Part ii: Ancient Demons and Modern Germs

21

bt Ber 6a.

Since demons were mostly harmful, quite a lot of effort was invested in try­ing to fight them. And viewed from our comparative perspective, we may think of the different modes of fighting demons as paralleling two types of germ­fighting practices today, which may broadly be divided into prophylactic and therapeutic.

Beginning with prophylaxis, in our own world, we have numerous general precautions against the onslaught of viruses and bacteria—we frequently wash our hands, we brush our teeth, we try to avoid eating in a place that looks unhygienic, we avoid drinking tap water in some Third World countries, and so on.

Thus we see that in the Jewish world of Late Antiquity, just like today, observing some basic rules was supposed to help you minimize the danger of demonic or microbic attack. But as we all know, no method of passive prevention provides a complete defensive shield, and these must be supple­mented by other, more active, methods. In our own world, one common type of prophylaxis against germs is the administration of immunizations. Some of these are given to the entire population, and from a very young age; oth­ers are given only to those suffering from specific conditions, or traveling to specific countries; in some cases, an immunization is good for life; in others, it has to be repeated once, or even renewed every year or every few years. And in all cases, an immunization is only effective against one type of germ, and is useless against all the others. In a similar vein, most of the Babylonian incan­tation bowls were aimed as a protection for an entire household against all kinds of demons. But such bowls probably offered protection only within the confines of one's house, since, unlike modern immunizations, they were spa­tial rather than personal. Thus, it may safely be assumed that when the users of such incantation bowls left the “immunized” environment of their home they took some portable amulets with them, even though such amulets from Sasanian Babylonia unfortunately did not survive, perhaps because they were normally written on perishable materials.^[297] But in Palestine and other areas where some amulets were inscribed on thin sheets of metal, a few dozen amu­lets did survive, and whereas some amulets were produced against a specific illness caused by a specific demon, many others were all-purpose, or multi­purpose, amulets, intended to protect their bearers against various types of demons. In this respect, the amulet that was intended to protect Esther daugh­ter of Tatis and “to save her from evil tormentors, from evil eye, from spirit, from demon, from shadow-spirit, from [all] evil tormentors, from evil eye, from [...] from imp[ure] spirit,” was not unlike our dpt shots, intended to immu­nize those who receive them against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus, all at once. Rabbinic literature, on the other hand, took a different road here, and insisted on other types of prophylaxis—on Passover Eve, for example, every­one is immune to demonic attack (bt Pes 109b and bt rh 11b). And if you recite the Shema prayer on your bed before you go to sleep, the demons will not harm you throughout the night, even though the night is the time when they tend to be most active (pt Ber 1.1 (2d); bt Ber 5a). To the modern historian, well trained in the hermeneutics of suspicion, such claims, and stories about the rabbis' own successful dealings with demons, sound like an obvious attempt by the religious elite to use the presence of invisible dangers in order to promote its own agenda by convincing people that observing the commandments, in their rabbinic interpretation, is an excellent protection against demons.^{[298] [299] [300] This, of course, is something for which we rarely find modern parallels, and it is an issue to which we shall soon return.}

From prophylaxis we turn to therapy. As we all know so well, even when one takes all the necessary precautions, and receives all the required immuniza­tions, one still becomes sick every now and then, and goes to a specialist in search of a cure. In the modern world, this search comprises of highly sophis­ticated methods of diagnosis, for which ancient demonology provides no real parallel?⁶ In late antique Jewish society, if you had a headache it was prob­ably caused by the headache demon, and if you became sick after approach­ing a sorb-bush, it probably was the sorb-bush demons that attacked you (as we may deduce from a famous talmudic story in bt Pes 111b). Such knowledge was even taught in the rabbinic academies, but it clearly did not develop into a very sophisticated system of demonological prognosis?⁷ And if the special­ist to whom you turned did not really know which demon attacked you, he could write an amulet, or perform an exorcism, that were meant to cover as many possibilities as he or she could imagine. Incantations against “all demons and harmful spirits, all those which are in the world, whether male or female, from their big ones to their young ones, from their children to their old ones, whether I know its name or I do not know it” (amb, Bowl 5) were quite com­mon in incantation bowls and amulets alike.

