UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Santa Barbara

Platonists and High Priests: Daemonology, Ritual and Social Order in the

Third Century CE

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A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the
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degree Doctor of Philosophy in History
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by

Heidi Marx-Wolf
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Committee in charge:

Harold A. Drake, co-chair

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, co-chair

Christine M. Thomas

Stephen Humphreys

Mary Hancock

September 2009
 UMI Number: 3385766

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Platonists and High Priests: Daemonology, Ritual and Social Order in the
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Third Century CE

Copyright © 2009

by

Heidi Marx-Wolf

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the
others." (Cicero)
I have much to be grateful for and many debts to acknowledge.
This dissertation is the result of numerous collaborations, friendships,
and spontaneous acts of human kindness and scholarly generosity. I
have had the excellent fortune of having been surrounded by people
committed to making this dissertation a solid piece of scholarly work.
Hence, any blunders, oversights or glaring mistakes are solely my
responsibility and likely the result of my having overlooked or ignored
good advice along the way.
Harold A. Drake and Elizabeth DePalma Digeser shared the
burden of advising this project. Their patience and magnanimity were

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astounding. They proved that you can teach an old dog new tricks,
namely that you can teach a philosophically-trained academic to think
and write like an historian. Hal is often heard to say that his method of
advising is to let students do what they think is best and to follow their
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own course. But in actuality, it would be difficult to find someone as
involved and engaged with his students' work. His advice is invariably
sage, and his sense of commitment to his students and their flourishing
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is patently obvious at all times. Hal is an ideal advisor, and the culture
he creates among his graduate students and colleagues convinced me
early on that collaboration rather than competition is the only way to
proceed in academia. His methods serve as the model I adopt for my
present and future interactions with students and peers. It is not
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surprising, this being the tone of my graduate studies, that Elizabeth

DePalma Digeser was equally kind, generous, helpful and hospitable,
given that she was once one of Hal's students. Furthermore, I had the
great fortune of working on a topic that was close to a number of themes
from her forthcoming book. Beth shared all of her work with me, and
saved me from many naive assumptions and scholarly blunders by
making me cognizant of the most important debates on key topics
pertaining to my project. She has also been a kind and caring friend.
My debt to Christine M. Thomas is great and multi-faceted. Her
teaching and input made this project truly interdisciplinary. She single-
handedly taught me what it is one does in a religious studies department
and how this could enrich my own approach. She did such a good job in
this regard that the University of Manitoba was willing to hire me to teach
Early Christianity and New Testament in their religion department. Chris
was frequently willing to take on overload teaching to ensure that
graduate students had access to New Testament Greek and Coptic
courses, opportunities which I happily availed myself of. She also made

IV
it possible for me to spend time at Ephesus on an archaeological dig, an
unforgettable experience which served to attune me to the ways in which
historians can and should engage with archaeological studies whenever
possible. Chris is also one of the most erudite and diversely talented
people I know, and among the most generous. My thanks also go to her
husband Jorge Castillo for his friendship and for some of the most
sublime and treasured early music in my collection. Their son Martin is
also a treasured friend.
Both Mary Hancock and Stephen Humphries were willing to
conduct independent studies with me on possession cults, demonology
and mental illness in anthropology and early Islam respectively. This
dissertation is informed by anthropological methodology to a significant
degree as a result of Mary Hancock's help. Furthermore, my work with
Stephen Humphreys made me aware of the important parallels between

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late Rome and early Islam, and prepared me to teach courses at UCSB
on both late Roman history and on the history of science to the
Renaissance.
Early on in the process of writing, David Frankfurter very
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generously read multiple drafts of my project proposal and offered
invaluable comments. His mark on the dissertation is clear from the
outset, and this study would not have been anywhere near as interesting
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without his input.
I also wish to thank Gillian Clark who, in a workshop at UCSB and
a session at the International Conference on Patristic Studies at Oxford,
read papers of mine and offered rich and varied feedback.
My graduate studies were funded by the generosity of a number
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of different departments and foundations in the University of California

system. Additionally, grants from the Multi-Campus Research Group in
Late Antiquity allowed me to travel to Turkey to study ancient healing
shrines in 2005, and to take a course in papyrology at Berkeley. This
course served as the basis for my work with the "Greek Magical Papyri"
in Chapter Two. Claudia Rapp, who was the director of the MRG while I
was a graduate student, has always been helpful and encouraging and I
owe her my thanks. UCSB History Associates and the History
Department also came through on an almost yearly basis with smaller
fellowships, which allowed me to travel for research and survive the
summer months.
Nancy McGloughlin and Thomas Sizgorich have been unfailing
friends within the academy and outside of it. Nancy read multiple
versions of all my chapters, edited the ugliest prose, and is largely
responsible for bringing out the "so what" of my project. And I would not
have weathered the final months of writing without her constant
confidence that I would finish and her encouragement to keep at it.

