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03-22-2013, 09:12 AM
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#1 |
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Pete and the words δαίμων, δαιμόνιον
Pete,
Let's cut to the chase. Is it true or not that, even if δαίμων (not to mention δαιμόνιον) was/were, as you claim, generally used by pre Christian Greek writers to mean "guardian spirit", let alone "indwelling [& good] guardian spirit", there were pre-Christian writers who used δαίμων with the meaning "evil spirit"? True or not true, Pete. Which is it? Jeffrey |
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03-23-2013, 01:47 PM
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#2 |
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Gday,
I used my WinGrep to search for examples (in English I'm afraid) and I came up with some as follows : "for 'twas their marriage, which was no marriage but a curse by some demon sent, that robbed me of my country and drove me from my home." Euripides, Hecuba, 5th C BC. "He was our shield, valiant Ajax. But now a malign demon of fate Claims him." Sophocles, Ajax, 5th C BC "for this fear too has often haunted me, that some demon is driving you to your doom," Demosthenes, 3rd Phillipic, 4th C BC Kapyong |
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03-23-2013, 02:04 PM
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#3 | |
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Quote:
But my question was/is addressed to Pete, and I'm still waiting for him to answer. Jeffrey |
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03-23-2013, 03:36 PM
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#4 |
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A further note: if the idea of "demons" being "evil spirits" is a Christian one, how do we account for the fact such pre 1st century writers as Arrian (at Epict.4.4.38), Antipho the Sophist (at Testimonia 3.12)
Aristophanes (at Pl.501; Eq.112), Xenophon (at Mem.2.3.19), Demosthenes (at 2.20) and such later non Christian writers such as Lucian (2nd century --at Lex.25: Sup., Id.Deor.Conc.7), Plutarch (at De communibus notitiis adversus Stoicos 1058e-1086b and elsewhere) and Maximus Tyrius (2nd century) speak of "evil spirits" (κᾰκοδαιμων -- κᾰκο =evil) and of the experience of being "possessed" by κᾰκοδαιμων as a harmful one?
Jeffrey |
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03-24-2013, 02:46 AM
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#5 | ||
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03-24-2013, 09:00 AM
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#6 | |||
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Really? So I have misread his denials that the term cannot be found with the use to which Matthew put it before Matthew? What do you make of his attempts to deny that δαίμων has this meaning in the pre 1st century CE texts (let alone in Philostratus exorcism stories) that I've cited as attesting to a "pagan" use of the term to mean the same thing that Matthew means by it? And even if I have, is this "elimination" not what we also find with respect to the pagan gods and goddesses and "inferior deities" that Greeks designated as, and spoke of, using the terms in question) in the OT, the Pseudepigrapha, and Rabbinic Judaism? If so, then the "elimination" of this meaning can hardly be claimed as an exclusively "Christian tendency", can it? More importantly, is it really the case that there are no Christian uses of the relevant Greek words with a positive -- or at least "non demonic" sense? Have you actually looked at the data in the NT apocrapha and the apostolic fathers to see? What do you do, for example, with Ignatius? Jeffrey |
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