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125-466: 2 Kings 17:31 reports: "The Sepharvites burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adrammelech and Anammelech , the gods of Sepharvaim" ( NIV ). The Sepharvites are given as a people deported by the Assyrians to Samaria . Adrammelech and the god Anammelech (about whom likewise little is known) are again seemingly alluded to in 2 Kings 18:34 : "Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad ? Where are

250-522: A deity , supernatural beings, or sacred social order, tribal, group or national loyalties in order to achieve a desired result. As such, it is a form of human sacrifice . Child sacrifice is thought to be an extreme extension of the idea that the more important the object of sacrifice, the more devout the person rendering it. The practice of child sacrifice in Europe and the Near East appears to have ended as

375-667: A grimoire , which gives the names and abilities of demons as well as detailed instructions for conjuring and controlling them. Grimoires are not limited to demons – some give instructions for the invocation of deity, a process called theurgy . The use of ceremonial magic to call demons is also known as goetia , a word derived from the Greek word " goes ", which originally denoted diviners , magicians , healers, and seers . The Age of Enlightenment conceptualizes humans as autonomous individuals , mostly independent from outer invisible forces, such as demons or gods ruling over human fate. While in

500-810: A bad smell in the air or sudden change in temperature would announce their presence. Similar to the Quranic prophet Solomon enslaving the jinn and devils, the Persian hero Jamshid is attributed with subjugating the Dīv . However, a general negative association remains during the Islamic period. Due to their reluctant nature, even enslaved, they do always the opposite of what has been commanded. In some tales, supernatural powers are attributed to them, such as causing sickness, mental illnesses, or even turn humans to stone. Demons are believed to be vanquished by sacred symbols. The content of

625-445: A bronze oven to burn the child. The flame of the burning child reached its body until, the limbs having shriveled up and the smiling mouth appearing to be almost laughing, it would slip into the oven. Therefore the grin is called “sardonic laughter,” since they die laughing." Porphyry : "The Phoenicians too, in great disasters whether of wars or droughts, or plagues, used to sacrifice one of their dearest, dedicating him to Kronos. And

750-403: A cluster of supernatural beings, such as daimons, spirits, and devils, affecting the mind. While some people fear demons, or attempt to exorcise them, others willfully attempt to summon them for knowledge, assistance, or power. William of Conches ( c.  1090/1091  – c.  1155/1170s ) understands 'demon' closer to the Greek 'daimon', reserving the concept of the "devil" only for

875-585: A consequence of the rise of influence of the Babylonian Talmud over that of the Jerusalem Talmud, late rabbis, in general, took as fact the existence of shedim , nor did most of the medieval thinkers question their reality. However, rationalists like Maimonides and Saadia Gaon and others explicitly denied their existence, and completely rejected concepts of demons, evil spirits, negative spiritual influences, attaching and possessing spirits. They thought

1000-460: A demon is believed to be a spiritual entity that may be conjured and controlled. Belief in demons remains an important part of many modern religions and occult traditions. Demons are still feared largely due to their alleged power to possess living creatures. In contemporary Western esoteric traditions, demons may be used as metaphors for inner psychological processes ("inner demons"). The Ancient Greek word δαίμων ( daimōn ) denotes

1125-512: A detailed breakdown of the ages of the buried children and, based on this and especially on the presence of prenatal individuals – that is, still births – it is also argued that this site is consistent with burials of children who had died of natural causes in a society that had a high infant mortality rate , as Carthage is assumed to have had. That is, the data support the view that Tophets were cemeteries for those who died shortly before or after birth. Conversely, Patricia Smith and colleagues from

1250-583: A later form of Zoroastrianism , and was transferred to Judaism during the Persian era . Demons may or may not also be considered to be devils: minions of the Devil . In many traditions, demons are independent operators, with different demons causing different types of evils (destructive natural phenomena, specific diseases, etc.). In religions featuring a principal Devil (e.g. Satan) locked in an eternal struggle with God, demons are often also thought to be subordinates of

1375-499: A metaphorical symbol for life-threatening animals, such as hyenas , ostrichs , and jackals . The shedim , however, are not pagan demigods, but the foreign gods themselves. They are evil insofar that they are not affiliated with the Jewish deity. These entities appear in a scriptural context of animal or child sacrifice to non-existent false gods . Various diseases and ailments were ascribed to demons, particularly those affecting

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1500-446: A part of the religious transformations of late antiquity . Note: Varies by jurisdiction Note: Varies by jurisdiction Archaeologists have found the remains of more than 140 children who were sacrificed in Peru's northern coastal region. The Aztecs are well known for their ritualistic human sacrifice as offerings to gods with the goal of restoring cosmological balance. While

1625-460: A possible sign that he was indeed sacrificed. Barker also stated that wall paintings in the ancient Dura-Europos synagogue explicitly show Isaac being sacrificed, followed by his soul traveling to heaven. According to Jon D. Levenson a part of Jewish tradition interpreted Isaac as having been sacrificed. Similarly the German theologians Christan Rose and Hans-Friedrich Weiß maintain that due to

1750-473: A sacrifice which had been discontinued for many years, and which I for my part should believe to be by no means pleasing to the gods, of offering a freeborn boy to Saturn —this sacrilege rather than sacrifice, handed down from their founders, the Carthaginians are said to have performed until the destruction of their city—and unless the elders, in accordance with whose counsel everything was done, had opposed it,

1875-554: A specific place; their demonic activity is topographically defined and their function can be benevolent towards those who have the secret knowledge to face them. Demons protecting the underworld may prevent human souls from entering paradise. Only by knowing the right charms is the deceased able to enter the Halls of Osiris . Here, the aggressive nature of the guardian demons is motivated by the need to protect their abodes and not by their evil essence. Accordingly, demons guarded sacred places or

2000-545: A spinster her entire life, fulfilling the vow that she would be devoted to the Lord. The 1st-century CE Jewish historian Flavius Josephus , however, interpreted this to mean that Jephthah burned his daughter on Yahweh's altar, whilst pseudo-Philo , late first century CE, wrote that Jephthah offered his daughter as a burnt offering because he could find no sage in Israel who would cancel his vow. In other words, this story of human sacrifice

