Demonology

—Biblical and Post-Biblical Data:

Systematic knowledge concerning demons or evil spirits. Demons (Greek, δαίμονες or δαιμόνια; Hebrew,

Demons in the Bible.

The demons mentioned in the Bible are of two classes, the "se'irim" and the "shedim." The se'irim ("hairy beings"), to which the Israelites sacrificed in the open fields (Leviticus 17:7; A. V. "devils"; R. V., incorrectly, "he-goats"), are satyr-like demons, described as dancing in the wilderness (Isaiah 13:21, 34:14; compare Maimonides, "Moreh," 3:46; Vergil's "Eclogues," 5:73, "saltantes satyri"), and are identical with the jinn of the Arabian woods and deserts (see Wellhausen, c., and Smith, c.). To the same class belongs AZAZEL, the goat-like demon of the wilderness (Leviticus 16:10 et seq.), probably the chief of the se'irim, and LILITH (Isaiah 34:14). Possibly "the roes and hinds of the field," by which Shulamit conjures the daughters of Jerusalem to bring her back to her lover (Song of Solomon 2:7, 3:5), are faunlike spirits similar to the se'irim, though of a harmless nature. The

The Israelites also offered sacrifices to the shedim (Deuteronomy 32:17; Psalms 106:37). The name

But there are many indications that popular Hebrew mythology ascribed to the demons a certain independence, a malevolent character of their own, because they are believed to come forth, not from the heavenly abode of Yhwh, but from the nether world (compare Isaiah 38:11 with Job 14:13; Psalms 16:10, 49:16, 139:8). "The first-born of Death who devours the members of his [man's] body" and causes him to be brought "to the king of terrors" (Job 18:13,14, Hebr.), is undoubtedly one of the terrible hawk-like demons, portrayed in the Babylonian Hades-picture (see illustrationabove, and Roscher, "Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie," s. "Nergal"), and the "messengers of death" (Proverbs 16:14) are identical with the "servants of Nergal," the King of Hades and god of pestilence and fever in Chaldean mythology (see Jeremias, "Die Babylonisch-Assyrischen Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode," 1887, pp. 71 et seq.; Zimmern, c. pp. 412 et seq.; Jensen, c. pp. 478, 557).

Other Demons.

'Alukah (Proverbs 30:15; A. V. "horseleech"), the bloodsucker or vampire, whose two daughters cry "Give! Give!" is none other than the flesh-devouring ghoul of the Arabs, called by them "'aluḳ" (Wellhausen, c. pp. 135-137). She has been rendered in Jewish mythology the demon of the nether world (=

Time and Place of Appearance.

—In Rabbinical Literature:

It was the primitive demonology of Babylonia which peopled the world of the Jews with beings of a semi-celestial and semi-infernal nature. Only afterward did the division of the world between Ahriman and Ormuzd in the Mazdean system give rise to the Jewish division of life between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of evil. Rabbinical demonology has, like the Chaldean, three classes of, demons, though they are scarcely separable one from another. There were the "shedim," the "mazziḳim" (harmers), and the "ruḥin" or "ruḥotra'ot" (evil spirits). Besides these there were "lilin" (night spirits), "ṭelane" (shade, or evening, spirits), "ṭiharire" (midday spirits), and "ẓafrire" (morning spirits), as well as the "demons that bring famine" and "such as cause storm and earthquake" (Targ. Yer. to Deuteronomy 32:24 and Numbers 6:24; Targ. to Song of Solomon 3:8, 4:6; Ecclesiastes 2:5; Psalms 91:5,6; compare