Given that our session has the theme localizing the holy, the question arises how one marks a body, delimits it, i.e., separates it as holy from the larger profane world. I approach the idea of demarking the body by examining the limits of the body when it is occupied by that which is unholy, the demons.

Given the differentiation between the physical and the spiritual, how can a spiritual being such as a demon occupy a physical space, whether a sanctuary or a human body? How can that which does not have extension in space take possession of a body which is extended in space?

This became a significant question for Christianity in a quite specific way when theologians of the Middle Ages and Reformation addressed the question of how can the body of Christ be on the altar as Eucharist.⁽¹⁾ They had at their disposal a sophisticated array of philosophical concepts. But the theologians and pastors of North Africa had their own repertoire of ideas. They came from Scripture and from the ambient culture.

From their scriptures and non-canonical sources Christians inherited the ideas that the demons were the henchmen of Satan himself and that as a punishment for their primordial sin of pride, they were relegated to the abyss where they burned in fire. Yet the demons also existed outside the abyss. They tempted Jesus and possessed persons whom Jesus later liberated. Jesus also granted to his disciples the power to expel demons. Even after the death and resurrection of Jesus the demons were active in the world. Perhaps the most important scriptural inheritance was that the demons were the divinities of the nations. Besides the obvious polemical function of identifying the demons with the divinities of non-Christians, the identification served to offer Christians a source of information on the nature of these beings. So before assessing the teachings about demons among the Christian writers of North Africa, one ought to examine the prevailing views found in Greco-Roman society.
 
 

The beings Christians identified as the demons Christ exorcized did not occupy the same rank in the Greco-Roman cosmos. They were not always and invariably bad nor were they associated with some Satan-like figure as minions of evil. Many authors in antiquity described them. For this paper the most pertinent sources are Apuleius, a native North African, and the lore of Hermes Trismegistus, also well known in North Africa.⁽²⁾ The daemones of Greco-Roman religions⁽³⁾ were beings intermediate between humans and the divine.⁽⁴⁾ As such they shared capacities with each of the other two groups. With the gods they were immortal, but like humans they were subject to passions.⁽⁵⁾ Their bodies were neither like those of the gods not like those of terrestrial creatures but something in between, perhaps like the moisture of clouds but much finer; hence, they could not ascend to the highest part of heaven, nor were they bound to the earth.⁽⁶⁾ Being somewhat like both gods and humans, they acted as intermediaries between the gods and human beings and, in the Corpus Hermeticum, they functioned as the gatekeepers of the spheres through which souls passed on their way to the highet heaven.⁽⁷⁾ In sum, according to Apuleius: "The daemones have an animal nature, a rational mind, a soul subject to passions, an aetherial body and they are immortal." Some philosophers suspected that not all daemones were alike and divided them into the more noble and the more mischievous, commonly into two or three levels.⁽⁸⁾ In gnostic, especially Valentinian, circles the numbers rapidly multiplied into the hundreds. Various daemones were granted oversight over various aspects of life, such as oracles, animals, nations, and occupational groups.⁽⁹⁾ Each individual person might have a daemon which lived in the person-body and soul called genii or lares.⁽¹⁰⁾ Given the fact that there were good guardian daemones, the proper response to these would have beed veneration and sacrifices.
 

A the other end of the spectrum, other daemones acted in capricious or malevolent ways. Daemones could invade the soul and suggest wicked deeds such as "adulteriess, murders, assaults on one's father, acts of sacrilege and irreverence, suicides by hanging or falling from a cliff."⁽¹¹⁾ They could be held responsible for both physical and mental illnesses. In these cases they would invade and occupy the body of the person, using its capacities against it. In doing so, they made their presence known. Given the existence of mischievous or evil daemones, possible responses included apotropaic sacrifices, prayers, and the use of amulets and spells.⁽¹²⁾ If these failed one might have recourse to a holy person who would dispossess the afflicted person through words or spells like Apollonius of Tyana.⁽¹³⁾
 

Such lore forms the background for a consideration of the demons and their capacities in the literature of North African Christianity.

Sources for North African Christian beliefs and practices concerning the demons include the following (in rough chronoglogical order):

Tertullian (ca. 160 - ca. 225) is our earliest source. His apologetic works naturally expend much ink on the differences between Christians and their persecutors and the debauched nature of Roman religion as practiced in North Africa. As such, his works complement the non-Christian sources as much as they provide information on Christian attitudes.

