Michael Psellus on the Operation of Daemons

unconsciously worshipping. He thus apologizes on Mars Hill, (Acts xvii. 21):—"Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in every thing you somewhat surpass in the worship of daemons (original: "κατα παντα ως δεισιδαιμονεστερους" in all respects more prone to the worship of demons⁴); for as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, “to an unknown God;” whom therefore you ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you:” In this apology the word daemon does not convey the idea of either an impure or malignant being, but simply of an intelligence.

It can hardly be questioned but that the heathen, when worshipping deified men as daemons, were really worshipping beings who had no existence but in their own imaginations; and in so doing, though they could not be said to worship any particular daemon, yet might they with propriety be called worshippers of daemons, beings which, whether real or imaginary, were confessedly inferior to the Supreme. In this seems to lie the force of the Apostle's remark (1st Cor. x., 19, 20,) “What say I, then? that the idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols anything? but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to daemons, and not to God, and I would not that you should have fellowship with daemons. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of daemons!” As if the Apostle had said, “do I mean to assert that an idol is intrinsically anything? by no means; the veriest tyro in the school of Christ knows that an idol is nothing, for eyes have they, and

⁴ The Athenians gloried in the fact that they were δεισιδαιμονεστερους (more religious/prone to daemon-worship) than the other states of Greece, and must have considered the Apostle’s language highly complimentary.