DEMONOLOGY

the belief in demons and study connected therewith. In many religions there have been not only good gods whose favor it was desirable to obtain, but bad gods or spirits to be mollified. The Jews inherited from ancient Semitic religion a belief in demons to which we find occasional reference in the Bible, but during the Exile they came into contact with Persian religion in which angels and demons played a prominent pert. The phenomenon (whether real or supposed) of po e ion by an evil spirit is familiar to every reader of the New Testament, and persons at any rate believed them sel yes po e ed. The Early Christians did not deny the existence of pagan gods, but transformed them into devils. Demons were not prominent in either Gk. or Rom. religions, but in Oriental and sometimes cruel forms.