Cyprian (d. 258) . The Carthaginian bishop is concerned with practice and often comments in passing, making the information perhaps more reliable.

Arnobius (3^rd to 4^th cent.) Was a rhetor from Sicca in North Africa.

Athanasius of Alexandria (ca. 296-373), Vita Antonii.Although this text is Egyptian and not technically North African, I have included it because Augustine's writings reflect an acquaintance with the content of the Vita. This work perhaps more than any other from the patristic period shows an interest in demonology.

Martyr stories. By and large, North African martyr stories see persecutors as Satan or his minions., but they offer only rare glimpses into the nature of the demons. Those stories which do so come more from the Donatist tradition where a literal and physicalist world-view predominate.⁽¹⁴⁾

Optatus of Milevis (fl. 370). His treatise against the Donatists provides information about exorcistic practices in North Africa in the context of a discussion of baptismal rituals.

Augustine (354-430). Given Augustine's intellectual attitudes and his reluctance, at least early in his career to deal with superstitious practices, such as veneration of relics, he provides a good source for information on practice in North Africa. His is also an important source because his De divinatione daemonum is a direct reply to Apuleius's De deo Socrati on which Part III of this paper relied.

Concilia Africae Of all of the councils and conferences, only two reflect any significant interest in demons. The Conference of Carthage in 411 mentions demons repeatedly, but only in a polemical fashion as Catholics and Donatists hurl charges of complicity with the demons at one another or require exorcism before admittance to the true church.⁽¹⁵⁾ The Concilia Africana sec. trad. coll. Hispanae is the other source. However, it need to be used with caution. Not only is it the only council to deal with the office of exorcist, it is the only document from any author attributed to North Africa which uses the term energumen. The word enegumen is found elsewhere only among Gallic Councils. The Statuta ecclesiae antiqua of 475 are verbally identical to the supposedly North African statutes. It is unclear which area influenced the other.

Fulgentius of Ruspe (462/468-527/533). While Fulgentius is largely dependent on Augustine, he is interesting because he preserves the Apuleian lore of Augustine without comment, showing how it had been thoroughly Christianized, and he adds his own materials.

The writings of the following authors have been surveyed but provide no significant materials: Novatian, Quodvultdeus, Primasius of Hadremetum, and Aurelius of Carthage. While Lactantius's writings do contains some materials on demons and exorcism, the fact that he spent his mature years in Nicomedia means that his writings may reflect beliefs and practices there rather than in North Africa. Marius Victorinus's situation in Rome is parallel. I have used their writings primarily for corroboration of native evidence.
 
 

Given the ambient beliefs and practices in North Africa and their biblical heritage, what did Christians do about demons? To understand what they did, it would be useful to reflect on the way in which they used the biblical materials and the offerings of their contemporary culture to make sense of the existence of demons.
 

A. The quasi-corporeal nature of demonic bodies

Christian traditions in North Africa use Scripture to identify the demons with non-Christian divinities. From Tertullian to Augustine, there was no doubt that the demons took on the qualities of the daemones in traditional cults. According to Tertullian, the demons stayed close to sacrifices for they fed upon the blood and the scents which wafted upward from the burning offerings.⁽¹⁶⁾ Because of their love of the blood and odors of sacrifice they spend a lot of time in and near the temples, making these dangerous places for those who wished to avoid demonic influence and possession.⁽¹⁷⁾

Their appreciation of the blood and odors of sacrifices implied that the demons had senses by which to perceive them. This raises the issue of whether they had bodies in which those senses resided and what sort of bodies they might have been. Here Christians followed the lead of traditional Greco-Roman religions. Augustine agreed with Apuleius that they had some sort of body different from that of humans. He used the common sentiment that the divine inhabits heaven, humans the earth, and the demons the space between. In common with the gods, they have immortality of body.⁽¹⁸⁾ In The City of God, he is willing to adopted those beliefs to ground his own speculation: "Now it may well be that the demons have a kind of body of their own, as learned men have thought, composed of thick moist air of this atmosphere whose pressure we feel when the wind is blowing."⁽¹⁹⁾ Augustine's interest in the bodies of demons stemmed not from any concern for the possessed but as an answer to the question, if hell-fire is material, how could it hurt demons who do not have material bodies like those of human beings. In fact, how could it hurt the human soul which are also not physical entities? Augustine treated the human soul in a way that logically followed from his treatment of the demons:
 

If an element of this sort could not be affected by fire, it would not burn us when it has been heated in the baths; for it is first burned so it can burn and passes on an experience it undergoes . . . . Why in fact, should we not say that immaterial spirits can be tormented by the pain of material fire in a way which is real, however amazing, seeing the spirit of man which without doubt is immaterial also, can [suffer].⁽²⁰⁾
 

His scriptural arsenal provided the example of Dives (Lk 16.24) to reinforce his point.
 

