Inancient Greek religion,daimon (Ancient Greek:δαίμων), also spelleddaemon, often referred to lesserdeities, but could more broadly signify "the experience of divine power".[1] The term's etymology is unclear,[2] though it is often thought to originate fromdaíō (δαίω,'divide, distribute').[3] TheIliad describes the gods congregated atopOlympus asdaimones;[4] the term is employed by aHomeric character when they are unaware which deity is the agent of an event.[5] InHesiod'sWorks and Days it describes thesouls of people from theGolden Age, who acted as guardians (phúlakes,φύλακες), leading to its denoting a spirit who positively or negatively influences an individual's life.[6]
InPlato'sSymposium,daimones are beings who sit somewhere between gods and men, an idea embraced by later authors.[7] For Christian thinkers, the daimonic was associated with non-rational divine inspiration and, due to its lack of predictability, was considered evil.[8] For modern non-Christian thinkers, such asJohann Wolfgang von Goethe, the daimon remained neutral.[8][9] There is only one instance ofdaimon featuring in ancient Greekcult andart: in the form ofAgathos Daimon ('Good Daimon').[10]
According toRobert S. P. Beekes, the word is derived fromProto-Indo-European*deh₂-(i-)'cut, divide'.[11]
Daimons are lesserdivinities or spirits, oftenpersonifications ofabstract concepts, beings of the same nature as both mortals and deities, similar toghosts,chthonic heroes,spirit guides, forces of nature, or the deities themselves (see Plato'sSymposium). Even though the term derives from Greek philosophy, anthropology agrees that daimons are universal across human cultures.[9] According to Hesiod's myth, "great and powerful figures were to be honoured after death as a daimon..."[12] According toWalter Burkert, the term does not refer to a particular group of deities, but to a specific "mode of activity"; he describesdaimon as the "necessary complement" to the individual and personal nature of the gods inHomeric epic, covering "that embar[r]assing remainder which eludes characterization and naming".[13] According to theAnimism-theory byTylor and similar toWilliam Robertson Smith's theory ontotemism, belief in gods evolved from daimons — includingghosts andjinn — into gods.[9]
InHesiod'sTheogony,Phaëton becomes an incorporealdaimon or a divine spirit,[14] but, for example, the ills released byPandora are deadly deities,keres, notdaimones.[12] From Hesiod also, the people of theGolden Age were transformed intodaimones by the will ofZeus, to serve mortals benevolently as their guardian spirits; "good beings who dispense riches...[nevertheless], they remain invisible, known only by their acts".[15] Thedaimones of veneratedheroes were localized by the construction of shrines, so as not to wander restlessly, and were believed to confer protection and good fortune on those offering their respects.[12]
One tradition of Greek thought, which found agreement in the mind ofPlato, was of a daimon which existed within a person from their birth, and that each individual was obtained by a singular daimon prior to their birthby way of lot.[12]
Homer's use of the wordstheoí (θεοί, "gods") anddaímones (δαίμονες) suggests that, while distinct, they are similar in kind.[16] Later writers developed the distinction between the two.[17] Plato inCratylus[18] speculates that the worddaimōn (δαίμων, "deity") is synonymous todaēmōn (δαήμων, "knowing or wise");[19] however, it is more probablydaiō (δαίω, "to divide, to distribute destinies, to allot").[20]
In Plato'sSymposium, the priestessDiotima teachesSocrates that love is not a deity, but rather a "great daimōn" (202d). She goes on to explain that "everything daimōnion is between divine and mortal" (202d–e), and she describes daimōns as "interpreting and transporting human things to the gods and divine things to men; entreaties and sacrifices from below, and ordinances and requitals from above..." (202e). In Plato'sApology of Socrates, Socrates claimed to have adaimōnion (literally, a "divine something")[21] that frequently warned him—in the form of a "voice"—against mistakes but never told him what to do.[22] The Platonic Socrates, however, never refers to thedaimonion as adaimōn; it was always referred to as an impersonal "something" or "sign".[23] By this term he seems to indicate the true nature of the humansoul, his newfoundself-consciousness.[24]Paul Shorey sees thedaimonion not as an inspiration but as "a kind ofspiritual tact checking Socrates from any act opposed to his true moral and intellectual interests."[25]
Regarding the charge brought against Socrates in 399 BC, Plato surmised "Socrates does wrong because he does not believe in the gods in whom the city believes, but introduces other daemonic beings..." Burkert notes that "a special being watches over each individual, adaimōn who has obtained the person at his birth by lot, is an idea which we find in Plato, undoubtedly from earlier tradition. The famous, paradoxical saying ofHeraclitus is already directed against such a view: 'character is for man his daimon'".[12]
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TheHellenistic Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories:agathodaímōn (ἀγαθοδαίμων, "noble spirit"), fromagathós (ἀγαθός, "good, brave, noble, moral, lucky, useful"), andkakodaímōn (κακοδαίμων, "malevolent spirit"), fromkakós (κακός, "bad, evil"). They resemble the Christianguardian angel and adversarialdemon, respectively.Eudaimonia (εὐδαιμονία) came to mean "well-being" or "happiness". The comparable Roman concept is thegenius who accompanies and protects a person or presides over a place (seegenius loci).