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 My thanks also go to Monica Orozco for her friendship and her
help, especially while I was settling in at UCS. I also wish to thank
Olivier Dufault for reading my work and conspiring about spirits, theurgy
and alchemy, Dayna Kalleres for sharing her work and insights on
possession, exorcism and baptism, Emily Schmidt for great
conversations on Roman religion, Hellenistic Judaism, and innumerable
other scintillating topics, and Roberta Mazza for all her help on the
papyrological aspects of this study. I also wish to thank fellow scholars
of late Platonism, Blossom Stefaniw, Ariane Magny, Todd Krulak, Arthur
Urbano, and Aaron Johnson, for their good company at conferences, and
for sharing their work and insights on all things Plotinian, Porphyrian and
Proclean.
I am grateful to Alexander Sokolicek for teaching me most of what
I know about ancient archaeology, for letting me muck about at the

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Magnesian Gate in Ephesus with him, and for including my novelistic
descriptions of stones in the his site reports. My thanks go to him, his
partner Johanna Auinger, and their daughter Marie for their friendship,
for Skipbo and for Sachertorte.
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Janet Crisler has, over the years, been an enthusiastic and
affirming friend, and I thank her for her hospitality during my time in
Selcuk, and for her frequent invitations to come and spend time at the
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Crisler Library and Research Center near Ephesus.
My thanks go to my friends on the mountain - Angela Moll,
Thorsten van Eicken, the Vallino's, Stefan Miescher and Lane Clark - for
meals, tea, and excellent conversation. Petra von Morstein and Evgenia
Cherkasova are life-long friends whom I thank for their constancy,
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resolute love and care over the years. They are the sort of friends who,
despite distance, are ever-present. I thanked them in the same way ten
years ago when I wrote my acknowledgments for my first dissertation in
philosophy, and nothing has changed. At the time I also thanked my
dear friend Laura Canis who helped me through my first dissertation and
whose friendship I treasured deeply. She died in May of 2006, and I
miss her dreadfully. But she is still present in the small things, such as
how I make roast potatoes and fruit cake, as well as in the big things
such as how I endeavor to treat other people.
When asked what it was about my childhood that led me to write a
dissertation on demons, my mother replied with shocked incredulity,
"She wrote a dissertation on demons?" Despite her best efforts to avoid
any responsibility for a topic that some might consider controversial or
dangerous (my last three months of writing, after all, were riddled with all
sorts of minor and major mishaps, annoyances and tragedies!), my
parents are very responsible for the kind of person I am and the path I've
taken. I am deeply thankful to them for all their love and support. They

VI
are the ones who pretended the television was broken and took me to
the public library every week. They are also the ones who read to me
every night from the time dinner ended to the time I went to sleep. My
partner in crime, my sister Christa has been and remains my closest
friend. Being an acupuncturist, she is also my doctor, and I feel very
privileged to be her patient. She helped to keep me balanced and sane
during the more grueling periods of this project. She is also one of the
most loving people I know.
Ten years ago, a week after I finished my dissertation in
philosophy, I married Paul Alexander Wolf. Few people would have both
understood my rationale for completing another doctorate or put up with
all that entails for seven years. Paul did so with grace, humor, and
generosity. He has, in the interim, put certain of his own dreams and
plans on hold in a most selfless way. He has also kept me from

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stultifying in my manner of existence, from becoming pedantic as a
human being, and from taking myself too seriously. I am a far better
person than I could have ever hoped to be for knowing and loving him.
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VII
 VITA OF HEIDI MARX-WOLF
August 2009

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Philosophy, University of Calgary, Alberta, June 1993 (with

honors)
Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University, State
College, June 1999
Doctor of Philosophy in History, University of California, Santa Barbara,
September 2009 (expected)

PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT

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1994-96: Teaching Assistant, Department of Philosophy, Pennsylvania
State University, State College
1996-1999: Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State
University, State College
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2000-2002: Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, Santa Barbara City
College, Santa Barbara
2001 and 2004: Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, Westmont College,
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Santa Barbara
2002-2003: Teaching Assistant, Law and Society Program, University of
California, Santa Barbara
2003-2006: Teaching Assistant, Department of History, University of
California, Santa Barbara
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2006-2009: Lecturer, Department of History, University of California,

Santa Barbara

PUBLICATIONS

"High Priests of the Highest God: Third Century Platonists as Ritual

Experts" (forthcoming in 2010, Journal of Early Christian Studies)

"Augustine and Meister Eckhart: Amata Notitia and the Birth of the Word"
in Philotheos: International Journal for Philosophy and Theology (July
2008)

"A Strange Consensus: Demonological Discourse in Origen, Porphyry

and lamblichus," in Religion and Rhetoric in Late Antiquity (Toronto:
Edgar Kent Publishers, under contract, forthcoming 2009)

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"Madness," entry in the Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage (Brill, under
contract, forthcoming 2009)

"Metaphors of Imaging in Meister Eckhart and Marguerite Porete,"

Medieval Perspectives, 13 (1998), 99-108.

AWARDS

Fall 2008 Graduate Division Dissertation Completion Fellowship

Summer 2008 UCSB History Associates Fellowship

2007 MRG in Late Antiquity Intercampus Student Exchange

Fellowship (Papyrology course at the Tebtunis Collection,

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UC Berkeley)

2007-2008 UCSB Graduate Opportunity Fellowship

2007
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2006-2007 Dick Cook Memorial Fellowship for Outstanding Service

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2006-2007 Esme Frost Fellowship for Ancient History

2006-2007 UCSB Dean's Fellowship

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2005-2006 UCSB History Associates Fellowship

2005-2006 J. Bruce Anderson Memorial Fellowship for Excellence in

Teaching

2005-2006 Lead Tutorial Assistant, History Department, UCSB

2005 MRG in Late Antiquity Travel Grant

2004 UCSB History Associates Fellowship

2002-2003 Medieval Studies Program, First Year Award

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Late Antiquity with Harold A. Drake

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Studies in Early Christianity and Greek and Roman Religion with
Christine M. Thomas

Studies in Early Islam with Stephen Humphreys

Studies in Anthropological Approaches to Demon Possession and

Mental Insanity with Mary Hancock

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 ABSTRACT

Platonists and High Priests: Daemonology, Ritual and Social Order in the

Third Century CE

by

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Heidi Marx-Wolf
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In the third century, Platonist philosophers such as Origen, Porphyry and

lamblichus were engaged in creating systematic discourses that ordered

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the realm of spirits in increasingly more hierarchical ways. All of these

philosophers also made claims to ritual expertise and called themselves

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high priests of the highest god. My argument is that they did so, in part,

to garner cultural and social capital in the forms of prestige and authority,

and may have even done so in order to caste themselves in the role of

advisors to local and imperial leaders. The daemonological discourses

they constructed as part of their overall respective theological and

philosophical projects were projected onto and ordered a more "local"

daemonological perspective which, although totalizing in its own right,

was less concerned with hierarchy and precise distinctions between

different kinds of spirits. By comparing these two different levels - local

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versus philosophical daemonologies - I show that the reason why these

third-century Platonist philosophers expended so much effort ordering

the realm of spirits and claiming to be high priests is that socially, they

were much closer to the ritual experts who created and proffered the

rituals and ritual objects that engaged and worked with the spiritual realm

at the more "local" level. Hence, although Origen, Porphyry and

lamblichus created discourses of a universal sort, if one situates them in

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their cultural and educational context, one sees that they were at times in

direct competition for social capital with other priests and ritual experts. I
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also highlight the fact that in their efforts to establish their authority on

theological and ritual matters, Origen, Porphyry and lamblichus

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frequently shared views on the realm of spirits that cut across religious

boundaries, calling into question the conflict model that has informed
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much of the scholarship on this period and these figures in particular.

Finally, I demonstrate that the philosophical daemonologies of the third

century failed to eradicate the local sense of the realm of spirits and

people continued to interact with this realm in the same ways and to the

same ends as they always had in the ancient world.