Not only could the demons suffer physical harm, but they suffered all sorts of emotions, the passion as of the soul, such as fear, desire and anger. Here Augustine again used the teaching of Apuleius to his benefit.⁽²¹⁾ In fact, Augustine differed very little from Apuleius on the nature of the demons. With him Augustine asserted that they have an animal nature and an aetherial body which is not dissolved by death.⁽²²⁾ If fact given the verbal similarities between Augustine's descriptions and that of Apuleius, it would be hard to believe that he did not have Apuleius' text before him. One can see this verbal similarity carried on in the work of Fulgentius of Ruspe who combined Augustine's work with more ammunition from the Scriptures:
 

Great well educated men assert that they [the demons] are clearly of a two-fold substance, i.e., from an incorporeal spirit, by which they can never withdraw from the contemplation of God, and from a body, by which they sometimes appear to human beings. They assent to this in accord with the psalm where it says, "He made spirit his messengers and burning fire his ministers" (Ps. 103.4). They say that the body is aetherial, i.e., fire. The angels, even the bad ones, i.e., the demons, have an aetherial body.⁽²³⁾
 

In summary then, demons have bodies which are neither purely physical nor purely spiritual. They might be considered quasi-corporeal in that they are not subject to physical constraints to the degree to which physical bodies are, but they are not as free as purely spiritual beings. The quasi-corporeality allowed them to experience emotions and to exist in particular places, including human bodies. In this respect, Christian belief did not differ significantly from that of the ambient culture.
 
 
 

B. Demons inhabiting places/bodies

According to North African writers the nature of the demons was aetherial but they inhabited many places. Marius Victorinus and Augustine, perhaps echoing contemporary physics asserted that their non-Christian contemporaries said demons could come from or inhabit fire, water, earth, and air.⁽²⁴⁾ In fact, Tertullian and Augustine provide evidence that demons traveled in or on the wind, blighting crops and herds necessitating the exorcism of fields and farms.⁽²⁵⁾
 

Lactantius provides a slightly more nuanced version of the creation of the demons. Taking his cue from the writings of Hermes Trismegistus (who was also known to Augustine) and Genesis 4.6 he believed that the demons who inhabit the earth are the offspring of the fallen angels and human beings. This double nature ties them to the earth.⁽²⁶⁾ Since this nature was neither spiritual nor physical but tenues et incomprehensibiles, it allowed them not only to inhabit the places where they were welcomed with daily sacrifices, like homes, temples, and the images of the dead, but they also penetrated and animated the entrails of animals and the flocks of birds used for taking omens.⁽²⁷⁾ Finally, they were able to insinuate themselves into and possess human bodies.⁽²⁸⁾ According to Athanasius, Life of Antony, shutting the door against them will do no good as they can penetrate the wood and come inside.⁽²⁹⁾
 

Besides those who visited the temples, those who frequented the amphitheater were in special danger. Tertullian warned of attendance there where the demons feasted on blood.⁽³⁰⁾ The very circumstances under which one attended reinforced the danger. At the games the eyes and ears drank in sight of gore and tumult and caused one to delight in and cheer on the bloodletting. Such actions were incited by the demons and gratified them.⁽³¹⁾ But the sort of person who would attend the theater and participate in the spectacles was only one of the raft of characters to which the demons were attracted. According to Augustine, different kinds of demons were had their favorite haunts and attractions such as "stones, plants, pieces of wood, animals, spells and ceremonies, so one could expect different people with their varying vices to attract different demons."⁽³²⁾ Even the reception of Baptism would not eliminate the possibility of possession by demons. Tertullian tells of the case of a woman who was possessed as she attended the theater: "In the course of the exorcism, the unclean spirit was set upon because it dared to attack one of the faithful, and it said quite calmly 'On the contrary, I acted most properly, for I found her in my territory.'"⁽³³⁾
 

