Demons in Late Antiquity: Their Perception and Transformation in Different Literary Genres 9783110632231, 9783110626728

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Demons in Late Antiquity

Transformationen der Antike

Herausgegeben von Hartmut Böhme, Horst Bredekamp, Johannes Helmrath, Christoph Markschies, Ernst Osterkamp, Dominik Perler, Ulrich Schmitzer Wissenschaftlicher Beirat: Frank Fehrenbach, Niklaus Largier, Martin Mulsow, Wolfgang Proß, Ernst A. Schmidt, Jürgen Paul Schwindt

Band 54

Demons in Late Antiquity Their Perception and Transformation in Different Literary Genres

Edited by Eva Elm and Nicole Hartmann

The publication of this volume was made possible through the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, using funds provided to Collaborative Research Center 644 »Transformations of Antiquity«.

ISBN 978-3-11-062672-8 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-063223-1 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-063062-6 ISSN 1864-5208

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Logo »Transformationen der Antike«: Karsten Asshauer – SEQUENZ Cover design: Martin Zech, Bremen Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck

www.degruyter.com

Contents Eva Elm Introduction

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Christoph Markschies 1 Demons and Disease

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Annette Weissenrieder 2 Disease and Healing in a Changing World. “Medical” Vocabulary and 41 Exorcism in the Vetus Latina Luke Nicole Hartmann 3 On Demons in Early Martyrology

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Emmanouela Grypeou 4 Demons of the Underworld in the Christian Literature of Late 81 Antiquity Robert Wiśniewski 5 Demons in Early Latin Hagiography

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Eva Elm 6 Hilarion and the Bactrian Camel. Demons and Genre in Jerome’s Life of Hilarion 119 Nienke Vos 7 The Ambiguity of the Devil. A Discourse-Linguistic Reading of Sulpicius 135 Severus’ Vita Martini 21 and 24 Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe 8 Demonic Speech in Hagiography and Hymnography Jan N. Bremmer Demons: An Epilogue About the Authors

167 175

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Introduction From the second half of the second century CE onwards, belief in the destructive power of demons was a phenomenon of ever increasing importance for pagans, Jews, and Christians alike. As Peter Brown has pointed out, men and women of the second and third centuries had an “acute sense of the multiplicity of the self and of the chains of intermediaries that reached, yet further still, from the self to God.”¹ These intermediary powers were invisible protectors, daimones, genii, or guardian angels – invisible figures entrusted with the care of the individual.² While such protective spirits had a long history in antiquity, a new connotation for these “beings” emerged during the second and third centuries CE, which changed them from predominately positive powers into ones that could, on occasion, be threatening and even destructive. Within Christian circles these powers often but not always assumed a negative quality not least because they were often equated with pagan gods. In the same way as the protective spirits were considered separate entities or “upward extensions of the individual”,³ negative demons were seen as figures acting independently of the observer or as outward manifestations of inner mental states. Demons “stood for the intangible emotional undertones of ambiguous situations and for the uncertain motives of refractory individuals.”⁴ Demons could appear to humans as visible powers, real existing physical entities, or evoke passiones, evil thoughts, and even kindle disputes. In the 4th century Evagrius Ponticus, a monk and theologian influenced by Origen, considered vices, such as porneia, evil thoughts (logismoi) induced by demons to tempt and perturb hermits in their endeavors to achieve and maintain apatheia, freedom from exactly such passions.⁵ Diseases or bodily affliction could also be interpreted as caused by demons or as demonic possession⁶ and hence requiring an exorcism rather than a medical cure. Thus, epilepsy,

 Brown (20152), 51.  Brown (20152), 51. See also Muehlberger (2013).  Brown (20152), 51.  Brown (20152), 110.  Von Balthasar (1965). See also O’Laughlin (1988), (1992); Bitton-Ashkelony (2011), Brakke (2005), Gibbons (2011), Konstantinovsky (2013).  While the influence of pagan apotropaic practises on those in New Testament times has frequently been examined, see Trunk (1994); Sorensen (2002); Oegema (2003), 505 – 518; Klutz (2004); Bell (2007) and Twelftree (2007), late antique practices and their antecedents in antiquity were only occasionally treated, see Sawicka-Sykes (2017) and for example cursorily in Sorensen (2002) and Twelftree (2007). For the phenomenon of possession in the Byzantine world see Horden (1993), for demonic possession and mental disorder in the Middle Ages see Kemp/Williams (1987). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110632231-001

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hysteria, or what one would call depression in modern medicine were frequently regarded as demonically generated diseases, or rather, as demonic possessions.⁷ According to late antique conceptions, the thin, spiritual, or “air”-like substance of demons enabled them to penetrate the human body and mind, where they could instigate dreams, induce illnesses, or effect possession.⁸ Thus, Augustine was of the opinion that demons mingle with the thoughts of humans not only during sleep, but also when they are awake. They pervert the individual’s state of mind because they themselves are perverted and thus driven by affectiones, passiones and perturbationes,⁹ which in turn affect, indeed infect, the humans they attack, rendering them incapable of thinking clearly and hence of finding the truth.¹⁰ Such intrusions were conceived in very concrete ways. Porphyry, for example, imagined that demons entered the bodies of humans while they were breathing, eating, or drinking: “When we are eating, demons approach our body, this is why chastisements are necessary, not least because of the gods, to keep them at a distance.”¹¹ Thus, to fend off epilepsy, Celsus proposed abstinence from pork and wine,¹² and healing through fasting is discussed not only in Scripture,¹³ but also in monastic sources such as the Historia Lausiaca 18. The notion that demons penetrate the bodies of women through their genitalia was also widespread in particular among Christian writers.¹⁴ Possession was therefore often compared to pregnancy. Negatively connoted demons thus often stood for destructive forces, which intrude into the order and upset the stability of the world, and not surprisingly they were often considered to be the cause of many naturally occurring or man-made perils: The alien, the foreign other, wars, both external and civil, bad harvest and severe weather, illness and death could all be laid at the feet of such evil demons. As Carl Heinz Ratschow phrased it, they are “das Fremde, das einem begegnet, und das bedrohlich Unbekannte, welches plötzlich hier und da die Schranken der Welt durchbrechen kann.”¹⁵ Within a binary conception of reality, demons can be described as

 Trunk (1994), 419. For mental illnesses in antiquity see Harris (2013), Ahonen (2014). Even if we cannot have access to the psyche of individual monks and can only examine the culture and mentality, which led to the notion of demons, psychatrical and psychoanalytical terms such as projection and repression can be of interest – particularly since monks and theologians such as Evagrius Ponticus, Schenute or Cassian developed their own psychological theories with their own terminology. When one wants to approach the phenomenon of exorcism going beyond liturgical, literary and theological studies one has to take considerations based on medical history into account, see Thraede (1969), 44– 117 and Gianfrancesco (2008).  Smith (2008).  Aug. civ. 9,4.  Evans (1982), 104.  Porphyrios, philos. ex orac. haur. p. 148 Wolff = frgm. 314 F Smith.  Celsus, De medicina 3,23.  E. g. Mt. 17:21.  Böcher (1970), 124– 136.  Ratschow (1947), 57.

Introduction

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beings that inhabit the spaces in-between, neither only positive nor wholly negative.¹⁶ They embody counter-principles and can therefore be traced to areas of transition, both of a spatial and a temporal order. Correspondingly, in literature demons are often situated at the periphery of the inhabited world, that is, outside the city walls, in the necropoleis, or in the open landscape considered to be the desertum. They gain influence at certain times of the day, during the midday heat or the chaos of the night. As Frey-Anthes points out, humans are particularly threatened by demons at certain turning points in their lives, Van Gennep’s rites de passages, such as birth, marriage or death.¹⁷ Demons can also be present at social boundaries, that is, they manifest their powers at the borders of distinct communities, especially when threatened by enemies. Already during the Hellenistic and imperial Roman periods these more negative aspects of demons, further elaborated in late antiquity, existed and were discusssed.¹⁸ In early Greek texts, a god was often called both theós and daimon. Daimones were characterized by their unpredictable, anonymous, and consequential impact.¹⁹ In Hesiod we find the notion of a companion daimon; whoever is a happy person is accompanied by a good daimon, eudaimon, while the kakodaímon or dysdaímon accompanies the unhappy person.²⁰ Empedocles used the term daimon to describe a divine self within the human being.²¹ Plato combined these notions; he speaks of custodian daimones, who accompany human beings, and then equates them with the transcendent, rational part of the human self or soul, the nous. ²² Xenocrates was the first to postulate the existence of evil daimones, the concept that later evolved into the notion of the demon.²³ Porphyry and Iamblichus considered demons intermediary beings, linking the divine and the human within a hierarchy of hypostaseis. Porphyry went further by subjecting evil demons to a ruler, a force opposed to the good, thus engaging and to a certain extent resolving the question of theodicy.²⁴ Christian authors began to draw a relatively consistent division between positive intermediary beings, often equated with angels, and demons that have a predominantly negative connotation.²⁵ The first transformation to note when tracing changes from pagan to early Christian writings is thus one of terminology. The term daimon, in a process of narrowing, lost the predominantly positive valence it had in classical antiquity, and was increasingly reduced to the more negative connotation it had also  See Frey-Anthes (2007), 24.  Frey-Anthes (2007), 25.  See Jan Bremmer’s contribution in this volume for a detailed analysis of these complex processes as well as for additional literature on the etymology.  Habermehl (1990), 203; Johnson (2013), 83.  Hes. erg. 314; Johnson (2013), 99.  Frgt. 115 VS.  Plat. Phaid. 107de; rep. 617de, 620de; Tim. 90a-c; Johnson (2013), 86.  Frgt. 23 – 25 Heinze.  De abstinentia 2,37– 43; Johnson (2013), 84– 101.  Muehlberger (2013).

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held then, eventually leading to a fading away of the positive notions.²⁶ Daimon, which originally had combined positive, neutral, ambivalent, and negative connotations, progressively lost its polyvalence, and became a predominantly negative term. However, as this volume demonstrates, this process of transformation was far more complex, nuanced, locally varied and protracted than has often been portrayed in scholarship. While in Plotinus demons play only an insignificant role and there are no negative demons, Neo-Pythagoreans as well as Plutarch, Porphyry, Iamblichus and Apuleius already exhibit traces of the negative demonology that scholars have so often posited as characteristic for late antique Christianity.²⁷ In Neo-Pythagoreanism the tendency of “demonizing” all earthly phenomena can be seen in the conviction that the air is filled entirely with demons that send dreams and bad omens to humans and infect them and their animals with diseases. In several studies, Detienne has shown that such ideas can be traced back to primitive notions in agriculture, where illness was considered a punishment for moral failure.²⁸ Porphyry counted bad spirits as a third group alongside the divine demons and the souls of the deceased. Here, demons act in a psychological as well as physical way, since in nature they are responsible for bad harvests, pests, and bad weather. They have a confusing impact on humans, “they profit from our lack of sense, winning over the masses because they inflame the people’s appetites with lust and longing for wealth and power and pleasure.”²⁹ For Zintzen, Porphyry combined Neoplatonic concepts of the ascent of the soul and its perils with elements of popular religion to create a demonology that communicated major parts of the philosophy of Plotinus to an audience less familiar with or interested in “pure” philosophical concepts.³⁰ In Iamblichus, who divides demons into good ones who punish, and evil demons comparable to the classification of Porphyry, evil demons are surrounded by ravenous animals. They are gloomy, characterized by chaos and disquiet, and they transport illnesses, put a burden on the body and reduce the soul to its earthly nature.³¹ In Plutarch’s cosmos of demons, in which elements of folklore and philosophy are combined, demons appear as sexually frustrated beings that are not permitted to have sexual intercourse.³² Also in Calcidius, whose precise position between Platonism and Christianity is disputed, there exist evil demons, he also follows Xenocrates. Some of the evil demons are described by him as adversae potestatis satellites,

 Colpe (1976), 546 f. and Cancik (2003), 447– 460. See Markschies in this volume for daimones with positive connotation.  Cancik (2003), 447– 460.  E. g. Detienne (1963).  Porphyry, De abstinentia 2,40,3, cited in: Johnson (2013), 85.  Zintzen (1976), 659.  Zintzen (1976), 663.  Brenk (1986), 2119; on Plutarch’s daimonology see also Brenk (2017), 43 – 65.

Introduction

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“die eine zu enge Verbindung mit der Materie haben, die die Alten auch die ‚böse Seele‘ (maligna anima) nannten.”³³ According to John M. Dillon the term adversa potestas is Christian terminology.³⁴ Modern research on late antique demonology reflects the complex picture which presents itself when looking at late antique notions of demons. Jeffrey Burton Russell for example discusses the devil and demons in the description of Church and monastic fathers. He foregrounds the problem of theodicy, since Satan and the demons can be seen as personifications of evil.³⁵ Peter Brown offered two analyses with a sociohistorical approach. In 1970 he pointed out that both pagans and Christian in late antiquity believed that bad luck could be attributed to superhuman agents, the demons. While pagans tended to attribute it rather to the agency of magicians influencing the demons, Christians foregrounded the demons themselves and gave them a human face.³⁶ In 1991 Brown explored demons in the context of the cult of the saints. The expulsion of demons or exorcism increased the potestas of a saint at late antique cultic locations. By recourse to demons the impact of violence on the suffering human beings was relieved. Frankfurter in 2010 also examined late antique cultic locations, where demons, which were still influenced by antique Mediterranean concepts, manifested themselves around the graves of martyrs and saints. Wiśniewski distinguishes between Eastern and Western attitudes towards pagan shrines, which more or less exclusively in the East were considered dwellings of demons and consequently were destroyed or transformed into churches.³⁷ Aline Rousselle examines the connection between medicine and exorcism. Saint Martin, who was capable of working miracles, exemplifies a transformation of pagan antiquity in a Christian environment. The figure of the holy saint who acts as therapist for his patients becomes more important than the location of the therapy.³⁸ Andrew Crislip focusses on the midday demon acedia, which already in late antiquity was interpreted as depression.³⁹ Gregory Smith focuses on the physical and biological aspects of demons to get a deeper insight into the interrelation of matter and spirit.⁴⁰ Brouria BittonAshkelony shows the ways in which in different monastic communities in Gaza one tried to control demons through different forms of prayer.⁴¹ Richard Valantasis considers the notion of demons an existential contribution to the perfection and transformation of the bodies of the monchs.⁴²

         

Baltes/Lakmann/Dillon et al. (2004), 140. Baltes/Lakmann/Dillon et al. (2004), 139. For Calcidius see Markschies in this volume. Russell (1981). Brown (1970), 32. Wiśniewski (2016). Rousselle (1990); Vielberg (2006), 144– 148, 164– 166, 188, 205. Crislip (2005). Smith (2008). Bitton-Ashkelony (2003). Valantasis (1992).

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2006 David Brakke offered a groundbreaking monograph on the role of demons in the Egyptian monasticism of the 4th and 5th centuries.⁴³ His study examines the demonologies of individual authors and monastic communities to then turn to certain recurrent stories and motives. In these stories demons appear among others as Ethiopians, or black, symbolizing the ‘other’ or the dark side within the monks themselves.⁴⁴ Demons in female shape enact and represent the drama of temptation and resistance to temptation, while in other stories demons serve to differentiate the monk from other, pagan religious experts. In 2003 Armin Lange, Hermann Lichtenberger, and Diethard Römheld,⁴⁵ and in 2011 Nienke Vos and Willemien Otten presented collected volumes on demons and the devil in pagan and Jewish Christian sources in antiquity and the Middle ages.⁴⁶ In the latter Geert Van Oyen, Hagit Amirav und Toon Bastiaensen focus on demons in the New Testament, while Theodoor Korteweg examines demons in Justin the Martyr, Nienke Vos demons in early Christian Vitae, letters and sayings, and Boudewijn Dehandschutter demons in Messalian texts. In “City of Demons” Dayna Kalleres examines the connection between demons and cityscapes in the late Roman world by focusing on the role of bishops such as John Chrysostom of Antioch, Cyril of Jerusalem and Ambrose of Milan as exorcists.⁴⁷ She foregrounds the “rhetorical, ideological, and ritualized construction of Christian identities as baptized Christian soldiers, equipped to battle the demonic in the city. These soldiers of Christ engaged in strategic ‚spiritual warfare’ against a horde of malevolent spirits plaguing post-Constantinian Christianity.”⁴⁸ Heidi Marx-Wolf’s “Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority” analyzes how philosophers of the late third century CE divided the spiritual world into hierarchies, attributing to themselves the position of high priests and thus establishing their authority and prestige.⁴⁹ Sawicka-Sykes explores how in the Vita Antonii demons and their aural attacks work on the individual soul creating illness and disorder.⁵⁰ Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe examines two stories of demoniacs suffering insatiable hunger in two hagiographical texts (a hymn of 402 by Paulinus and Palladius’ Historia Lausiaca).⁵¹ As one can see by this brief and incomplete overview, over the last years antique perceptions of demons in Judaism, Christianity and pagan antiquity have been at the center of scholarly attention, particularly in studies written from the point of view of the history of religion and cultural history. These studies made apparent the extent to

        

Brakke (2006). Brakke (2006), 157– 181. Lange/Lichtenberger/Römheld (2003). Vos/Otten (2011). Kalleres (2015). Barnes (2016). Marx-Wolf (2016). Sawicka-Sykes (2017). Lunn-Rockliffe (2017).

