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Roman Demonology/Angelology

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Guest ParatrooperLirelou

Recently I gottn into Demonology and Angelology as a source of ideas for a Comic book Iam making and so far have already found many awesome ideas for my Comic and short stories and fanfics.

 

So far, I am mainly familiar with Christian Demonology and Angelology(I will be getting into Islamic Demonology and Angelology and those of other religions eventually).

 

So in this thread lets discuss Roman Demonology and Angelology(or whatever the pagan Roman equivalent was).I tried searching for a list of Roman Demons/Angels and came up very short, mainly with list of demons that are found in Christian Demonology that were taken from Roman religion).

 

Could anyone put a list of demons and angels?Also could anyone put a list of sources and books I could check out for this topic?

 

Reason for me making this thread is that I decided my Comic will start in the Roman period and so far am looking for ideas.

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I may be misreading this topic but it seems very close to this one in which Ursus pointed out that 'Roman paganism doesn't proscribe sin or virtue.'

 

The difficulty as far as I can see in ascribing what are 'Christian beliefs' onto Roman pre-Christian (therefore 'Pagan') belief systems or indeed almost any other faith is that the majority do not come from the Judeo-Christian tradition in which anything 'Pagan' must be 'demonic'.

 

An example of this can be seen in the Lucifer God of the Morning Star thread.

 

BTW Ursus recently did a review of a book on Roman Religion which you may find of interest

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Guest ParatrooperLirelou

I may be misreading this topic but it seems very close to this one in which Ursus pointed out that 'Roman paganism doesn't proscribe sin or virtue.'

 

The difficulty as far as I can see in ascribing what are 'Christian beliefs' onto Roman pre-Christian (therefore 'Pagan') belief systems or indeed almost any other faith is that the majority do not come from the Judeo-Christian tradition in which anything 'Pagan' must be 'demonic'.

 

 

True that demons and angels are connected to virtues and sins.

 

Ok how about monsters or beasts that are terrifying such as Medusa?For this thread, demon is simplified into beingsthat opposed Gods and Goddeses or simply creatures that wreck havoc and harm on citizens of the Empire.

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For this thread, demon is simplified into beingsthat opposed Gods and Goddeses or simply creatures that wreck havoc and harm on citizens of the Empire.

 

Wolves, possibly. The occasional whale overturning a boat, perhaps?

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beingsthat opposed Gods and Goddeses or simply creatures that wreck havoc and harm on citizens of the Empire.

 

Christians?

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Wealthy teenage daughters

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Pff some are having fun here :P More seriously there is indeed a pagan demonology which is seen mainly in the curse tablets and magical papyrii. Hecate could be (and sometime was) seen more as a kind of demon than a godess. We also find various "powers" that are not gods in the cursing texts, mainly from the eastern world, and some calls to powerfull dead magiciens including Jesus (yes, the one of the christians). Amongst the demons, some are the one found in the jewish books or deformations of the names of ancient babylonian divinities. Thus one will find non-christian calls to Abrasax or Baalzebuth in the texts.

I've never inquired in this kind of litterature despite having an introductory course on the topic during my studies, but I know there is ample bibliography on the topic.

 

Of course one must also be careful not to mistake the philosophic Daimon with the demons (= bad surnatural creatures) even if on sees in the later magical formula that the mistake was done by some autors, including leading neo-platonician philosophers of the 3rd or 4th century AD.

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Honestly, the magical papyri was a product of a multi-cultural, philosophically motivated segment of religion in Late Antiquity. I'm not sure how Roman I would really call it.

 

The only thing that native Roman religion really has to commend to itself in the way of evil spirits are the Lemures, nasty spirits of the dead that were propitiated with bizarre rituals. But they are just nasty spirits of the dead and nothing more. "Demons and Angels" in the sense that the original poster is using are Christian constructs that are simply not useful in terms of Roman paganism. Christian constructs like good and evil or virtue and sin are not useful either. This was made clear to the original poster in a prior thread. That is why some of us are taking this thread less than seriously.

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You can't help looking at pictorial representations of the Godess Victory/Victoria, and thinking she's an angel. Did the one evolve from the other?

Edited by GhostOfClayton

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Guest ParatrooperLirelou

You can't help looking at pictorial representations of the Godess Victory/Victoria, and thinking she's an angel. Did the one evolve from the other?

Very plausible that modern Angels having wings was influenced by Roman mythology and it doesn't surprise me if Victoria was the basis or among the more influential Roman mythological figures influenced the modern view of Angels.

 

Real Angels look nothing warm and gentle like they're portrayed in recent literature and popular media.In fact the bible describes them as looking like TERRIFYING MONSTERS.

Here are what real angels look like.

 

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cherub-15080.jpg

seraph-15079.jpg

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