Committing grave sins is offered entry to the demons. It went far beyond opening oneself to influence by demons, as the spectators at the theater did when they encouraged bloodletting and became demon-like in their frenzies. Ingesting meat offered to idols was especially dangerous. The meats attracted demons who mingled their spiritual bodies with the smoke and meat and thus found a means of entry into the human body. Cyprian provided witness of two cases. In the first a woman who had knowingly and willingly sacrificed seemed quite fine until she arrived at the baths, another potential place for lurking spirits. There her possession became visible.⁽³⁴⁾ In the second case, a baptized Christian infant was taken to offer sacrifice by her nanny. When she was confronted with the cup at Eucharist, the demon in her used all the infantile might and main at its behest to prevent the lips of the child from consuming the consecrated wine.⁽³⁵⁾
 

Once demons inhabited a body, they could cause disease, nightmares, mental illness, and physical pain. They could force the persons they inhabited to act on their behalf as they did those who persecuted Christians.⁽³⁶⁾ The demons might even use them as their mouthpieces, but never, according to Augustine, would the demons advise anyone to do good.⁽³⁷⁾ He also admitted that the demons might even change a person into an animal, but on the whole, such an appearance was more usually a phantom.⁽³⁸⁾ Augustine's scepticism here was in line with the demonology of Antony in Athanasius' Vita where, aside from the possession of people who need to be cured,⁽³⁹⁾ demonic appearances were just that, appearances produced by demons for the senses of the holy man, phantoms without corporeal reality.⁽⁴⁰⁾ As for dreams and nightmares, while Tertullian did think that most people get the greater part of what they know about God from dreams and visions,⁽⁴¹⁾ he did think that demons might insinuate their own advice into the human mind through dreams.⁽⁴²⁾ Increasingly from Tertullian to Cyprian and onwards, dreams were less an less seen as messages from God. Perhaps in response to the challenges offered by the New Prophecy Movement, the interpretation became more and more the purview of ecclesiastical authorities.
 

C. Exorcistic practices in North African practice

Once a demon does take over a physical space, how did North African Christians think one could dispossess or exorcize the fiend? Contrary to Egyptian interests, North Africans seem little concerned with the exorcism of place. Perhaps this is because there was not the early and prevalent practice of taking over non-Christian holy places for Christian use in North Africa as there was in Egypt. On the other hand, Christians in North Africa did have some interest in exorcizing persons.
 

1. Baptism Human beings are liberated from the presence of demons by a variety of practices. Perhaps the most obvious would be the sacrament of Baptism.⁽⁴³⁾ I will not treat it in detail because this seminar has heard papers on Baptism in past years and there is an extensive treatment in William Harmless's book.⁽⁴⁴⁾ However, I will list them and comment on a few of them.
 

The first of these is the repetition of exorcisms of catechumens. There is little indication of repetition in the earliest sources. Tertullian's comment on daily exorcisms seems not so much to be the repetition of exorcistic attempts on a particular individual or individuals as a very frequent occurrence.⁽⁴⁵⁾ In fact, he emphasized that when hands were laid on those who were ill, the demons departed at once.⁽⁴⁶⁾ There is no evidence that demons in catechumens behaved differently than demons in the sick. One may psychologize about this and claim that it takes longer for catechumens to change their ways and thus be rid of demons who represent or tie them to their old ways of life than those who wished to be healed. However, there is no evidence from the early third century to think this way. However, as one moves through the North African experience chronologically, it seems that it takes repeated exorcisms to rid catechumens of demons, individual persons as the widespread and frequent practice on a variety of individuals.⁽⁴⁷⁾ By the fifth century, Augustine comments on the repeated practice of pre-baptismal exorcism by saying that the repeated exorcisms were like the long and difficult effort it took to grind wheat very fine to become Eucharistic bread.⁽⁴⁸⁾
 

The water of Baptism was also considered as exorcistic. The water was blessed by the bishop as a prelude to the Spirit making its home there and infusing it with power.⁽⁴⁹⁾ In North Africa all water in Scripture in some way reflected Baptism and only in the Western variants coming from North Africa did the story of the cure of the man at the pool of Bethsaida contain a verse indicating the infusion of power into the water.⁽⁵⁰⁾
 

