If we really want to understand biblical demons beyond modern, media-fashioned cartoon imagery like in the “Diablo” video game series, we’ve got to look at what words like “demon” meant to the people who wrote the Bible, not us. And truth be told, demons aren’t a big part of the Good Book. Like a lot of other points of doctrine, demonic entities, their prominence, role, etc., developed over centuries. 

Medieval Catholicism first connected “demons” with the Bible’s “fallen angels,” as an article from the University of Reading explains. Theologians wanted a way to explain both the physical and spiritual nature of demons, portray them as actively involved in everyday human life, and went so far as to invent classifications of demons that we take for granted, like the “seven deadly sins,” each of which has an insidious entity who incites and embodies it. St. Thomas Aquinas’ ultra-influential “Summa Theologica” (written roughly between 1265 and 1274 C.E.) summarizes much of these changes, and even extends definitions of demons to creatures from folklore like incubi and succubae.   

Those writing the Bible, however, had none of this in mind when talking about concepts or entities like Molech, Lucifer, Abaddon, Legion, or whatever else. To the ancient Hebrews of the Old Testament, who followed practical religious rites grounded in physical actions like animal sacrifices, a deity like the Canaanite god Molech was just “not Yahweh.” To early Christian writers of the New Testament, demons were more unseen entities influencing human behavior. 

[Featured image by Jan Brueghel the Elder via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled]