The stark contrast between good and bad daimons in the Empire and late antiquity is consistent with the dualism inherent in the religions of the era, not only Judaism and Christianity, but also Zoroastrianism,4 Gnosticism5 and the related Manichaeism.6 These religions particularly emphasise either/or, black and white antitheses between good and evil, though it is important to point out, as Culianu did, that their versions of dualism were not uniform and could reflect a pro- or anti-cosmic stance.7 Dualism certainly existed in Greek reli- gion and philosophy before the Hellenistic period and the Greco-Roman era,8 but the syncretic atmosphere of the later period allowed cross-pollination
3 For a recent discussion of dualism as a concept see P. F. M. Fontaine, ‘What is Dualism, and what is it not?’ in Light Against Darkness: Dualism in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and the Contemporary World, ed. Armin Lange, et al., Journal of Ancient Judaism Supple ments (Göttingen: Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, 2011).
4 Roger Beck refers to its ‘fundamental dualism’ in R. Beck, ‘Thus Spake Not Zarathuštra: Zoroastrian Pseudepigrapha of the Greco-Roman World’, in A History of Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism under Macedonian and Roman Rule (vol. 3), ed. Mary Boyce and Frantz Grenet (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), 494.
5 K. Rudolph, Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism, trans. R. McL. Wilson, P. W. Coxon, and K. H. Kuhn (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1987), 65: ‘Dualism dominates the whole of gnostic cosmology, and particularly in relation to creation and its authors.’ (For a mitigation of this view, however, see Z. Pleše, ‘Gnostic Dualism’, in Light Against Darkness: Dualism in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and the Contemporary World, ed. Armin Lange, et al., Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplements (Göttingen: Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, 2011).)
6 John Dillon says Persian dualism influenced notions of evil daimons in late antiquity (Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 47), which is true as far as it goes. Yet I think a convergence of dual- istic doctrines present at this time (including Jewish, Christian and Gnostic) influenced the notion of evil daimons. See D. R. McBride, ‘The Egyptian Foundations of Gnostic Thought’ (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Toronto, 1994), online at http://colba.net/~drmcb/Egyptian%20 Gnosis/Contents/Contents.html for Egyptian dualism especially related to Gnosticism. 7 I. P. Culianu, Psychanodia I. A Survey of the Evidence concerning the Ascension of the Soul and
its Relevance (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983), 21.
8 See, e.g., S. Skovgaard Jensen, Dualism and Demonology: The Function of Demonology in Pythagorean and Platonic Thought (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1966).
that especially fed dualistic tendencies.9 As these religious flourished, so did their views of good and bad daimons. Moreover, astrology’s incorporation into several religions of late antiquity, including Mithraism,10 Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism, merges an astral world view with dualistic principles.
In Zoroastrianism, light and darkness, good and evil, are exemplified in Ahura Mazda and Ahriman. The religion and culture of ancient Iran features both good and bad daimons. Diodorus Siculus claims that the Agathos Daimon11 gave laws to Zarathustra, a claim also mentioned in a scholion to the Greater Alcibiades.12 This scholion connects ‘prosperous thought’ (ἐπιτυχὲς νόημα) with
9 See van der Toorn, Becking and van der Horst, eds, DDD, 235–36, for dualism in this era. A. H. Armstrong, ‘Dualism: Platonic, Gnostic, and Christian’, in Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, ed. Richard T. Wallis and Jay Bregman (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992), 33–54, gives definitions of dualism and applies them to the different traditions flourishing at this time. B. A. Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions and Lit erature (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 334, distinguishes between the ‘monistic type’ of dualism (where evil devolves from a divine transcendent good God), and the dualism of ‘eternally opposing principles of light and darkness.’ For recent research on dualism, see A. Lange et al., eds., Light Against Darkness: Dualism in Ancient Mesopo tamian Religion and the Contemporary World, Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplements (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), containing essays on dualism in Greek phi- losophy, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Manichaeism.