Introduction

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which these perceptions depended on their particular cultural and religious milieu. For example, as David Brakke has shown, Christian ascetic movements, such as Egyptian monasticism, reveal very particular instances of transforming older perceptions of demons that do not have parallels elsewhere. Our international conference with the title “The Perception of Demons in Different Literary Genres in Late Antiquity” which took place in November 2015 within the framework of the special research area (SFB) “Transformations of Antiquity” situated in Berlin, tried to tackle a specific aspect of such ‚demonic‘ transformations and contextualizations.⁵² Building on recent research, it focused on the literary aspects of these contextualizations that have so far been more or less neglected. Notions of demons can be found in diverse antique literary genres such as philosophical texts, including commentaries on the canonical philosophical literature, biographical texts such as lives, or collections of sayings. The conference sought to examine how literary genres influence the presentation of demons, and, secondly, whether specific conceptions of demons are characteristic of certain genres, or, rather, of particular religious contexts and thus appear as topoi independent of literary genre. Thirdly, we intended to pay particular attention to the question whether genres such as the biographical one popular in pagan, Jewish and Christian circles were distinct from each other in their representation of demons or whether more general standards and topoi prevail, irrespective of religious context. By significantly foregrounding the literary aspects we did not merely wish to rehearse a classic narrative of a ‘history of literature’ according to set genres, but we wanted to place particular emphasis on the social dimensions of such literary production in so far as such dimensions become apparent in an analysis focused on genres: how do notions of demons function in the genres and the particular social contexts in which they were produced or for which they were written?  The Collaborative Research Centre “Transformations of Antiquity” consisted of eleven disciplines from the social sciences and humanities at the Humboldt University of Berlin as well as one each at the Free University of Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. The work of the Collaborative Research Centre aimed at overcoming the highly compartmentalized way studies in antiquity and its reception have been conducted in the past: “Die Antike stand niemals fest, noch war sie feststellbar. Sie war als unbezweifelbare Leitkultur der nachantiken europäischen Kulturen stets dynamisches Potenzial, sie wurde in den Epochen der europäischen Geschichte bis in die Gegenwart stets verändert, angeeignet und neu gefunden wie erfunden. Transformationen generieren Dynamiken kulturellen Wandels, die nicht auf die einseitige Aneignung durch eine Aufnahmekultur, auf bloße Rezeption, reduziert werden können. Die einzelnen Teilaneignungsprozesse sind nicht zählbar, sie bilden nur bedingt rekonstruierbare langwellige Transformationsketten.” (www.sfb-antike.de/ 29.05. 2018) The transformation typology which was developed in the context of the Center provides the possibility to trace the different modi of cultural change and to make complex processes of transformation more transparent, to gain a more differentiated idea of the process of transformation. The project “Demons and salvation”, presided over by Christoph Markschies, examined transformations from antiquity to late antiquity. We tried to examine the particularities of this change with the typology developed by the Research Center ‘Transformations of Antiquity’. The conference was organized by Christoph Markschies, Anna Rack-Teuteberg, Eva Elm and Nicole Hartmann.

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At the conference the transformations of late antiquity as a whole and of the notions of demons in particular were considered a texture made of continuities and discontinuities. We were talking of change and not of rupture. This approach is supported by the plurality of the findings on demons in diverse texts. As Marco Formisano points out, late antiquity is “sowohl politisch und sozial als auch kulturell … extrem vielfältig und ‚pluralistisch‘ … Es ist daher unmöglich, von einer einzigen spätantiken Kultur oder Identität zu reden.”⁵³ Also, for texts dealing with demons, Michael Robert’s observation holds true that one cannot talk of a single late antique aesthetics.⁵⁴ As Jacques Fontaine, Moretti and Formisano pointed out, the concept of genre in late antiquity is complex, since classical genre distributions cannot necessarily be transposed to late antique notions.⁵⁵ The literary genre which in accordance with Gian Biagio Conte is understood here less as prescriptive but rather as dynamic,⁵⁶ enables representation in the language of literature.⁵⁷ In this sense, the understanding of demons is represented and transformed through genre in different literary forms. Since transformations in the notions of demons in texts cannot be considered independent of their textuality, it seemed reasonable to also consider the category of genre.⁵⁸ As Aude Doody put forward, genre is a powerful matrix for understanding texts, “not least because it sets up alternative means of relating one text to another, different from one based exclusively on historical contingency. Genre is important, because it provides readers with one means of relating one text to another across time and space; it has a powerful action in mediating and refracting the particular context of composition.”⁵⁹ The organizers of the conference wanted to combine a literary approach which took genres into consideration with that of cultural and social history. One of the results of the conference was the insight that beyond the restrictions of genre there were certain notions characteristic of certain religious contexts which were taken over as topoi in diverse genres. Also the representation of demons was somewhat influenced by the hagiographical discourse which links pagan and Christian biographies, hymns, epitaphs, letters, sermons and romances. The preconcep-

 Formisano (2008), 50.  Roberts (1989), 6.  Fontaine (1988), Moretti (2003), Formisano (2008).  Conte (1994), 125.  For the importance of the concept of literary genre in the relationship between literature and religion see also Feeney (2007), 175.  In general, so far there are not too many studies considering genre in the times of late antiquity. More recent studies of diverse aspects of genre in late antiquity have a dynamic conception of genre as their basis, they consider processes of instability, shifting of boundaries and genre-bending. They try to shed light also on the relevant background for such processes (Harrison (2013), 1; Greatrex/ Elton (2015); Stenger (2015), 15). The Christian literature in particular was fruitful in this respect. Fuhrer distinguishes two greater groups of genres in the Latin literature of this period (Fuhrer 2013, 80 – 81): there are texts which show new narrative and poetic forms, and those which are mainly related to the text of the Bible (which Fuhrer ibd. calls heteronomic texts or “auxiliary texts”).  Doody (2010), 6.

Introduction

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tion that the social dimension – as far as it could be reconstructed in a literary approach – would play a considerable role, was therefore reconfirmed. In the present volume one will notice that genre was the initial starting point for the different contributions. Nevertheless, all contributions extended their view beyond the question of genre. Christoph Markschies and Annette Weissenrieder address the thematic complex of demons, disease and healing. Markschies focuses on ancient magical amulets and on demons in ancient philosophical texts examining transformations of pagan concepts of demons and addressing the question “how demons function in these texts as a basis for explaining diseases and their cure.” He starts his observations with a discussion of the concept of transformation: “the classic model of the adoption of pagan ancient medicine in Christianity should be replaced by a model of a transformation of knowledge bases where nothing is adopted in blocks, but rather something is reconstructed using the available elements. It is not therefore the case that something is simply received, but rather as part of the process of absorption, the reference area is also newly formed at the same time”– referring to one of the basic concepts of the Research Centre ‚Transformations of Antiquity‘. In a second step he distances himself from the distinction often made between temple medicine, Hippocratic-Galenic and so-called folk medicine, pointing to institutional differentiations, Unschuld’s distinction between a scientific medicine according to ancient standards and other ways of healing, and to network structures of medical knowledge. When looking at the transformations of pagan concepts of demons in magical amulets and philosophical texts, surprising instances of appropriation and encapsulation (an object is handed down unchanged and integrated as a close whole) can be found: on Christian magical amulets “a demon could”, for example, “also be used in a positive way in order to heal diseases”. Annette Weissenrieder examines the Vetus Latina versions of Matthew, Mark and Luke to pose the question whether terms such as daemonia, spiritus immundus and spiritus mutus immundus refer to the phenomenon of exorcism or to illness and its healing. It becomes apparent that in “translating the Greek text of the New Testament gospels with regard to exorcism, the Vetus Latina Luke undergoes several transformations… not only the terms signifying an illness can be made plausible in light of Roman medicine, but also the terms referring to an illness being vomited and leaving a patient… Christologically, the Lukan Jesus in the Vetus Latina removes the plague of illness rather than the plague of demons.” Nicole Hartmann observes the scarcity of the notion of demons in the first two hundred years of martyrology. The focus in these texts was clearly on the spectacle of the martyrdom itself. Categorizing those texts which are concerned with the demonic, Hartmann distinguishes “between those texts (and their different versions) 1. that deny existence of demonic beings, 2. those that accept and affirm them to be acting (malevolently), 3. those that explain the source of their agency and 4. those that employ the devil without associating him with other (demonic) spirits”. The notion of the demonic crops up in martyrologies during the fourth century: “after the end of persecutions – the production of martyr narratives flourished,

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took new directions and a couple of turns towards new forms of hagiography. One of these turns integrated the confrontation of martyrs with daimones – already during their lifetime, and at the place of their venerated relics.” In her contribution Emmanouela Grypeou takes her cue from a text known as Visio Baronti Monachi Longoretensis, which stems from the late 7th or early 8th century. Here demons attack and punish sinners in the underworld – a notion common in medieval apocalyptic literature. Grypeou recounts the long and complex development of the idea of afterlife punishment and reward for Christians in Late Antiquity, thus describing how demons, who were traditionally described as kept in the underworld or the abyss as prisoners, later become tormentors themselves. In early Christianity hell was envisioned as a “divine judicial construction”, in which angels “operated in order to restore theodicy in afterlife”, while in later texts the angels are replaced by demons. “This new understanding of sin and punishment and the relevant nomenclature reflect the emergence of a theological dichotomy”, distancing God “albeit all merciful” from the flawed human world. Three articles approach the topic of demons by taking their cue from the genre of hagiography. Robert Wiśniewski gives a comprehensive yet detailed overview of early Latin hagiography mostly from the 4th and 5th centuries. He points out that the Latin hagiographers “are not interested in and do not deal with demons as such… they do not intend to sketch a general vision of demonology… The authors of Latin Vitae use demons als literary tools.” – to enlarge the saint in stories “that are more colourful than theological treatises… And that is the main reason why the lives of saints are more influential in shaping our vision of late-antique demonology than other forms of literary activity.” Eva Elm starts with a discussion of the genre of Jerome’s Vita Hilarionis, in which she traces an understanding of demons which differs from that of its precursor and model the Life of Anthony. While the latter puts its main focus on the inner workings of demons, i. e. their impact on the psyche of the hermit, the Vita Hilarionis puts their external effects to the fore. Elm then poses the question whether this particularity holds true for other Western hagiographies, in this respect distinguishing them from their Eastern precedents. Nienke Vos presents a discourse-linguistic reading of Sulpicius Severus’ Vita Martini 21 and 24. By embedding narrative passages in a larger framework of argumentation the author is trying to convince his audience of Martin’s virtue and discernment vis à vis the demons which form the dark backdrop for his brightness. Demons in these passages and in the Vita as a whole “are employed to create clarity: to oppose good and evil, demonstrating which is which” – simultaneously staging confusion which challenges the readers to discern for themselves and to understand the hazards of life – “the faithful are actually involved in a permanent battle between good and evil.” Finally, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe looks at demonic speech in Greek, Latin and Syriac hagiographies of ascetics from Syria and Palestine, and in Syriac and Greek liturgical hymns, coming to the following conclusion: “Novelistic hagiographies tend to

Introduction

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privilege diegetic third-person narrative, providing characterizations of demons’ speech patterns and language at one remove: by contrast, liturgical hymns are more consistently mimetic, drawing on a rich dramatic and musical heritage to incorporate lengthy passages of direct, first-person demonic discourse.” The volume is concluded by Jan Bremmer’s epilogue, which offers a nuanced appreciation of the complexities involved. Certainly, there are several other genres such as letters, sayings or historiography, in which demons play an important role, but which have not been at the focus of this collection of papers. Please consider the present volume to be a starting point for a sustained discussion of genre and the occurrence of demons in late antique Christianity.

Bibliography Ahonen, Marke, Mental Disorders in Ancient Philosophy, New York 2014. Baltes, Matthias/Lakmann, Marie-Luise/Dillon, John et al. (eds.), Apuleius. De Deo Socratis, Darmstadt 2004. Balthasar, Hans Urs von, “The Metaphysics and Mystical Theology of Evagrius”, in: Monastic Studies 3 (1965), 183 – 195. Barnes, Rex, http://www.ancientjewreview.com/articles/2016/4/18/kalleres-city-of-demons/ (Last accessed: 19. 11. 2018). Becker, Matthias, Porphyrios: Contra Christianos. Neue Sammlung der Fragmente, Testimonien und Dubia mit Einleitung, Übersetzung und Anmerkungen (Texte und Kommentare 52), Berlin/Boston 2016. Bell, Richard, Deliver us from Evil. Interpreting the Redemption from the Power of Satan in New Testament Theology, Tübingen 2007. Bitton-Ashkelony, Brouria, “Demons and Prayers. Spiritual Exercises in the Monastic Community of Gaza in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries”, in: Vigiliae Christianae 57 (2003), 200 – 221. Bitton-Ashkelony, Brouria, “The Limits of the Mind (NOUS): Pure Prayer according to Evagrius Ponticus and Isaac of Niniveh”, in: Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum 15 (2011), 291 – 321. Boecher, Otto, Dämonenfurcht und Dämonenabwehr. Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte der christlichen Taufe, Stuttgart 1970. Boeft, Jan den, Art. “Daemon(es)”, in: Augustinus-Lexikon 2 (1996 – 2002), 213 – 222. Brakke David, “Making Public the Monastic Self in Evagrius Ponticus ’Talking Back‘”, in: Religion and the Self in Antiquity, ed. David Brakke/Michael L. Satlow/Steven Weitzman, Indianapolis 2005, 222 – 233. Brakke, David, Demons and the Making of the Monk. Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity, Cambridge 2006. Brenk, Frederick E., “In the Light of the Moon. Demonology in the Early Imperial Period”, in: Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 16,3 (1986), 2068 – 2145. Brenk, Frederick E., “Genuine Greek Demons, ‚In Mist Apparelled?‘ Hesiod and Plutarch”, in: Relighting the Souls, ed. Frederick E. Brenk, Stuttgart 1998, 170 – 181. Brenk, Frederick, Frederick E. Brenk on Plutarch, Religious Thinker and Biographer. “The Religious Spirit of Plutarch of Chaironeia” and “The Life of Mark Antony”, ed. Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta, Leiden 2017.

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Brown, Peter, “Sorcery, Demons, and the Rise of Christianity from Late Antiquity into the Middle Ages”, in: Witchcraft, Confessions and Accusations, ed. Mary Douglas, London 1970, 17 – 45. Brown, Peter, The Cult of the Saints, Oxford 20152. Cancik, Hubert, “Römische Dämonologie (Varro, Apuleius, Tertullian)”, in: Die Dämonen. Die Dämonologie der israelitisch-jüdischen und frühchristlichen Literatur im Kontext ihrer Umwelt, ed. Arnim Lange et al., Tübingen 2003, 447 – 463. Collins, John Joseph, “Introduction: Towards the Morphology of a Genre”, in: Semeia 14 (1979), 1 – 20. Colpe, Carsten, Art. “Geister (Dämonen), Grundsätzliches zur Theorie des Animismus und zur Bewertung antiker Geistervorstellungen”, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 9 (1976), 546 – 553. Conte, Gian Biagio, Genres and Readers. Lucretius, Love Elegy, Pliny’s Encyclopedia, Transl. by G. W. Most with a Foreword by C. Segal, Baltimore 1994. Crislip, Andrew, “The Sin of Sloth or the Illness of the Demons? The Demon of Acedia in Early Christian Monasticism”, in: The Harvard Theological Review 98 (2005), 143 – 169. Detienne, Marcel, Crise agraire er attitude religieuse chez Hésiode, Bruxelles 1963. Dillon, John M, “Die Lehre von den Dämonen bei Calcidius”, in: Apuleius. De Deo Socratis, ed. Matthias Baltes/Marie Luise Lakmann/John Dillon et al., Darmstadt 2004, 139 – 142. Doody, Aude, Pliny’s Encyclopedia. The Reception of the Natural History, Cambridge 2010. Elliot, Dyan, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages, Pennsylvania 1999. Evans, Gillian Rosemary, Augustine on Evil, Cambridge 1982. Feeney, Denis, “On Not Forgetting the ‚Literatur‘ in ‚Literatur und Religion‘. Representing the Mythic and the Divine in Roman Historiography”, in: Literatur und Religion 2. Wege zu einer mythisch-rituellen Poetik bei den Griechen, ed. Anton Bierl/Rebecca Lämmle/ Katharina Wesselmann, Berlin/New York 2007. Fontaine, Jacques, “Comment doit-on appliquer la notion de genre littéraire à la littérature latine chrétienne du IVe siècle?”, in: Philologus 132 (1988), 53 – 73. Formisano, Marco, “Eine andere Antike”. Für ein ästhetisches Paradigma der Spätantike”, in: Wissensästhetik. Wissen über die Antike in ästhetischer Vermittlung, ed. Ernst Osterkamp, Berlin/New York 2008, 41 – 59. Frey-Anthes, Henrike, Unheilsmächte und Schutzheilige, Antiwesen und Grenzgänger. Vorstellungen von ‚Dämonen‘ im alten Israel, Göttingen 2007. Frankfurter, David, Evil Incarnate. Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History, Princeton 2006. Frankfurter, David, “Where the Spirits Dwell. Possession, Christianization, and Saints’ Shrines in Late Antiquity”, in: Harvard Theological Review 103 (2010), 27 – 46. Fuhrer, Therese, “Hypertexts and Auxiliary Texts: New Genres in Late Antiquity”, in: Generic Interfaces in Latin Literature. Encounters, Interfaces and Transformations, ed. Theodore D. Papanghelis/Stephen J. Harrison/Stavros Frangoulidis, Berlin/Boston 2013, 79 – 93. Gianfrancesco, Angelo, “Monachisme ancien et psychopathologie”, in: L‘évolution psychiatrique 73 (2008) 105 – 126. Gibbons, Kathleen, Vice and Self-Examination in the Christian Desert (PhD diss.), University of Toronto 2011. Greatrex, Geoffrey/Elton, Hugh (eds.), Shifting Genres in Late Antiquity, Farnham 2015. Habermehl, Peter, “Dämon”, in: Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe 2 (1990), 203 – 207. Harris, William (ed.), Mental Disorders in the Classical World, Leiden 2013.

