Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

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Keimpe Algra
6. Evil demons and the Stoic god
The examples of external demons discussed thus far all concern benevolent
and beneficial demons. Plutarch claims that the Stoics in addition
also endorsed the conception of evil demons. In the seventeenth chapter
of the De defectu oraculorum Chrysippus is simply classed among those
who were committed to the belief that there are evil demons, with
no implication as to the function(s) he assigned to them:
Not only has Empedocles bequeathed to us bad demigods, Heracleon, but
so also have Plato, Xenocrates and Chrysippus; and also Democritus, by his
prayer that he may meet with ‘propitious spirits’, clearly recognized that
there is another class of these which is perverse and possessed of vicious
predilections and impulses. 55
This ascription seems to be in line with the doxographical evidence on
hÞroes which we have discussed above and which claims that the (early)
Stoics were committed to the existence of both good and evil hÞroes. In
principle, what goes for hÞroes may also go for demons of non-human
origin. On the other hand, the notion of evil demons may seem hard
to accommodate within the providentialist cosmo-theology of the Stoics.
Doesn’t it constitute an infringement on the overall goodness of the
monistically conceived providential ordering of things? On closer view,
the analogy with human souls provides a way out: as long as these bad
demons are believed to work on their own, just as good demons like the
Dioscuri work on their own through sympatheia with humans, there is
no reason to hold god qua providence responsible for their actions,
just as god is not responsible for the evil thoughts and deeds of man. 56
They are themselves to blame for the fact that they use their providential
endowment in a bad way. 57 The role of providence itself only comes in
at a higher level, or so we may presume: god will be able to weave even
these evil elements into the overall fabric of his providential design, just
as he can incorporate the effects of ‘necessity’ (anankÞ). 58 As Cleanthes’
55 Plutarch, Def. or. 419a (SVF II, 1104).
56 On the difficult question of the relation between moral responsibility, character
formation and fate in early Stoicism, see Bobzien 1998, 290 – 301.
57 See also above, the end of section 3.
58 On anankÞ as a source of apparent (but sub specie providentiae not real) cosmic
evil, see the end of Plutarch’s quotation from Chrysippus’ On Substance, printed
in the text below.