Not only the diagnosis, but also the aim of the treatment was quite different in Late Antiquity from what they are today. In the ancient Jewish world, most amulets and exorcisms only sought to drive the demon out, not to kill it. This also means that the demon was then free to attack someone else, an issue that seems not to have bothered most patients and most exorcists and amulet pro­ducers. This is very different from what we see in the modern world, where a physician will usually prescribe antibiotics for more days than you really need it, only to make sure that none of the harmful bacteria inside you remain alive and spread to your neighbors. Demons, on the other hand, were not really con­ceived as contagious, a point to whose wider implications we shall soon return.

So far, I have focused on some of the similarities between late antique Jewish demonology and modern germ theory. It is now time to look at some of the differences. One major difference is that the range of malevolent activi­ties that ancient Jews attributed to demons is somewhat larger than that which we attribute to germs. In the medical sphere, we may note that what we today would classify as mental disorders were in Antiquity often attributed to demonic attacks. Think, for example, of Jesus exorcising the demoniac(s) in Gadara, who lived among the tombs and would beat up the people who passed by (Mt 8:28-34; Mk 5:1-20; Lk 8:26-39)—in our world, such patients would be treated by a psychiatrist, not by an epidemiologist, since we do not normally think of madness, or of social deviance, as having anything to do with germs. But in Antiquity, the madman often was treated as a demoniac, as may be seen, for example, from the Arabic word majnun, “madman,” i.e., he who was attacked by a jinn, or from the recipe we quoted above, in which a demon sent by a spiteful magician makes its victim bellow, bleat and bark. The same type of attribution of psychological phenomena to demonic intervention may also be seen in other ancient sources as well, including the rabbinic distinction between dreams sent by an angel and those sent by a demon (bt Ber 55b). In our own world, we might think of germs as causing an illness whose symp­toms include all kinds of hallucinations, but we would not think of dreams and visions as brought about by germs.

But the demons' evil activities extended far beyond the realm of medicine, and they often caused harm to inanimate objects as well. One obvious example is the talmudic story of a demon who caused a large barrel to explode when it was inadvertently stuck in its ear (bt Hull 105b); we might be aware of fungi and bacteria making food rot, or wreaking havoc on walls, clothes, and so on, but we do not usually think of germs as harming inanimate objects. Thus, whereas with us evil germs are intimately connected with disease, demonology in the ancient Jewish world could also be connected with many other misfortunes, though it is interesting to note that such examples are not so common, and there is little evidence that every misfortune was attributed to demonic activ­ity, an issue to which we shall return below.

Another obvious difference between ancient demons and modern germs has to do with the above-quoted statement about the demons' knowledge of future events, something that we would never attribute to germs. In Late Antiquity, and even more so in the Middle Ages, such assumptions led to the great popularity of numerous rituals for summoning demons and question­ing them about hidden or future facts, a branch of “applied demonology” that finds no parallel in modern germ theory. In fact, we might even suggest that, whereas for us germs can be used to produce many different goods, in Late Antiquity demons could be used to divulge hidden secrets.

A more important difference emerges when we try to ask why demons and germs actually attack a given person. In our own world, there are two basic assumptions as to why germs attack us. The first is contagion, which means that it is not only a fact that germs are all around us, but also that they move from inanimate objects to human beings (as happens with tetanus, for exam­ple), from animals to human beings (as in the case of rabies, or some types of the flu), and from one person to another (as with the common flu). This also means that the war against them is not just an individual affair, but also a pub­lic affair—in our modern world, governments invest many efforts and much money in trying to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. For example, many countries not only subsidize immunizations, but virtually force parents to immunize their children, not only in order to protect these children, but also in order to prevent the spread of epidemics. But in late antique Jewish society, almost all the fight against demons was an individual affair, whether we are thinking of the precautions and spells provided by rabbinic literature, or of the many amulets and incantation bowls, clearly ordered and paid for by individu­als who had to defend themselves, their families and their properties against evil demons.^{[301] [302] Occasionally, we hear a more generalizing, community-wide statement, such as the rabbinic claim that Passover night is free of demonic attacks (bt Pes 109b and bt rh 11b), presumably for the entire population, but such statements are a rare exception. In the Second Temple period, we know that in the Qumran sect the war against demons was a community affair, run by the maskil, but in rabbinic Judaism, there is no sign of a community-based or even synagogue-based war on demons.29}