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Table of Contents:

Chapter One - Introduction 1

Chapter Two - Local priests and Local Spirits: The Case of the Greek

"Magical" Papryi (PGM) 30

Chapter Three - How to Feed a Daemon - The Demonic Conspiracy of

Blood Sacrifice and the Moral Valencing of the Realm of

Spirits 87

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Chapter Four - "Everything in its Right Place": Ordering the Realm of

Spirits 138
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Chapter Five - Priests of the God Who Rules All: Ritual Expertise and

Social Order 184

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Conclusion: Antecedents and Heirs - From the Second Sophistic to

Christian Bishops 222

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Bibliography 234

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Chapter One - Introduction

This dissertation concerns the relationship between the everyday

disorder of the spirit world of most ancient Mediterranean people and the

ordered hierarchies of spirits produced by late antique philosophers. This

relationship, however, is perhaps most strikingly illustrated and

introduced with a modern and personal example. The following is a text

from a piece of paper that accompanied a contemporary amulet I found a

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couple of years ago. The text does not specify the purpose of the amulet,

but it seems it can be used to make any sort of request:

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Prayer to the Seal of the Crown Serpent and Magic:
From the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses
On the reverse side of the picture of Moses,
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according to Oriental reckoning, appears the
elevated, winding and crowned serpent, holding a
ring in her teeth. Around the serpent may be seen
the moon, the stars, planets, water and many other
hieroglyphical signs. On the left side of the tail may
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be seen seven nails, on the right side are magical

hieroglyphs making the mane [name] of
Schemahamponasch. To see Jesus Christ with
cross that is to say: Jesus Christ through his love,
and by his seven wounds and through his death on
the cross for his lobe's [love's] sake, has overcome
the kingdoms of this world, and thus took again from
the old serpent, the devil, the seal-ring of human
omnipotence, or the happiness of man to all the
eternal eternities, in order to fulfill the old covenant in
the new covenant, for the eternal glorification of the
eternal Father in the eternal Son, through the eternal
Spirit. Amen. Make your request.

On the reverse side of the paper, the same thing is written in Spanish.

The amulet itself is plated with 14k gold (at least according to the

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envelope in which it came), and although some details are clear, such as

Moses, the crowned serpent and the quarter moon, many of the symbols

mentioned in the piece of paper are far less distinct.

I found the amulet in an unlikely place. I am very fond of swap

meets and flea markets and look for them whenever and wherever I

travel. Sometimes I drive about an hour north of Santa Barbara to visit

the swap meet in Nipomo, a small agricultural town inland from the

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coast. It's a rather large and festive affair where Spanish is the

predominant language and tri-tip tacos are high on the menu along with
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menudo and posole. Some of the stalls are under tents as one would

expect. But others are housed in more permanent metal storage units.
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The last time I was there, I was walking by one of these storage units

outside of which stood a rack displaying very pungent incense in large

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quantities. The door was covered by a beaded curtain. Intrigued, I

entered and was immediately confronted by a wall of vials containing oils

or waters for a broad spectrum of ailments and conditions, physical,

existential, and spiritual. The same array of concerns was represented

in powder form, in packets with photocopied pictures and explanations.

Next I encountered a wall of amulets, followed by a wall of candles,

some of which were very standard representations of saints, others

depicting specific desires and requests. Then there were the shelves of

herbs and herbal concoctions. Interspersed among these shelves were

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smaller displays of bottles containing scenes with dolls and other objects

in liquid. At the very back of the store there was a large nook with

curtains and built-in benches covered with pillows, fabric, lace and dolls,

innumerable dolls.

What was most striking was the rich mix of spiritual traditions

represented as well as the range of concerns addressed by the

collection. One could find help in the form of an amulet, powder or

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candle for marital separation (preventative or hoped for, I could not

determine); one could find a remedy for financial difficulties, and for
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physical ailments of all kinds; if one needed protection on a journey or

against evil spirits and curses, that was possible as well. But many of the
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items also had a devotional element. Some addressed the individual's