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Harrison, Stephen J., “Introduction”, in: Generic Interfaces in Latin Literature. Encounters, Interfaces and Transformations, ed. Theodore D. Papanghelis/Stephen J. Harrison/Stavros Frangoulidis, Berlin/Boston 2013, 1 – 18. Horden, Peregrine, “Responses to Possession and Insanity in the Earlier Byzantine World”, in: Social History of Medicine 6.2 (1993), 177 – 194. Johnson, Aaron P., Religion and Identity in Porphyry of Tyre. The Limits of Hellenism in Late Antiquity. Greek Culture in the Roman World, Cambridge/New York 2013. Kalleres, Dayna, City of Demons. Violence, Ritual and Christian Power in Late Antiquity, Berkeley 2015. Kemp, Simon/Williams, Kevin, “Demonic Possession and Mental Disorder in Medieval and Early Modern Europe”, in: Psychological Medicine 17 (1987), 21 – 29. Klutz, Todd, The Exorcism Stories in Luke-Acts. A Sociostylistic Reading, Cambridge 2004. Konstantinovsky, Julia, “Evagrius Ponticus on Being Good in God and Christ”, in: Studies in Christian Ethics 26 (2013), 317 – 332. Lange, Arnim/Lichtenberger, Hermann/Römfeld, K.E. Diethard (eds.), Die Dämonen. Die Dämonologie der israelitisch-jüdischen und frühchristlichen Literatur im Kontext ihrer Umwelt, Tübingen 2003. Lunn-Rockliffe, Sophie, “Over-Eating Demoniacs in Late Antique Hagiography”, in: Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period, ed. Siam Bhayro/Catherine Ride, Leiden 2017, 215 – 231. Männlein-Robert, Irmgard (ed.): Die Christen als Bedrohung? Text, Kontext und Wirkung von Porphyrios’ Contra Christianos (Roma Aeterna 5), Stuttgart 2017. Marx-Wolf, Heidi, Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority: Platonists, Priests, and Gnostics in the Third Century C.E., Philadelphia 2016. Moretti, Franco, “L’esegesi biblica dei Padri: un genere letterario? Un tentativo di approccio al problema”, in: Forme letterarie nella produzione Latina di IV-V secolo, ed. Franca Ela Consolino, Roma 2003, 127 – 145. Muehlberger, Ellen, Angels in Late Ancient Christianity, Oxford 2013. Oegema, Gerbern S., “Jesus’ Casting Out of Demons in the Gospel of Mark against its Greco-Roman Background”, in: Die Dämonen. Die Dämonologie der israelitisch-jüdischen und frühchristlichen Literatur im Kontext ihrer Umwelt, ed. Arnim Lange et al., Tübingen 2003, 505 – 518. O’Laughlin, Michael, “The Anthropology of Evagrius Ponticus and its Sources”, in: Origen of Alexandria: His World and His Legacy, ed. Charles Kannengiesser/William L. Petersen, Notre Dame 1988, 357 – 373. O’Laughlin, Michael, “The Bible, the Demon and the Desert. Evaluating the ‚Antirrheticus of Evagrius Ponticus”, in: Studia Monastica 34 (1992), 201 – 215. Pagels, Elaine, The Origins of Satan, New York 1995. Rapp, Claudia, “The Origins of Hagiography and the Literature of Early Monasticism: Purpose and Genre between Tradition and Innovation”, in: Unclassical Traditions. Alternatives to the Classical Past in Late Antiquity, ed. Christopher Kell/Richard Floer/Michael Stuart Williams, Cambridge 2010. Ratschow, Carl Heinz, Magie und Religion, Gütersloh 1947. Riedweg, Christoph, “Porphyrios über Christus und die Christen: De philosophia ex oraculis haurienda und Contra Christianos im Vergleich”, in: L’apologétique chrétienne gréco-latine à l’époque prénicénienne. Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt 51, Vandoeuvres/Genf 2005, 151 – 203. Roberts, Michael, The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity, Ithaca/London 1989. Rousselle, Aline, Croire et guérir: la foi en Gaule dans l’Antiquité tardive, Paris 1990. Russell, Jeffrey, Satan. The Early Christian Tradition, Ithaca, N.Y. 1981.

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Smith, Jonathan Z., “Towards Interpreting Demonic Powers in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity”, in: Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 16,1 (1978), 425 – 439. Smith, Gregory A., “How thin is a Demon?”, in: Journal of Early Christian Studies 16 (2008), 479 – 512. Sorensen, Eric, Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament and Early Christianity, Tübingen 2002. Sawicka-Sykes, Sophie, “Demonic Anti-Music and Spiritual Disorder in Life of Antony”, in: Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period, ed. Siam Bhayro/Catherine Ride, Leiden 2017, 192 – 215. Stenger, Jan R. (ed.), Spätantike Konzeptionen von Literatur (The Library of the Other Antiquity), Heidelberg 2015. Thraede, Klaus, Art. “Exorzismus”, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 7 (1966 – 1969), 44 – 117. Trunk, Dieter, Der messianische Heiler. Eine redaktions- und religionsgeschichtliche Studie zu den Exorzismen im Matthäusevangelium, Freiburg 1994. Twelftree, Graham, In the Name of Jesus. Exorcism among Early Christians, Grand Rapids 2007. Valantasis, Richard, “Daemons and the Perfecting of the Monk’s Body. Monastic Anthropology, Daemonology, and Asceticism”, in: Semeia 58 (1992), 47 – 81. Vielberg, Meinolf, Der Mönchsbischof von Tours im ‚Martinellus‘. Zur Form des hagiographischen Dossiers und seines spätantiken Leitbilds, Berlin/New York 2006. Vos, Nienke/Otten, Willemien (eds.), Demons and the Devil in Ancient and Medieval Christianity, Leiden 2011. Wiśniewski, Robert, “Pagan temples, Christians and demons in late antique East and West”, in: Sacris Erudiri 54 (2016), 111 – 128. Zintzen, Clemens, Art. “Geister (Dämonen), Hellenistische und Kaiserzeitliche Philosophie”, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 9 (1976), 640 – 668.

Christoph Markschies

1 Demons and Disease¹ When one wants not only to take stock of the current state of research on the topic “Ancient Christianity and Medicine, Health, and Disability”, but also to enrich it with new contributions, it is perhaps useful first of all to keep in mind two basic methodological insights that by now can be considered to constitute a standard for any attempt to engage with this topic. After a short introduction into these methodological assumptions, I will examine a number of different kinds of ancient texts in order to address the question of how demons function in these texts as a basis for explaining disease and their cure. Then, I will consider to what extent pagan concepts of demons were transformed or adopted in these texts. In other words, I am concerned in particular with different types of text or genre in ancient literature. Of course, this narrowly defined avenue of enquiry means that we will only consider a very small excerpt of the sources that one could term – if one wanted to systematise them – “Christian demonology”. In his monograph on the relationship between the battle against demons and the emergence of monasticism, David Brakke wrote an important chapter in a future overall account of ancient Christian demonology,² for which there exists some preliminary work in encyclopaedias and synopses.

1 Two fundamental methodological insights I would like to explicate the first of these two fundamental methodological insights by taking as a not unproblematic example my own contribution to a previous Oxford patristic conference: in 2003 I spoke at the XIVth International Conference on Patristic Studies on pagan and Christian incubation and healing through healing sleep.³ My lecture traced not only the commonalities and divergences between pagan and Christian incubation but also posed the classic question of the “adoption” of the relevant healing method from pagan sources into Christian contexts at particular locations – at that time in Oxford three findings of possible cult continuities were a particular subject of discussion: the transformation of the Asclepius sanctuary at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens into one of the churches dedicated to the ᾿Aνάργυροι Cosmas and Damian; the conversion of a temple presumably dedicated to Asclepius or Apollo in Dor, to the north of the ancient provincial capital Caesarea in Palestine, into a church; and finally the conversion of the sanctuary of Κύρα Μενούθι, to Isis, in  This is a slightly revised version of a paper that appeared in Studia Patristica 81 (2017) and is republished with kind permission of Peeters.  Brakke (2006). Cf. also Nicolotti (2011).  “Christians and Asclepius? Ancient Christianity and the Healing Cults”, published as: Markschies (2008) (with 16 illustrations and a discussion of the lecture on pages 273 – 284). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110632231-002

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Menouthis, twenty-five kilometres east of Alexandria, into a church of the saints Cyrus and John under Cyril of Alexandria. Considerable difficulties arise here however in trying to prove direct cult continuities: in Dor there is only clear archaeological evidence of a Hellenistic temple. There is no evidence of a temple from the imperial period. No excavations in Menouthis have yet been carried out. And only in Athens can it be shown that there was probably a continuation of the pagan cult into the fifth century⁴ and thus a direct cult continuity. Whether the double-naved hall, which in the Athenian sanctuary can be considered an incubation hall on account of the general building typology of such halls,⁵ was still used in Late Antiquity in the pagan sanctuary as it was at that time in reduced form in the Christian church, remains a more or less hypothetical consideration. To summarise the findings somewhat more pointedly than I did twelve years ago in Oxford: there, where we have literary reports on the practice of incubation in Christian churches and pilgrim sanctuaries, we cannot prove a cult continuity in these places either in the literary sources or the archaeological sources, but at the very most postulate with more or less good arguments. This example not only shows how difficult it is to make use of the classic paradigm of an adoption of pagan medicinal practices in Christianity in concrete cases. In my view, these findings show how problematic this paradigm is. For this reason Sarah Coakley, who has in the meantime presented an instructive, interdisciplinary collection of contributions to the topic of the transformation of pain,⁶ spoke after my Oxford lecture in 2003 in general terms on the problems of the classic model of German religious history, which presupposes the reception or adoption of certain resources of knowledge and practices, which are conceived of as existing in blocks, from one religious system to another – just as is the case with the healing method of incubation. Several years ago, David Brakke and others published an anthology of a conference that had the title “The Reception of Antique Religion and Culture in Judaism and Christianity”. The anthology, owing to the debates that en Cf. here the discussion of the lecture mentioned above and the contributions by Beat Brenk, Hugo Brandenburg and Tomas Lehmann. Thus in Marinus, Vita Procli 29 (24 Boissonade), we find the story of a woman called ᾿Aσκληπιγένεια who is healed following the prayers of Proclus in the temple of Asclepius at the foot of the Acropolis, nearby which the philosopher lived: ὁ δὲ ᾿Aρχιάδας ἐπ’ αὐτῇ μόνῃ τὰς ἐλπίδας ἔχων τοῦ γένους, ἤσχαλλε καὶ ὀδυνηρῶς διέκειτο, ὥσπερ ἦν εἰκός. ἀπογιγνωσκόντων δὲ τῶν ἰατρῶν ἦλθεν, ὥσπερ εἰώθει ἐν τοῖς μεγίστοις, ἐπὶ τὴν ‘ἐσχάτην ἄγκυραν’, μᾶλλον δὲ ὡς ἐπὶ σωτῆρα ἀγαθὸν τὸν φιλόσοφον, καὶ λιπαρήσας αὐτὸν ἠξίου σπεύδοντα καὶ αὐτὸν εὔχεσθαι ὑπὲρ τῆς θυγατρός. ὁ δὲ παραλαβὼν τὸν μέγαν Περικλέα τὸν ἐκ τῆς Λυδίας, ἄνδρα μάλα καὶ αὐτὸν φιλόσοφον, ἀνῄει εἰς τὸ ᾿Aσκληπιεῖον προσευξόμενος τῷ θεῷ ὑπὲρ τῆς καμνούσης. καὶ γὰρ ηὐτύχει τούτου ἡ πόλις τότε καὶ εἶχεν ἔτι ἀπόρθητον τὸ τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἱερόν. εὐχομένου δὲ αὐτοῦ τὸν ἀρχαιότερον τρόπον, ἀθρόα μεταβολὴ περὶ τὴν κόρην ἐφαίνετο καὶ ῥᾳστώνη ἐξαίφνης ἐγίγνετο· ῥεῖα γὰρ ὁ Σωτήρ, ὥστε θεός, ἰᾶτο. συμπληρωθέντων δὲ τῶν ἱερῶν, πρὸς τὴν ᾿Aσκληπιγένειαν ἐβάδιζε καὶ κατελάμβανεν αὐτὴν ἄρτι μὲν τῶν περιεστώτων τὸ σῶμα λελυμένην παθῶν, ἐν ὑγιεινῇ δὲ καταστάσει διάγουσαν. – Admittedly there is no mention here of an incubation cult and Christian measures against the sanctuary are already to be found (namely in the formulation ἔτι ἀπόρθητον τὸ τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἱερόν).  Cf. here especially Riethmüller (1995).  Coakley/Kaufman Shelemay (2007).

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sued at the conference, has the programmatic title “Beyond Reception”; for indeed in our sources one cannot observe any block-like adoption of stable entities in dual constellations that one could describe as the reception of “Antiquity” in “Christianity”.⁷ The fact that you cannot find proof, either in the archaeological or literary sources of an “acquisition” of the pagan practice of incubation in the basic sense of a local verifiable cult continuity with the Christian practice of incubation, ought to have already made me pause for thought during the preparation of the Oxford seminar paper in 2003. One could of course interpret these findings with regard to the incubation sanctuaries, which had already become well known in 2003, first of all in a religious history fashion. Then one would have to point out however, that, in modelling the competition between religions in Late Antiquity according to the principles of market economics, it becomes clear that religious offerings on the market of religions needed to differentiate themselves and not only be able to come along as pure adoptions of successful business models (as indeed the incubation).⁸ One can however make use of the lack of evidence for the continuity of incubation sanctuaries in the literary and archaeological evidence also to make a fundamental methodological insight into dealing with the topic “Ancient Christianity and Medicine, Health, and Disability”: the classic model of the adoption of pagan ancient medicine in Christianity should be replaced by a model of a transformation of knowledge bases where nothing is adopted in blocks, but rather something is reconstructed using the available elements. It is not therefore the case that something is simply received, but rather as part of the process of absorption, the reference area is also newly formed at the same time. The Berlin cultural scholar Hartmut Böhme coined the term “Allelopoiese”, taken from the Greek words ἀλλήλων and ποίησις, for this dual transformation and argued that we should no longer speak of “reception” but rather of “transformation”.⁹ I would like to suggest that this theoretical insight into the constitutional conditions of cultural change be also used as a basis for the topic of “Ancient Christianity and Medicine, Health, and Disability”. Adopting this paradigm of the “transformation of the ancient world”, I, together with Ulrike Bruchmüller, Eva Elm, Tomas Lehmann, Jannis Politis, Anna Rack-Teuteberg and Dorothea Zeppezauer have been researching the transformation of ancient healing cults in ancient Christianity in Berlin since 2004 as part of a special research area of the same name, “Transformationen der Antike”, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. I have furthermore examined the significance of corporality for healing processes and in recent years I have been involved in research on demons; what I am present-

 Markschies (2006). Cf. of course also: Betz (1998).  For the paradigm of an economics of religion cf. Iannaccone (1992) and ibid. (1998) and Stark (1996).  Böhme (2011).

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ing here has also profited from conversations with these current and former Berlin colleagues.¹⁰ Now I would like to explicate the second of the two basic methodological insights even more briefly: if one examines recent scholarship in our topic, it is common to differentiate – as for example in the recent Freiburg habilitation dissertation by Gregor Emmenegger on the influence of ancient medicinal and natural philosophical theories on the development of the Christological dogma¹¹ – between temple medicine, Hippocratic-Galenic and so-called folk medicine.¹² It is clear from the highly antiquated term “folk medicine” however, that the assumed sociological differentiation in levels of education between healers themselves as well as between the healed is inadequate, because, as is well known, during the imperial period (for example in Pergamon) temple medicine was carried out thoroughly on a level that was scientific according to ancient standards. Similarly problematic seems to me the differentiation between “high medicine” and “low medicine” that John Riddle put forward a number of years ago.¹³ As Emmenegger observes, it is difficult to draw a clear line between the healing procedures of so-called folk medicine and those of “scholarly” medicine: amulets, incantations and other magical practices often belonged as a matter of course to the repertoire of a healer, regardless of his institutional home or his level of education.¹⁴ A suggestion by the Berlin historian of medicine Paul U. Unschuld has long convinced me, whereby, in addition to an institutional differentiation of temple or sanctuary, medicinal-philosophical school and free lanced healers, we also distinguish between a medicine that is scientific according to ancient standards and other ways of healing – although this sociology of education based binary is of course unclear.¹⁵ Ultimately it is a matter in each case of individual network structures of medicinal knowledge of entirely different kinds,¹⁶ knowledge that we today categorize as scientific, magical or indeed as folk medicine. These different kinds of knowledge are each hierarchised according to different criteria and can, in view of current medical classification of diseases, also be hierarchised differently once again.¹⁷ To put it more simply: in many cases it may well have depended simply on the individual instance, on the specific form of an illness, whether an ancient healer or doctor applied a bandage soaked in honey or spoke an incantation.¹⁸ There were of course attempts to differentiate between different kinds of healing  On this project cf. a special edition of Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum/Journal of Ancient Christianity 17 (2013): Heil und Heilung. Inkubation – Heilung im Schlaf: Heidnischer Kult und christliche Praxis, pp. 1– 159.  Emmenegger (2014).  Emmenegger (2014), 16.  Riddle (1993).  Önnerfors (1993).  Unschuld (2009) and ibid. (1995).  Here I draw upon: Sarasin (2011).  Detel (2009), 184– 186. In general: Mittelstrass (2004) and Anacker (2004).  Cf. Nutton (1991).

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methods and to differentiate between permitted and forbidden practices in individual schools, but these schools did not succeed in establishing a consensus across the empire. We now come to the question of how in different ancient types of texts and literary genres demons serve as a basis for explaining the causes of diseases as well as their remedy and to what extent pagan as well as Jewish concepts of demons were changed or adopted.

2 Demons in ancient (Christian) magical amulets In Late Antiquity, demons could be talked about at very different levels. I will begin my survey with that form of practised religion that becomes apparent from magical amulets¹⁹ and I will look at three quite different examples, the first one taking an extremely negative view of demons: an amulet on papyrus from the fourth century, which is kept in Vienna and is presumably from Arsinoe and was used against a whole range of maladies.²⁰ At the beginning of this text there is a formula in which a demon (Greek δαιμόνιον) is invoked “which has the feet of a wolf, but the head of a frog”. Frogs were already described as impure spirits in the canonical Book of Revelations, where it is stated that they come forth from the mouth of the devil and live like demons in filth.²¹ In Antiquity, the wolf had a much more negative image than today and was seen as a greedy hunter, bloodthirsty and sexually deviant.²² Behind this formula is obviously the notion that the frog-headed and wolf-footed demon in question was responsible for prolonged fever.²³ When the fever is ordered to leave the body in the name of the “four gospels of the son” and the “God of Israel”, then the demon also leaves the body at the same time.²⁴ The fact that first the fever  On this cf. Betz (21996); Gager (1992), 1– 41; Brashear (1995); Vakaloudi (2000); de Bruyn/ Dijkstra (2011); Sanzo (2014).  For the text cf. footnote 24 below.  Apoc. 16.13 f.: Καὶ εἶδον ἐκ τοῦ στόματος τοῦ δράκοντος καὶ ἐκ τοῦ στόματος τοῦ θηρίου καὶ ἐκ τοῦ στόματος τοῦ ψευδοπροφήτου πνεύματα τρία ἀκάθαρτα ὡς βάτραχοι· εἰσὶν γὰρ πνεύματα δαιμονίων ποιοῦντα σημεῖα, ἃ ἐκπορεύεται ἐπὶ τοὺς βασιλεῖς τῆς οἰκουμένης ὅλης συναγαγεῖν αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸν πόλεμον τῆς ἡμέρας τῆς μεγάλης τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ παντοκράτορος. – Cf. Weber (1972), 535.  Kitchell Jr. (2014), 199 – 201.  Luijendijk (2014), 421 f.  P. Rain. 1 = P. Graec. 337 Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Wien = Van Haelst, Catalogue, No. 1002, p. 318 = PGM 10 (Papyri Graecae Magicae 2, 218,1– 13 Preisendanz/Henrichs): [ὁρκίζω ὑμᾶς κατὰ τῶν τεσσάρων εὐǀαγγ]ελίων τοῦ υἱο[ῦ … ἢ τριǀταῖο]ν ἢ τεταρταῖον ἢ … διδων δὲ πυρετῶ[ν …]ǁ ἀναχώρησον ἀπὸ τοῦ [δεῖνα, φοροῦντος τὸ θεοφυλακτὸν τοῦτο, ὅτι πρ[οστάσσει σοι ὁ ǀ θεὸς τοῦ Ἰστραήλ, ὃ[ν οἱ ἄγγελοι εὐǀλ]ογοῦσι καὶ ἄνθρωποι δ[εδίασι καὶ πᾶν ǀ πνεῦμα φρίττον. πάλι[ν … δαιǁμόν]ιον, οὗ τὸ ὄνομα σμ[ … ǀ οραν καὶ φοραν […ǀ το ἔχων πόδας λύ[κου, τοῦ δὲ ǀ βατράχου τὴν κε[φαλήν … ǀ. Finally on the text see Förster (1999), No. 36, p. 47; cf. also Meyer/Smith (1999), 44– 45.

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Fig. 1 P. Rain. 1 = P. Graec. 337 ÖNB, Wien = PGM 10

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and then the demon are ordered to leave the body in the text of this amulet shows that the relationship between the fever and the demon is perceived to be so close that the actual order in which they were invoked did not particularly matter. Also notable is the extraordinary accumulation of power necessary to drive out such a demon. It is not enough to merely speak a simple invocation in the name of a saint, for example. The person calling out the invocation must make sure he has an accumulation of the highest authorities on his side against the frog-headed and wolf-footed demon. In the amulet in Vienna, the authorities called upon are the gospels of the Lord and the God of Israel, one after the other. In the Late Antique silver amulet with an exorcism – the “Tablette magique de Beyrouth” – which is kept in the Louvre in Paris, far more are called on: fifty angels as well as the God at the top of Mount Sinai, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the living God. The “Tablette magique de Beyrouth”, which was originally folded to the size of a small capsule, contains a formula (which, by the way, is also testified in modified form by the “Lamella Bernensis”, a Late Antique gold amulet stored in Bern) that is supposed to offer protection²⁵ “from every demon and from every compulsion of the demons and from demonic powers” as well as “from every demon, male and female, during the night and during the day”.²⁶ Worn attached to important parts of the body such as neck, arms, legs or the feet, worn day and night and made of precious materials like silver or gold, the amulet works – as it says on one papyrus in the British Museum – to protect the body from demons (σωματοφύλαξ) and as a seal (σφραγίς)²⁷ against them – demons that were felt to be an omnipresent threat. By 1924, Henri Leclercq had collected those amulets that were used against very specific diseases, against nose bleeds, problems with the gall bladder, gout, colics and other everyday, but still unpleasant complaints. However, neither the Greek term “demon” nor specific physical entities are described and no names are named;²⁸ obviously the order to exit the body and the power that came from naming divine authorities that an amulet of this kind contained or recited was sufficient.

 Lines 8 – 11 ἀπὸ πανǀτὸς δέμονος καὶ πάǀσης ἀνάγκη δενόμων ǀ καὶ ἀπὸ δεμονίων – quoted here after Gelzer/Lurje/Schäublin (1999), 52. Cf. also Gager (1992), 232– 234 and Kotansky (1994), no. 52, 270 – 300.  Lines 110 – 116 διαφυλάξατε ᾿Aλεξάνδραν ἀπὸ παντὸς δεμονίου ἀρενικοῦ καὶ θηλυκοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ πάσης ὀχλήσεως δεμόνων νυκτηρινῶν (Gelzer/Lurje/Schäublin 1999, 56); Parallels to formulation and presentation ibid. 84 f.  Papyri Graecae Magicae VII,580 – 584 = BL P. Graec. CXXI (PGM II, 26,580 – 584 Preisendanz/ Heitsch/Henrichs): Φυλακτήριον σωματοφύλαξ πρὸς δαίμονας, πρὸς φαντάσματα, ǀ πρὸς πᾶσαν νόσον καὶ πάθος· ἐπιγραφόμενον ἐπὶ χρυσέου ǀ πετάλου ἢ ἀργυρέου ἢ κασσιτερίνου ἢ εἰς ἱερατικὸν χάρτην φορού- ǀ μενον σφραγιστικῶς ἐστιν. ἔστιν γὰρ δυνάμεως ὄνομα τοῦ ǀ μεγάλου θεοῦ καὶ σφραγίς. Cf. also Betz (19922), 134 (Morton Smith) and http://www.trismegistos.org/tm/detail.php?tm= 60204 (Last access on 24.01. 2016).  Leclercq (1924), 1847– 1854. Cf. now Kotansky (1994), passim.

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Fig. 2 Tablette magique de Beyrouth (Musée du Louvre, Bj 88, Inv. M.N.D., 274) ©Copyright: bpk / RMN – Grand Palais / Hervé Lewandowski (70375634).

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But apparently there existed also quite the opposite notion, that – very unlike the amulets I have mentioned so far – a demon could also be used in a positive way in order to heal diseases (a correspondingly ambivalent picture of the character of demons was still reported at the beginning of the 20th century, for example, in the devoutness of Palestinian Bedouins²⁹). There are also examples of this on magic papyri: In Berlin, one (slightly damaged) papyrus that Adolf Erman dated in 1895 to the 7th or 8th century and which also comes probably from Arsinoe, contains an only superficially Christianised, originally clearly pagan healing spell.³⁰

Fig. 3 P. Berolinensis 8313recto (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz) ©Copyright Fig 3 and 4: bpk / Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, SMB / Sandra Steiß (70247682, 70247679).

 Canaan (1914), 6 – 27.  P. Berolinensis 8313, Col. IIrecto et verso; text edited by Adolf Erman in Aegyptische Urkunden aus den Koeniglichen Museen zu Berlin (1904), No. 1, p. 2– 3; cf. also Erman (1895), 43 – 46 and 47– 51 and ibid. (1917/1918), 301– 304. Another treatment of the text is to be found in Kropp (1931), 9 – 12 (translation and commentary). – A new edition is being prepared by Siegfried Richter and Gregor Wurst, cf. Richter (1997), 835 – 846. Cf. also http://www.trismegistos.org/tm/detail.php?tm=98044 (Last access on 24.01. 2016).

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According to statements by the trader, the papyrus was part of an entire bundle of documents that contained not only other healing spells, but also a love spell, invocations of the Archangel Michael as well as recipes for magic potions.³¹ Erman assumed that this bundle of papyri belonged to a Christian magus who was working in the early Islamic era, which is made clear by Arab characters on one of the texts.³² The papyrus from this bundle that we are interested in first of all describes how Horus tests several demons to see how fast they can reach his Mother Isis, who is far away, so that she can come in a hurry and heal his stomach ache:³³ “(Jesus!) Horus [the son of] Isis went upon a mountain in order to rest. … He had pain, and the area around his navel [hurt him], and he wept with loud weeping, saying, ‚Today I am bringing my [mother] Isis to me. I want a demon so that I may send him to my mother Isis‘”.³⁴

These demons, all of which bear the – still not really explained³⁵ – Greek name Agrippa come to Horus and speak with him. Horus chooses the demon that goes to Isis “in the time it takes you to draw breath through your mouth” and be back “by the time you breathe out through your nose”,³⁶ that is, a very fast demon. Thus far the text comes across as a testament of purely pagan religiosity. However, at the beginning of the text, the name Jesus is placed before the name Horus³⁷ and there is also a Christian invocation at the end of the text: “Every disease, every pain, every suffering that is in the body …, cease immediately! It is me, the Lord Jesus who calls you, the one, who brings healing”.³⁸ One can therefore speak of a pagan survival in a Christian context³⁹ or of the transformation of a pagan healing spell by means of appropriation (an existing reference is taken out of its original context and integrated into the culture of reception)

 P. 8324 as well as p. 8314, 8320 and 8325, all edited in Aegyptische Urkunden aus den Koeniglichen Museen zu Berlin (1904): No. 18, p. 16 and No. 33, p. 4; No. 2, p. 3; No. 4, p. 5. Translation by Kropp (1931) 21– 22 (p. 8314); 23 – 24 (p. 8320); and 24– 25 (p. 8325) as well as (Meyer/Smith), 1999, 159 – 160 (p. 8314); and 160 – 161 (p. 8325). Cf. also http://www.trismegistos.org/tm/detail.php?tm=92891 (Last access on 24.09. 2019).  Vakaloudi (1999), 87– 113.  On such “narrations” cf. Frankfurter (1995), 451– 470; cf. Kropp (1930), 7 f. and 147.  P. Berolinensis 8313, Col. IIrecto 1– 6 (after Erman): ⲓ̄ⲥ̄ ϩⲱⲣ[ⲡϣⲏⲣⲉ ⲛⲏ]ⲥⲉ ⲁϥⲉⲓ ⲉϫⲛ-ⲟⲩⲧⲟⲟⲩ ⲉⲉⲛⲕⲟⲧⲕ … ⲛⲉ[ⲕⲱ]ⲧⲉ ⲛⲧⲉϥϩⲉⲗⲡⲉ […….] ⲁϥⲣⲓⲙⲉ ϩⲛ-ⲟⲩⲛⲟϭ ⲛⲣⲓⲙⲉ ϫⲉ-ⲉⲓϫⲓ ⲛⲏⲥⲉ ⲧⲁ [ⲙⲁⲁ]ⲩ ⲉⲣⲟⲓ ⲛⲡⲟⲟⲩ ⲁⲓⲟⲩⲉϣ-ⲟⲩⲇⲏⲙⲟⲛ ⲧⲁϫⲟⲟⲩϥ ϣⲁⲏⲥⲉ ⲧⲁⲙⲁⲁⲩ ⲁϥⲉⲓ ϣⲁⲣⲟⲓ ⲛϭⲓ-ⲡϣⲟⲣ¯¯ⲡ ⲛⲇⲏⲙⲟⲛ …  Perhaps a reminiscence of ἀγρυπνία as a reference to the constantly running, never sleeping demon? In general cf. Frankfurter (2007), 453 – 466.  P. Berolinensis 8313, Col. IIrecto 17– 19 (after Erman).  P. Berolinensis 8313, Col. IIrecto 1– 6 (after Erman), as footnote 34 above.  P. Berolinensis 8313, Col. IIverso 6 – 8 (after Erman): ϫⲉ-ϣⲟⲛⲉ ⲛⲓⲙ ϩⲓ-ϩⲓⲥⲉ ⲛⲓⲙ ϩⲓ-ⲧⲓⲧⲕⲁⲥ ⲛⲓⲙ ⲉⲧϩⲛ-ϩⲏⲧϥ ⲉⲛⲓⲙ ⲡϣⲛⲛⲓⲙ ⲙⲁⲣⲉϥⲗⲟ ⲛ̄ ⲧⲉⲩⲛⲟⲩ ⲁⲛⲟⲕ ⲉⲧⲙⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲡϫⲟⲉⲓⲥ ⲓ̄ⲥ̄ ⲡⲉⲧⲧⲓ ⲛⲡⲧⲁⲗϭⲟ ϩ; the translation quoted here is by Marvin Meyer and Richard Smith in Meyer/Smith (1999), 95 – 97, but slightly modified.  Zentler (2011), 49 – 54.

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Fig. 4 P. Berolinensis 8313verso (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz)

and encapsulation (an object is handed down unchanged and integrated as a closed whole).⁴⁰ If one looks again at these findings from the papyri and amulets, one cannot simply say that the term “demon”, which had good, neutral, ambivalent or negative connotations within the pagan context, had lost its wide range of use in Christian context and was reduced by Christians to the bad.⁴¹ This might apply for the official Christian religion as standardised by bishops and synods (“religion as prescribed”⁴²); as such, the Decretum Gelasianum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis states that “all amulets must be treated as apocryphal”, … “that were not written by the names of the angels, as believed, but far more by the names of the demons”.⁴³ Lived Christian religion beyond such standards (“religion as practised”), as shown in the Berlin papyrus taken from the bundle of the magus, could certainly expect a

 On the terms used here, cf. among others Bergemann (2011), 48 – 49.  Thus (with evidence) Colpe (1976), 546 f. and Cancik (2003), 447– 460 = ibid. (2008), 344– 356.  Stander (1993).  Decretum Gelasianum V 8.6 (TU 38/4, 57,333 – 58,335 von Dobschütz): Phylacteria omnia quae non angelorum, ut illi confingunt, sed daemonum magis nominibus conscripta sunt apocrypha ibid. 319 f. and further evidence in Eckstein/Waszink (1950), 407– 409.

