"There is a large corpus of magical texts from Babylonia of the Sassanian Era, designed to exorcise demons. In these texts, which are mostly Jewish and Christian, the Indo-Iranian deities called daiva appear as demons. ...the demons of these texts are constantly appearing to women in the form of their husbands, and impregnating them. As a result, the names of the clients are always matronymic because no one could be sure of his paternity. ...both the Greeks and Iranians had such notions."
Cyrus H. Gordon

January 1, 1970

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Original Language: English

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Ch.VII Further Observations on Homer

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cyrus_H._Gordon