search for spiritual insight, wisdom and intimacy with god or saint.1
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1
Around the same time that I came across this shop, I also received a piece of spam
sent to my campus email with the following message reminding me of the variety of
help one could find on the shelves of the store at the swap meet. It read: "The answers
to your prayers are here through our divine supplications and prayers, we have come
out with some spiritual rings that you are in need of, and you can now contact us to
narrate your difficulties and we believe that God will help to solve your problems. We
have attached samples of our rings to this mail. And you can easily contact us for more
details regarding your problems, and we shall prescribe the best rings to help solve
your problems. Many have come back to say thank you and believe that you are the
next person to be grateful to our assistance. Below are the rings we have made to
solve your problems: 1) ring for making money and uncontrollable wealth, 2) ring for
people seeking political appointment, 3) ring for lovers, male attraction and female
attraction, 4) ring for gambling, lottery, visa and good luck, 5) ring for disappearing
when there is trouble, 6) ring for communicating and commanding the jinns of the
underworld, 7) success ring, 8) business success ring, 9) exams success ring, 10) ring
to boost your business and investments, it makes more customers for your business,
11) rings specially made for contractor, people seeking for job and for business,
men/women, 12) ring for spiritual upliftment, 13) ring for performing miracles on a
crusade, 14) ring of commandment, do as I say, 15) ring for defeating your opposition,

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Furthermore, it was possible to purchase bulk herbs to work a strictly

physical cure without spiritual intercession or intervention in the case one

was more profanely inclined.

Having been raised in the Baptist and Brethren traditions, I felt

some hesitation about buying anything. I remember that once a dear

friend had given me a silver amulet, a piece I wore often, symbolizing the

cycles of the moon. I explained this to the mother of a church friend who

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was curious about it. Her response was to ask me whether I wasn't

worried about attracting demons wearing a pagan symbol of that sort.

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Such memories and the scruples they represent do not fade quickly. So I

decided upon my Moses amulet. After all, in Late Antiquity, the period
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under discussion in this study, Moses was a sort of ecumenical figure.2 I

also bought a powder with the picture of Saint Cyprian. As I went to pay,
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the owner of the store explained that it was helpful for warding off evil

16) ring for winning a case at court, 17) ring for breaking through, 18) ring for getting
pregnant, 19) ring for your wife to stick to you and for your husband not to cheat on you
but to stick to you forever, 20) ring for destruction. You should kindly feel free and
contact us on spiritual_mystical_powerings@yahoo.fr for answer to your questions and
for placing your order. Don't let your power or free will pass you bye, act fast and be
part of this spiritual revolution. May the blessing of the supreme being protect you all.
Sheik Ibrahim Niass Jrn., Spiritual Leader."
2
Claudia Rapp, "Comparison, Paradigm and the Case of Moses in Panegyric and
Hagiography," in The Propaganda of Power: The Role of Panegyric in Late Antiquity,
ed. Mary Whitby (Leiden, 1988), 286. "In the period of late antiquity, Moses was held in
high regard by Jews, pagans and Christians alike. He was admired by the pagans for
his contributions to the progress of civilization, while the Christians saw him as an
earlier version either of Christ, or of the apostles, especially of Peter."

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spirits sent by people trying to curse me. Given the topic of this

dissertation, my choices turned out to be rather apropos.3

As I was paying for my amulet and powder, I commented to the

proprietor, Sister Angela Galloway, a diviner and spiritualist, about the

mix of spiritual traditions represented in her store, noting that it was very

akin to some of the syncretistic forms of ritual and belief I study in the

ancient world. She nodded her head, and replied, "They're all spirits."

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This succinct reply has stayed with me. Sister Galloway's Botanica

Manviye, Nipomo Swap Meet A-33, is a physical representation of how

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many individuals in many times and places conceive of the spiritual realm

and construct the sacred landscape around them. It represents an

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understanding of spirits in terms this study sees as a more local level of

religion, the level at which ordinary people seek remedies for life's
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difficulties, disappointments, pains, and frustrations, as well as they seek

to secure or celebrate prosperity, health, children, friendship and familial

harmony; or to achieve understanding of and closeness to spiritual

beings.4

3
The sixth and seventh books of Moses are a collection of pseudepigraphal texts, for
which we have a number of 16th century manuscripts, which claim to explain the magic
Moses used in a contest with the Egyptian priest-magicians. It also claims to reveal
how he parted the Red Sea, called down plagues of locusts and frogs and so forth.
The books also contain various seals for calling upon angels and other spirits. Joseph
Peterson, The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses (Berwick, 2008).
4
Other terms that could be used interchangeably with the designation "local" are
"concrete," "situated," "pragmatic," or "practical."