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demon to fulfil a positive function by healing illnesses such as stomach ache or colics. If, as this text testifies, the demons could also take on a positive function in a Christian prayer, then the pagan tradition of invisible companions, of daimones and genii, who were entrusted with the worries of mankind, are transformed – like elsewhere in ancient Christianity – into a Christian context.⁴⁴ But here, the notion of an invisible protector, which one could describe along with Peter Brown as an “upwardly extension of the person” into a divine sphere,⁴⁵ is not transformed into the worship of personal guardian angels and saints, but is rather received in a far more authentic way by maintaining the term “demon” or – to once again phrase it using the Berlin terminology – by encapsulating it. As mentioned above, notions of demons of this kind were often categorised as “folk belief” and the use of the corresponding amulets and papyri for healing purposes was referred to using the term “folk medicine”, more in a derogatory than in an objective fashion. However, amulets were also used by highly educated medical practitioners who had been trained in the famous schools of the Antique. Alexander of Tralles, an educated physician in 6th century Rome, for example, used amulets and incantations in his work as a matter of course and he believed that they would help him to succeed: “The reasonable physician must disregard no means”.⁴⁶ Even if very recently in the German-speaking region, a bold attempt was once again made to rescue at least the term “popular piety” for the academic analysis of Early Christianity,⁴⁷ it seems to me that this term will be facing the same fate as the German terms “people’s baths” and “people’s library” – that is, it will disappear, because the underlying dual of popular piety and elite piety⁴⁸ does not describe the historical situation.⁴⁹ “Folk belief” and “folk medicine” were always accused of suffering from a deficit of rationality, as very recent critical de-

 Brown (1991).  Brown (1991), 57.  Alexander, Therapeutica I 15 (I, 571,22– 573,4 Puschmann): καὶ δεῖ πανταχόθεν βοηθεῖν τὸν ἐπιστήμονα καὶ φυσικοῖς χρώμενον ἐπιστημονικῷ λόγῳ καὶ μεθόδῳ τεχνικῇ καὶ τὸ λεγόμενον πάντα κινεῖν τὰ καλῶς σπεύδοντα μακρᾶς νόσου καὶ μοχθηρᾶς ἀπαλλάξαι τὸν κάμνοντα. ἐγὼ δὲ φιλῶ πᾶσι κεχρῆσθαι. διὰ δὲ τοὺς πολλοὺς τοὺς ἐν τῷ νῦν χρόνῳ ἀμαθεῖς ὄντας καταμέμφεσθαι τοῖς χρωμένοις τοῖς φυσικοῖς, ἔφυγον συνεχῶς χρῆσθαι τοῖς φύσει δρᾶν δυναμένοις καὶ ἔσπευσα τεχνικῇ μεθόδῳ περιγενέσθαι τῶν νοσημάτων.  Gemeinhardt (2013).  Particularly pleasing in Schmidt-Clausing (31962), 1452: “Popular piety is an embellishment around the cultic-liturgical elements of a high religion” (“Volksfrömmigkeit ist Rankenwerk um das Kultisch-Liturgische einer Hochreligion”); but also cf. already at this point the cautious distancing from paradigms: “calling popular piety [Volksfrömmigkeit] ‚superstition‘ or ‚magic‘, also ‚primitive religion‘, is not sufficient according to the results of today’s religious folklore, since these terms include an a priori censorship of the inferior” (“die Beurteilung der V. als ‚Aberglaube‘ oder ‚Magie‘, auch als ‚primitive Religion‘ ist nach den Ergebnissen der heutigen religiösen Volkskunde nicht ausreichend, da diese Begriffe von vornherein die Zensur des Unterwertigen enthalten”) (ibid.).  Holzem (2002).

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bates on the concept in medical history and in ethnology have held on to in particular.⁵⁰ It makes more sense, to my mind, when talking about such magic formulas that expect the help of demons, not just to maintain that they suffer from a deficit in rationality but rather to describe the specific rationality that can be observed here. Some time ago, Wolfgang Wischmeyer following Fritz Graf spoke of a “rationality sui generis” behind such magical medicine practised by healers: “Like the physicians, they assume the empirical. They see their observations as causal thinking”.⁵¹ From an effect – a disease – they conclude a cause: demons. Somatic dysfunctions and a demonic function (even a malfunction) are immediately and causally linked. Wischmeyer concludes his considerations on a provocative note when he picks up on an observation by Graf: “The claim of philosophical and scientific thinking to be rational and plausible is similar to the claim of magical thinking”. If there were differences, then – as Graf states – these tended to be in the area of cosmology,⁵² depending on whether divine beings like demons or anatomical, geological and physiological interaction between the body, metabolism and climate were made responsible for the function or dysfunction of an organism. One could certainly take this provoking analogy formulated by Graf and Wischmeyer between Hippocratic-Galenic and magical-medical rationality a little bit further: both the philosophically and scientifically founded way of thinking and magical thinking strive in medicine for a ritualisation of knowledge. The Hippocratic-Galenic medicine strives to gain power over dysfunction through craftsmanship ritualised in the routine of treatments while magic medicine strives for the magical craftsmanship to gain power over demons and their function in the body.⁵³ In other words, the different knowledge systems in the Hippocratic-Galenic and the magic medicine integrated to some extent very similar pools of knowledge, but gave them a different hierarchy and only partially integrated the religious knowledge concerning demons into their respective knowledge systems. With respect to demons, secure and manageable knowledge was of particular importance to many people in Antiquity, because demons were thought to be very sensitive spirits who populated heaven and earth in great numbers. It was also thought that they lurked practically everywhere, got up to no good especially at noon⁵⁴ and in the evenings, and could cause serious harm to people even in the case of the smallest wrongdoing.⁵⁵ On the other hand, picking up on an anonymous author in the tradition of Plato by taking a closer look at his speech “On the Art of Healing” we could attempt to find out more precisely where the difference between the two rationalities – the Hippocratic-Galenic and the magic – lies. The anonymous

     

For examples see Badura (2004), 27 f. Compare also Weissenrieder in this volume. Wischmeyer (1998), 93 with reference to Graf (1996). Graf (1996), 33 f. Wischmeyer (1998), 94. On the relationship between the so-called midday demon and malaise cf. Crislip (2005). Müller (1976), 761– 797, in particular 772 f with reference to Delatte/Josserand (1934).

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author points out that “there is no craftsmanship (τέχνη) that does not exist. It would be absurd to think that something that does exist does not exist … I don’t know why one can believe that those things that exist do not exist, although one is able to see them with the eyes and recognize them that they do exist”.⁵⁶ A real categorical difference between two rationalities exists when and only when, because of basic cosmological or metaphysical assumptions, it is denied that demons cause diseases and thus influencing demons with magic can have no influence on what course an illness takes. A categorical difference of this kind is behind Galen’s attempt to explain the effect of an amulet (on a child, and made of the root of the peony) when treating epilepsy without the involvement of a divine power.⁵⁷ However, one cannot take the metaphysical scepticism⁵⁸ of a single, albeit highly popular medical writer from imperial times with an excellent education in philosophy as pars pro toto for the entire school of thought. And one certainly cannot turn competitive struggles among different professions to gain patients and their financial means into ideological disputes of interpretation.

3 Demons in ancient (Christian) philosophical texts Philosophical texts certainly did argue for the rationality of the causal relationship between demons and diseases. Plutarch, like Porphyry, had blamed the plague, hunger and war on evil demons,⁵⁹ and we find in the Chaldean Oracles at the latest the

 Ps.-Hippocrates, Ars medica 2,1 (CUFr V/1, 225,9 – 15 Jouanna): Δοκεῖ δή μοι τὸ μὲν σύμπαν τέχνη εἶναι οὐδεμία οὐκ ἐοῦσα· καὶ γὰρ ἄλογον τῶν ἐόντων τι ἡγεῖσθαι μὴ ενεόν· ἐπεὶ τῶν γε μὴ ἐόντων τίνα ἂν τις οὐσίην θεησάμενος ἀπαγγείλειεν ὡς ἔστιν; εἰ γὰρ δὴ ἔστι γ’ ἰδεῖν τὰ μὴ ἐόντα, ὥσπερ τὰ ἐόντα, οὐκ οἶδ’ ὅπως ἄν τις αὐτὰ νομίσειε μὴ ἐόντα, ἅ γε εἴη καὶ ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἰδεῖν καὶ γνώμῃ νοῆσαι ὡς ἔστιν· – cf. here Elm (2014), 57– 64.  Galenus, De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis et facultatibus libri III 10 (IX, 859,14– 860,3 Kühn): καὶ οἶδά γέ ποτε παιδίον ὀκτὼ μησὶ μηδ’ ὅλως ἐπιληφθὲν ἐξ ὅτου τῆς ῥίζης ἐφόρει, ὡς δ’ ἀπεῤῥύη πως ἀπὸ τοῦ τραχήλου τὸ περιάπτον, εὐθὺς ἐπελήφθη, καὶ αὖθίς τε περιαφθέντος ἑτέρου πάλιν ἀμέμπτως εἶχεν. ἔδοξε δέ μοι κάλλιον εἶναι καὶ αὖθις ἀφελεῖν αὐτὸ πείρας ἕνεκα, καὶ οὕτω πράξαντες, ἐπειδὴ πάλιν ἐσπάσθη, μέγα τε καὶ πρόσφατον μέρος τῆς ῥίζης ἐξηρτήσαμεν αὐτοῦ τοῦ τραχήλου, κᾀντεῦθεν ἤδη τοῦ λοιποῦ τελέως ὑγιὴς ἐγένετο ὁ παῖς καὶ οὐκέτ’ ἐπελήφθη.  Thus Walzer (1972), 778 with reference to Quod animi mores corporis temperamenta sequantur (IV, 772, 16 – 20 Kühn): Ὅτι μὲν οὖν τρία τῆς ψυχῆς ἐστιν εἴδη καὶ ὅτι ὁ Πλάτων βούλεται ταῦτα, δι’ ἑτέρων ἐπιδέδεικται, καθάπερ γε καὶ ὅτι τὸ μὲν ἐν ἥπατι, τὸ δ’ ἐν καρδίᾳ, τὸ δ’ ἐν ἐγκεφάλῳ καθίδρυται·. On the critical objections that Galen had against arguments that he had heard in Jewish and Christian schools, cf. Strohmeier (2006) and Van der Eijk (2014).  Plutarchus, Moralia 26 De defectu oraculorum 14 417 D/E (BiTeu III, 76,18 – 77,1 Pohlenz/Sieveking): ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ Ἡρακλῆς Οἰχαλίαν ἐπολιόρκει διὰ παρθένον, οὕτω πολλάκις ἰσχυροὶ καὶ βίαιοι δαίμονες ἐξαιτούμενοι ψυχὴν ἀνθρωπίνην περιεχομένην σώματι λοιμούς τε πόλεσι καὶ γῆς ἀφορίας ἐπάγουσι καὶ πολέμους καὶ στάσεις ταράττουσιν, ἄχρι οὗ λάβωσι καὶ τύχωσιν ὧν ἐρῶσιν and Porphyrius, De abstinentia II 40 (BiTeu 169,10 – 170,6 Nauck = CUFr II, 106 f. Bouffartigue/Patillon); in particularly the beginning of the section: ἓν γὰρ δὴ καὶ τοῦτο τῆς μεγίστης βλάβης τῆς ἀπὸ τῶν κακοεργῶν δαι-

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notion that evil demons are responsible for diseases: The Byzantine author Michael Psellus (or a later Byzantine Anonymous) relays a passage to this effect, which can probably be traced back to the commentary of the pagan philosopher Proclus on the Oracles.⁶⁰ The reflections of Christian scholarly authors refer to such pagan approaches towards a philosophical demonology. Two examples: The rhetorician, legal expert and philosopher Aeneas von Gaza propagates in his dialogue Theophrastus in detail about the fact that evil, material demons imitate human souls, but can also take on human form, so that they can act and speak. These might be different at different times, may divide to enter different persons and also unite again, tell the truth but also lie.⁶¹ Their materiality is that of airy entities that can imitate both a μόνων θετέον, ὅτι αὐτοὶ αἴτιοι γιγνόμενοι τῶν περὶ τὴν γῆν παθημάτων, οἷον λοιμῶν, ἀφοριῶν, σεισμῶν, αὐχμῶν καὶ τῶν ὁμοίων, ἀναπείθουσιν ἡμᾶς, ὡς ἄρα τούτων αἴτιοί εἰσιν οἵπερ καὶ τῶν ἐναντιωτάτων [τουτέστιν τῶν εὐφοριῶν], ἑαυτοὺς ἐξαιροῦντες τῆς αἰτίας καὶ αὐτὸ τοῦτο πραγματευόμενοι πρῶτον, τὸ λανθάνειν ἀδικοῦντες (169,10 – 18); on this also cf. Zintzen (1976), 646 f. = ibid. (2000), (105 – 125) 110 and for Plutarch Brenk (1986), 2117– 2130.  (Ps.–?)Psellus, Dialogus de operatione daemonum 11 (PG 122, 844 B – 845 B = Gautier (1980), [105 – 194] 153,184– 155,302): εἴτε οὖν οὕτως ᾥετ’ ἔχειν, εἰθ’ ἑτέρως, ἓξ ἐκεῖνος ἀπηρίθμησε (i. e. a monk by the name of Marcus, possibly also from the commentary by Proclus on the Oracula Chaldaica) γένη· καὶ πρῶτον μὲν, ὃ τῇ ἐπιχωρίῳ φωνῇ, βαρβαρικῶς ὠνόμαζε Λελιούριον, σημαίνοντος τοῦ ὀνόματος τὸ διάπυρον. Τοῦτο δὲ περὶ τὸν ὕπερθεν ἡμῶν ἀέρα περιπολεῖν· τῶν γὰρ περὶ σελήνην τοπῶν, ὡς ἐξ ἱεροῦ τι βέβηλον (Mss.: βλαβερόν), ἀπεληλάσθαι δαιμόνιον πᾶν· δεύτερον δέ, τὸ περὶ τὸν προσεχέστατον ἡμῖν ἀέρα πλαζόμενον, ὃ καὶ καλεῖσθαι παρὰ πολλοῖς ἰδίως ἀέριον· τρίτον δὲ ἐπὶ τούτοις τὸ χθόνιον· τέταρτόν, τὸ ὑδραῖον τε καὶ ἐνάλιον· πέπτον, τὸ ὑποχθόνιον· ἔσχατον δὲ τὸ μισοφαὲς καὶ δυσαίσθητον· εἶναι δὲ πάντα ταῦτα τῶν δαιμόνων γένη θεομισῆ καὶ ἀνθρώποις πολέμια, πλῆν εἶναι καὶ κακοῦ φασι, κάκιον· τὸ γὰρ ὑδραῖόν τε καὶ ὑποχθόνιον, ἔτι δὲ καὶ τὸ μισοφαές, ἐσχάτως ἐπιχαιρέκακα καὶ ὀλέθρια. Ταῦτα γὰρ μὴ φαντασίαις καὶ λοφισμοῖς τὰς ψυχὰς ἔφη κακύνειν, ἀλλ’ ἐναλλόμενα, καθάπερ τῶν θηρίων τὰ ἀγριώτατα, τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐπισπεύδειν τὸν ὄλεθρον· τὸ μὲν ὑδραῖον, ἀποπνίγον τοὺς πλαζομένους ἐν ὕδατι· τὸ δ’ ὑποχθόνιον καὶ τὸ μισοφαές, ἐντός, εἰ συγχωροῦνται, προχωροῦντα τῶν σπλάγχνων, καὶ οὕς ἂν τύχῃ κατασχόντα, κατάγχοντα, καὶ ἐπιλήπτους καὶ ἔκφρονας ἐργαζόμενα· τοὺς δ’ ἀερίους τε καὶ χθονίους τέχνῃ καὶ περινοίᾳ μετιέναι καὶ ἐξαπατᾶν τὰς τῶν ἀνθρώπων γνώμας, καὶ πρὸς πὰθη καθέλκειν ἄτοπα καὶ παράνομα· – Cf. here Psellus, Summaria et brevis dogmatum Chaldaicorum expositio (= Philosophica minora 39): Ἑπτά φασι σωματικοὺς κόσμους, ἐμπύριον ἕνα καὶ πρῶτον, καὶ τρεῖς μετ’ αὐτὸν αἰθερίους, ἔπειτα τρεῖς ὑλαίους, ὧν ὁ ἔσχατος χθόνιος εἴρηται καὶ μισοφαής, ὅστις ἐστὶν ὁ ὑπὸ σελήνην τόπος, ἔχων ἐν ἑαυτῷ καὶ τὴν ὕλην ἣν καλοῦσι βυθόν (BiTeu II, 146,9 – 11 O’Meara). In detail on the reconstruction of Chaldean teaching Zintzen (1976), 651 f. = 112 f. and on the tradition see Svoboda (1927), 7– 28 and Greenfield (1988).  Aeneas Gazeus, Theophrastus (53,19 – 54,10; Euxitheus is speaking): Οὔπω μεμάθηκας ὁ πάντα μαθὼν ὡς δαιμόνια κακοεργὰ καὶ ἔνυλα τὰς ἀνθρωπείας ψυχὰς ὑποκρίνεται καὶ οἱ γοητεύειν σοφιζόμενοι καὶ τὸν πάλαι τεθνηκότα καλεῖν ἐπαγγελλόμενοι οὐκ ἄνθρωπον ταῖς ἐπῳδαῖς ἕλκουσιν ἀλλὰ τὸ δαιμόνιον, ὃ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου τὴν εἰκόνα, τὸ εἴδωλον, σχηματίζεται καί τι πρὸς ἀπάτην τερατεύεται καὶ φθέγγεται; ᾿Aλλ’ ὁ ἥλιος ἄνω προσελαύνων τὴν κάτω σκηνὴν διαλύει· εἰ δὲ ἦν ἀνθρωπίνη ψυχή, καὶ ἐν ἡμέρᾳ τοῖς φιλτάτοις μάλα ἡδέως προσδιελέγετο καὶ συνδιῆγεν. Ὁ γοῦν Πυθαγόρας οὐχ ὁ Σάμιος, ἀλλ’ ὁ Ῥόδιος, μέλλων ψυχομαντείαν παραδιδόναι, τίνες οἱ καλούμενοι τὸ πρῶτον ἐπιζητεῖ, πότερον θεοὶ ἢ δαίμονες ἢ τούτων ἀπόρροιαι καὶ πότερον δαίμων εἷς, ἄλλοτε ἄλλος εἶναι δοκῶν, ἢ πολλοὶ καὶ σφῶν αὐτῶν διαφέροντες, οἱ μὲν ἥμεροι, οἱ δ’ ἄγριοι καὶ οἱ μὲν ἐνίοτε τἀληθῆ λέγοντες, οἱ δ’ ὅλως κίβδηλοι, καὶ πολλὴν τῶν παλαιῶν καὶ τῶν ὕστερον ταραχὴν ὑπογράφων, τέλος προΐεται δαίμονος ἀπόρροιαν εἶναι τὸ φάσμα.

