APPENDIX TO VOL. II.

I.

ON THE USE OF AAIMONIA, DÆMONS, APOC. IX. 20.

(See Page 9.)

We have the advantage of two elaborate dissertations on this subject; the one by Mede in his Treatise on the Apostacy of the Last Times (Works, p. 623, &c.); the other by Dr. Campbell, in the sixth Preliminary Dissertation prefixed to his Work on the Gospels. It is from these, for the most part, that I abstract what follows. And I think there are two heads under which I may most conveniently class my observations from them: the first and principal having reference to the Scriptural use of daiμovov, more especially as contrasted with daßoλos, in both the Old and the New Testament; the second to its use in the Christian Church afterwards.

I. As to the scripture use of daiμovia, and the distinction uniformly observed between diaßoños devil, and daiμovior dæmon.

1. AaBoños, devil, from its derivation means an accuser.-In this sense it is in the New Testament three times applied in the plural, and without the article, to men and women given to slander; viz. in 1 Tim. iii. 11, 2 Tim. iii. 3, Tit. ii. 3.-It is also once applied to a man in the same or a cognate sense, in the singular, but still without the article: viz. to Judas; who was probably Christ's false accuser before the Chief Priests, as well as the traitor that lay in wait for him. See John vi. 70.—But in the singular number, with the article, in which form it occurs some thirty times in the New Testament, it is uniformly used of the One great Evil Spirit; the same that is otherwise and associatedly called ὁ Πονηρος, Σατανας, ὁ Αντίδικος, ὁ Οφις,

αρχαίος, ὁ Δράκων μεγας, ο Αρχων τε κοσμο τετε, ὁ Αρχων της εξεσίας Te aepos i. e. The Evil One,-Satan,-the Adversary, the Old Serpent, the Great Dragon,-the Ruler of this World,-the Prince of the power of the air.-In its application to him it might be presumed that the term, according to its proper meaning, was intended to characterize him as an accuser. And such is the fact. In Apoc. xii. 9, 10, the Devil is expressly spoken of as the accuser of the Brethren, o karnyopos Toy adenpwy. The fact is made clearer by reference to the Septuagint; from whence this, as so many other terms in the New Testament, is borrowed. It is there the equivalent of the two Hebrew words and Satan and Tsar, adversary and enemy. Of the accusatory force of which latter word, its application, to Haman in Esther vii. 4 and viii. 1 is proof sufficient. And that of the former, Satan, is well illustrated by its use in Job i. 6, &c., and Zech. iii. 1, 2. The course of this world is there represented as a judicial drama: with man's cause pending in it before the Eternal One; and the Old Serpent,-him who was originally man's tempter,— now acting as his satan or accuser. chariah, inpips ip by tes

Indeed in the passage from Zeip, the appellative noun and its ،، Satan to act the satan's part ; '

explanatory verb, occur together, i. e. that of accuser. Thus then dragonos, devil, is the appellative of the one great evil Spirit, as by way of eminence, our accuser: to whom, in the grand pending judicial drama, there is opposed, thank God, one greater, even Jehovah Jesus, our napakantos or advocate : our advocate in person, as God-man, to silence his accusations before God; our advocate by his Spirit, (who is thus the Comforter,) to silence his accusations in the believer's own conscience. There is no such word, says Dr. Campbell, as dragonor, devils, in the plural, with reference to unearthly spirits, either in the Septuagint or New Testament. And so too Dr. A. Clarke, on Psalm cvi. 37: 66 * Devil is

Just as with the Greek word daßohos, so with the Hebrew, the article is almost always prefixed where it is applied to our great adversary Satan. So in some fourteen instances in Job, and three in Zechariah, where the reference seems undoubted. The only exceptions, I believe, if such they be, are 1 Chron. xxi. 1," And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel; ' where however, some other and earthly adversary of Israel may have been intended: and Psalm cix. 6, "And let Satan stand at his right hand; " where also the reference to Satan himself seems quite doubtful.

never in Scripture used in the plural. There is but one devil: there are many dæmons.”

2. Next as to daiμorior, dæmon. This is a word used both in the Septuagint and New Testament, alike in the plural as the singular, in two senses.

-the one, accord : שֵׁדִים and אֱלִילִים

So

In the Septuagint, its first and clearest signification is as a simple designative of the imaginary heathen gods. So in Psalm xcvi. 5; δαιμονια εθνών ειδωλα εισιν. “ the gods of the heathen are idols : also in Deuteronomy xxxii. 17; εθυσαν δαιμονίοις και ο Θεῷ “they sacrificed to dæmons and not to God:" and again Psalm cvi. 37; εlvoar θυγατέρας αυτων τοις δαιμονίοις. In these passages the Hebrew words corresponding to δαιμονια are ing to Gesenius, signifying vanities, the other lords or rulers.1 that there is nothing in them to fix on these spirits the character of devilish or satanic; as the word satanim, or some indubitable equivalent would have done. Nor, though the tone of the two latter statements be deemed objurgatory, does it need any such explanation of the word to account for it. It is sufficiently explained, on the hypothesis of its simple meaning, by multitudes of parallel Scriptural passages in the which Israel's sin is depicted as made up of two evils; viz. 1st, forsaking God; 2ndly, forsaking Him (not for devilish or Satanic spirits, but) for them that were no gods, but profitless idol vanities. (Deut. xxxii. 21, &c.)-Thus, there being nothing implied of devilish or Satanic in the original Hebrew, so neither, we might thence infer, in the dauna of the Septuagint translation. Indeed the very structure of the translated sentence in the ninety-sixth Psalm excludes such a meaning. "The devils of the heathen are idols," would be scarcely sense. It is plain that the Alexandrine translators used the word in its popular meaning, simply to signify the gods or dæmons of heathen mythology; Alexandria being a place where the Platonic philosophy had necessarily made that meaning most familiar to them.-Nor must I forget to remind the reader that there was one particular notice in the Hebrew Scriptures, on the subject of the heathen gods or dæmons spoken of, which must