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 At this level, thinking about spirits is more flexible and less

systematic or hierarchical than the thinking academics typically

encounter. Spirits are experienced as diverse, unclassified, capricious

and ambiguous. Their virtues or detractions tend to be mapped onto

whether or not they are helpful or harmful with reference to specific

conditions, but they are not valenced according to clearly defined moral

taxa: "popular demonological thinking is situation-specific, embedded in

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the world - part of the larger endeavor of an individual, family, or

community to negotiate the immediate environment and its margins."5

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Although, as noted, this kind of thinking about spirits is prevalent in many

cultures and religions across time, there are certain moments in history
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when attempts are made to order the spiritual realm in more systematic,

hierarchical and totalizing ways. These attempts to create more

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elaborate daemonological discourses, i.e., discourses about spirits in

general, are seldom purely academic exercises undertaken by intellectual

elites who hold themselves entirely apart from the rest of society on the

basis of education and social class. Rather, as David Frankfurter notes,

the creation of systematic discourses about spirits, in particular evil ones

(i.e. demonologies)6 often functions as part of an attempt on the part of

5
David Frankfurter, Evil incarnate: rumors of demonic conspiracy and ritual abuse in
history (Princeton, N.J., 2006). 30.
6
1 use the term "demonology" to refer to speech about evil spirits, a discourse that
locates and defines them. The term "daemonology" is used throughout to indicate a
broader discourse about spirits in general

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certain individuals or even religious centers to bolster their authority,

power and reputation by establishing themselves as sites of expertise on

sacred, ritual and doctrinal matters.

In his book, Evil Incarnate: rumors of demonic conspiracy and

satanic abuse in history, Frankfurter highlights the way in which, at

specific historical moments, certain individuals or religious associations

attempt to claim authority for themselves by "appropriating and recasting

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local religious beliefs so as to make the temple priests and their rituals

indispensable to public religious life."7 The first step in this direction often
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involves providing a clear moral valence for various spiritual beings. At

this stage, "self-defined experts and forces, sometimes in cooperation

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with a central institution," transform "those unsystematic local

understandings of capricious spirits and malevolent neighbors,"

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articulating "the uniform coordinated threat posed by demons and the

Devil," revealing "the evil system behind inchoate misfortune," and

offering their audiences "the tangible hope of purging it."8 Frankfurter

describes how these conspiratorial discourses about evil spirits function.

He writes:

7
Frankfurter, Evil incarnate: rumors of demonic conspiracy and ritual abuse in history.
15.
8
Ibid. 31-32. Although Frankfurter's study mainly addresses this trend in historical
contexts defined by a Christian world view, he finds interesting parallels in ancient
Zoroastrianism as well as in the accusations against Christians by Greco-Roman
polytheists. Thus his insights are not limited, in terms of applicability, to a Christian
framework.

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 Demonologies seek to control - through order, through
writing, through the ritual power of declaration - a chaotic
world of misfortune, temptation, religious conflict, and
spiritual ambiguity....Demonology collects from and attends
to these various domains of apparent demonic action, yet
its intent lies in grasping totality, simplifying and abstracting
immediate experience for the sake of cosmic structures.9

Hence, in this recasting and centralization process local spirits are

frequently abstracted from their context, inserted into a "speculative

system," given an ethical valence that supplants their previous moral

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ambiguity, and generally subsumed within a totalizing, universal

discourse, one that maps moral order onto specific ontological difference

in increasingly complex ways.10

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A number of years ago when reading the works of late second-
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and third-century Platonists, the successors of the elusive and mysterious

Ammonius Saccas, I noticed that, with the important exception of

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Plotinus, a number of these thinkers - Origen, Porphyry and lamblichus

in particular - seemed to be engaged in such a project, namely in the

production of elaborate discourses that sought to morally valence the

9
Ibid. 26-27. Frankfurter's study focuses on the production of demonologies and the
role this played at certain key historical moments when "the myth of evil conspiracy
mobilized people in large numbers to astounding acts of brutality against accused
conspirators" (12). These moments serve to explain late twentieth century witch hunts,
particularly in Africa, as well as the Satanic abuse panics in Britain and the United
States in the 1980's. His discussion of the way the identification and categorization of
spirits grounds "experts'" claims to authority draws on important anthropological works
from such scholars as I. M. Lewis, Mary Douglas, and Birgit Meyer.
10
"Demonology of this sort, involving the collection, classification, and integration of
demons out of their immediate social contexts, arises as a function of religious
centralization..." Ibid. 15.

