“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

Source: The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962]), Ch.VII Further Observations on Homer

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Cyrus H. Gordon 73

American linguist 1908–2001

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