Number of Demon

Number of demons

There are many demons in Christian demonology, many of which were added because some Christian theologians concluded that all pagan deities were demons.
In 1467 Alfonso de Spina asserted that the number of demons was 133,316,666. This idea that one third of the angels turned into demons seems to be due to an exegesis of the Book of Revelation 12:3-9.
Johann Weyer, in his Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1583), after a complicated system of hierarchies and calculations, estimated the number of demons as 44,435,622, divided into 666 legions, each legion composed by 6,666 demons, and all of them ruled by 66 hellish dukes, princes, kings, etc. The Lesser Key of Solomon (17th century) copied the division in legions from Pseudomonarchia Daemonum but added more demons, and so more legions. It is suggestive that both Spina and Weyer used 666 and other numbers composed by more than one 6 to calculate the number of demons (133,316,666 demons, 666 legions, 6,666 demons in each legion, 66 rulers).
Gregory of Nyssa, in the 4th century, believed in the existence of male and female demons and supported the idea that demons procreated with other demons and with human women. Other scholars supported the idea that they could not procreate and that the number of demons was constant.