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soul and a body.⁶² None of these views are in any way original, but can be found – argued at different levels of detail and philosophically different – already in Porphyry:⁶³ Demons that consist of pneumatic substance can incorporate matter and thus become visible.⁶⁴ The idea, which also came from Porphyry, that demons can take on multiple outward appearances, still held among the Palestinian Bedouins into the 20th century.⁶⁵ My second example of transformation of pagan philosophical demonology in scholarly Christian texts can be found in a commentary on the Platonic dialogue Timaeus, which the Platonic Philosopher Calcidius probably wrote in Northern Italy, perhaps Milan in the late 4th century or at the beginning of the 5th century.⁶⁶ Calcidius was presumably a Christian and dedicated his work according to the introductory letter to a certain Osius. It is highly likely that Calcidius – as later manuscripts note – served as archdeacon to the Spanish bishop Osius of Cordoba and dedicated the work to the man he served, as Jan Hendrik Waszink and others have shown;⁶⁷ the early dating of the text to the beginning of the 4th century is nevertheless still accepted by some.⁶⁸ Its partial translation by Timaeus into Latin (only a little less than the first half is translated: 17 A to 53 C) with an extensive commentary had very strong after-effects in the Middle Ages, perhaps also because it is the only fully preserved Platon commentary in Latin from Antiquity. In his commentary, Calcidius gives a kind of brief systematic excursus on demonology (de natura daemonum), which contains remarks about its nature, position and function in the cosmos. This excursus was provoked by the formulation in the Platonic dialogue stating that, in following Plato will not speak “about the other gods” (περὶ δὲ τῶν ἄλλων δαιμόνων or at … uero inuisibilium diuinarum potestatum quae daemones nuncupantur)⁶⁹ other than the Creator of the World. Calcidius now explains this term that was not explained in the Platonic dialogue: In his opinion there are intermediate beings situated in between God and man. This term includes the good angels on the one hand and the evil demons on the other. Calcidius separated both groups of intermediate beings in the

 Aeneas Gazeus, Theophrastus (53,14– 17; Theophrastus is speaking): Ἔοικε μὲν ἄτοπα ταῦτα εἶναι καὶ οὐδὲν ἐᾷς ἀνέλεγκτον. ᾿Aλλ’ ἀκούεις οἷα τὰ περὶ τὰ μνήματα σκιοειδῆ φαντάσματα; Ταῦτά ἐστι τὰ ἀερώδη τῶν ψυχῶν σώματα, ἃ δὴ εἴδωλα καλεῖται.  Zintzen (1976), 655 – 659 = 115 – 119.  Porphyrius, De abstinentia II 38 f. (BiTeu 167,3 – 169,10 Nauck = CUFr II, 104– 106 Bouffartigue/Patillon).  Porphyrius, De abstinentia II 40 (BiTeu 170,2– 6 Nauck = CUFr II, 106 Bouffartigue/Patillon): τὸ δὲ πάντων δεινότατον, ἐπαναβαίνουσιν ἐκ τῶνδε καὶ τὰ ὅμοια ἀναπείθουσι καὶ περὶ τῶν μεγίστων θεῶν, μέχρι τοῦ καὶ τὸν ἄριστον θεὸν τούτοις τοῖς ἐγκλήμασιν ὑπάγειν, ᾧ δὴ καὶ τεταράχθαι φασὶν πάντ’ ἄνω κάτω. – Cf. here Zintzen (1976), 658 = 115 – 118 and Canaan (1914), 15.  Since the magisterial edition by Jan Hendrik Waszink (Waszink 1962), two further editions have been published, by Claudio Moreschini (Mailand 2003) and Béatrice Bakhouche (Paris 2011).  Waszink, Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque instructus, Xf.  Madec (1998), literature on the early dating on p. 358.  Timaeus 40 D bzw. Calcidius p. 34,13 f. Waszink.

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same way that the usual Christian use of language does, although he does mention that both groups are called “demons” in the classic Greek-pagan language and that this common generic term is not a problem for him as a Christian.⁷⁰ The one group is made up of God’s servants, the other of the “associates of the enemy power”, as one might loosely translate the Latin aduersae potestatis satellites. ⁷¹ Interestingly, this description of demons as “associates of the enemy power” can now be traced back to the pagan Platonist Porphyry, out of whose Timaeus commentary (which is almost completely lost except for a few fragments) Calcidius very likely took a great deal for his own commentary.⁷² In Porphyry it is literally the same words as οἱ τῆς ἐναντίας δυνάμεως, “the beings of the enemy power”.⁷³ Of course, such similarly sounding expressions like aduersae potestatis satellites and οἱ τῆς ἐναντίας δυνάμεως in both Late Antiquity Platonists mean something very different: Porphyry says that the demons, like the “beings of the enemy power”, are invisible and thus repeats the notion testified to by Iamblichus, that demons are invisible to the human eye despite a certain materiality, unlike the gods who are “beyond comprehension and understanding”.⁷⁴ “Enemy power”, or perhaps better “enemy force” – ἡ ἐναντία δύναμις – is of course in Porphyry a specialist term used in magic and means precisely those invisible forces that the magus binds using his own, positive energy. By comparison, with the Christian Calcidius, it is highly unlikely that the expression aduersae potestatis satellites refers simply to such enemy forces that work against the

 Calcidius, Commentarius in Platonis Timaeum II 132 (173,22– 174,2 Waszink): Huius porro generis est illud aethereum, quod in secundo loco commemorauimus positum, quos Hebraei uocant sanctos angelos stareque eos dicunt ante dei uenerabilis contemplationem, summa atque acri intellegentia, mira etiam memoriae tenacitate, rebus quidem diuinis obsequium nauantes summa sapientia, humanis uero prudenter opitulantes idemque speculatores et executores, daemones, opinor, tamquam daemones dicti; daemonas porro Graeci scios rerum omnium nuncupant. – On the passage cf. Den Boeft (1977), 30 – 31; on the problematic dual grouping of demons into good and bad, see Smith (1998), 434– 35.  Calcidius, Commentarius in Platonis Timaeum II 133 (174,14– 175,3 Waszink): Nec nos terreat nomen promisce bonis et improbis positum, quoniam nec angelorum quidem terret, cum angeli partim dei sint ministri – qui ita sunt, sancti uocantur -, partim aduersae potestatis satellites, ut optime nosti. Igitur iuxta usurpatam penes Graecos loquendi consuetudinem tam sancti sunt daemones quam polluti et infecti. De quibus mox erit aptior disputandi locus; nunc de eo genere sit sermo quod ait Plato admirabili quadam esse prudentia memoriaque et docilitate felici, quod omnia sciat cogitationes que hominum introspiciat et bonis quidem eximie delectetur, improbos oderit contingente se tristitia quae nascitur ex odio displicentis – solus quippe deus, utpote plenae perfectaeque diuinitatis, neque tristitia neque uoluptate contingitur.  Gersh (1986), 421– 434; cf. also Köckert (2009), 229 – 232.  Porphyrius, De abstinentia II 39 (BiTeu 168,5 – 7 Nauck = CUFr II, 105 Bouffartigue/Patillon): δ’ ἂν εἰκότως λέγοιντο. καὶ εἰσὶν οἱ σύμπαντες οὗτοί τε καὶ οἱ τῆς ἐναντίας δυνάμεως ἀόρατοί τε καὶ τελέως ἀναίσθητοι αἰσθήσεσιν ἀνθρωπίναις.  Iamblichus, De mysteriis I 20 (CUFr 46,23 – 47,1 Saffrey/Segonds): οἱ μὲν γὰρ δαίμονες ἀόρατοί τέ εἰσι καὶ οὐδαμῶς αἰσθήσει περιληπτοί, οἱ δὲ καὶ λόγου γνώσεως καὶ νοήσεως ἐνύλου προέχουσι·. On the background cf. also Dillon (2004), 140.

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positive energy of the magus. In his case, the “enemy force” is to be identified as the adversarius testified to in the Bible, namely the Devil.⁷⁵ What speaks in favour of interpreting the expression in Calcidius in this way is not only the fact that Tertullian and Cyprian had already used the substantive expression and the identical-sounding adjective in this sense and in reference to Psalm 73/74⁷⁶ (“How long will the enemy mock you, God?”⁷⁷). In fact, liturgical sources that were certainly more widely disseminated than these early Latin authors bear witness to a certain interpretation, for example, the Missale Gothicum. This is a collection compiled between 690 and 710 AD which presumably originates from France, more precisely, Burgundy and likely represents a Gallican formula of the church of Autun from the 7th century.⁷⁸ In a baptismal exorcism prayer from the so-called Missale Gothicum it says: “I banish you, you creature of the water, I banish you, all armies of the Devil, all power of the adversary, all shadows of the demons”.⁷⁹ As it had been long established in the Latin tradition, Calcidius presented demons in his commentary on a Platonic dialogue as devilish powers, as forces of the adversary. Of course, this interpretation of the demons as “forces of the adversary” among Christian commentators of Late Antiquity is not original, but typical; Franz Josef Dölger had already dealt in detail with these correlations in his book about exorcism as did Klaus Thraede in the “Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum”.⁸⁰ What interests us at this point is not the history of the tradition of these exorcism prayers dealt with in Dölger and Thraede, but ultimately the type of transformation that becomes recognisable through the recoining of the expression ἡ ἐναντία δύναμις the wording of which is generally maintained throughout in Porphyry into the expression aduersae potestatae satellites used in Calcidius. In Berlin we refer to this form of transformation in which a semantic shift takes place as reinterpretation or inversion.⁸¹

 Thus also Dillon (2004), 140.  Cf. the evidence in Blaise, Dictionnaire, 52.  PsG/H 73.10 … inritat adversarius nomen tuum in finem; cf. Greek ἕως πότε ὁ θεός ὀνειδιεῖ ὁ ἐχθρός παροξυνεῖ ὁ ὑπεναντίος τὸ ὄνομά σου εἰς τέλος.  Vogel (1986), 107 f. – The name Gothicum comes from a late inscription on the top right edge of the manuscript Vaticanus Reginus Latinus 317 (likewise from the late seventh or early eighth century); the manuscript of the fifth century is objectively incorrect, since the text in question is a missal, which is to be attributed to the so-called Gallican liturgical family.  Missale Gothicum (Vat. Reg. Lat. 317) 33,258: Exorcizo te, creatura aquae, exorcizo te, omnes exercitus diabuli, omnes potestas aduersariae, omnes umbra daemonum. Exorcizo te in nomine domini nostri Iesu Christi Nazarei … (67.10 – 12 Mohlberg).  Dölger (1909), 73 – 80; Thraede (1969), 91– 93.  On the terms used here cf. again Bergemann (2011), 48.

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4 Concluding Remarks The reference to the so-called Missale Gothicum makes clear that, in addition to magical sources and the philosophical texts we certainly must also look at liturgical sources⁸² as well as sermons, if our survey has to be complete to some degree, at least in terms of the literary genres. I would love, for example, to take a look in more detail at the later and late exorcism books that Klaus Thraede most recently compiled again and which are pseudonymously attributed to the church authorities of imperial times and Late Antiquity.⁸³ What images of demons and their influence can be found in these texts?⁸⁴ Does the fact that the scarce stories about possession by demons and healing found on amulets could be taken up by the liturgical texts without many changes⁸⁵ show that here no great difference existed in terms of form or content between the different types of text? Does this impression deceive? With a view to the liturgical texts, there continue to be – similarly as for the amulets – exciting discoveries or reinterpretations of already known texts in the light of new discoveries. I name just one example: In a private letter many years ago, the late Berlin papyrologist Kurt Treu suggested interpreting a papyrus from Yale dated at around the 3rd or 4th century, not as a Christian magic text, but as an early exorcism prayer.⁸⁶ It would be worth looking at the question here as to whether there are predecessors of the exorcism books we have today⁸⁷. The papyrus also possibly shows how close texts of privately used magical amulets and prayers used in the church were, both in content and form. But more about that at another place and time. Here I have tried, taking the subject area “Demons  Kotansky (1994), 60 f. shows how a historiola on the origin of the headache and how to get rid of it can show up on an amulet from Carnuntum (Amulet 13, p. 58 – 60), as well as on other amulets as and in a prayer from the prayer collection of Cod. Marcianus graec. app. II 163 (Pradel (1907), 267,22– 268,10 = 15,22– 16,10), each in slighty modified form. As a final example, Kotansky names a text from a Euchologion from the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai: Ms. 973 (p. 63), translated and annotated by Arnoud (1913), 292– 304.  Thraede (1969), 109 f.  On the relationship between healing and exorcism, cf. Vielberg (2006), 144– 148. 164– 166. 188. 205.  Cf. footnote 83 above.  Proulx/O’Callaghan (1974); I refer here to the commentary that Treu attached in his personal copy, which is in my possession.  Cf. for example ΕΥΧΟΛΟΓΙΟΝ sive Rituale Graecorum: complectens ritus et ordines divinae liturgiae, officiorum, sacramentorum, consecrationum, benedictionum, funerum, orationum, &c. cuilibet personae, statui, vel tempori congruos, juxta usum Orientalis Ecclesiae, cum selectis Bibliothecae Regiae, Barberinae, Cryptae-Ferratae, Sancti Marci Florentini, Tillianae, Allatianae, Coresianae, & aliis probatis MM. SS. & editis Exemplaribus collatum. Interpretatione Latina, nec non mixobarbarum vocum brevi Glossario, aeneis figuris, & observationibus ex antiquis PP. & maxime Graecorum Theologorum expositionibus illustratum. Opera R.P. Jacobi Goar, Parisini, Ordinis FF. Praedicatorum, S. Theologiae Lectoris. Ed. Secunda Expurgata, & accuratior, Venedig 1730, 575 – 578 and 578 – 584. – Cf. also Arranz (1996) and the same (1995).

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Fig. 5 Yale University Beinecke Library P. CtYBR 989 (with some remarks by Kurt Treu) Cf. http://www. trismegistos.org/magic/detail.php?tm=64257 (Last Access: 24. 01. 2016) and also Supplementum Magicum. Vol. II, Daniel/Maltomini (1992), no. 84 pp. 175 – 179 and Betz (19922),1 – 14 p. 313.

and Disease” to take stock of the state of research and to move forward on some points. To do so, I started by remembering two basic methodological insights and, following that, I proceeded to go through the different sources arranged according to their literary genres, taking a look at the question concerning how demons function in these texts as a basis for explaining diseases and their healing. With the help of the Berlin terminology of transformation, we have ultimately attempted to describe to what extent pagan concepts of demons transformed or were adopted – a similar reconnaissance mission could be performed for the acquired Judean ideas.⁸⁸ In the process, it became clear, time and again, how little the available source material has been made use of to date and what rich rewards are promised if the traps of certain classic dualisms are avoided and newer research paradigms are resolutely used. The inescapable conclusion that in the ancient world explanations of the causes of diseases were dependent on textual types and literary genres may be generalised without hesitation: This conclusion is valid even today, although so much has changed since the ancient world, and not only with regard to medicine.