2125-491: A spirit or divine power, much like the Latin genius or numen . Daimōn most likely came from the Greek verb daiesthai ("to divide" or "distribute"). The Greek conception of a daimōn notably appears in the philosophical works of Plato , where it describes the divine inspiration of Socrates . The original Greek word daimōn does not carry the negative connotation initially understood by implementation of

2250-535: A temple in Tlatelolco (archaeological site) , the ancient Aztec city which is now modern day Mexico City . Temple R was dedicated to the Aztec rain gods, including Tlāloc , Ehecatl , Quetzalcoatl , and Huītzilōpōchtli . A majority (66%) of the excavated subadults were under 3 years old, and 32 subadults as well as 6 subadults were identified as male. It is hypothesized that this specific child sacrifice took place during

2375-450: A torch but could not be seen". Chinese folktale, legend and literature are replete with malevolent supernatural creatures who are often rendered "demons" in English translations. These include categories of beings such as the yao 妖 - shapeshifters with the power to cause insanity, to inflict poison, and to bring about disease, and the mo 魔 - derived from Indian mythology and entering through

2500-456: Is a word of Akkadian origin and means 'father of decision'. It resembles Nam-tar (literally 'decision, destiny, destination', likewise name of the 'plague-god')." Peter Jensen proposed in the late nineteenth century that אדרמלך ‎ ( ʾAḏrammeleḵ , "Adrammelech") was a manuscript error for *אדדמלך ‎ ( *ʾĂḏaḏmeleḵ , "*Adadmelech"), due to the typographical similarity of ר ‎ ( r ) and ד ‎ ( d ), which Jensen thought

2625-549: Is an exchange or substitution of something. Through k'ex infants would substitute more powerful humans. It was thought that supernatural beings would consume the souls of more powerful humans and infants were substituted in order to prevent that. Infants are believed to be good offerings because they have a close connection to the spirit world through liminality . It is also believed that parents in Maya culture would offer their children for sacrifice and depictions of this show that this

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2750-407: Is described as "The enemy of God , greater in ambition, guile and mischief than Satan. A fiend more curst—a deeper hypocrite." An attempt to summon Adrammelech (spelled Adramelech throughout) is central to the plot of Graham Masterton 's 1978 horror novel "The Devils of D Day". Child sacrifice Child sacrifice is the ritualistic killing of children in order to please or appease

2875-405: Is not an order or requirement by God, but the punishment for those who vowed to sacrifice humans. The practice of child sacrifice among Canaanite groups is attested by numerous sources spanning over a millennium. One example is in the writings of Diodorus Siculus : "They also alleged that Kronos had turned against them inasmuch as in former times they had been accustomed to sacrifice to this god

3000-518: Is not clear from his work, if he considered these images of se'irim as manifestations of actual spirits or merely delusions. Despite academic consensus, Rabbis disputed that Maimonides denied the existence of demons entirely. He would only dispute the existence of demons in his own life time, but not that demons had existed once. Occasionally an angel is called satan in the Babylon Talmud. But satans do not refer to demons as they remain at

3125-598: Is not legal, but unholy, whereas the Carthaginians perform it as a thing they account holy and legal, and that too when some of them sacrifice even their own sons to Cronos, as I daresay you yourself have heard." (Minos 315) Theophrastus : "And from then on to the present day they perform human sacrifices with the participation of all, not only in Arcadia during the Lykaia and in Carthage to Kronos, but also periodically, in remembrance of

3250-405: Is recorded in ancient Semitic sources as an epithet of Baal , or a baal. Adrammelech is commonly understood as a companion of Anammelech , due to their association in 2 Kings 17, the similarity of their names, and the similarity of their worship through child sacrifice. Before the identification with epigraphic ʾAddîr-milk , various attempts (since generally rejected) were made to interpret

3375-461: Is the Bunyip , which was originally a term applied to malevolent spirits in general. Tasmanian mythology in particular has many beings translated as "devils"; these include malicious spirits like Rageowrapper as well as spirits summoned in magic. Tasmanian Aboriginal people would describe these entities as "devils" and related that these spiritual beings as walking alongside Aboriginal people "carrying

3500-738: The Hebrew University and Harvard University show from the teeth and skeletal analysis at the Carthage Tophet that infant ages at death (about two months) do not correlate with the expected ages of natural mortality (perinatal), apparently supporting the child sacrifice thesis. Demon A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in folklore , mythology , religion , and literature ; these beliefs are reflected in media including comics , fiction , film , television , and video games . Belief in demons probably goes back to

3625-557: The Koine δαιμόνιον ( daimonion ), and later ascribed to any cognate words sharing the root. The Greek terms do not have any connotations of evil or malevolence. By the early centuries of the Roman Empire , cult statues were seen, by Pagans and their Christian neighbors alike, as inhabited by the numinous presence of the Greco-Roman gods : "Like pagans, Christians still sensed and saw

3750-457: The Levites , who are responsible for maintaining Yahweh's tabernacle (verses 30 and 47). Two Hebrew terms are used to indicate they are a 'tribute' or 'levy' that is 'offered' or 'contributed' to Yahweh: Some scholars have concluded that these 32 human virgins were to be sacrificed to Yahweh as a burnt offering along with the animals. For example, in 1854, Carl Falck-Lebahn compared the incident with

3875-535: The New International Version ). Jephthah succeeds in winning a victory, but when he returns to his home in Mizpah he sees his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels , outside. After allowing her two months preparation, Judges 11:39 states that Jephthah kept his vow. According to the commentators of the rabbinic Jewish tradition , Jepthah's daughter was not sacrificed but was forbidden to marry and remained

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4000-560: The Paleolithic age , stemming from humanity's fear of the unknown, the strange and the horrific. In ancient Near Eastern religions and in the Abrahamic religions , including early Judaism and ancient-medieval Christian demonology , a demon is considered a harmful spiritual entity that may cause demonic possession , calling for an exorcism . Large portions of Jewish demonology , a key influence on Christianity and Islam , originated from