2. Oil Oil was used in exorcisms both before Baptism and in other circumstances. Donastist considered oil like water as very powerful but only if consecrated by the right bishop. Optatus of Milevis writes of a prebaptismal anointing: "when refined it [the oil] is now called chrism, and contains the sweetness which soothes the skin of conscience by expelling the pain of sins, and produces new ease of mind which prepares a seat for the Holy Spirit."⁽⁵¹⁾ How the oil might produce its effects is not clear. It may receive and convey the Spirit in some manner akin to that of baptismal water. However, the exorcistic intent is, for the oil is consecrated in the name of Christ, another exorcistic tool, and is used with the formula: Accursed one, go out.⁽⁵²⁾
 

However, another example makes it clear that oil was used in non-baptismal exorcism. Augustine mentions a virgin of Hippo who was cured of possession by anointing with oil. What was distinctive about this anointing is that the oil used had been mixed with the tears of an unnamed presbyter who had been praying for her.⁽⁵³⁾ The accent here is not so much on the oil as on the prayers as Augustine followed this story immediately with the account of the exorcism of a young man by the prayers of a bishop (unnamed) who had never laid eyes on him.
 

With respect to the exorcisms with oil and prayer, it is interesting to note that while Augustine reports many cures gained through the use of relics, there are not exorcisms which employ relics as a tool.
 

3. Laying on of hands with prayer Along with the oil, one reads of hands being laid on the energumens. In fact, the laying on of hands with prayer becomes the gesture par excellence of exorcism. One or both gestures seem to be present in almost every mention of exorcism from the earliest days to the time of Augustine.⁽⁵⁴⁾ As North Africans moved from charismatic exorcism to a church office of exorcist, the gesture became ensconced in the ritual of ordination along with specific prayers. The canons describe the ritual:
 

When an exorcist is ordained, he should receive from the hands of the bishop the book in which the exorcisms are written while the bishop says: receive what has been handed over to you and accept the power of laying hands on energumens whether already baptized or catechumens. ⁽⁵⁵⁾
 

This description also attest to the practice of exorcizing not only catechumens but those possessed by demons after Baptism. While Baptism was effective in ridding a person of demons at a particular time, no perpetual immunity from possession was conferred.
 

The canons also provide evidence that those who were undergoing the repeated exorcisms swept out the church buildings daily.⁽⁵⁶⁾ Perhaps the ritual of daily sweeping was more than a way to find cheap labor. Given the dusty North African countryside, the repetition of the ritual must have seemed like the ceaseless vigilance necessary to keep demons at bay once they were exorcized. The exercise fit remarkably well with the biblical passage about exorcism:
 

When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. Then it says, "I will return to my house from which I came." When it comes, it finds it empty, swept and put in order (Mt 12.43-44) .
 

So the person exorcized would be reminded that perpetual vigilance was necessary to prevent the repossession of the person by the demon which had been expelled. The link between the practice and the biblical verse is also attested in Optatus of Milevis' discussion of sweeping and baptism.⁽⁵⁷⁾

The energumens who were exorcized daily, whether catechumens or already baptized, were prevented by the daily exorcisms and sweeping duties from pursuing their usual callings. In light of this the exorcists were given the duty of providing for their support during the period of exorcism.⁽⁵⁸⁾
 

4. Spitting and exsufflation. While these two gestures are part of exorcism in Baptism, they are present elsewhere also. With respect to Baptism, Augustine cannot seem to talk about one without the other, especially in his controversies with the Pelagians over infant baptism. As William Harmless describes them, they are signs of hatred and contempt.⁽⁵⁹⁾ The gestures are very old. The first mention of spitting comes from Tertullian where he indicates that the gesture is repeated and, it seems, it is not the candidate who 'spits out' some repudiation of the devil, so as to rid the body of the demon as a physical presence, but that the demons within the catechumens are spit or hissed at by the Christians who are already baptized.⁽⁶⁰⁾ Because the demon is in the body and resides there as an aetherial substance, the two gestures are particularly important. As no two bodies occupy the same space at the same time, so one learned from the Bible and from Cyprian that Christ and the demons cannot possess the same body at the same time. Not only did the spitting serve to expel the demon with contempt, but the breathing of the exorcist into the face of the energumen, by the force of the breath, served to push out the demon. For, as Augustine says, the image of God entered only those who had undergone exsufflation.⁽⁶¹⁾ The Prince of This World must first be blown out.⁽⁶²⁾ Alternatively, it is his power which must be expelled.⁽⁶³⁾ But in either case, because the demon or its influence has a physical presence like hot humid air, the breath of the exorcist which is hot and humid is an apt tool for the task.
 