 Cf. here: Busch (2006).

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Diskurse. Gesammelte Aufsätze I, ed. Hildegard Cancik-Lindemaier, Tübingen 2008, 344 – 356. Coakley, Sarah/Kaufman Shelemay, Kay, Pain and Its Transformations. The Interface of Biology and Culture, Cambridge, MS/London 2007. Colpe, Carsten, s.v. “Geister (Dämonen), Grundsätzliches zur Theorie des Animismus und zur Bewertung antiker Geistervorstellungen”, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum Vol. 9, Stuttgart 1976, 546 – 553. Crislip, Andrew, “The Sin of Sloth or the Illness of the Demons? The Demon of Acedia in Early Christian Monasticism”, in: The Harvard Theological Review 98 (2005), 143 – 169. Daniel, Robert W./Maltomini, Franco, Supplementum Magicum. Vol. II, edited with Translations and Notes (Papyrologica Coloniensia XVI/2), Opladen 1992. Delatte, Armand/Josserand, Charles, “Contribution à l’étude de la démonologie byzantine”, in: Mélanges Bidez. Annuaire de l’Institute de philologie et d’histoire orientales 2 (1934), 207 – 232. Detel, Wolfgang, “Wissenskulturen und universale Rationalität”, in: Wissenskulturen. Über die Erzeugung und Weitergabe von Wissen, ed. Johannes Fried/Michael Stolleis, Frankfurt/New York 2009, 181 – 214. Dillon, John M., “Dämonologie im frühen Platonismus”, in: Apuleius, Über den Gott des Sokrates, ed. Matthias Baltes et al., Darmstadt 2004, 123 – 141. Dölger, Franz Josef, Der Exorzismus im altchristlichen Taufritual. Eine religionsgeschichtliche Studie, Paderborn 1909. Eckstein, Franz/Waszink, Jan Hendrik, s.v. “Amulett”, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum Vol. 1, Stuttgart 1950, 397 – 411. Elm, Susanna, “Heil/Kunst. Galen über die Kunst der Medizin und die Meaning Response”, in: Trigon 11 (2014), 57 – 64. Emmenegger, Gregor, Wie die Jungfrau zum Kinde kam. Zum Einfluss antiker medizinischer und naturphilosophischer Theorien auf die Entwicklung des christlichen Dogmas (Paradosis 6), Fribourg 2014. Erman, Adolf, “Ein koptischer Zauberer”, in: Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 33 (1895), 43 – 46. Erman, Adolf, “Heidnisches bei den Kopten”, in: Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 33 (1895), 47 – 51. Erman, Adolf, “Drei Geister als Boten des Zauberers”, in: Orientalistische Studien. Fritz Hommel zum 60. Geburtstag am 31. Juli 1914 gewidmet von Freunden, Kollegen und Schülern (Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft 21/22), Leipzig 1917/1918, 301 – 304. Frankfurter, David, “Narrating Power: The Theory and Practice of the Magical Historiola in Ritual Spells”, in: Ancient Magic and Ritual Power, ed. Marvin Meyer/Paul Mirecki, Leiden 1995, 451 – 470. David Frankfurter, “Demon Invocations in the Coptic Magic Spells”, in: Actes du huitième Congrès international d’Études coptes. Paris, 28 juin – 3 juillet 2004, ed. Nathalie Bosson/Anne Boud’hors (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 163, Vol. 2), Leuven 2007, 453 – 466. Förster, Hans, “Alltag und Kirche. Katalog-Nr. 33 – 44”, in: Christliches mit Feder und Faden. Christliches in Texten, Textilien und Alltagsgegenständen aus Ägypten. Katalog zur Sonderausstellung im Papyrusmuseum der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek aus Anlaß des 14. Internationalen Kongresses für Archäologie, ed. Jutta Henner/Hans Förster/Ulrike Horak, Vienna 1999. Gager, John G., Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World, Oxford 1992. Gautier, Paul, “Le De daemonibus du Pseudo-Psellos”, in: Revue des études byzantines 38 (1980), 105 – 194.

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Gelzer, Thomas/Lurje, Michael/Schäublin, Christoph, Lamella Bernensis. Ein spätantikes Goldamulett mit christlichem Exorzismus und verwandte Texte (Articles on Antiquity 124), Stuttgart/Leipzig 1999. Gemeinhardt, Peter, “Volksfrömmigkeit in der spätantiken Hagiographie. Potential und Grenzen eines umstrittenen Konzepts”, in: Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 110 (2013), 410 – 438. Gersh, Stephen, Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism: the Latin Tradition, Vol. II (Publications in Mediaeval Studies 23/2), Notre Dame 1986. Graf, Fritz, Gottesnähe und Schadenzauber. Die Magie in der griechisch-römischen Antike, Munich 1996. Greenfield, Richard P.H., Traditions of Belief in Late Byzantine Demonology, Amsterdam 1988. Henner, Jutta/Förster, Hans/Horak, Ulrike (Eds.), Christliches mit Feder und Faden. Christliches in Texten, Textilien und Alltagsgegenständen aus Ägypten. Katalog zur Sonderausstellung im Papyrusmuseum der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek aus Anlass des 14. Internationalen Kongresses für Christliche Archäologie (Nilus 3), Vienna 1999. Holzem, Andreas, “‚Volksfrömmigkeit’. Zur Verabschiedung eines Begriffs”, in: Theologische Quartalschrift 182 (2002), 258 – 270. Iannaccone, Laurence R., “Religious Markets and the Economics of Religion”, in: Social Compass 39 (1992), 123 – 131. Iannaccone, Laurence R., “Introduction to the Economics of Religion”, in: Journal of Economic Literature 36 (1998), 1465 – 1495. Kitchell Jr., Kenneth F., Animals in the Ancient World from A to Z, London 2014. Köckert, Charlotte, Christliche Kosmologie und kaiserzeitliche Philosophie. Die Auslegung des Schöpfungsberichtes bei Origenes, Basilius und Gregor von Nyssa vor dem Hintergrund kaiserzeitlicher Timaeus-Interpretationen (Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 56), Tübingen 2009. Kotansky, Roy, Greek Magical Amulets. The Inscribed Gold, Silver, Copper and Bronce Lamellae. Part I Published Texts of Known Provenance (Papyrologica Coloniensia XXII/1), Wiesbaden 1994. Kropp, Angelicus M., Ausgewählte koptische Zaubertexte. Vol. III Einleitung in koptische Zaubertexte, Brussels 1930. Kropp, Angelicus M., Ausgewählte koptische Zaubertexte. Vol. II Übersetzung und Anmerkungen, Brüssel 1931. Leclercq, Henri, s.v. “Amulettes”, in: Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et de Liturgie, Vol. I/2, Paris 1924, 1784 – 1860. Luijendijk, Anne Marie, “A Gospel Amulet for Joannia (P. Oxy. VIII 1151)”, in: Daughters of Hecate. Women and Magic in the Ancient World, ed. Kimberly B. Stratton/Dayna S. Kalleres, Oxford 2014, 418 – 443. Madec, Goulven, “§ 566. Calcidius”, in: Restauration und Erneuerung. Die lateinische Literatur von 284 bis 374 n. Chr., ed. Reinhart Herzog (Handbuch der Lateinischen Literatur Vol. 5 = Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft VIII/5), Munich 1989, 356 – 358. Markschies, Christoph, “Antiquity and Christianity or: The Unavoidability of False Questions”, in: Beyond Reception. Mutual Influences between Antique Religion, Judaism, and Early Christianity, ed. David Brakke/Anders-Christian Jacobsen/Jörg Ulrich (Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity 1), Frankfurt/Main 2006, 17 – 34. Markschies, Christoph, “Gesund werden im Schlaf. Einige Rezepte aus der Antike”, in: Salute e guargigione nella tarda antichità. Atti della giornata tematica dei Seminari di Archeologia Cristiana (Roma – 20 maggio 2004), ed. Hugo Brandenburg, Stefan Heid e Christoph Markschies (Sussidi allo studio delle Antichità Cristiane 19), Città del Vaticano 2007, 165 – 198.

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Markschies, Christoph (Ed.), Heil und Heilung. Inkubation – Heilung im Schlaf: Heidnischer Kult und christliche Praxis, Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum/Journal of Ancient Christianity 17 (2013). Markschies, Christoph, “Demons and Disease”, in: Health, Medicine, and Christianity in Late Antiquity, ed. Jared Secord/Heidi Marx-Wolf/Christoph Markschies, Studia Patristica 81. Papers presented at the Seventeenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2015, ed. Markus Vinzent, Leuven/Paris/Bristol 2017, 11 – 35. Meyer, Marvin/Smith, Richard (Eds.), Ancient Christian Magic. Coptic Texts of Ritual Power, Princeton, NJ 1999. Mittelstrass, Jürgen, s.v. “Wissen”, in: Enzyklopädie Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie, Vol. 4: Sp–Z, Stuttgart 2004 = 1996, 717 – 719. Moreschini, Claudio, Commentario al Timeo di Platone, Mailand 2003. Müller, C. Detlef G., s.v. “Geister (Dämonen) IV. Volksglaube”, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum Vol. 9, Stuttgart 1976, 761 – 797. Nicolotti, Andrea, Esorcismo cristiano e possessione diabolica tra II e III secolo (Instrumenta Patristica 54), Turnhout 2011 [= Tesi di dottorato di ricerca in Istituzioni, società, religioni dal tardo-antico alla fine del medioevo, Università di Torino, 2005]. Nutton, Vivian, “From Medical Certainty to Medical Amulets”, in: Clio Medica 22 (1991), 13 – 22. Önnerfors, Alf, “Magische Formeln im Dienste römischer Medizin”, in: Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.37.1, Berlin 1993, 157 – 224. Pradel, Fritz, Griechische und süditalienische Gebete, Beschwörungen und Rezepte des Mittelalters (Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten, 3/3), Gießen 1907. Proulx, Pierre/O’Callaghan, José, “Papiro mágico cristiano”, in: Studia Papyrologica 12 (1974), 83 – 88. Richter, Siegfried, “Bemerkungen zu magischen Elementen koptischer Zaubertexte”, in: Akten des 21. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses, Berlin, 13.-19. 8. 1995, ed. Bärbel Kramer (Archiv für Papyrusforschung Beiheft 3), Stuttgart/Leipzig 1997, 835 – 846. Riddle, John M., “High Medicine and Low Medicine”, in: Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.37.1, Berlin 1993, 102 – 120. Riethmüller, Jürgen W., Asklepios. Heiligtümer und Kulte, (Studies on the ancient sanctuaries 2), Heidelberg 1995. Sanzo, Joseph E., Scriptural Incipits on Amulets from Late Antique Egypt. Text, Typology, and Theory (Studien zu Antike und Christentum 84), Tübingen 2014. Sarasin, Philipp, “Was ist Wissensgeschichte?”, in: Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der Deutschen Literatur 36/1 (2011), 159 – 172. Schmidt-Clausing, Fritz, s.v. “Volksfrömmigkeit, 1. Katholisch”, in: Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart Vol. VI, 31962, 1452. Smith, Jonathan Z., “Towards Interpreting Demonic Powers in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity”, in: Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.16.1 (1978), 425 – 439. Stander, Hennie F., “Amulets and the Church Fathers”, in: Ekklesiastikos Pharos 75/2 (1993), 55 – 66. Stark, Rodney, The Rise of Christianity. A Sociologist reconsiders History, Princeton 1996. Strohmeier, Gotthard, “Galen in den Schulen der Juden und Christen”, in: Judaica 62 (2006), 140 – 156. Svoboda, Karel, La demonologie de Michel Psellos (Opera facultatis philosophicae Universitatis Masarykianae Brunensis 22), Brünn 1927. Thraede, Klaus, “Exorzismus”, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum Vol. 7, Stuttgart 1969, 44 – 117. Unschuld, Paul U., “Heilwissenschaft versus Heilkunde: Über die Zukunft der ärztlichen Profession”, in: Wunscherfüllende Medizin. Ärztliche Behandlung im Dienst von

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Selbstverwirklichung und Lebensplanung, ed. Matthias Kettner, Frankfurt/New York 2009, 75 – 102. Unschuld, Paul U., “Plausibility or Truth? An Essay on Medicine and World View”, in: Science in Context 8 (1995), 9 – 30. Vakaloudi, Anastasia D., “Demonic-Mantic Practices. The Implication of the Theurgists and Their Power of Submission in the Early Byzantine Empire”, in: Byzantinoslavica 60 (1999), 87 – 113. Vakaloudi, Anastasia D., “ΔΕΙΣΙΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΑ and the Role of the Apotropaic Magic Amulets in the Early Byzantine Empire”, in: Byzantion 70 (2000), 182 – 210. van der Eijk, Philip, “Galen and Early Christians on the Role of the Divine in the Causation and Treatment of Health and Disease”, in: Early Christianity 5 (2014), 337 – 370. Vielberg, Meinolf, Der Mönchsbischof von Tours im ‘Martinellus’. Zur Form des hagiographischen Dossiers und seines spätantiken Leitbilds (Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 79), Berlin/New York 2006. Vogel, Cyrille, Medieval Liturgy. An Introduction to the Sources, revised and translated by William G. Storey and Niels Krogh Rasmussen, Washington 1986. Walzer, Richard, s.v. “Galenos”, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum Vol. 8, Stuttgart 1972, 777 – 786. Waszink, Jan Hendrik (Ed.), Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque instructus, in: Societatem operis coniuncto P.J. Jensen, ed. Jan Hendrik Waszink, (Plato Latinus IV), London/Leiden 1962. Weber, Manfred, s.v. “Frosch”, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum Vol. 8, Stuttgart 1972, 524 – 538. Wischmeyer, Wolfgang, “Magische Texte. Vorüberlegungen und Materialien zum Verständnis christlicher spätantiker Texte”, in: Heiden und Christen im 5. Jahrhundert (Studien der Patristischen Arbeitsgemeinschaft 5), Leuven 1998, 88 – 122. Zentler, Marco-Alexander, Ägyptischer Himmel in koptischer Erde. Pagan-altägyptische Reminiszenzen (Survivals) im spätantiken, koptischen Christentum, Diss. phil., Tübingen 2011 (https://publikationen.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/browse?value=Zentler%2C+Marco-Alex ander&type=author, Last Accessed on 24. 01. 2016). Zintzen, Clemens, s.v. “Geister (Dämonen), Vol. III. c. Hellenistische und kaiserzeitliche Philosophie”, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum Vol. 9, Stuttgart 1976, 640 – 668. Zintzen, Clemens, Athen – Rom – Florenz. Ausgewählte Kleine Schriften, ed. Dorothee Gall/Peter Riemer, Hildesheim 2000.