4125-738: The President of the Senate of the demons. He is also the Chancellor of Hell and supervisor of Satan 's wardrobe. He is generally depicted with a human torso, a mule's head, a peacock tail, and the limbs of a mule or peacock . In the Ars Goetia , he was known as Andrealphus . A poet's description of Adrammelech (spelled Adramelech as in Greek) can be found in Robert Silverberg 's short story "Basileus". He

4250-609: The Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, which drew on the mythology of ancient Semitic religions . This was then inherited by the Koine text of the New Testament . The English use of demon as synonym for devils goes back at least as far as about 825. The German word ( Dämon ), however, is different from devil ( Teufel ) and demons as evil spirits, and akin to

4375-660: The Watchers or Nephilim , who are first mentioned in Genesis 6 and are the focus of 1 Enoch Chapters 1–16, and also in Jubilees 10. The Nephilim were seen as the source of the sin and evil on Earth because they are referenced in Genesis 6:4 before the story of the Flood . In Genesis 6:5, God sees evil in the hearts of men. Ethiopic Enoch refers to Genesis 6:4–5, and provides further description of

4500-504: The binding of Isaac , symbolizes the prohibition to worship God by human sacrifices , at a time when human sacrifices were the norm worldwide. In Leviticus 18:21, 20:3 and Deuteronomy 12:30–31, 18:10, the Torah contains a number of imprecations against and laws forbidding child sacrifice and human sacrifice in general. The Tanakh denounces human sacrifice as barbaric customs of Baal worshippers (e.g. Psalms 106:37). James Kugel argues that

4625-445: The galla dragging the god Dumuzid into the underworld. Like other demons, however, galla could also be benevolent and, in a hymn from King Gudea of Lagash ( c. 2144 – 2124 BCE), a minor god named Ig-alima is described as "the great galla of Girsu ". Lamashtu was a demonic goddess with the "head of a lion, the teeth of a donkey, naked breasts, a hairy body, hands stained (with blood?), long fingers and fingernails, and

4750-507: The underworld was home to many demonic beings, which are sometimes referred to as "offspring of arali ". These demons could sometimes leave the underworld and terrorize mortals on earth. One class of demons that were believed to reside in the underworld were known as galla ; their primary purpose appears to have been to drag unfortunate mortals back to Kur. They are frequently referenced in magical texts, and some texts describe them as being seven in number. Several extant poems describe

4875-437: The "demons of the lower regions": You think, as I infer from your words, that a demon is the same as a devil, which is not the case. For a demon is said to be any invisible being using reason, as if knowing. Of these the two high orders are called calodemons, that is, 'good knowing ones', the lower order is called cacodemon, that is, 'evil knowing one', for calos means 'good', cacos 'bad'. The ceremonial magician usually consults

5000-428: The "demons that bring famine" and "such as cause storm and earthquake". According to some aggadic stories, demons were under the dominion of a king or chief, usually Asmodai . In Kabbalah , demons are regarded as a necessary part of the divine emanation in the material world and a byproduct of human sin ( Qlippoth ). After they are created, they assume an existence on their own. Demons would attach themselves to

5125-501: The 7th-century BCE reformers of king Josiah of the southern Kingdom of Judah tried to end the practice of human/child sacrifice, it appears to have been commonplace in Israelite military culture. Other scholars have concluded that the virgins and animals were kept alive and used by the Levites as their share of the spoils. Some even posited that human sacrifice (especially child sacrifice)

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5250-675: The Hebrew torah Tanakh refer to those carried out in Gehenna by two kings of Judah, Ahaz and Manasseh of Judah . In the Book of Judges , chapter 11, the figure of Jephthah makes a vow to God, saying, "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering" (as worded in

5375-457: The Muling 木灵 lit. "tree spirit" (also muzhong 木肿 lit. "tree swelling") - demons forming over time in trees of immense age, capable of inflicting disease and killing human passers-by and birds flying overhead. Examples include the penghou 彭侯 (lit. "drumbeat marquis"), a demon associated with camphor trees in mountain forests, and which takes the form of a human-headed dog, and in the southern provinces,

5500-593: The Torah's specifically forbidding child sacrifice indicates that it happened in Israel as well. The biblical scholar Mark S. Smith argues that the mention of "Tophet" in Isaiah 30:27–33 indicates an acceptance of child sacrifice in the early Jerusalem practices, to which the law in Leviticus 20:2–5 forbidding child sacrifice is a response. Some scholars have stated that at least some Israelites and Judahites believed child sacrifice

5625-522: The United States. The rejection of demons as the cause of natural events also contributed to the association of demons with delusions and merely mental phenomena. For example, the notion that demons could possess an individual, stripped the individual away from their personhood and was at odds with modern Western philosophy. The most prominent ones, such as the American Dream and capitalism , imply

5750-464: The avenging deities. The children thus given up were slaughtered according to a secret ritual. Now Kronos, whom the Phoenicians call El, who was in their land and who was later divinized after his death as the star of Kronos, had an only son by a local bride named Anobret, and therefore they called him Ieoud. Even now among the Phoenicians the only son is given this name. When war’s gravest dangers gripped

5875-507: The awful superstition would have prevailed over mercy. But necessity, more inventive than any art, introduced not only the usual means of defence, but also some novel ones." History of Alexander IV.III.23 Tertullian : "In Africa infants used to be sacrificed to Saturn, and quite openly, down to the proconsulate of Tiberius, who took the priests themselves and on the very trees of their temple, under whose shadow their crimes had been committed, hung them alive like votive offerings on crosses; and

6000-638: The banana-leaf spirits. From the Tang dynasty onwards, belief in shapeshifting foxes, tigers and wolves, amongst other creatures, also featured in Chinese folk belief, partly due to the existence of outlawed fox-spirit cults. Fox Demons (狐妖) are described as cunning and lustful, capable of clairvoyance, and of inflicting disease and poisoning at will. They are sometimes seen as beings requiring worship to be appeased or placated. Tiger Demons (虎妖) and Wolf Demons (狼妖) are ravening beings roaming large territories for prey, taking

