Romans, Proto-Christians and Demons

We are well-acquainted with Roman festivals to gods like Jupiter and Venus.  Daily life for most Roman families was based around a simple household religion that involved local and familial spirits. These “demons” were the staple of Roman religion throughout every stage of its history, from its earliest origins to the highest point of the Empire.  Worship of these demons is what separates Roman praxis from Greek praxis.

Every Roman family honored its ancestors and tutelary demons according to its own traditions. The paterfamilias was the high priest of his household religion.  He honored his fathers and the gods of his father.  His sons were expected to honor his spirit and his gods after his death.  As we have seen, Roman law gave the paterfamilias power of life and death over his family and his servants. The basis for these laws was the religious taboo that the father was the link between the family and its demons.

Properly speaking, deified ancestors and local spirits were the true proprietors and guardians of the land. They could bring woe to those who offended them.   There was no greater insult to them than to lay a hand on the paterfamilias whose duty it was to propitiate them. If an outsider attempted to evict or harm a man within the presence of his household demons, it was thought that outsider invoked divine wrath. 

The home of the paterfamilias was a temple to the family gods.  This meant that the house itself was sacred.  Vesta governed the hearth which cooked the family's food and kept them from freezing in the cold.  It was the obligation of the women of the house to maintain Vesta’s fire.  Letting the fire die was a disgrace to the family.  Portions of the family meal would be burned in the flames as an offering to Vesta. The cult of the Vestal Virgins was an outgrowth of this domestic praxis. 

The demon possession of the child in the synoptic gospels is a manifestation of this.  Rather than being a narrative of Judean demons, it is consistent with Roman cultic understanding:  the child is possessed by a demon of the family who objects to the feeding of animals before the family members receive their food.  Animals are not responsible for perpetuating the worship of the family demons.  Feeding the animals first is disrespectful to the family demons.           

The household door was sacred to Janus.  It seems that the cult of Janus was a very ancient Italian cult connected with beginnings and transitions. The different parts of the door were considered sacred: Forculus presided over the panels, Cardea over the hinges. Limentinus was the demon of the threshold. 

The household was obligated to honor the “genius” of its master. The “genius” was a spiritual alter-ego, represented as a snake or a stately male in a toga and with a covered head.  The genius was the connective link through the generations which, by the act of procreation, the master of the family to passed to the next generation. Every male member of the family had a genius, and every female member of the family had a juno (which should not to be confused with the deity of the same name).  The genius of the master was central to the family cult and honored on his birthday. 

Beginning with Augustus, emperors claimed that as the master of the Roman race, their own genius merited public veneration.  As we have seen in Claudius’ letter to the Alexandrians, while alive the emperor was not a god, but as master of the public family his genius (spiritual essence) demanded ritual worship.

Roman cultic worship did not recognize a specific dwelling place for the souls of the dead. The souls of the dead were deified in an aggregated sense and referred to as the Manes. The Manes held power over the living and were a part of the world, the real owners of the land.  They were divided into two sects. The Lares were helpful demons as long as they were propitiated. Every family had its own Lar, called the Lar Familiaris, who was honored by the master of the family. The Lares were souls of the dead (ancestors) who guarded a family or piece of land.  Originally, the Lares were honored outside the home, on the borders between farming properties. As Rome lost its agricultural character, the Lares came inside and were honored in a special shrine called the Lararium. 

There were still "public" Lares who were honored at the crossroads in the neighborhoods of Rome. The Lares were also known as the “genii loci” - the spirits of the land. They were believed to inhabit natural settings like springs and forest groves. When Romans cleared land for an earthwork project, they first made sacrifices to the genii loci. This does not mean that Romans were reluctant to clear the land, but that they believed sacrificing to the spirits would avert their wrath.

The Manes also had a malignant sect, an evil version of the Lares, called either Lemures or Larvae. The Lemures were believed to be souls of the discontented who caused mischief and harm. Throughout the course of the year there were several festivals intended to avert the wrath of the Lemures or to to scare them away.

The Penates, the gods of the penus or store pantry were also important in Roman cultic praxis. The Penates were major gods directly concerned with the family's well-being.  They had some relation to the profession or interests of the master of the family.  Minerva was the patron of craftsmen, so a craftsmen would most likely honor Minerva as one of his Penates.   Mercury was the patron of merchants, thus a merchant would be inclined to honor Mercury as a Penates god.  Every Roman family had from two to eight patron or Penates gods, which were represented by crude figurines or by drawing their likeness somewhere on a familial shrine. It was believed that the Penates delighted in the smell of food and roasted meat.

Every family belonged to a clan.  Each clans had special patron gods and corresponding rites. The Julian clan honored Venus and Apollo. The Nero clan, Bellona the war goddess. The Aurelians honored the sun. The Claudians honored Hercules. The leading families of these clans were responsible for maintaining the shrines and rites for the rest of the clan. When one of the clans came to power, they would build public temples and/or issue coinage bearing the likeness of the relevant deities.

Beyond gods and spirits, religious rights accompanied an individual from birth to death. Men kept the first trimmings of their beard in a box on the family shrine. When a young man became of age, he exchanged his child's dress for an adult toga, and then he went to the temple of Jupiter to offer sacrifice. Families kept wax funeral masks of their dead in their house. When a woman married, she formally left the protection of her father and his household gods and entered into the protection of her husband and his household gods.

The demonic possession narratives in the gospels have been presumed to refer to demons of Judaic tradition.  This presumption is in accordance with the early Christian need to dispossess Judeans of their texts:  narratives of Judeans possessed by spirits that required exorcism was but one more sign that Judeans were not worthy of ownership of their own documents.  It would appear, though, that the demon-possession narratives were actually predicated on the Roman cultic belief in personal and familial demons.  The demon exorcisms, then, were indications that the proto-Christian community was attempting to dissociate itself from Greco-Roman cultic praxis.  Since Rome was the governing nation, it would not be diplomatic to emphasize the Roman origin of the demon belief (especially when proto-Christians like Justin were agitating for recognition of the fledgling cult).  Out of a sense of self-preservation, the proto-Christian community projected the demon-narratives onto the minor Judean characters of the narratives which were claimed as biographies of the cult's hero.