What do I imply then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? (1Corinthians 10: 19-22)

Some of the religious sacrifices in Corinth would strike many of us as demonic. The worship of Dionysus featured sexual orgies in a space beneath an altar that allowed the warm blood of the sacrificial bull to drip onto the participants.

Paul may have meant precisely what is translated above. He may very well have seen the Olympian and other pagan gods as demons and dark angels in the service of Satan.

But for anyone who has read Aristotle, a sacrifice to daimonion has a potentially different meaning. This is the Greek philosophical term for a person's soul, particular genius, or fundamental identity. Is the sacrifice to external demons or interior selves?

In the classical Greek tradition the human soul is fulfilled by striving after its individual potential. We are inspired by eros or love for something we want to possess such as beauty, courage, truth, or some other ideal form.

In the Christian tradition the human soul is fulfilled by returning to its shared origin in God. We are encouraged by agape: unconditional and self-giving love for others.

The religious and philosophical system of the Greeks and Romans tended to encourage self-fulfillment through self-assertion. Paul certainly sees this understanding of the human soul as profoundly mistaken.