5. The Name of Christ and Sign of the Cross The final means for evicting demons depend on Christ, his works and the power of the Cross. Exorcists in North Africa looked to Jesus as a model. Their use of words such as "Accursed one, go out," imitated his expulsion of demons without the paraphernalia of magic.⁽⁶⁴⁾ The words of the exorcists and especially the name of Christ were, according to Lactantius, like scourges whipping the bodies of the demons. If they could suffer the passions as emotions, they might also be able to suffer the pain inflicted by the name of the one by whose suffering and death they were vanquished. He said that they felt it like fire,⁽⁶⁵⁾ It was those words which reminded them that they were consigned to and would spend eternity being tortured in flames.⁽⁶⁶⁾ The sign of the Cross reminded them of Christ who put them to flight.⁽⁶⁷⁾ It was routinely used in the admission to the catechumenate and in exorcisms.

In sum, the demons respond to gestures and actions which match their own natures and which exploit their natural weaknesses. Possessing aetherial bodies, they are dispossessed by the hot breath of Christians. Vanquished by Christ on the Cross, they flee from the sign.
 
 

From this survey of North African evidence, one can draw several conclusions.

1. North African Christian practice was based on a cosmology not substantially different from that of Greco-Roman religions. Demons had bodies somewhere between those of gods and humans.

2. Exorcistic practices mirrored the belief that the demons bodies and human exhalations were similar in mass, moisture, and temperature.

3. What differentiated Christian practice from that of the surrounding culture was the use of the model, name and Cross of Christ in exorcism.
 

It is interesting to note how long practices based on these assumptions have continued in Christian practice. Two examples will suffice. The first is the perdurance of Greco-Roman cosology in Christian tradition. The Middle Ages preserved the Hermetic universe with its daemones as gatekeepers, although as one might expect, they were malevolent. The St. Gall sacramentary provides a testament to this in the oldest extant prayer for anointing the dying: "I anoint you with sanctified oil that in the manner of a warrior prepared through anointing for battle you will be able to prevail over the aery hordes."⁽⁶⁸⁾ Some Christians today still preserve the belief that the state of the dead might be changed between death and their final resting place.

Second, one still finds the practices of exsufflation and exorcism of water based on the ancient construction of demonic bodies. The Roman Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults includes provision for breathing in the faces of candidates with the prayer: Breathe your Spirit, O Lord and drive out the spirits of evil: command them to depart, for your kingdom is drawing near" for signing wi`th the Cross and the laying on of hands.⁽⁶⁹⁾ The rituals for making holy water still retains some reflections of the expulsion from the water of demonic presence.

Reflections on contemporary exorcism would require a whole paper in themselves, but the perdurance and the the results of the revision of the ritual suggest that Greco-Roman constructions of the daemones perdure in contemporary ritual.
 
 

1. One of the better articulations of the possibilities for a spiritual being to occupy a particular space is Martin Luther's discussion of the way that Christ might be in the Eucharist in "Confession concerning Christ's Supper," in Martin Luther's Basic Writings, ed. by Timothy Lull (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), pp. 383-385. While this text much postdates the documents reviewed hear, it is worth reading because its physics relies on a non-Aristotleian construction of the universe similar to that of North African Christians.

2. Direct references in Marius Victorinus, Explanationes in Ciceronis rhetoricam 1.26 Augustine, De civitate dei 7.14 and 8.23, 24, 26; and, Quodvultdeus Adverses quinque haereses 3 and Liber promissionum et praedictorum dei 3.38; and Lactantius, passim, but especially Divinae Institutiones 4-8 illustrate North African knowledge of the Hermetic corpus.

3. In this paper, I will use daemon/daemones in referring to the beings as they held a place in Greco-Roman philosophical and religious systems, and the word demon/demons for their Christian counterparts.

4. Apuleius, De deo Socrati 6 (hereafter DdS). All citations to De deo Socrati in this paper are to the text as posted at <http://www.gmu.edu/departments/fld/CLASSICS/apuleius.deosocratis.html>.

