing power of the Logos would put an end to all evil, even presumably the demonic order.? Clement surely shares this opinion in the case of sinful Christians, but whether or not Satan and his powers enjoy the same possibility depends on them alone.!° They
1 The combination of demythologization and reality which Clement's demonology suggests is more clearly illustrated by some of the writings of the Fathers of the Egyptian desert. Evil human passions are transformed into devils at death and stay to haunt others. See Apophthegmata Patrum, Poemen 67 (Migne, P.G. Ixv.
337C).
2 e.g. Athenagoras, Leg. 24. On the demonology of certain early Greek Fathers, see H. Wey, Die Funktionen der bésen Geister bei den griechischen Apologeten des zweiten
Jahrhunderts nach Christus (Diss. Ziirich, 1957).
3 1 Pet. 5:8.
4 Identification of the serpent of Gen. 3 with Satan occurred late in the development of revelation; cf. Wisd. 2: 24.
5 Str. i. 44.
6 Protr. go. 1.
7 Protr. 83. 2 (cf. Matt. 25:41); cf. Str. ii. 57 .2, 3 (cf. Heb. 10: 26f.).
8 Justin, Apol. i. 28, 57.
9 Origen, C. Cels. viii. 72; cf. Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 278, n. 2, for a résumé of other texts where Origen is less convinced.
10 Paed. iii. 44. 4 seems to suggest that there is a reassessment of their sin on the Last Day.
MALLEUS MALEFICARUM
have the power of free will (adreEovo.os dv) either to remain in this condition as antagonists of the divine will or to repent! and once again become followers of the Almighty.? Beyond this,
Clement is reluctant to commit himself.
Clement, then, had a considerable demonology,3 but of a very different sort than that suggested by the Gnostics. Demonology was a fact of revelation, and consequently played an integral part in his world-view. Yet, unlike the view of the Gnostics, the caprice of individual demons was not just another way of talking about Fate
(either individual or cosmic), nor did their role as intermediaries, properly understood, abolish the need for the Incarnate Lord as the ideal link between the transcendent God and terrestrial creation. For Clement, a demonic order in which evil was utterly gratuitous did not explain the problem of evil; it only restated it.
Evil spirits were just another contradiction to a loving God.
Given moral mutability as a distinctive mark of the created order, demons as well as man had the power to fall. And so they did.
Clearly, the source of iniquity is not Satan; it is the sinful will, both angelic and human. Any solution to evil, then, had to come from outside the created order, from God himself, who was 'in Christ reconciling the world to himself'.+
I Str. i. 83. 2, though the free will of the Devil was by no means despised by Justin, Dial. 140. 4, 141. 1; Apol. i. 7. 5.
2 Str. iv. 68. 4.
3 Cf. Lebreton, art. cit., R.S.R. xxxiv.
151, though Daniélou, art. cit., D.S.A.M. iii. col. 182, evaluates Clement's demonology as clearly secondary.
4 2 Cor. 5: 19.