Saturday, November 25, 2023

Travis W. Proctor on Demonic Corporeality in the Theology of Justin Martyr

  

Demonic Corporeality

 

Justin does not (in his extant writings, at least) provide detailed information regarding the essence or composition of demonic corporeality. Yet it is not true, as is sometimes claimed, that Justin is “completely silent” on this issue. At several points, Justin emphasizes the demons’ intervention in the lower cosmic realm by their making themselves visible to and interacting with humans. Justin claims that demons inspired fear among humans, for example, “in apparitions (ἐπιφανείᾳ)” (1 Apol. 9.1). Justin writes, moreover, that demons “made people see horrifying things,” again implying the demons’ visible appearance before human onlookers (1 Apol. 5.2). , Demons often take on anthropomorphic forms as part of such appearances. He argues that wicked deeds performed by demons, for example, were mistakenly attributed to Christians (1 Apol. 23.3); presumably this accusation occurred because demons performed such tasks in human guises. Justin also asserts that Greco-Roman cult statues of the gods are in fact the “shapes” of demons; thus, for Justin, the anthropomorphic forms of the Greco-Roman statues of gods were in fact reflective of the way demons appeared to their human victims (1 Apol. 9.1).

 

It could be supposed at first glance that Justin imagines these demonic apparitions as incorporeal illusions. After all, Justin does claim that Jesus, prior to his incarnation, sometimes appeared “in an incorporeal image (ἐν εἰκόνι ἀσωμάτῳ)” (1 Apol. 63.10). That Justin views demons as purely incorporeal is unlikely, however. First, Justin reserves language of pure incorporeality for the highest divine entities, such as the Platonic “Forms” (Dial. 2.6), God the Father (Dial. 4.1), or, as noted previously, the pre-incarnate Christ (1 Apol. 63.10). As semi-divine entities that reside permanently in the lower cosmos, demons are unlikely to have been considered incorporeal, and indeed, Justin never uses such terminology for demonic appearances. Second, Justin at several points emphasizes that demons are able to experience suffering and pain (1 Apol. 28.1, 52.3; 2 Apol. 6.5, 8.3), a quality that Justin elsewhere reserves for corporeal entities (Dial. 1.5). (In a discussion of the immortality of the soul, Justin implies that the quality of suffering is reserved for corporeal entities: “if the soul is incorporeal, it cannot suffer” [Dial. 1.5]. This comment occurs as part of an initial discussion of philosophical positions between Justin and Trypho. While the context implies that Justin rejects the position of some Platonists [that the souls is indeed incorporeal], it suggests that Justin agrees with the underlying logic [that corporeal things can suffer, incorporeal things cannot]) Justin’s assertion that demons are susceptible to pain, therefore, implies that he viewed demons as embodied.

 

Demons use their corporeal nature to initiate contact with human victims, frequently to disastrous effect. (In addition to the examples examined here, one might also add the witness from Tatian’s Address to the Greeks: “The most admirable Justin was right in pronouncing that demons are like bandits, for just as bandits in the habit of taking men prisoner and releasing them to their families on payment, so too those supposed gods visit men’s bodies, and then in dreams create an impression of their presence . . . When they have enjoyed the eulogies they fly away from the sick, terminate the disease they have contrived, and restore the men to their previous state” [18.2-3, translation form Molly Whittaker, Tatian: “Oratio ad Graecos” and Fragments [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 182]. It is unclear if Tatian’s example of demonic “banditry” here—that demons take human bodies as prisoner—is his own or Justin’s. if it does go back to Justin, it would provide another example of demons using their bodies to have physical interactions with humans) As noted already, demons commonly appear in terrifying forms or make people see fearful sights (1 Apol. 5.2, 9.1). Carly Daniel-Hughes points out that ancient Greco-Roman writers typically “figured seeing and being seen as tactile encounters, either transferring the image through the medium of pneuma that then strikes the eye, or through little films that skim off the object seen and stream into the eyes of the viewer.” Or, as A.M. Smith puts it, “ancient theories of vision all found common ground in the assumption that sight cannot occur without some physical mediation between the eye and visible objects . . . action at a distance is impossible.” Justin’s construal of the demonic form as a corporeal entity that can be made visible, therefore, implicates it in a material interchange with human onlookers.

 

According to Justin, moreover, demons “committed adultery with women and seduced boys” (1 Apol. 9.1). Justin is not forthcoming about exactly how demons might have committed such acts, but they presumably did so by taking on human guises, which were then used to seduce their human victims. Justin elsewhere similarly associates demons with anthropomorphic features. Justin claims that the demons “heard through the prophets,” seemingly implying that demons were eavesdropping on Jewish prophetic teaching (1 Apol. 54.2). Justin likewise asserts that demons “hear” the words of the prophet, again implying that their bodies have some kind of auditory ability (1 Apol. 54.3–4, 8). His notion could be read as mere metaphor, or the case of a writer exercising some poetic license. Yet, for part of his explanation for demonic mimicry, Justin states that demons “did not accurately understand the things they heard said through the prophets” (1 Apol. 54.3–4). The limitations of demonic understanding are an important argument for the uniqueness of Jesus’s mission; Justin argues that simulations of Jesus’s mode of suffering and death (crucifixion) are absent from non-Christian cultures because demons failed to understand the symbolic predictions of the cross (1 Apol. 55.1). Justin’s repeated emphasis on the fallibility of the demons’ prophetic snooping suggests that the prying ears of the wicked demons engage in auditory processes much as their human counterparts do, and thus are subject to corporeal constraints and shortcomings.

 

In sum, Justin claims that demons can take on a multitude of (mostly anthropomorphic) “shapes,” which are made visible to human senses, capable of experiencing pain, and constrained by physical limitations. This collection of attributes suggests that demons have some kind of “physical” or “material” form that extends through space and is capable of acting and being acted upon. In other words, according to most ancient standards of corporeality, Justin implies that demons have bodies. In the section to follow, I explore how one aspect of the demonic body, its polymorphic and unstable nature, contributes to Justin’s broader construction of the Christian cosmos. (Travis W. Proctor, Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Church [New York: Oxford University Press, 2022], 89-91)