A distorted view ofHomer's daemon results from an anachronistic reading in light of later characterizations byPlato andXenocrates, his successor as head of theAcademy, who saw the daemon as a potentially dangerous lesser spirit:[12][26] Burkert states that in theSymposium, Plato has "laid the foundation" to imagine thedaimon as being withEros, who as a mediator is neither god nor mortal but in between. His metaphysical doctrine of an
incorporeal, pure actuality,energeia ... identical to its performance: ‘thinking of thinking’,noesis noeseos is the most blessed existence, the highest origin of everything. ‘This is the god. On such a principle heaven depends, and the cosmos.’
In the monotheism of the mind, philosophical speculation has reached an end-point. ... In Plato there is an incipient tendency toward theapotheosis ofnous. ... He needs a closeness and availability of the divine that is offered neither by the stars nor by metaphysical principles. Here a name emerged to fill the gap, a name which had always designated the incomprehensible yet present activity of a higher power,daimon.[12]
Daemons scarcely figure inGreek mythology orGreek art; the exception is theagathodaemon, honored in ceremonial wine-drinking – especially at the sanctuary ofDionysus – and represented in art as aserpent.Burkert suggests that, for Plato, theology rests on twoForms: the Good and the Simple; which "Xenocrates unequivocally called the unity god" in sharp contrast to the poet's gods of epic and tragedy.[12] Although much like the deities, these figures were not always depicted without considerable moral ambiguity:
Indeed, Xenocrates ... explicitly understooddaemones as ranged along a scale from good to bad. ... [Plutarch] speaks of ‘great and strong beings in the atmosphere, malevolent and morose, who rejoice in [unlucky days, religious festivals involving violence against the self, etc.], and after gaining them as their lot, they turn to nothing worse.’ ... Quite when the point was first made remains unanswerable. Much the same thought as [Plato's] is to be found in a late Hellenistic composition, thePythagorean Commentaries, which draws on older popular representations: ‘The whole air is full of souls. We call themdaemones and heroes, and it is they who send dreams, signs and illnesses to men; and not only men, but also to sheep and other domestic animals. It is towards thesedaemones that we direct purifications andapotropaic rites, all kinds of divination, the art of reading chance utterances, and so on.’ ... This account differs from that of the early Academy in reaching back to the other, Archaic, view ofdaemones as souls, and thus anticipates the views of Plutarch and Apuleius in the Principate ... It clearly implies thatdaemones can cause illness to livestock: this traditional dominated view has now reached the intellectuals.[27]
In theArchaic or earlyClassical period, thedaimon had been democratized and internalized for each person, whom it served to guide, motivate, and inspire, as one possessed of such good spirits.[citation needed] Similarly, the first-century Romanimperial cult began by venerating thegenius ornumen ofAugustus, a distinction that blurred in time.[citation needed]
During theAge of Enlightenment, the daimon went through a revival.German polymath and writerJohann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), considers the daimonic to be neither necessarily good nor evil, neither divine, nor natural:[9]
Er glaubte in der Natur, der belebten und unbelebten, der beseelten und unbeseelten, etwas zu entdecken, das sich nur in Wider sprüchen manifestierte und deshalb unter keinen Begriff, noch viel weniger unter ein Wort gefasst werden könnte. Es war nicht göttlich, denn es schien unver nünftig; nicht menschlich, denn es hatte keinen Verstand; nicht teuflisch, denn es war wohltätig; nicht englisch, denn es ließ oft Schadenfreude merken.He believed he had discovered something in nature, both animate and inanimate, soulful and inanimate, that manifested itself only in contradictions and therefore could not be grasped by any concept, much less by a word. It was not divine, for it seemed irrational; not human, for it had no intellect; not diabolical, for it was benevolent; not angelic, for it often displayed malicious glee.[9]
