Secrets and Watchers: A Markan Demonology

Mark’s use of a secrecy motif is well known to commentators. This article explores the messianic secret by analyzing its most common violators, the demons of the Gospel of Mark. Mark’s various exorcism accounts function to provide a working demonology of the Evangelist, and this biblical theology is correlated with other extant Second Temple Period Jewish literature, primarily 1 Enoch and its Watchers tradition. Mark relies upon both Leviticus and the Book of Watchers to describe the function and identity of demons, explaining their own supernatural knowledge of the identity of Christ, knowledge which necessitates his commands to keep silent. This article analyzes each exorcism account in Mark, places them in their larger literary context, and provides a synthesis of Markan demonology and its relationship to the secrecy motif of the Gospel