6125-504: The belief that everyone is responsible for their own fate and not at the mercy of external forces, thus has no room left for demons or demonic possessions. The concept of demons has nevertheless not disappeared from the public, permeating media, arts, and psychology. Others assert that the Age of Enlightenment did not compete with beliefs in subjugation of demons, but derived from them. In the 16th - early 17th century, conjuration of demonic forces

6250-415: The brain and those of internal nature. Examples include catalepsy , headache, epilepsy and nightmares. There also existed a demon of blindness, "Shabriri" (lit. "dazzling glare") who rested on uncovered water at night and blinded those who drank from it. Demons supposedly entered the body and caused the disease while overwhelming or "seizing" the victim. To cure such diseases, it was necessary to draw out

6375-420: The children, who had been given an intoxicating drink, to lose consciousness in the extreme cold and low-oxygen conditions of the mountaintop, and to die of hypothermia . In Maya culture, people believed that supernatural beings had power over their lives and this is one reason that child sacrifice occurred. The sacrifices were essentially to satisfy the supernatural beings. This was done through k'ex , which

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6500-473: The customary usage, they spill the blood of their own kin on the altars, even though the divine law among them bars from the rites, by means of perirrhanteria and the herald's proclamation, anyone responsible for the shedding of blood in peacetime." Sophocles : ". . . was chosen as a . . . sacrifice for the city. For from ancient times the barbarians have had a custom of sacrificing human beings to Kronos." Quintus Curtius Rufus : "Some even proposed renewing

6625-448: The demographic of people chosen to sacrifice remains unclear, there is evidence that victims were mostly warriors captured in battle and slaves in the slave trade. Human sacrifice was not limited to adults, however; 16th century Spanish codices chronicled child sacrifice to Aztec rain gods. In 2008, Archaeologists found and excavated 43 victims of Aztec sacrifice, 37 of which were subadults. The sacrificial victims were found by Temple R,

6750-524: The demonic powers of impurity have become correspondingly weak, too. The Hebrew Bible mentions two classes of demonic spirits, the se'irim and the shedim . The word shedim (sing shed or sheyd ) appears in two places in the Hebrew Bible. The se'irim (sing. sa'ir , "male goat") are mentioned once in Leviticus 17 :7, probably a recollection of Assyrian demons in the shape of goats. They might be

6875-586: The demons of mountains and forests (the seductive Chimei 魑魅), demons of trees and rocks (a necrophagous fever-demon, the Wangliang 魍魎), subterranean demons of the earth and of decay (the goat-like and necrophagous Fenyang 墳羊 (lit. "grave-goat"), who caused disease and miscarriage) and fever demons born from water ( Wangxiang 罔象 , a child-like being with red eyes). These demons were said to be born of aberrant qi (breath or energy), known to accost and kill travellers, and held responsible for sickness. People also feared

7000-469: The divine inspiration of Socrates . In Christianity, morally ambivalent daimōn were replaced by demons, forces of evil only striving for corruption. Such demons are not the Greek intermediary spirits, but hostile entities, already known in Iranian beliefs. In Western esotericism and Renaissance magic , which grew out of an amalgamation of Greco-Roman magic , Jewish Aggadah , and Christian demonology,

7125-403: The divine will. The existence of demons can be related to the realm of chaos, beyond the created world. But even this negative connotation cannot be denied in light of the magical texts. The role of demons in relation to the human world remains ambivalent and largely depends on context. Ancient Egyptian demons can be divided into two classes: "guardians" and "wanderers". "Guardians" are tied to

7250-417: The essential teaching about shedim and similar spirits is, that they should not be an object of worship, not a reality to be acknowledged or feared. Their point of view eventually became mainstream Jewish understanding. The opinion of some authors is not clear. Abraham ibn Ezra states that insane people can see the image of se'irim , when they go astray and ascribe to them powers independent from God. It

7375-589: The evil demons by certain incantations and talismanic performances, at which the Essenes excelled. Josephus , who spoke of demons as "spirits of the wicked which enter into men that are alive and kill them", but which could be driven out by a certain root , witnessed such a performance in the presence of the Emperor Vespasian and ascribed its origin to King Solomon . In mythology, there were few defences against Babylonian demons . The mythical mace Sharur had

7500-504: The fantasy genre, and especially in entertainment aimed at children and young adults. Belief in wilderness demons haunted China from the very earliest periods and persisted throughout the late imperial era. In the Xia dynasty, nine bronze cauldrons with their forms were cast to help the common people to identify and to avoid them. Classical texts in the Zhou and Warring-States period distinguish between

7625-453: The feet of Anzû ". She was believed to feed on the blood of human infants and was widely blamed as the cause of miscarriages and cot deaths . Although Lamashtu has traditionally been identified as a demoness, the fact that she could cause evil on her own without the permission of other deities strongly indicates that she was seen as a goddess in her own right. Mesopotamian peoples protected against her using amulets and talismans . She

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7750-512: The form of humans to conveniently insert themselves into communities and settlements. Tiger demons are described as being enslave the souls of humans they have killed, turning them into minions. In the superstitious climate of the previous centuries, people mistaken as tigers and wolves in human disguise were often put to death or starved in their cells by magistrates. Fish (鱼妖) and snake demons (蛇妖) are said to have attempted to assault Confucius. Even insects are capable of being demonic. In one tale,

7875-515: The gates to the netherworld. During the Ptolemaic and Roman period , the guardians shifted towards the role of genius loci and they were the focus of local and private cults. The "wanderers" are associated with possession, mental illness, death and plagues. Many of them serve as executioners for the major deities, such as Ra or Osiris , when ordered to punish humans on earth or in the netherworld. Wanderers can also be agents of chaos, arising from

