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When we turn from the Avesta to the Sacred
Books of the Jews, that is to say to the canonical Scripture, we
are struck by the absence of an elaborate demonology such as that
of the Persians and Assyrians. There is much, indeed, about the
angels of the Lord, the hosts of heaven, the seraphim and
cherubim, and other spirits who stand before the throne or
minister to men. But the mention of the evil spirits is
comparatively slight. Not that their existence is ignored, for we
have the temptation by the serpent, in which Jews as well as
Christians recognize the work of the Evil Spirit.
In Job, again, Satan appears as the tempter and the accuser of
the just man; in Kings it is he who incites David to murder the
prophet; in Zechariahs he is seen in his office of accuser. An
evil spirit comes upon the false prophets. Saul is afflicted or
apparently possessed, by an evil spirit. The activity of the
demon in magic arts is indicated in the works wrought by the
magicians of Pharaoh, and in the Levitical laws against wizards
or witches. The scapegoat is sent into the wilderness to Azazel,
who is supposed by some to be a fallen angel, and to this may be
added a remarkable passage in Isaias which seems to countenance
the common belief that demons dwell in waste places: "And
demons and monsters shall meet, and the hairy ones shall cry out
one to another, there hath the lamia lain down, and found rest
for herself" (Isaias, xxxiv, 14). It is true that the Hebrew
word here rendered by "demons" may merely mean wild
animals. But on the other hand, the Hebrew word which is rendered
very literally as "hairy ones" is translated
"demons" by Targum and Peshitta, and is supposed to
mean a goat shaped deity analogous to the Greek Pan. And
"lamia" represents the original Lilith, a spirit of the
night who in Hebrew legend is the demon wife of Adam.
A further development of the demonology of the Old Testament is
seen in the Book of Tobias, which though not included in the
Jewish Canon was written in Hebrew or Chaldean, and a version in
the latter language has been recovered among some rabbinical
writings. Here we have the demon Asmodeus who plays the part
assigned to demons in many ethnic demonologies and folk-legends.
He has been identified by some good authorities with the Aeshmo
Daeva of the Avesta; but Whitehouse doubts this identification
and prefers the alternative Hebrew etymology. In any case
Asmodeus became a prominent figure in later Hebrew demonology,
and some strange tales told about him in the Talmud are quite in
the vein of "The Arabian Nights".
The rabbinical demonology of the Talmud and Midrashim is very far
from the reticence and sobriety of the canonical writings in
regard to this subject. Some modern critics ascribe this rich
growth of demonology among the Jews to the effects of the
Captivity, and regard it as the result of Babylonian or Persian
influence. But though in its abundance and elaboration it may
bear some formal resemblance to these external systems, there
seems no reason to regard it as simply a case of appropriation
from the doctrines of strangers. For when we come to compare them
more closely, we may well feel that the Jewish demonology has a
distinctive character of its own, and should rather be regarded
as an outgrowth from beliefs and ideas which were present in the
mind of the chosen people before they came into contact with
Persians and Babylonians.
It is certainly significant that, instead of borrowing from the
abundant legends and doctrines ready to their hand in the alien
systems, the rabbinical demonologists sought their starting point
in some text of their own scriptures and drew forth all they
wanted by means of their subtle and ingenious methods of
exegesis.
Thus the aforesaid text of Isaias furnished, under the name of
Lilith, a mysterious female night spirit who apparently lived in
desolate places, and forthwith they made her the demon wife of
Adam and the mother of demons. But whence, it may be asked, had
these exponents of the sacred text any warrant for saying that
our first father contracted a mixed marriage with a being of
another race and begot children other than human? They simply
took the text of Genesis, v: "And Adam lived a hundred and
thirty years, and begot a son to his own image and
likeness". This explicit statement they said, plainly
implies that previous to that time he had begotten sons who were
not to his own image and likeness; for this he must needs have
found some help meet of another race than his own, to wit a demon
wife, to become the mother of demons.
This notice of a union between mankind and beings of a different
order had long been a familiar feature in pagan mythology and
demonology, and, as will presently appear, some early Christian
commentators discovered some countenance for it in Genesis, vi,
2, which tells how the sons of God "took to themselves wives
of the daughters of men". One characteristic of Jewish
demonology was the amazing multitude of the demons. According to
all accounts every man has thousands of them at his side. The air
is full of them, and, since they were the causes of various
diseases, it was well that men should keep some guard on their
mouths lest, swallowing a demon, they might be afflicted with
some deadly disease.
This may recall the common tendency to personify epidemic
diseases and speak of "the cholera fiend", "the
influenza fiend", etc. And it may be remarked that the old
superstition of these Jewish demonologists presents a curiously
close analogy to the theory of modern medical science. For we now
know that the air is full of microbes and germs of disease, and
that by inhaling any of these living organisms we receive the
disease into our systems.
Assyrian and Akkadian Demonology