I liked this analogy to help us grasp how demons were perceived in late antiquity, apparently more matter of factly than one might have thought.  Like microbes, best avoided but not worth losing sleep over.  But note the following comment, that early Christianity put them to work in its world view.

‘They were as widely invoked, and caused as little anxiety, as microbes do today. Christianity, however, made the demons central to its view of the world.’ 

Source: Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, AD 150-750 (London: Thames & Hudson, 1971 (1995)), p. 54

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