The Encyclopedia Of Demons And Demonology

38 Cerberus
Not every demon can incite every sin within a person,
Cassian said. Demons have their specialties and find
opportunities to use them. Likewise, the demons cannot
incite many sins at the same time but rather focus on one
or two in any particular time. Demons also vary in their
individual strength and capability. Weaker demons start
first and are replaced by stronger demons the more a person
is able to resist.
Demons cannot afflict anyone of his or her own free
will but only with the permission of God, Cassian said.
They are not invincible. They have their own anxieties
and uncertainties in their battles against people. When
defeated, they retreat in confusion and despair. Cassian
said that even by his time, the power of demons had diminished
from the time of the first monks in the desert.
Those monks could not dare to sleep all at the same
time at night, lest demons descend upon them. There are
many terms and names for demons, he said, too many
to list:
But it would take too long to search through the whole
of Scripture and run through the different kinds of them,
as they are termed by the prophets onocentaurs, satyrs,
sirens, witches, howlers, ostriches, urchins; and asps and
basilisks in the Psalms; and are called lions, dragons,
scorpions in the gospel, and are named by the Apostle
the prince of this world, rulers of this darkness, and
spirits of wickedness.
Importance of Cassian’s Views
Cassian reinforced the beliefs that demons are everywhere
striving to attack people, that they have the ability
to influence people’s thoughts and desires, and that they
can be thwarted by prayer, fasting, the sign of the cross,
and the invocation of the name of Christ.
Cassian added a great deal of force to the connection
between demons and MAGIC. The magical arts, taught by
the WATCHERS to the “daughters of Cain,” were subverted
under the influence of demons to profane uses. The “curious
arts of wizards and enchantments and magical superstitions”
were used to teach people to “forsake the holy
worship of the Divinity and to honor and worship either
the elements or fire or the demons of the air.”
Magic survived the flood because of Ham, the son of
Noah, who learned the magical arts from the daughters
of Cain. Ham knew that Noah would never allow magical
books aboard the ark, so Ham inscribed the secrets on
metal plates and rocks that could not be destroyed by the
flood waters. Cassian said, “And when the flood was over
he hunted for them with the same inquisitiveness with
which he had concealed them, and so transmitted to his
descendants a seed-bed of profanity and perpetual sin.”
FURTHER READING:
Ankarloo, Bengt, and Stuart Clark, gen. eds. The Athalone
History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. London: Athlone
Press, 1999.
Cassian, John. The Conferences of John Cassian. Translated
and annotated by Edgar C. S. Gibson. Available online.
URL: http://www.osb.org/lectio/cassian/conf/book1/conf7.
html#7.0. Downloaded February 3, 2008.
Cerberus (Kerberos) Triple-headed dog or doglike
creature who guards the entrance to Hades, the Greek
underworld. Not originally a “demonic” creature, Cerberus
became the model for the Hellhounds of the DEVIL
and other BLACK DOGS in folklore.
In classical myth, Cerberus is the offspring of Typhon,
a dragon and SERPENT-shaped monster associated
with wind and volcanic eruptions. Typhon fathered many
of the beasts of Greek legend, including Echidna, a halfwoman,
half-serpent. Cerberus lives in a den on one side
of the river Styx that separates the land of the living from
the land of the dead. There, he greets the shades of the
newly dead as they are ferried across the river by Charon.
Cerberus is unpredictable in his friendliness or hostility;
therefore, the dead are buried with honey cake offerings
for the shades to give him, which guarantee his
friendliness.
As gatekeeper to the underworld, Cerberus also prevents
shades from escaping. He figures in numerous
myths of descent to the underworld, including the labors
of Hercules and Orpheus’ foiled rescue attempt of his
lover, Eurydice.
In Homeric poems, Cerberus is “the dog.” Hades gives
Hercules permission to take him up from the river Acheron
provided he can quell the beast without weapons.
Hercules descends accompanied by Mercury and Minerva,
wrestles the dog into submission, and takes him
to Eurystheus, king of Tiryns. Saliva drips from Cerberus
and creates the poison aconite.
Hesiod, a Greek poet ca. the eighth century B.C.E.,
was the first writer known to have called Cerberus by a
proper name. Hesiod described the beast as having 50
heads.
By the time of the Roman poets, Cerberus had evolved
into a three-headed dog with a dragon’s neck and tail and
serpent’s heads along his back. Virgil (70–19 B.C.E.) provided
the most detailed description of Cerberus in book
6 of the Aeneid, describing the underworld journey of
Aeneas:
Grim Cerberus, who soon began to rear
His crested snakes, and arm’d his bristling hair.
The prudent Sibyl had before prepar’d
A sop, in honey steep’d, to charm the guard;
Which, mix’d with pow’rful drugs, she cast before
His greedy grinning jaws, just op’d to roar.
With three enormous mouths he gapes; and straight,
With hunger press’d, devours the pleasing bait.
Long draughts of sleep his monstrous limbs enslave;
He reels, and, falling, fills the spacious cave.
The keeper charm’d, the chief without delay
Pass’d on, and took th’ irremeable way.