8000-474: The gods and their power, and as something, they had to assume, lay behind it, by an easy traditional shift of opinion they turned these pagan daimones into malevolent 'demons', the troupe of Satan . Far into the Byzantine period , Christians eyed their cities' old pagan statuary as a seat of the demons' presence. It was no longer beautiful, it was infested." The term had first acquired its negative connotations in

8125-452: The gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand?" (NIV). Isaiah 36:19 has an almost identical passage. According to A. R. Millard , Saul Olyan, and others, Adrammelech likely represents an original * ʾAddîr-meleḵ , "majestic king" or "the majestic one is king". Cognate ʾAddîr-milk , along with similar Milk-ʾaddîr (with the morphemes inverted) and Baʿal-ʾaddîr ("majestic master" or "majestic Baal"),

8250-399: The grammatical perfect tense used to describe Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, he did, in fact, follow through with the action. Rabbi A.I. Kook, first Chief Rabbi of Israel, stressed that the climax of the story, commanding Abraham not to sacrifice Isaac, is the whole point: to put an end to, and God's total aversion to the ritual of child sacrifice. According to Irving Greenberg the story of

8375-534: The great drought and famine of 1454–1457, furthering the theory that Aztecs utilized human sacrifice to placate the gods. Osteological and dental pathological evidence shows that many of the child sacrificial victims had varying health issues, and it is suggested that the Tlaloques selected these children who had medical ailments. Because sacrificial victims typically embodied the gods they were being sacrificed to, male child sacrifices were more present at this site due to

8500-424: The human sacrifice that Yahweh, the god of Israel, expected as his due after a war." Susan Niditch remarked in 1995 that, at the time of her writing, "increasingly scholars suggest that Israelites engaged in state-sponsored rituals of child sacrifice". Although "[s]uch ritual activity is condemned by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and other biblical writers (e.g., Lev 18:21, Deut 12:31, 18:10; Jer 7:30–31, 19:5; Ezek 20:31), and

8625-516: The imperial era, they also appear as antagonists, and sometimes protagonists, in multiple genres of Chinese literature. These include mythic literature ( Shen Mo Xiaoshuo (lit. "Gods and demons novels") ), in records about paranormal or occult activity ( Zhi Guai ("lit. Records of the Strange") ), and in tales about cultivators of supernatural power and immortality ( Xian Xia (lit. "Immortal Hero") ) fiction. These demons are often examples or close variants of

8750-720: The indigenous Yao (妖) and the Indian-influenced Mo (魔) feature prominently in Chinese legends and folktales about the supernatural and the uncanny, and these days are staples of popular culture and fantasy fiction in games, movies and books. There are differing opinions in Judaism about the existence or non-existence of demons ( shedim or se'irim ). Some Rabbinic scholars assert that demons have existed in Talmudic times, but do not exist regularly in present. When prophecy, divine presence , and divine inspiration gradually decreased,

8875-524: The influence of Buddhism. In folk belief, these beings are responsible for misfortune, insanity, and illness, and any number of strange phenomena that could not easily be accounted for. Epilepsy and stroke, which led to either temporary or permanent contortions, were generally seen as the results of demonic possession and attacks (中邪). In the imperial era, anxiety over unexplained serial murders, missing persons, accidents or diseases sometimes led to instances of mass panic requiring imperial intervention. Exorcism

9000-555: The information from a cuneiform text in Babylonian, which would not express it." At the turn of the century, William Muss-Arnolt suggested that ʾAḏrammeleḵ could represent his own reconstructed Akkadian *Atra-malik , comparing the form to the names Atra-ḫasis and *(A)tar-ilu , writing, " Atra-malik would probably yield אדרמלךְ ‎." From the Jewish Encyclopedia : The Talmud teaches (Sanh. 63b) that Adrammelech

9125-433: The land, Kronos dressed his son in royal attire, prepared an altar and sacrificed him." Lucian : "There is another form of sacrifice here. After putting a garland on the sacrificial animals they hurl them down alive from the gateway and the animals die from the fall. Some even throw their children off the place, but not in the same manner as the animals. Instead, having laid them in a pallet, they drop them down by hand. At

9250-447: The law and desire of Yahweh. Genesis 22 relates the binding of Isaac , by Abraham to present his son, Isaac , as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah . It was a test of faith (Genesis 22:12). Abraham agrees to this command without arguing. The story ends with an angel stopping Abraham at the last minute and making Isaac's sacrifice unnecessary by providing a ram, caught in some nearby bushes, to be sacrificed instead. Other interpretations of

9375-444: The manner that Empedocles describes in his attack on those who sacrifice living creatures: "Changed in form is the son beloved of his father so pious,Who on the altar lays him and slays him. What folly!" No, but with full knowledge and understanding they themselves offered up their own children, and those who had no children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many lambs or young birds; meanwhile

9500-455: The masculine nature of the Aztec rain gods. The Inca culture sacrificed children in a ritual called qhapaq hucha . Their frozen corpses have been discovered in the South American mountaintops. The first of these corpses, a female child who had died from a blow to the skull, was discovered in 1995 by Johan Reinhard. Other methods of sacrifice included strangulation and simply leaving

9625-461: The modern English "demon". Both deities and demons can act as intermediaries to deliver messages to humans. By that, they share some resemblance to the Greek daimon. However, magical writings indicate that ancient Egyptians acknowledged the existence of malevolent demons by highlighting the demon names with red ink. Demons in this culture appeared to be subordinative and related to a specific deity, yet they may have occasionally acted independently of

9750-419: The mother stood by without a tear or moan; but should she utter a single moan or let fall a single tear, she had to forfeit the money, and her child was sacrificed nevertheless; and the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums so that the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people." Moralia 2, De Superstitione 3 Plato : "With us, for instance, human sacrifice

9875-597: The mythology. The Moche of northern Peru practiced mass sacrifices of men and boys. Archeologists found the remains of 137 children and 3 adults, along with 200 camelids, during excavations in 2011, 2014 and 2016, beneath the sands of a 15th-century site called Huanchaquito-Las Llamas. This sacrifice was possibly made during the heavy rains as there was a layer of mud on top of the clean sand. The Timoto-Cuicas offered human sacrifices. Until colonial times children sacrifice persisted secretly in Laguna de Urao ( Mérida ). It