10 B. Bakhouche, L’Astrologie à Rome (Louvain/Paris/Sterling, VA: Peeters, 2002), 148–56. Roger Beck is a leading proponent of astrology in Mithraism; see, e.g., R. Beck, Planetary Gods and Planetary Orders in the Mysteries of Mithras (Leiden/New York/Copenhagen: E. J. Brill, 1988); idem, The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire: Mysteries of the Unconquered Sun (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); and his collected works on Mithraism, R. Beck, Beck on Mithraism: Collected Works with New Essays (Aldershot/ Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004).
11 The Greek version of, probably, ‘Vohu Manah’ (Good Thought), one of the Amesha Spentas, but possibly Spenta Mainyu, ‘beneficent spirit’; see A. de Jong, Traditions of the Magi: Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin Literature (Leiden/New York: Brill, 1997), 264, 267. 12 Noticed by de Jong, ibid., 267; see also 322. Diodorus writes (Bibliotheca historica, 1.94.2):
‘Thus it is recorded that among the Arians Zathraustes claimed that the Good Spirit [ἀγαθὸς δαίμων] gave him his laws, among the people known as the Getae who represent themselves to be immortal Zamolxis asserted the same of their common goddess Hestia, and among the Jews Moyses referred his laws to the god who is invoked as Iao.’ (Trans. Oldfather, in Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, vol. 1, trans. C. H. Oldfather (London/ New York: Harvard University Press, 1933).) The scholion says: ‘It is said that Zoroaster was six thousand years older than Plato. Some say he was a Greek, but others that he was the offspring of those who originated from the land beyond the great sea, and that he learned all wisdom from the Agathos Daimon, that is, “prosperous thought”.’ Ζωροάστρης ἀρχαιότερος ἑξακισχιλίοις ἔτεσιν ᾗ λέγεται Πλάτωνος· ὃν οἱ μὲν Ἕλληνα, οἱ δὲ τῶν ἐκ τῆς ὑπὲρ
the good daimon; we have already seen the daimon commonly associated with
nous in Hellenistic philosophy and astrology.13 Plutarch lays out the tenets of
Zoroastrianism, as he sees them, in De Iside et Osiride (369e–379c), stressing the stark dualism of Ahura Mazda (Ὡρομάζης) and Ahriman (Ἀρειμάνιος). Iran’s flourishing demonology (daimons were said to control the weather, among other things) incorporated magical practices aimed at apotropaic measures against bad demons.14 Daimons were also associated with both fixed and shooting stars.15
Gnosticism is renowned for its severe delineations of good and evil deities, and its casting of the material world as evil. This dualism, which character- ises the spiritual (in the form of a transcendent God) as good and the material (the physical world) as evil, is a special feature of Gnosticism.16 Gnostic cos- mology is complex, with variations among sects, but generally holds that the entire world of planets and earth is ruled by evil daimons,17 sometimes called archons. The chief archon is also the creator of the world, a demiurge who rules either the seventh sphere or the eighth; below him are the spheres of the plan- ets, each ruled by a different demon archon representing different passions or desires. In one sect’s cosmology (the Ophites), the physical world is sur- rounded by the serpent Leviathan, pictured as an ouroboros.18 Humans, born
τὴν μεγάλην θάλασσαν ἠπείρου ὁρμωμένων φασίν, πᾶσάν τε σοφίαν παρὰ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ δαίμονος ἐκμαθεῖν, τουτέστιν ἐπιτυχοῦς νοήματος· (W. C. Greene, ed., Scholia Platonica, ed. Frederic D. Allen, John Burnet, and Charles Pomeroy Parker (Haverford, PA: American Philological Association, 1938), 100 [scholion to Alcibiades, 1.122A].)
13 See Chapter 1, 1.3. In CH X, 23.5–6 we read ‘This [i.e. mind] is the good daimon’ (Nock and Festugière, CH I, 124.22–125.1): οὗτος [sc. νοῦς] ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθὸς δαίμων·.
