Simply that the Greeks themselves did! The word δαίμων ("dæmon") literally means "divinity;" it can refer to any divine being, but usually to those inferior in power to the gods, and especially the tutelary deities of a person, family, city, or location. The Platonists and Neoplatonists especially talk about it because of Socrates and Plotinus were well-known for stories about their dæmons. Plutarch even tells a silly story where Socrates' angel protects him from being trampled by pigs, which reads like it could come from any modern book of angel stories, like Sophy Burnham's Book of Angels.
While I take my own interpretation of things a lot, this isn't one of them! Thomas Taylor translates the word as "angel" in a variety of places, dictionaries and encyclopedias often gloss "dæmon" or "genius" as "guardian angel," etc. Personally, I think Evelyn-White's "pure spirits" is suspect: "spirits" can refer to ghosts or the like in English, but dæmon cannot (Greeks would use the word σκιά, "shade," for that); similarly, "nature spirits" would be Greek νύμφη ("nymph").
Per the dictionary, "holy guardian angels" would be a fine translation of "δαίμονες ἁγνοὶ." It seems to me that Christian translators routinely shrink from using religious terms when translating, though: Sir Charles Abraham Elton footnotes this section in his translation with a lengthy polemic against paganism, and Frederick William Henry Myers apologizes for applying the term "saint" to Plotinus!
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Date: 2024-04-28 12:36 pm (UTC)While I take my own interpretation of things a lot, this isn't one of them! Thomas Taylor translates the word as "angel" in a variety of places, dictionaries and encyclopedias often gloss "dæmon" or "genius" as "guardian angel," etc. Personally, I think Evelyn-White's "pure spirits" is suspect: "spirits" can refer to ghosts or the like in English, but dæmon cannot (Greeks would use the word σκιά, "shade," for that); similarly, "nature spirits" would be Greek νύμφη ("nymph").
Per the dictionary, "holy guardian angels" would be a fine translation of "δαίμονες ἁγνοὶ." It seems to me that Christian translators routinely shrink from using religious terms when translating, though: Sir Charles Abraham Elton footnotes this section in his translation with a lengthy polemic against paganism, and Frederick William Henry Myers apologizes for applying the term "saint" to Plotinus!