10000-533: The name ascribes to the god the form of a peacock and derives the name from adar ("magnificent") and melek ("king"); Yer. 'Ab. Zarah, iii. 42d. Like many pagan gods, Adrammelech is considered a demon in some Judeo-Christian traditions. So he appears in Milton's Paradise Lost , where he is a fallen angel who, along with Asmodeus , is vanquished by Uriel and Raphael . According to Collin de Plancy 's book on demonology , Infernal Dictionary , Adrammelech became

10125-586: The near-sacrifice of Iphigenia in Greek mythology , claiming: "According to Levit. xxvii, 29, sacrifices of human victims were clearly established among the Jews." After recounting the story of Jephthah's daughter in Judges 11 , he reasoned: "the Jews (according to Numbers, chap 31) took 61,000 asses, 72,000 oxen, 675,000 sheep, and 32,000 virgins (whose fathers, mothers, brothers &c., were butchered). There were 16,000 girls for

10250-495: The noblest of their sons, but more recently, secretly buying and nurturing children, they had sent these to the sacrifice; and when an investigation was made, some of those who had been sacrificed were discovered to have been substituted by stealth... In their zeal to make amends for the omission, they selected two hundred of the noblest children and sacrificed them publicly; and others who were under suspicion sacrificed themselves voluntarily, in number not less than three hundred. There

10375-574: The origin of the name Adrammelech . The reconstructed form *Adar-malik (or the variant *Adru-malku ) was once almost universally accepted as the original Akkadian form of the name. For example, Eberhard Schrader wrote in 1885: " Adrammelech means 'Adar is prince'. It […] was pronounced in Assyrian Adar-malik ( Assyr.-Babylon. Keilinsch. , selected proper names no. 33a p. 140). [...] Both Adar and Anu, Anuv are very frequently mentioned deities of Assyria. Adar, originally pronounced A-tar,

10500-505: The original meaning of daimon . The Western Modern era conception of a demon , as in the Ars Goetia , derives seamlessly from the ambient popular culture of Late Antiquity . The exact definition of "demon" in Egyptology posed a major problem for modern scholarship, since the borders between a deity and a demon are sometimes blurred and the ancient Egyptian language lacks a term for

10625-595: The power to slay demons such as Asag , a legendary gallu or edimmu of hideous strength. In the Jerusalem Talmud , notions of shedim ("demons" or "spirits") are almost unknown or occur only very rarely, whereas in the Babylonian Talmud there are many references to shedim and magical incantations. The existence of shedim in general was not questioned by most of the Babylonian Talmudists . As

10750-511: The pre-modern period, spirits and demons were assigned to various natural phenomena, the rationalistic school of thought , increasingly rejected the attribution of demons to unknown causes. Many considered demons to be non-existent and alleged visions of demons and ghosts were explained as results of superstition. By that local religious customs were also oppressed in favor of nationwide (religious) ideas or deities. Wilkinson Duran states that people who believe in demons are often marginalized in

10875-437: The principal Devil. As lesser spirits doing the Devil's work, they have additional duties— causing humans to have sinful thoughts and tempting humans to commit sinful actions. The original Ancient Greek word daimōn ( δαίμων ) did not carry negative connotations, as it denotes a spirit or divine power. The Greek conception of a daimōn notably appears in the philosophical works of Plato , where it describes

11000-518: The question is asked, 'Shall I give my firstborn for my sin, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?', and responded to in the phrase, 'He has shown all you people what is good. And what does Yahweh require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.' The Tanakh also implies that the Ammonites offered child sacrifices to Moloch . According to scholars such as Otto Eissfeldt , Paul G. Mosca, and Susan Ackerman , Moloch

11125-450: The redemption of the firstborn in Israelite families (cf. Exodus 13:11–16 ). Yahweh also states to the prophet Jeremiah, “They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind,” (Jeremiah 7:31) which some scholars interpret as indicating that it was once viewed as a central part to

11250-401: The religious sense are known as Mo (魔) and are generally derived from Indian lore through Buddhism. These include the man-eating, night-flying luocha 罗刹 (raksasha) and the yecha 夜叉 (yaksha). These have also entered Chinese folk religion and Taoism. Another closely related term, highlighting their spiritual deviance and moral corruption, is Xie (邪). Aside from recurring in Chinese superstition of

11375-576: The royal line's attempts to perpetuate itself. Exodus 22:28b–29 states "The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me" potentially a demand by Yahweh that the firstborn children of the Israelites must be sacrificed to him. However, Jacob Milgrom argues that Yahweh forbids human sacrifice and that in Exodus 22:28b-29, as in the Day of Atonement, Yahweh instituted substitutionary animal sacrifices for human sin and

11500-491: The same manner as the tithes (Numbers 18:26–28, and Leviticus 27:30–33), so that they might put the cattle into their own flocks (Numbers 35:3), and slay oxen or sheep as they required them, whilst they sold the asses, and made slaves of the gifts; and not in the character of a vow, in which case the clean animals would have had to be sacrificed, and the unclean animals, as well as the human beings, to be redeemed (Leviticus 27:2–13). The most extensive accounts of child sacrifice in

11625-431: The same time they mock them and say that they are oxen, not children." Cleitarchus : "And Kleitarchos says the Phoenicians, and above all the Carthaginians, venerating Kronos, whenever they were eager for a great thing to succeed, made a vow by one of their children. If they would receive the desired things, they would sacrifice it to the god. A bronze Kronos, having been erected by them, stretched out upturned hands over

11750-409: The service of God: "Stand not in the way of an ox when coming from the pasture, for Satan dances between his horns". Aggadic tales from the Persian tradition describe the shedim , the mazziḳim ("harmers"), and the ruḥin ("spirits"). There were also lilin ("night spirits"), ṭelane ("shade", or "evening spirits"), ṭiharire ("midday spirits"), and ẓafrire ("morning spirits"), as well as

