Herein we continue, from part 1, part 2, part 3, considering Demons within texts generally termed the Apocrypha, Deutero Canonical, Pseudepigrapha, Gnostic Texts, etc. (see my article on the Apocrypha here). The fuller complete result consists of quotations of those sections within the text that refer to Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, Devil, Satan, demons, serpent and dragon. The point is not to elucidate these references but to provide relevant partial quotations and citations. See my section on Angels in general and in apocryphal texts here. See my section on Cherubim and Seraphim in general and in apocryphal texts here and Satan in apocryphal texts here.
Demons in Baruch, 4 Maccabees, Tobit and Avenging of the Saviour.
Baruch – 6th century BC to 1st century AD, probably 2nd to mid-1st century BC
4:7 For you provoked him who made you, by sacrificing to demons and not to God.
4:35 For fire will come upon her from the Everlasting for many days, and for a long time she will be inhabited by demons.
4 Maccabees – between 1st century BC and 1st century AD
1:7-9 I could prove to you from many and various examples that reason is dominant over the emotions, but I can demonstrate it best from the noble bravery of those who died for the sake of virtue, Eleazar and the seven brothers and their mother. All of these, by despising sufferings that bring death, demonstrated that reason controls the emotions.
3:19 The present occasion now invites us to a narrative demonstration of temperate reason.
16:1-2 If, then, a woman, advanced in years and mother of seven sons, endured seeing her children tortured to death, it must be admitted that devout reason is sovereign over the emotions. Thus I have demonstrated not only that men have ruled over the emotions, but also that a woman has despised the fiercest tortures.
Tobit – late 3rd to 2nd century BC 3:7-8, 17 On the same day, at Ecbatana in Media, it also happened that Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, was reproached by her father’s maids, because she had been given to seven husbands, and the evil demon Asmodeus had slain each of them before he had been with her as his wife. So the maids said to her, “Do you not know that you strAngel your husbands? You already have had seven and have had no benefit from any of them…
And Raphael was sent to heal the two of them: to scale away the white films of Tobit’s eyes; to give Sarah the daughter of Raguel in marriage to Tobias the son of Tobit, and to bind Asmodeus the evil demon, because Tobias was entitled to possess her. At that very moment Tobit returned and entered his house and Sarah the daughter of Raguel came down from her upper room.
6:6-7, 14-15, 17 Then the young man said to the Angel, “Brother Azarias, of what use is the liver and heart and gall of the fish?” He replied, “As for the heart and liver, if a demon or evil spirit gives trouble to any one, you make a smoke from these before the man or woman, and that person will never be troubled again…Now I am the only son my father has, and I am afraid that if I go in I will die as those before me did, for a demon is in love with her, and he harms no one except those who approach her.
So now I fear that I may die and bring the lives of my father and mother to the grave in sorrow on my account. And they have no other son to bury them.” But the Angel said to him, “Do you not remember the words with which your father commanded you to take a wife from among your own people? Now listen to me, brother, for she will become your wife; and do not worry about the demon, for this very night she will be given to you in marriage…Then the demon will smell it and flee away, and will never again return.
8:1-3 When they had finished eating, they escorted Tobias in to her. As he went he remembered the words of Raphael, and he took the live ashes of incense and put the heart and liver of the fish upon them and made a smoke. And when the demon smelled the odor he fled to the remotest parts of Egypt, and the Angel bound him.
Avenging of the Saviour – 7th to 8th century AD
He made demons flee…he put demons to flight.
In the next segment, we will consider The Sentences of the Sextus, Melchizedek, History of Joseph the Carpenter, 1 Enoch aka Ethiopic Apocalypse of Enoch, Apocalypse of Adam and The Book of Adam.
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