8
realm of spirits and order it in hierarchical and systematic ways.11 These

thinkers also seemed to be making strong claims with regard to their

expertise on matters of ritual. And all three referred to themselves as

high priests of the highest god. These Platonists were not entirely

without precedents in their daemonological endeavors, for Middle

Platonists, such as Plutarch and Numenius, also had much to say about

daemons and other spirits. However, this trend intensified in the third

W
century with the followers of Ammonius. I made it my task to investigate

this change, something which scholars had not thus far done, by situating
IE
it in its third-century context, socially, politically, culturally and religiously.

Hence, this study seeks to explore possible reasons why these third-
EV

century Platonists sought to order the realm of spirits as and when they

did, and to impose this order on more local understandings of the sacred
PR

landscape in currency at the time. This study also seeks to determine

whether they sought to establish their hieratic identity or status at the

expense of other ritual experts living, working, and participating in

cultural, religious and social milieus that overlapped or intersected with

the schools and circles of late Platonist philosophers, circles which many

scholars have only looked at in isolation from the rest of late antique

11
Although I do not include Plotinus here, it is important to note that the emanational
cosmology of the Enneads provides a framework for ordering spirits. Plotinus is less
interested, however, in dividing beings along moral lines or in describing the
characteristics of various spiritual orders.

9
society.12 Scholars have often proceeded in this manner in part because

it is frequently assumed in the study of the history of philosophy that elite

intellectuals in all times and places tend to separate themselves from

many of the currents, ideas, and practices of other social and educational

classes. Part of the reason for this assumption is that often these

intellectual elites give this impression themselves. But, this impression is

misleading, as both the ideas and lives of the third-century Platonists will

W
reveal.

Hence this study seeks, in part, to answer the following questions:

IE
First, what was the place of the philosopher in the late Roman world?

How were philosophers situated with reference to religious authorities as

EV

well as participants in other intellectual traditions? How were these

figures situated with reference to political authority, and the imperial court
PR

in particular? And how did these philosophers fashion their identities in

this period in order to position themselves in society in a way that fit with

their self-perception?

This dissertation intersects with a number of other questions in

late Roman scholarship. As will become apparent in the course of this

study, the daemonological lens this dissertation adopts yields important

new insights about religious identity and social class in late antiquity. For

12
For a discussion of how the Platonists schools and circles were structured and
functioned in the period under discussion, see Garth Fowden, "The Platonist
Philosopher and His Circle in Late Antiquity," Philosophia 7 (1977).

10
instance, the figures under consideration here belong to different religious

groups: Origen was a Christian, and both Porphyry and lamblichus were

Hellenes.13 In the fourth century, one sees increasing tension between

these two groups as religious boundaries become more clearly drawn

and violently enforced. Yet, some of the key questions this study seeks

to answer is whether in the third century, a century punctuated by

sporadic, infrequent violence against Christians, religious identity was the

W
primary category which determined the positions philosophers and

intellectuals on either side of the Christian/Hellene divide took on specific

IE
ideological issues, whether the interactions across this boundary were

universally or even predominantly hostile, or whether we find evidence of

EV

dialogic exchange and shared conceptual categories. Indeed, the

daemonologies of such thinkers as Origen, Porphyry, and lamblichus

PR

force us to rethink how we conceive of religious identity in late antiquity.

As will become clear, the evidence points to the fact that, in important

respects, religious identity, both Christian and Hellene, was under

13
1 avoid using the term "pagan" wherever possible, because it is a pejorative and
anachronistic term which none of the non-Christian philosophers this study considers
would have used in reference to themselves or others like them. "Hellene" is a term
that is often used within this milieu. It sometimes refers to individuals who saw
themselves as participants in the ancient Greek intellectual patrimony. Origen would
certainly fit this description, but he did not adopt the title "Hellene" for himself. It is also
important to note that at times lamblichus criticized people he calls "Hellenes" for
religious innovation. Hence, one sees that it is difficult to find appropriate terminology
to replace the problematic "pagan." However, I believe it is important to grapple with
the problem. To refer to non-elite non- Christians and non-Jews, I will use phrases
such as "participants in traditional Mediterranean religion" or "traditional polytheists."
Although at times this may appear awkward, I would prefer not to sacrifice accuracy to
a misleading succinctness.

11