11875-459: The seven evil deities were known as shedu , storm-demons, represented in ox-like form." They were represented as winged bulls , derived from the colossal bulls used as protective jinn of royal palaces. Magical rites, charms, and beliefs in spiritual entities were prominent in pre-Christian Europe. While the Church offically declared such beliefs as false , the persistance of such beliefs among

12000-459: The seventh-century reformer king Josiah sought to put an end to it, [the] notion of a god who desires human sacrifice may well have been an important thread in Israelite belief." She cited the Mesha Stele as evidence that the neighbouring Moabites performed human sacrifices with prisoners of war to their god Chemosh after successfully attacking an Israelite city in the 9th century BCE. Before

12125-582: The sighting of a Centipede Demon (蜈蚣妖) in the form of an old woman without eyes is said to have led to the sickness and death of an entire household. One notable demon not in the above categories includes the Heisheng or Heiqi 黑气 ("Black Calamity" or "Black Air"), a kind of roving vapour demon that inflicts damage to persons and property wherever it roams, sometimes killing where it goes. Another are undefined Poltergeists, sometimes afflicting monasteries, causing serious nuisances, and unable to be exorcised. Demons in

12250-501: The sinner and start to multiply as an act of self-preservation. Medieval Kabbalists characterize such demons as punishing angels of destruction . They are subject to the divine will, and do not act independently. Other demonic entities, such as the shedim , might be considered benevolent. The Zohar classifies them as those who are like humans and submit to the Torah, and those who have no fear of God and are like animals. The sources of demonic influence were thought to originate from

12375-400: The soldiers of my own country are witnesses to it, who served that proconsul in that very task. Yes, and to this day that holy crime persists in secret." Apology 9.2-3 Philo of Byblos : "Among ancient peoples in critically dangerous situations it was customary for the rulers of a city or nation, rather than lose everyone, to provide the dearest of their children as a propitiatory sacrifice to

12500-519: The soldiers, 16,000 for the priests; and on the soldiers' share there was levied a tribute of 32 virgins for the Lord. What became of them? The Jews had no nuns. What was the Lord's share in all the wars of the Hebrews, if it was not blood?" Carl Plfuger in 1995 cited Exodus 17, Numbers 31, Deuteronomy 13 and 20 as examples of human sacrifice demanded by Yahweh, adding that according to 1 Samuel 15, Saul "lost his kingship of Israel because he had withheld

12625-462: The story connecting the Nephilim to the corruption of humans. According to the Book of Enoch , sin originates when angels descend from heaven and fornicate with women, birthing giants. The Book of Enoch shows that these fallen angels can lead humans to sin through direct interaction or through providing forbidden knowledge. Most scholars understand the text, that demons originate from the evil spirits of

12750-548: The story passed down among the Greeks from ancient myth that Cronus did away with his own children appears to have been kept in mind among the Carthaginians through this observance." Library 20.14 Plutarch : "Again, would it not have been far better for the Carthaginians to have taken Critias or Diagoras to draw up their law-code at the very beginning, and so not to believe in any divine power or god, rather than to offer such sacrifices as they used to offer to Cronos? These were not in

12875-589: The symbol depends on the prevailing religion of the culture. Among Turks, the basmalah ("invocation of the name of Allah") is used to ward off demons, while among Armenians, the symbol of the cross is utilized. Common features of these Middle Eastern demons are their immortality and pernicious nature, they can turn invisible, and can be enslaved when pierced by a silver needle. Due to the Islamic belief-system prevailing in Middle Eastern and Central Asian culture at

13000-457: The text have contradicted this version. For example, Martin S. Bergmann states "The Aggadah rabbis asserted that "father Isaac was bound on the altar and reduced to ashes, and his sacrificial dust was cast on Mount Moriah ." A similar interpretation was made in the Epistle to the Hebrews . Margaret Barker notes that "Abraham returned to Bersheeba without Isaac" according to Genesis 22:19 ,

13125-442: The time between the parī and the angels, from the fires of the stars and smoke. Under influence of Islamic Philosophy , Medieval occult traditions and Renaissance magic , demons are often seen as beneficial and useful, lacking an inherent negative connotation. In the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Renaissance magic, the terms 'demon' and 'devil' have two different, although not exclusive, meanings. The term demons refers to

13250-507: The time, authors emphasized that demons only exist by God's will and not as an independent or even accidental part of the world. The origin of the demons is explained by Abu Ali Bal'ami 's interpretation of Tarikh al-Tabari as the possibly first creation of God ( Allah ). Similarly, the Süleymanname , written during the time of Suleiman the Magnificent , demons were created by God in

13375-523: The type and kind that exist in folk belief. They also appear in entertainment designed for children and young adults, especially in comics (manhua), cartoons (anime), and computer games. The terms Yao (妖) , Mo (魔), Gui (鬼), Guai (怪) and Xie (邪) are their various two-character combinations often used to refer to these creatures, but of these terms, only Mo (魔) denotes demons in the religious sense. China has two classes of beings that might be regarded as demons, and which are generally translated as such: Both

13500-415: The wider populations led Christian monks to assimilate Christian with non-Christian rites. In order to do so, non-Christian symbols and as pagan deities have been substituted by Jesus Christ . To sanction the invocation of non-Christian supernatural powers, Christian missionaries, such as John Cassian in the fifth century, declared the pagan gods to be demons, servants of Lucifer , who bring disorder to

13625-436: The world beyond creation to bring about misfortune and suffering without any divine instructions, led only by evil motivations. The influences of the wanderers can be warded off and kept at the borders of the human world by the use of magic, but they can never be destroyed. A sub-category of "wanderers" are nightmare demons, which were believed to cause nightmares by entering a human body. The ancient Mesopotamians believed that

13750-621: The world. Ideas of demons (often called Dīv/Dēw or mārid or šayāṭīn in Arabic ) in Armenia , Turkic countries , and Albania derive from Arabic and Persian imagery . Unlike the original Persian daeva , the at the Islamic period are more anthropomorphized and morally complex, through assimialtion with the Arabic jinn and devils. Like the jinn from Islamic traditions, they can enter sexual relationships with humans and sire offspring. Demons are believed to be mostly active at night and