14 P. Callieri, ‘In the Land of the Magi’, 17. Egyptian decans, too, were said to influence the weather (e.g. the Naos of the Decades: see C. Leitz, Altägyptische Sternuhren (Leuven: Peeters, 1995), 3–50, esp. 47; also D. Lehoux, Astronomy, Weather and Calendars in the Ancient World: Parapegmata and Related Texts in Classical and NearEastern Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 123–27 [with commentary on Leitz], 136–37).
15 Callieri, ‘In the Land of the Magi’, 17.
16 Rudolph, Gnosis, 60; see also Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism, 12–19, for descriptions of Gnostic dualism. I thank Attilio Mastrocinque (personal communication, 7 March 2015) for clarification of this description.
17 See the discussion of the demonisation of the cosmos and Gnostic dualism in I. P. Couliano, Expériences de l’extase. Extase, ascension et récit visionnaire de l’Hellénisme au Moyen Âge (Paris: Payot, 1984), ch. 2, 45–62; and Culianu, Psychanodia, 19–21.
18 See Origen, Contra Celsum, VI, 28–31. The previous description is drawn from Rudolph, Gnosis, 67–69, which has an accompanying ‘Ophite Diagram’ showing the cosmology; see also A. J. Welburn, ‘Reconstructing the Ophite Diagram’, NT 23, no. 3 (1981): 261–87.
into the world of matter, have a divine spark from the spiritual realm above the earth; they can be saved from the corruption of matter by gnosis, which Rudolph translates as ‘insight’.19 However, this severe cosmology depicting the planets as evil archons and demons can be modified in some Gnostic texts, for example the Pistis Sophia.20
Manichaeism, as a Gnostic sect,21 continued on the path of extreme dual- ism (coincidentally its founder, Mani, claimed to have a personal daimon).22 A world of light and good (God and aeons) battles a world of darkness and evil (demons and archons). But unlike ordinary Gnostic extremism, where the world is irretrievably corrupt, in Mani’s cosmology the world contains bits of light and therefore is not completely demonised. The sun and moon are purely light; the five planets and stars of the zodiac are a mixture of light and darkness.23
Neo-Platonism, too, maintained a dualistic strand, exemplified by its treat- ment of daimons, within its monism.24 The Chaldean Oracles’ good iunges and bad sublunar, elemental daimons, formed of evil matter,25 may have influ- enced some Neo-Platonic dogma about good and bad daimons.26
19 Rudolph, Gnosis, 70.
20 See, e.g., PS IV, 136–137, where there are good archons who follow the light, and Zeus is also a good planet called ‘Little Sabaoth’.
21 S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, eds, Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), s.v. Manichaeism, 917. Though perhaps it would not be cor- rect to characterise him or Manichaeism as Gnostic, since Attilio Mastrocinque informs me (personal communication, 7 March 2015) that Mani was an Elkasaite.
22 P. Brown, ‘The Diffusion of Manichaeism in the Roman Empire’, JRS 59, no. 1/2 (1969): 92–103, here 94.
23 See Rudolph, Gnosis, 336–37; Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism, 303.
24 G. Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 40.
25 Julian, Chaldean Oracles, ed. Majercik, 13–14. See, in the Chaldean Oracles, e.g., Frs 88, 90, 91, 135, 149, 157.
26 See Lewy and Tardieu, eds, Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy, esp. Ch. 5, ‘Chaldaean Demonology’; F. W. Cremer, Die Chaldäischen Orakel und Jamblich De mysteriis (Meisenheim am Glan: A. Hain, 1969), esp. 68–86 (on daimons); and, for the influence of the Chaldean Oracles on theurgy, R. Smith, Julian’s Gods: Religion and Philosophy in the Thought of Julian the Apostate (London/New York: Routledge, 1995), 91–110. See also above, Chapter 4, 1.3 (‘Greek Demons’), 125–26.