Not “demons” as in intangible spirits, but devils: evil entities in physical form, either monstrous in appearance or capable of impersonating humans. A number of interrelated questions: Did the Catholic Church or any other Christian denomination accept as doctrine their literal existence? Did they just manifest out of nothing or did they have to have some physical origin? Did medieval Catholics believe that devils originated bodily in Hell, and that a deep enough hole in the ground could literally reach Hell?
Though it’s not a direct answer to your question, you will probably find this interesting.
I have to say, I find your presupposition that demon == intangible and devil == physical interesting. There are allusions in literature and mythology that would probably reverse that, as well as putting BOTH of them on one side or the other (or giving such supernatural entities the power to shift between one state of existence and the other.)
As far as christian doctrine, I would tend to say that most formal doctrine would establish the devils as minions of lucifer and counterparts to the angels… fallen angels possibly, or possibly minions ‘brought forth’ by lucifer to do his bidding, and thus that they would be intangible and spiritual. Common believers, though, would probably confuse devils with other mythological beasties and often tell stories in which they were physical or could become physical.
All of this is wild guesswork, though, I don’t really know much of what christian doctrine on angels or devils was in the middle ages.
A quick search on the derivations of the word ‘demon’ and ‘devil’ reveals that they both come to us through latin and greek, and both from a root greek word that’s pretty far away from the current meanings. (Demon from “daiesthai”: to distribute, devil from “diaballein” to throw across or slander.) Demon seems to have been more influenced by pagan mythology and devil by judeochristian theology.
Make of that what you will.
I Am Not a Bible Scholar, but it does happen that I’ve got a copy around here. The New Testament has a few references of Jesus driving out ‘demons’ - term used in Today’s English Version - and of Jesus being accused by some Pharisees of serving Beelzebub - this reference found in Matthew 12:22 and following. Anyhow, I imagine we can infer that the Jewish scholars of that day had at least some beliefs concerning, er, demons, believing them at least capable of driving people mad, and having at least enough physical dimension that they could be ‘driven.’
Devils are displaced pagan gods.
According to my wife, they’re the things that sleep in my half of the bed when I don’t tender is very well…
Umm… “enough physical dimension that they could be ‘driven’”?? Just how much is that??
Isn’t an exorcism, traditionally, the act of driving an intangible, spiritual presence out of a location, person, or animal?? You don’t need to have physical dimension for that – do you??
So…devils have big schvantzes?
According to *The Book Of Enoch * “Devil” refers generally to the angels who were cast out of Heaven for desiring greatness beyond their creator. Chief among them was Luifer who, if you will recall, refused to worship or otherwise praise God’s creation: Man. John Milton takes it a step further and states that the root of the discord is Jesus. In any case, Lucifer and his underlings fell out of grace and all hell literally broke loose. And so the Devils, the fallen angels, took up their new calling of defiling God’s Creation.
In other news, Devils are said to have bred with mortal women. Their offspring were the Giants, said to be anywhere from 20 to 300 cubits (human cubits, naturally) in height. In any case, they were big, wore muchos grandes pantusos and would presumably have proportionately-sized genitalia. The giants ate a lot. So much that their fellow countrymen of regular size (with much more manageable schvantzes, by the way) grew to detest them. Stricken with hunger, the giants started gobbling up the humans. And who can blame them?
Evidently, God. Along with all the other wicked folk, the giants were killed in The Great Flood. The dead humans had souls that were taken back to heaven (for judgement as opposed to the general broo-ha-ha reserved for the righteous) because heaven is the origin of souls. The Giants, however, were created on earth and so their spirits are restricted to roaming on and in the earth. God wants nothing to do with his distant grandchildren, evidently. These spirits are the Demons. The spiritual remains of the union of fallen angels and human wimmin.
Enoch is not included in the King James bible primarily because it wasn’t discovered and translated until the 1800s. There is also some debate as to whether it was actually written by Enoch or by some other dude merely a few hundred years BC. It’s ancient text in any event, and there is no reason to assume it’s not at least based on oral tradition. Material from Enoch is referred to obliquely in other KJ books.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia , Roman Catholic doctrine doesn’t distinguish between devils and demons.
The Fourth Lateran Council declared
To correct something Inigo said, the book of Enoch doesn’t mention Lucifer. The leader of the fallen angels is called different things in different versions (Semihazeh, Azazel (Asael), Satan). It was only in later Christian tradition that the characters of Satan, Lucifer, the snake in the garden of Eden, and the leader of the fallen angels were identified and considered a single entity.
In the Gospels, “satan” is still sometimes used in its older meaning of “opponent, obstruction”, as when Jesus says to Peter “Get behind me, satan!” He’s not saying “Get behind me, Lord of the Underworld”, but rather, “Get out of my way, you obstacle!” It’s interesting to note that Matthew edits Mark at this point (MT 16:23/Mk 8:33) to add “for you are a stumbling block to me”. This is probably because by the time Mt is writing, “Satan” was coming more and more to mean the head devil, so he needs to remind his readers of the older meaning of the term.
[hijack] Inigo, glad to see you back, we’ve been worried about you. I hope you are doing well.
[/hijack]
heh…been giving the demons some exorcise.