13875-482: The ‘Phoenician History,’ which Sanchuniathon wrote in Phoenician and which Philo of Byblos translated into Greek in eight books, is full of such sacrifices." At Carthage, a large cemetery exists that combines the bodies of both very young children and small animals, and those who assert child sacrifice have argued that if the animals were sacrificed, then so too were the children. Recent archaeology, however, has produced

14000-438: Was a court function during the Zhou dynasty, led by ritual specialists known as fangshi . In later dynasties, roving Taoist sorcerers, Buddhist monks, as well as eccentric folk magicians, plied their services in warding off, exorcising, countering or defeating these demons through the use of amulets, charms, spells, and chants. In mainland China, belief in demons is very rare. Today, these beings appear primarily as antagonists in

14125-578: Was a legitimate religious practice. In the aftermath of the War against the Midianites narrated in Numbers 31 , the Israelites appear to be dedicating 32 captive Midianite virgin girls to be sacrificed to Yahweh as his share in the spoils of war. It is not clear what happened to Yahweh's 0.1% share of the spoils of war, including 808 animals (verses 36–39) and 32 human virgin women/girls (verse 40), who are entrusted to

14250-521: Was a variant of unrecorded *חֲדַדמֶּלֶךְ ‎ ( *Ḥăḏaḏmeleḵ , "King Hadad" or "Hadad is king"), thus identifying Adrammelech with the Canaanite god Hadad . Adad is in fact recorded as a variant of Hadad ; but Millard writes: "If the Sepharvites were of Aramean or Phoenician origin, it is very unlikely that the name of their god would have lost its initial h , unless the Hebrew authors of Kings copied

14375-609: Was a very emotional time for the parents, but they would carry through because they thought the child would continue existing. It is also known that infant sacrifices occurred at certain times. Child sacrifice was preferred when there was a time of crisis and transitional times such as famine and drought. There is archaeological evidence of infant sacrifice in tombs where the infant has been buried in urns or ceramic vessels. There have also been depictions of child sacrifice in art. Some art includes pottery and steles as well as references to infant sacrifice in mythology and art depictions of

14500-486: Was an idol of the Sepharvaim in the shape of an ass. This is to be concluded from his name, which is compounded of אדר ‎ "to carry" (compare Syriac אדרי ‎), and מלך ‎ "a king." These heathens worshiped as God the same animal which carried their burdens (Sanh. l.c.; see also Rashi's explanation of this passage which interprets אדר ‎ "to distinguish," by "carrying"). Still another explanation of

14625-488: Was believed to be the son of the god Hanbi . He was usually regarded as evil, but he could also sometimes be a beneficent entity who protected against winds bearing pestilence and he was thought to be able to force Lamashtu back to the underworld. Amulets bearing his image were positioned in dwellings to protect infants from Lamashtu and pregnant women frequently wore amulets with his head on them as protection from her. Šul-pa-e 's name means "youthful brilliance", but he

14750-470: Was believed to ride in her boat on the river of the underworld and she was associated with donkeys. She was believed to be the daughter of An . Pazuzu is a demonic god who was well known to the Babylonians and Assyrians throughout the first millennium BCE. He is shown with "a rather canine face with abnormally bulging eyes, a scaly body, a snake-headed penis, the talons of a bird and usually wings". He

14875-460: Was described by the chronicler Juan de Castellanos , who cited that feasts and human sacrifices were done in honour of Icaque , an Andean prehispanic goddess. The Tanakh mentions human sacrifice in the history of ancient Near Eastern practice. The king of Moab gives his firstborn son and heir as a whole burnt offering ( olah , as used of the Temple sacrifice). In the book of the prophet Micah ,

15000-457: Was foreign to the Israelites, thus making the possibility of sacrificing the Midianite virgins unfeasible. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch argued in 1870 that the 32 were enslaved: Of the one half the priests received 675 head of small cattle, 72 oxen, 61 asses, and 32 maidens for Jehovah; and these Moses handed over to Eleazar, in all probability for the maintenance of the priests, in

15125-549: Was in the city a bronze image of Kronos, extending its hands, palms up and sloping towards the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire. It is probable that it was from this that Euripides has drawn the mythical story found in his works about the sacrifice in Tauris, in which he presents Iphigeneia being asked by Orestes: "But what tomb shall receive me when I die? A sacred fire within, and earth's broad rift." Also

15250-442: Was more respected than legitimate authority, resulting in amorality and excessive personal independence. The declaration of demons as mere superstition was also welcomed as a "removal" of pagan beliefs. According to Wouter Hanegraaff , what the demons the Age of Enlightenment attempted to remove are pagan beliefs. Aboriginal Australian cultures have various beings translated into English as "demons" or "devils". The most notable

15375-649: Was not a name for a god, but instead is a word for a particular form of child sacrifice practiced in Israel and Judah which was not abandoned until the reforms of Josiah . In the Tanakh mentions are made in books such as Kings , Leviticus , and Jeremiah of children being given "to the mōlek ". According to Patrick D. Miller these child sacrifice traditions were not originally part of the Yahwism, but were instead foreign imports. Francesca Stavrakopoulou contradicts this, asserting that sacrifices were native to Israel and part of

15500-442: Was not envisioned as youthful god. According to one tradition, he was the consort of Ninhursag, a tradition which contradicts the usual portrayal of Enki as Ninhursag's consort. In one Sumerian poem, offerings made to Šhul-pa-e in the underworld and, in later mythology, he was one of the demons of the underworld. According to The Jewish Encyclopedia , originally published in 12 volumes from 1901 to 1906, "In Chaldean mythology

15625-491: Was seen as potential for humans to overcome their social and natural environment. Hermetic and Kabbalist philosophy allowed humans to exercise control over nature. As such, occult practises may have paved the way for the development of modern sciences. Individualism was met with certain ambiguity. Although the Renaissance "freed" humans from superstition and allowed them to control nature, it created an environment in which power

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