Another difference between our bacteriology and the demonology of ancient Jews has to do with the explanation of why it is that these creatures are so harmful. In our world, germs attack us not because they are inherently evil, but because they too have selfish genes—their main “aim” in life is to pro­create and multiply and fill the earth, as it were, and we are just their acci­dental carriers. And if they preyed upon one person, and not upon his or her neighbor, it might be sheer coincidence, or maybe he or she did not follow all the preventive advice we already examined above, or is inherently more vulnerable to such attacks because of a weaker or weakened immune system. But in ancient Jewish culture, demonic attacks were quite a different story. On the one hand, ancient Jews often asked a question that we are mostly unboth­ered by, namely, where do these demons come from, and why are they here? This question does not usually appear in the amulets and incantation bowls, which are only interested in driving the demons away, but it does appear in many strands of ancient Jewish literature. The answers given to the question of the demons' origins varied greatly: One famous aetiology, that was extremely popular in the Second Temple period but mostly rejected by rabbinic litera­ture, held that they are the offspring of the unholy unions between the Fallen Angels and the daughters of man, which means that they were conceived in sin and are hybrid creatures, half-way between angels and humans (compare the rabbinic dictum with which we began our paper).^[303] Another explanation held that they were the souls of evil people who had died, roaming the earth and causing trouble wherever they went (see Josephus, War 7.185). A third explana­tion was that they were created on Friday night, just before the Sabbath set in, and so their creation was left unfinished (m Avot 5:6), whence their peculiar properties, and presumably their aggression as well. A fourth explanation was that demons were generated from the union between Adam and the first Eve, also identified as Lilith (Gen. R. 17.7 and 22.7; bt Eruv 18b), and there were other explanations as well, such as the claim that some of the builders of the Tower of Babel were turned by God into monkeys, spirits, demons, and ///-demons (bt San 109a). The different explanations did not necessarily compete with each other, since the presence of many different types of demons probably called for more than one explanation of their origins. And most of these aetiologies provided some kind of explanation of why demons could be so harmful to human beings. Thus, whereas we more or less take it for granted that there are evil germs all around us, and that it has always been that way, many ancient Jews were more worried about the demons' behavior, and tried to understand why exactly it is that they came into being at all, and why they can be so aggres­sive. This is, of course, partly due to the need to fit the demons into a wider reli­gious worldview, in which one good God governs the universe with justice, an issue to which we shall soon return.

An understanding of why demons can be inherently evil does not yet answer the question of why they harmed one specific person, and not his or her neigh­bor. And here too, several different answers could be offered. One answer was that they harmed those who had offended them first, for example by urinat­ing on a palm tree, or who failed to observe the basic rules of prevention, for example by not reciting the Shema prayer at night or by carelessly approach­ing a sorb-bush. Such explanations are not that different from our assumption that by eating at that market stall that did not look too clean we were in fact inviting the germs to attack us. Another type of explanation, assumed in some of the incantation bowls and attested in some magical recipes, was that a pow­erful magician, hired by a spiteful client, had sent the demon upon its victim, and we saw above what one such recipe looked like. This kind of explanation is not very common in our world, but it is, of course, the basic assumption behind our notions of biological warfare. In other words, because of the great scientific expertise needed to handle aggressive germs in an effective manner without being harmed by them, we tend to think of states as able to conduct germ warfare, but do not usually think of an individual person sending germs to harm an offensive neighbor, or hiring a scientist to do it for him. But in Late Antiquity, not only the defense against demons, but also their recruitment for aggressive purposes were an entirely private affair, left to the forces of personal demand and professional supply, and not even regulated by the religious or secular Jewish authorities.^[304]