5. Apuleius, DdS 12-13; cf. Plutarch, On the Obsolescence of Oracles 416C in Moralia with an English translation by Frank Cole Babbit, 16 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard; and London: William Heinemann, 1934) 5. 384-385.

6. Apuleius, Dds 9-11; Cf. Corpus Hermeticum (hereafter CH) 2.14.

7. CH 1.22.

8. For the three levels, see Plutarch, Apuleius, and Plotinus. Celsus has two and Imablichus, several. For a discussion of levels and differences, see Ramsey MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven and London: Yale, 1981), p. 79.

9. MacMullen, p. 82; Apuleius, DdS 6 and 14.

10. Apuleius, DdS 11 and 14.

11. CH 9.3 in Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a new English translation, with notes and introduction by Brian P. Copenhaver (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1992), pp. 27-28.

12. There is a wealth of literature on magic in antiquity. See, e.g., Georg Luck, Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins, 1985).

13. Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana 4.20 and 6.43, translated by F. C. Conybeare, Loeb Classical Library 2 vols. (London: William Heinemann; and Cambridge: Harvard, 1969), 1.388-392 and 2.140-142.

14. References to martyr stories in this apper are to Donatist Martyr Stories: The Church in Conflict in Roman North Africa, trans. and ed. by Maureen A. Tilley, Translated Texts for Historians 24 (Liverpool: University of Liverpool, 1996.

15. Cf. Sententiae LXX episcoporum of the Council of Carthage in 256.

16. Tertullian, Ad Scapulam 2 and Ad Nationes 2.12.

17. Minucius Felix, Octavius 27.

18. Cf. Athanasius, Vita Antonii 31.

19. Augustine, De civitate dei 21.10 in St Augustine City of God, trans. by Henry Bettenson (London and New York: Penguin, 1984), p. 985.

20. Augustine, De civitate dei 21.10 (Bettenson, pp. 985-986).

21. Augustine, De civitate dei 7.14 and 9.6 (Bettenson, pp. 318 and 350).

22. Augustine, De Genesi ad litt. 3.10: quapropter, etsi daemones aeria sunt similia quoniam corporum ariorum natura vigent, et propterea morte non dissoluuntur, quia praevalent in eis elementum . . . .

23. Fulgentius of Ruspe, Liber de Trinitate ad Felicem 9: Plane ex duplici eos esse substantia asserunt magni et docti viri, id est ex spiritu incorporeo, quo a dei contemplatione numquam recedunt, et ex corpore per quod tempore hominibus apparent, approbantes hoc ex illo loco psalmi ubi dicit: qui facit angelos suos spiritus, et ministros suos ignem urentem. Corpus ergo aethereum, id est, igneum, eos dicunt habere, angelos vero malos, id est daemones, corpus aereum.

24. Marius Victorinus, Commentarii in Epistlas Pauli: In Ep. ad Galatas 2.4: de terra deos faciant, sed per ignem deos faciant, deinde etiam quosdam daemones aerios vocent, rursus alii empyrios, alii enhydros, alii geinos, id est terrenos, aquaticos, aeriod, ignitos. Cf. Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos 113.2.3.

25. Tertullian, Apologeticum 22; and Augustine, De civitate dei 22.8

26. Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones 1.14: qui autem sunt ex his quia neque angel ineque homines fuerunt, sed median quandam naturam gerentes, non sunt ad inferos recepti ssicut in caelum parentes eorum . . . quoid idcirco dictum est [a Hesiode] quoniam custodes eos humano genere deus miserat.

27. Minucius Felix, Octavius 27; Tertullian, Apologeticum 23; and Augustine, Ennarationes in pslamos 134.20.

28. Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones 1.14: qui quoniam spiritus sunt tenues et incomprehensibiles insinuant se in corporibus hominum . . . . Cf. Lactantius Iunior, Commentarii in psalmos 95: Probatum est enim, quod omnes dii gentium, qui in templis positi essent, habitarent in eis daemonia.

29. Cf. Athanasius, Vita Antonii 28.

30. Tertullian, De spectaculis 12.

31. Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus 16.25.

32. Augustine, De civitate dei 21.6 (Bettenson, p. 975).

33. Tertullian, De spectaculis 26: Itaque in exorcismo cum ornareretur immundus spiritus, qui ausus erat fidelem aggredi, constanter, "et iustissime quidem, " inquit, "feci: quod in meo eam inveni."

