...continued from part one.
1. The Demonology of the Ascetic Fathers
Whatever the predominance of demons in John, other ascetic sources, for instance the Life of Saint Anthony, reflect an even greater preoccupation with them. John approaches Evagrios who regards "demon" (δαίμων) and "thought" (λογισμός) as almost interchangeable, where however the former overrides the latter. Klimakos tends to follow the Palestinian tradition: like Barsanuphios, he is concerned not with apparitions but with the inward ascetic struggle. The demons are present, but they do not stand out. His attention is drawn to the almost frightening inner scale and power of demonic activity and its vertiginous possibilities. He elaborates an intricate and subtle strategy to defend and immunize the attacked human person. The demons are not mere fragments enlisted to act as scapegoats, to impersonate warring elements with a psyche divided against itself. Nor are they, as some would have us believe,19 purely psychological, that is, mere subjective states in a phantasmagorian tale. They are represented as real forces, but functionally rather than in terms of some monsters in classical or popular mythology. Western mystical thought, for example the medieval association of demons with the seven deadly sins, and even more modern psychology - the super-ego, ego and id spring to mind - tend to incorporate and, in a sense, de-mythologize demons into parts of the structure of the human person. The demons, if any, are understood to be unregulated drives of man that force him to act according to his deep-seated desires or, theologically speaking, as part of a state of guilt, inherited by man from Adam.