In looking for ancient answers to the question of why a demon attacked one person and not another, we must note the glaring absence of one explanation, namely, that it was God who had sent the demon, as a punishment for that per­son's sins. This absence is especially striking because this kind of explanation has deep biblical roots, as when we learn that Saul was tormented by an evil spirit from God (1 Sam 16:14), or when we read the story of God permitting Satan to send a whole set of afflictions upon the blameless Job (Job 1:12, 2:6). In rab­binic literature, we sometimes find a suggestion that when an affliction comes upon someone, that person should turn to God for help, but we do not find the claim that the affliction itself was sent by God. And when we read the amulets and incantation bowls, we see hundreds of people who commissioned these prophylactic and therapeutic devices and sought protection against demons, regardless of their own perceived merits in God's eyes, which are almost never mentioned in these texts.^{[305] [306] Moreover, while the rabbis did claim that some rabbis might be immune against demonic attacks (e.g., Rav Papa, in bt Pess 111b), they made it clear that most people, including most rabbis, are not. In so doing, they let an element of randomness enter their monotheistic worldview, which assumed that a single God ruled the universe, and that he ruled it in justice. In this respect, the late antique Jewish view of demons was not that different from our own views of germs, since it did not seek a single unified explanation of why the demons had attacked one person and not the other, and did not search for religious causes of, or solutions to, demonic attacks.}

Taking our cue from Evans-Pritchard's famous study of witchcraft and sorcery among the Azande, we may thus suggest that, for late antiqueJews, demons offered an excellent explanation of misfortune.33 Moreover, whereas among the Azande the use of witchcraft accusations to explain misfortunes could quickly generate social tensions, in the Jewish society of Late Antiquity this was a matter of personal choice. When misfortune struck, it often was attributed to demons, but whether these demons were sent by an evil sor­cerer, or acted on their own accord, had to be decided on an ad hoc basis. In the former case, there was good reason to search for the sorcerer and destroy him or her, or prevent them from using such spells again (just as we would do with someone who is spreading the hiv virus), or at least to send the demon back upon them. But in the latter case, there was no sense in searching further, just as when we get the flu, we do not try to think who we got it from; we just assume the flu-germs to have been all around us, and the fact that we got the flu and our neighbour did not is just tough luck, devoid of any moral or theo­logical significance. In a similar vein, demons could be seen in Late Antiquity as the forces behind random misfortune, thus allowing God to remain entirely good and just, free of the vindictiveness that sometimes characterizes the God of the Hebrew Bible.

The absence of God and his angels from the explanation of demonic attack becomes even more pronounced when we notice that the biggest difference between ancient demonology and modern germ theory lies in the techniques used to fight the evil creatures. In our own world, it all has to do with sub­stances, be they weakened or dead germs that are used for immunizations or an endless array of chemicals which have proven their efficacy against specific germs. In the ancient world, there was a common belief that some mineral, vegetal and animal substances and many man-made rings, bells and other implements have anti-demonic powers, and we may assume that most unin­scribed amulets worn by Jews in Late Antiquity were made of such substances and implements, and that many exorcistic rituals made use of them.^[307] But in the case of the incantation bowls and inscribed amulets it is not the substances of which they were made but the incantations inscribed upon them that had anti-demonic powers, and the same applies to the anti-demonic oral incan­tations recommended by the rabbis. A detailed examination of the contents of all these incantations would take us too far afield, but we may note some recurrent techniques, including the adjuration of the demons in the name of God and his angels, the second-person taunts hurled at the demons, the recita­tion of biblical verses that were deemed to possess exorcistic or appropriate powers, and so on. What is common to all these techniques is the belief that the demons are sentient creatures, that they hear and understand the incanta­tions, and that they can be made to flee if only one knows how to adjure and threaten them correctly.