34. Cyprian, De lapsis 24.

35. Cyprian, De lapsis 25.

36. Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones 1.14: occulte in visceribus operati valetudinem vitiant, morbos citant, somnis animos terrent, mentes furoribus quatiunt et homines his malis cogant ad eorum auxilia decurrere. Athansius, Vita Antonii 9 on physical pain. On persecutors as possessed, see A Sermon Given on the Passion of Saints Donatus and Advocatus 2 and 4, the role of Anulinus in The Passion of Saints Maxima, Donatilla and Secunda 2; cf. section 3 where Anulinus has eaten the food of the demon.

37. Augustine, De civitate dei 2.24

38. Augustine, De civitate dei 18.18.

39. E. g., Vita 14.

40. E.g., women, a body, animals, a dish, and odor; see Vita 5, 6, 9, 11, 23, 51, and 63.

41. Tertullian, De anima 47.

42. Tertullian, De anima 46 and Apologeticum 23.

43. Augustine, Ennarationes in psalmos 73.15.

44. William Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1995), especially pp. 260-274.

45. Tertullian, Ad Scapulam 2: Daemonas autem non tantum respuimus, uerum et reuincimus, et cottidie traducimus, et de hominibus expellimus, sicut plurimis notum est.

46. Tertullian, Apologeticum 27

47. Concilia Africae sec. trad coll. Hispanae: Omni die exorcistae energumenis manus impnant . . . Energumenis in domo dei assidentibus victus quotidianus per exorcistaas opportune tempore ministraretur.

48. Augustine, Sermones 227, 229 and 229A; De fide et operibus 6.8; cf. Enarrationes in psalmos 65.17 for the continuation of the metaphor.

49. See the discussion of the role of the bishop in Optatus of Milevis, Liber VII contra Donatistas 5.4-7.

50. Jn 5.4: angelus autem secundum tempus descendebat in piscinam et movebat aquam qui ergo prius descendisset post motum aquae sanus fiebat a quocumque languore tenebatur.

51. Optatus of Milevis 2.4, Optatus: Against the Donatists, trans. by Mark Edwards, Translated Texts for Historians 27 (Liverpool: University of Lvierpool, 1997), p. 143.

52. Optatus 4.6; see Harmless, p. 264, n. 93 for other evidence.

53. Augustine, De civitate dei 22.8.

54. E.g., Tertullian, Apologeticum 27; Minucius Felix, Octavius 27; and Augustine, De beata vita 3.

55. Concilia Africae sec. trad. coll. Hispanae: Exorcista cum ordinartur, accipiant manu episcopi libellum in quo scripti sunt exorcismi, dicente sibi episcopo: accipe et commenda et habeto potestatem imponendi manus super energumnos sive baptizatum sive catechumen.

56. Concilia Africae sec. trad. coll. Hispanae: Pavimenta domorum dei energumenti verrrant.

57. Optatus 4.6.

58. Concilia Africae sec. trad. coll. Hispanae: Energumenis in domo dei assidentibus victus quotidianus per exorcistas opportune tempore minisretur.

59. Harmless, p. 264.

60. Tertullian, Ad Scapulam 2: Daemones autem non tantum respuimus, verum et revincimus, et cottidie traducimus, de hominibus expellimus, sicut plurimis notum est.

61. Augustine, Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum 2.81.

62. Augustine, Contra Iulianum 3 and 6; and Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum, passim, especially 1.56, 2.142, and 3.199.

63. Augustine, De symbolo ad catechumenos 1: ideo sicut uidistis hodie, sicut nostis, et paruuli exsufflantur et exorcizantur, ut pellatur ab eis diaboli potestas inimica, quae decepit hominem, ut possideret homines.

64. Arnobius, Adversus nationes 45-40 passim.

65. Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones 2.26.

66. Tertullian, Apologeticum 23.

67. Augustine, De civitate dei 4.31; and Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones 4.26-27.

68. St. Gall Sacramentary §233: ungo te oleo sactificato, ut more militis uncti praeparatus ad luctam possis reas superare catervas, cited in Frederick S. Paxton, Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 111.

69. The Rites of the Catholic Church, 2 vols. (New York: Pueblo, 1983), RCIA §§79, 83-85 and 171. The ritual for the Baptism for Children §115 has effaced references to traditional cosmology.