1 Buxtorf derives from TT vastavit: whence the word in Psalm xci. 6, noted in the next page.

442

ON THE WORD Δαιμονία, ΑPOC. ΙΧ. 20.

[APP. have appeared to the Seventy to make the word daimonia peculiarly appropriate in the translation. For just as the dauna of the Greek religion were recognized by the Platonics, agreeably to the doctrine of all their older poets and philosophers, to be the spirits of dead men, raised to the rank of demigods,-so the Hebrew Scriptures declared that the Baalim or gods, to whom Israel turned aside to worship, were also dead men deified: as it is said in Psalm cvi. 28; "They joined themselves to Baal-peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead;" Hebr., Septuag. TY VEKOWY.-(Compare Numb. xxv. 2, 3.)— The same fact is also intimated in Isaiah viii. 19, lxv. 4; in which latter passage the heathen worship is further described as celebrated at the tombs of the dead.

Such is the primary use of the word in the Septuagint, and in passages where heathen worship is the direct subject.-Besides which, (passing over its use in the prophecies of Isa. xiii. 21, and xxxiv. 14, where the Hebrew radical is a goat, and the sense too obscure and disputed to rest upon,) I must just add, secondly, that in Psalm xci. 6. ("Thou shalt not be afraid of the destruction that wasteth at noon-day,") where the Septuagint Greek is dapons μeonußve, the word is used with a malignant sense attached to it, and apparently of some spiritual malignant being, acting destructively against man. (See Dr. A. Clarke's Note on the Verse.)

In the New Testament, the word daponia is similiarly used in two

senses.

First, it is used as a simple designative of the imaginary heathen gods. So in the narrative of St. Paul's visit to Athens, Acts xvii. 18, 22, directly by the Athenians; "He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange dæmons or gods:" Eevay dapavior: impliedly also by Paul; "I see that ye are δεισιδαιμονεςεροι, very much given to worshipping δαιμονια, dæmons, heathen gods." His comment on which, as well as on the idol-inscription he had seen, is not to be forgotten; "Him whom ye ignorantly worship (God, not the devil) declare I unto you.”— The same, I believe with Dr. Campbell, is the meaning of the term in 1 Cor. x. 20, 21; "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice damovios, to dæmons, and not to God." Such by Corinthians, as by Athenians, would, I conceive, be understood as the Apostle's meaning of the word. His representation of the case of

with

the heathen, so understood by them, would then precisely agree that given in Deut. xxxii. 17, already commented on, and indeed with the Apostle's own notice of it at Athens.-Nor, as to his argument against intercommunion in respect of things afforded to heathen gods, would it be rendered nugatory by this view of them as mere idol vanities; any more than in the appeal made elsewhere in the epistle, "What communion hath the temple of God with (not a devil but) an idol?" 2 Cor. vi. 16. There is certainly no necessity here for the sense of devil, so as Mr. Maitland would have it, on this ground. And indeed Dr. C.'s remark seems unanswerable ;— that the heathen could not be said to have sacrificed to devilish Satanic spirits, either abstractedly considered, or in respect of intention; seeing they had not even a notion of the Devil, or Satan, of Holy Scripture.

Secondly, in the gospel narratives of our Lord's miracles while on earth, the malignant meaning strikingly and continually attaches to the word dana; viz. as unclean and evil spirits, real though invisible, that possessed and tormented the unhappy beings thence called dæmoniacs.

In regard of these remarkable cases the question has arisen wherefore these evil spirits, just during the time of our Lord's ministry and that of his Apostles, should have been permitted, as they were, so to vex the bodies of men. Nor can we doubt but that, while intended to furnish opportunity for the more signal display of Christ's power and mercy to save, it was intended also that evidence should be thereby given both of the real existence of evil spirits, of their conversancy with men, and of their malignity of character and influence-evidence such as none could mistake; and that unmasked them, so as nothing else could have done, to the very eyes, ears, and senses of men. But besides this, and in connexion more direct with our present subject, another question arises on the case: wherefore a term hitherto chiefly applied to those imaginary figments, the gods of heathen worship, should be now so markedly applied to real living evil spirits? Nor can we well err in assigning in part the following answer; viz. that by its selection of the word dasporia, dæmons, to designate the actors in these possessions, the Holy Spirit would shew that, though the objects of heathen worship were mere fictions, there