And this, I believe, is where the analogy between the ancient views of demons and our notion of germs really breaks down—for us, germs are tiny creatures devoid of any senses, and it would make no sense at all to recite or write elaborate incantations in order to ward them off. It is, of course, a rather depressing thought, since it means that when our chemicals fail us (as they do with some “killer germs”, and with many viruses), there is virtually nothing else we can do. Hurling curses and abuses at these germs would have no benefit, not even that of psychological relief—it would merely make us look absolutely ridiculous.

To sum up, there are many similarities, and just as many differences, between the Jewish views of demons in Late Antiquity and our views of germs. But perhaps the most important difference is that for us, germs are an utterly impersonal matter—they attack everyone with equal zest, they penetrate those whose immune system happens to be weakest at that specific moment, and they use that victim to multiply and to jump at their next victims. There is no real sense in speculating about why germs are there at all, or worrying about why they attacked one person and not his or her next-door neighbor, and there is no sense at all in trying to address them directly. In the ancient world, on the other hand, the onslaught of demons was not thought of as contagious, but as personal—if a demon attacked you, it is either because you harmed it first, or because someone had sent the demon to hurt you. Moreover, being part of a wider monotheistic worldview, which assumes that the world is governed by one God, who is essentially just, ancient Jewish demonology in fact contrib­uted to the ongoing Jewish attempt to bridge the gap between its theological axioms and the realities of daily life. In contrast with biblical theology, in late antique Jewish thought misfortunes did not necessarily come from God, for they could easily be the work of evil demons, or of evil sorcerers who used evil demons as the executors of their nasty plots. There was no sense in attributing these attacks to God's grand plan for the universe, and much sense in asking for the help of specialists, who could provide the best prophylactic and thera­peutic devices that money could buy. Thus, the war on demons was carried out by clients and specialists wherever Jews lived, and this war left many traces in the archaeological and literary records—more evidence, in fact, than any other activity conducted by Jews in Late Antiquity.

Thus, we can conclude by noting that the ancient Jewish conceptualization of demons was in some ways similar to our views of germs, and in others quite different. But there is one more aspect to this comparison, which to us might seem like the most important one, namely, the scientific validity and practical value of these belief systems. This is especially true of the effectiveness of the treatment of illnesses within a demonological aetiology versus the effective­ness of modern medicine. Such a comparison is no doubt valid, but it is rel­evant only when one has a choice between these two systems. When we have a severe and persistent headache, we do not start writing amulets, but go to a doctor, who will perform elaborate tests, identify the cause of the pain, and offer a treatment that in a vast majority of the cases would be far more effective than the amulet used by Natrun daughter of Sarah. But Natrun herself did not have this choice; she could, perhaps, go to the nearest “pagan” temple, to seek the gods' advice, but some members of her community would have been quite unhappy with this move, and only Asclepius knows whether his temples were more effective than the Jewish specialist in fighting evil demons. She could also, perhaps, seek the advice of a Hippocratic-Galenic physician, and here a comparison could have been made between the demonological theories of most late antiqueJews and the humoral theories of some Greek physicians and philosophers in Late Antiquity, a comparison that would have included a discussion of their potential efficacy. This, however, is not what I set out to do in the present study. My question was not, whether the system worked—I know it did, since we have all these amulets and bowls, which clearly prove that people used them and trusted in their efficacy; we also have all these tal­mudic statements, which show that the religious elite shared the same basic worldview, even if it may have differed on some of the smaller details. My question also was not about how could they believe all this silly stuff—as was asked, with polemical zest or apologetic horror, by some nineteenth and twen­tieth century Jewish rabbis, free-thinkers and scholars. My question was about how ancient Jewish conceptualizations of demons made sense within their own world, and my answer would be that they were as integral to their general worldview and to their everyday behavior as microbiology is to ours. Moreover, while the treatments they developed on the basis of their aetiologies were not nearly as effective as our own, they were no less coherent within their society than our treatments are in ours. For in a world full of demons, talking about them, adjuring them, writing amulets and incantation bowls against them or sending them upon one's enemies all made perfect sense.