Annette Weissenrieder

2 Disease and Healing in a Changing World.

“Medical” Vocabulary and Exorcism in the Vetus Latina Luke ¹ In his essay On Language as Such and Language of Man, Walter Benjamin claims that languages by nature are always already translated, writing “translation attains its full meaning in the realisation that every evolved language (with the exception of the word of God) can be considered a translation of all the others”.² Benjamin goes on to say that translation “passes through continua of transformation, not abstract areas of identity and similarity”, meaning that the performative nature of translation is in the foreground. This is probably the idea that made Benjamin the inspiration for Homi K. Bhabha’s essay How Newness Enters the World. ³ Here the concept of cultural translation becomes very important: translation, we are told, does not preserve traditions but rather creates new ones.⁴ Giving space to cultural difference means making it visible in its foreignness and bringing it closer to intelligibility and translatability by way of this making-visible.⁵ Natural physiological processes in the ancient world present particular challenges for translations, in part owing to their self-evident and persistent ordinariness. These processes were, and still are, normal, and as such, contemporary readers required no special explanations or detailed descriptions. Consequently, we are often

 I want to express my sincerest gratitude to Thomas Bauer (University of Erfurt), with whom I am working on a critical edition of the Vetus Latina Luke. I am also thankful to Christoph Markschies, Eva Elm, and Nicole Hartmann for inviting me to the conference in which a version of this paper was presented, and to other conference participants, especially Jan Bremmer.  Benjamin (2002), 76. See for the following Weissenrieder (2013), 201– 202.  Bhabha (1994), 212– 235. In addition, Routledge has published the journal Translation Studies since 2008.  There is an implicit dialectic in Benjamin’s translation theory, the synthetic product of which is something of “pure language”. This synthesis, though, retains qualities of the original in the translated language which are foreign yet intelligible within the latter. It is also important that Benjamin distinguishes the creativity of the translator from that of the poet – the former is derivative, the latter original. I question, then, the extent to which Bhabha recognises this dialectical model, which, in my opinion, is hard to miss in Benjamin’s essay. Certainly, Benjamin does not think translations are simply “reproductions” of an original; rather, there is something contained within the original that must find some sort of “echo” or “resonance” in the translation. This notion of pure language demands some degree of preservation or retention, but not in the sense of carrying something from one language into another, as though one language were the absolute source of that which is brought forth/translated; rather, what is preserved is an element of pure language that is contained in the original and can also take up residence in another language by means of translation.  Bhabha (1994), 227 writes: “With the concept of ‚foreignness‘ Benjamin comes closest to describing the performativity of translation as the staging of cultural difference”. For further details on the process of cultural translation Bachmann-Medick (2009), 2– 16; Niranjana (1992); Seidman (2006); Weissenrieder (2013), 201– 230. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110632231-003

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astonishingly helpless or naïve when trying to translate or interpret these physiological processes, lacking, as we do, sufficient direct evidence to form a picture of their deeper significance. For the Vetus Latina Matthew, Mark and Luke,⁶ this is firstly true with regard to the question whether the occurrences of daemonia, spiritus immundus and spiritus mutus immundus always refer to the phenomenon of exorcism or to illness and its healing and, therefore, count as healing narratives. The notion of “exorcism” seems secondly to be confirmed by different terms that point to the phenomenon of exorcism: some terms refer to the action of eliminating demons, like “to scold” (see Luke 4:4; 9:42), “to throw out” or “eliminate by force”, eicere or expellere. Some terms accentuate the action that banishes the evil spirit to the desert, like fugare in deserta loca. Some texts seem to take over the perspective of the evil spirit when they speak of “to quit” and “to decamp” – exire or recedere. Exorcism is also confirmed by the notion of God’s rule and kingdom breaking into this world, dispossessing evil forces. The removal of unclean spirits and demons is then evaluated as change of power: the Gospels interpret Jesus’ and his disciples’ expulsion of demons from humans as a concrete demonstration of God’s kingdom breaking into the world. This interpretation is finally supported by a letter from Cyprian of Carthage of which only the first line remains: “Lucianus has written the letter in the presence of two clerics: an exorcist and a lector – Praesente de clero et exorcista et lectore Lucianus scripsit.”⁷ Cyprian deepens this in one of his later letters: “It happens also today that by exorcists through human words and divine power the devil is flogged and burnt and tormented – Quod hodie etiam geritus, ut per exorcistas voce humana et potestate divina flagelletur et uratur et torqueatur diabolus.”⁸ These two citations by Cyprian are important, since he is considered the first theologian who translated the Greek text of the New Testament into Latin. As he designates a cleric as an “exorcist” instead of a “healer”, is this reflected in the North-African translation of the Latin New Testament? And do the Old Latin Gospel translations therefore show an increase of terms referring to an exorcism instead of a healing? This first impression, however, can be doubted by looking into Tertullian, who argues for an understanding of exorcisms as healing stories in Luke: “To liberate men from demons is a cure of sickness – ceterum et a daemoniis liberare curatio est valetudinis (Adv. Marc. 4.8.5)”. In the following, I wish to demonstrate the parallels and differences between the Roman medical notion of illnesses and the New Testament understandings of exorcism, with an emphasis on the question of whether the Vetus Latina Luke is oriented in its translation towards an understanding of illness in the context of its use of demons. First, I start with an overview of the  See the following literature: Lange/Lichtenberger/Römheld (2003); Reiterer/Nicklas/Schöpflin (2007); Twelftree (1992) (2007); Sorensen (2002); Klutz (2004).  See Cyprianus, Epist. 23.  Cyprianus, Epist. 69.15.2; see Bastiaensen (2011), 129 – 143; here 132.

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Vetus Latina and try to show issues raised in the most recent scholarship on it.⁹ The Vetus Latina, or “Old Latin Bible”, comprises a diverse collection of Latin biblical texts used by Christian churches from the second century on. Are these translations from Greek biblical texts using a “Christian idiomatic language” (“christliche Sondersprache”), mainly comprehensible for a specific Christian group? Secondly, I will briefly discuss the summaries in which terms like spiritus immundus and daemonia frequently occur in conjunction with healing people’s illnesses. Thirdly, I will analyse two different passages from a Roman medical perspective; the fever of Peter’s mother-in-law and the healing of the epileptic boy. Finally, I will extend this analysis by arguing that reading these stories in light of ancient medical discourses in antiquity provides new insights into the Vetus Latina Luke.

1 The Origins of the Vetus Latina ¹⁰ The first complex of questions is concerned with methodological issues: there are no reliable sources indicating when and where the translation of biblical writings from Greek into Latin began, nor who it was that assumed responsibility for the translation and how the work proceeded.¹¹ Congregations in Rome are often thought to be responsible for these translations; however, this ignores the fact that they still retained Greek as their lingua franca until the third century – Clemens and Justin, for example, wrote in Greek. As Christianity spread in the Roman Empire, and Latin replaced Greek as the common language of the church, an array of Latin Bible translations emerged, usually uncontrolled by any church authority and frequently inaccurate. Latin translations are first attested in North Africa. It may be that we find the first reference to the Old Latin translation in a brief remark in the Acta Scilitanorum (12) mentioning the libri epistulae Pauli viri iusti – the collected letters of Paul in Latin. The most important citations come from Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage († 258), whose writings also offer the first sure indication of the existence of Latin translations. These quotations represent an attempt to create a resemblance to the Greek “originals” through word by word translations which nonetheless deviate from their apparent sources. Cyprian tried to make a translation of the Greek text that did not make significant changes. Like all writings in the Old Latin traditions, Cyprian’s text was not standardised and was therefore subject to numerous modifications. The vocabulary and translation techniques used by Cyprian differ from later text versions and can usually be identified. However, the temporal and geographic  Fischer, (1987), 51– 104; idem (1989); see also Fisher (1982), 173 – 219; Marti (1974); Powell (1995), 273 – 300.  See for the following Weissenrieder (2017), 267 ff. with some changes.  It is not clear whether the treatises by Tertullian can help us to make accessible the Old Latin Bible text; see Stummer (1928), 11 ff.

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classification of the texts often remains difficult. Even if we know when and where a particular manuscript originated, the question of the origin of its content still remains open. Owing to the lack of an authoritative text both the Greek and the Latin texts underwent numerous changes.¹² It is debatable whether the different manuscripts are to be seen as coming from one text type or from several types, as I will discuss below.¹³ The Old Latin manuscripts reflect the early struggle for a proper understanding of the biblical texts. Whereas the Old Latin Bible encompasses all unauthorised versions of the translation of the Bible into Latin, the Vulgate presents a standardisation of different forms of the Old Latin promulgated under Pope Damasus († 384) and the theologian Jerome († 419). And whereas the Vulgate is the end result of several revisions, reviews and editions, the Old Latin Bible preserves several versions and is older than the Vulgate and many Greek manuscripts. It has come down to us in two ways: For the direct tradition of the Old Latin Bible text of the Hebrew Bible¹⁴ and New Testament, there are 495 manuscripts designated in the Beuron list,¹⁵ alongside the 49 known manuscripts of the Gospels and a number of fragments. The indirect tradition of the Old Latin Bible text includes quotations and allusions to the Latin Bible authors in texts from the church fathers. The indirect tradition is of particular interest when a correspondence between the Bible quotation of a church author and the text of the Old Latin Bible manuscript can be identified. The investigations made in the 19th century by Hans von Soden and William Sanday¹⁶ show that by analysing word use and method of translation it is possible to identify two groups of Old Latin Bible texts: an “African” or “Afra” text type and a “European” text type.¹⁷ From a direct comparison between these manuscripts and Biblical quotations by the church fathers, we can determine the time and place of the translation, in ideal cases at least. “Europeanisation” can be seen to have already begun with Cyprian, and it continues with Hilarius and Ambrosius. The two oldest Old Latin Bible manuscripts, Codex Bobiensis (k) and Codex Palatinus (e), are clearly foundational to the “Afra” tradition. For my investigation these two are of special interest because they show an increase of terms referring to exorcism, such as daemonium. These two manuscripts, however, possess a later layer of readings from the so-called European texts. The two layers are distinguished by the later use of specifically “Christian” terms, such as baptizare, “to dip in water,” instead of tingere, “to dye, wet”, or the use of diaconus, “deacon”, instead of minister,

 See esp. Schäfer (1957).  Metzger (1977), 330 – 331. In contrast: Sparks (1940), 100 – 129, here 105 – 106.  See for the text of the Hebrew Bible Cassuto (173) and Kedar-Kopfstein (2004).  Gryson (1999); idem (2004).  Soden (1909); Sanday (1885), 234– 239.  The terms “Afra” and European text are very misleading but are still standard in the literature on the Old Latin Bible. New nomenclature has not yet been found.

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“assistant, helper”.¹⁸ The “Afra” substrate cannot, however, be reconstructed mechanically. One approach to disentangling the “Afra” from the “European” text involves comparing the Vulgate and other European text forms. The core group of manuscripts for the “European” text consists of manuscripts Codex Veronensis b (4), Codex Corbeiensis ff2 (8), and Codex Vindobonensis I (17), all probably dating to around 350 – 380 CE. Later manuscripts, mostly from the sixth century CE and from several geographic regions, exhibit mixed texts from the “Afra” and “European” traditions. That the different manuscripts have different preferences can be shown by, amongst other indications, their use of terms signifying illnesses. In Matthew, for example, one finds a preference for languor in the best African manuscripts, k and a, valetudo in h, aegrimonium in b g1 q and aegritatio in aur c ff1l Vg, as Burton has shown convincingly.¹⁹ A second complex of questions concerns the assessment of the Latin. Even as early as the nineteenth century, exegetes tried to show that the translations from the Greek into Latin may refer to the vulgar Latin, as was demonstrated by Thielmann in his work on the Wisdom of Solomon and Jesus Sirach or by Lundström’s study on Irenaeus’ Latin.²⁰ According to the studies by Joseph Schrijnen and Christine Mohrmann,²¹ Christian congregations developed their own “langue commune” from the very beginning, which can be demonstrated in the treatises written by the “church fathers” as well as in every aspect of life. Schrijnen writes that the Latin of the Christians was, “le résultat d’une différenciation de nature sociologique de la langue commune; un système cohérent de différentions de nature lexicologique sémantique, morphologique et mȇme métrique”.²² The thesis of community life as the basis of a Christian idiomatic language has received particularly sharp criticism. Even though this notion of community life can indeed be found in some smaller groups, it cannot necessarily be generalised. In addition, it has been shown that those who have become advocates of this Christian idiomatic language have relied on a relatively small number of ancient authors which does not represent the wide range of Latin literature. Recent studies from Coleman and Langslow, to name but two, have made clear that the starting point of scholarship should be an understanding of the Latin Bible text defined as “bible Latin” and not as “Christian Latin”.²³ In recent times, the terms “later Latin” or “late Latin” have been developed. However, one question remains open: When exactly can we use the phrase “bible Latin”?²⁴

 See for further details the excellent book by Burton (2000).  See for further examples ibid.  Thielmann (1893b), 501– 561; idem (1893a), 233 – 272; Lundström (1943); idem (1948); idem (1985).  Schrijnen (1932); Mohrmann(1958).  Schrijnen (1939), 335 – 336.  See for further details Coleman (1987), 37– 52; idem (1989), 77– 89; Langslow (1992), 106 – 130; Denecker (2018).  See also the contributions by Burton (2000) and Houghton (2016).

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Two examples may suffice. In Luke 13:32 ἡ ἴασις is translated with sanitates in plural, which is a hapax legomenon in classical Latin. From the perspective of Latin philology, the choice of this term is even more questionable if we take into consideration that nouns with the ending -itas in Latin are more indicative of a state than of action. Is this already a sign of a Christian idiomatic language? A different example is the distribution of the term dentifricium, which occurs first in Apuleius, then in the Vetus Latina and later in the medical text tradition. Can we therefore assume a close connection between the Latin translations and ancient medical texts? I come now to the summaries in the Gospel of Luke. Summaries are of special importance because they often place healing next to casting out unclean spirits or demons. What kind of terms are used with regard to exorcism?

2 Demons and Illness in Summaries and Sayings of the Vetus Latina First, we note that Jesus’ exorcisms are associated with the beginning of God’s royal power, his kingdom of God. Jesus sees his expulsions of demons from people as a concrete demonstration that God’s rule is breaking into his world. The Gospels use demons in association with evil and unclean spirits. In the Latin translation of the Synoptic Gospels there are different designations for demons – sometimes with a single term, sometimes with qualifying adjectives that signify demons or different kinds of spirits – and they occur in variable density. It is first of all noteworthy that the term δαίμων – δαιμόνιον is always translated as daemonium/daemonia in Matthew and Mark.²⁵ However, the translators of Luke in the “Afra” texts use the term δαίμων – δαιμόνιον (demon) and words for different kinds of spirits (like the spirit of weakness or illness) interchangeably: daemonium/daemonia/spiritus immundus. And we find a similar result for the translation of the term unclean spirit ἀκάθαρτον πνεῦμα into spiritus immundus or spiritus malus (e. g. Luke 9:43), which stays always the same in Mark and Matthew without any variants. The translators of the Gospel of Luke translate the term either with the plural immundis spiritibus, the singular daemonio immundo, spiritum habens infirmitatis (e. g. Luke 8:29; 30) or the term signaling impurity is not translated at all. We find just spiritus instead (a 3²⁶; c 6; d 5; l 11 in Luke 9:39).

 Mark 1:34.39; 3:15.22; 6:13; 7:26.29.30; 9:38; Matthew 7:22; 9:33.34; 10:8; 11:18; 12:24.27.28; 17:13 is the term not translated; Luke 4:33 daemonium immundum; 4:35.41 daemonium; 8:2 spiritibus immundis; 8:27.30.33.35.38 daemonium, daemonia; 9:1 daemonia; 9:42 spiritus malus, spiritum immundum; 9:40 daemonia; 10:17; 11:14 daemonium, mutum daemonium; 11:15 daemonium; 11:18.19 daemonium; 13:32 daemonia.  I am thankful to Gregory Heyworth for sharing with me his latest work on the Codex Vercellensis.

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This use of different terms is especially interesting in Jesus’ answer to the disciples of John the Baptist in Luke 7:21, where he says: multos curavit a languoribus et plagis et malis spiritibus et caecos faciebat videre. The participle languentes comes up regularly in Scribonius as well as in Celsus, as “those who are seriously ill”. The term plaga is a term used in the New Testament to signify an illness that makes impure: According to Mark 5:29, the bloodletting woman felt that she was healed of her “plague” (μάστιξ, plaga and in flagellum). The author of Mark also reports in 3:10 that many sick people, quicumque habebant plagas, wished to be healed by Jesus. The term plaga is used often in Greek-Latin literature, but in the sense of plague only by Jewish Hellenistic authors.²⁷ If one considers the usage of plaga in the LXX and in the Vulgate, Psalm 37(38):18 stands out in particular. In the verses 4, 6, and 8 various symptoms are listed that are also named in the context of leprosy: no “soundness in my flesh”, the “wounds stink” and “are corrupt”. In verse 12, the social consequences of the illness are reported: the people nearest to the speaker stand aloof because of the “wounds which are corrupt”, that is, at a distance. This meaning is also confirmed by Celsus and other Roman medical authors who use plaga for “wound of a surgical incision”, “deep wounds” or “an incision”. Accordingly, the term “plaga” may be interpreted as terminology that refers to a visible illness. The third term is spiritibus malis. Celsus, for example, seems to distinguish malum, a subordinate term, from morbus – a condition with complex symptoms – and vitium, a localised affliction that is a “bad thing”. The translators thus reflect here a spirit that afflicts a person with an illness. This meaning fits well with the idea of the spirit of weakness, spiritum habens infirmitatis in Luke 13:11.²⁸ This variety of different connotations can only be found in Luke. To summarise my first observation, we can say that, for the translation of the terms in Luke, to have a demon was to be impure and sick and to have an impure and sick spirit means also to have a demon that makes one weak. The Latin translation of the Gospel thus makes clear that daimon was not a neutral expression for Luke. It refers to intermediary beings capable of having harmful effects on humans.²⁹ This is especially interesting as the terms mentioned refer to humans in different spaces: the man who had the daemonium immundum is in a synagogue, in a city in 8:2, in 8:29 at a monumentum (which may refer to a tomb as well as a temple) and in front of the synagogues in Luke 13:11. Secondly, we note that in his summaries (4:40 f and 6:18 f) Luke concentrates on his understanding of demons and unclean spirits as signifying a sickness that can be cured. A first example takes place at the end of the first Sabbath mentioned in the Gospel of Luke, which marks the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (“as the sun was setting”, Luke 4:40). Jesus devotes his attention to sick people by laying his hands  See similar Burton (2000), 126.  See also spirit of the unclean demon πνεῦμα δαιμονίου ἀκαθάρτου daemonium immundum in Luke 4:33.  See Sorensen (2002), 75 – 117, esp. 121 ff.

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on each of them.³⁰ The reader notices the detailed description of the sickness of the people, who are described as habebant languentes infirmitatibus variis in Codex e 2, or habebant infirmus magnis languoribus in Codex b 4. The description of the illnesses, habebant languentes infirmitatibus variis, is important insofar as Luke leaves out a remark from Mark daemonia habebant – daemoniis adprehensum. The sickness mentioned may hence include illness caused by demons. This interpretation is especially remarkable when we compare the Lukan text with Matthew, who does not mention ill people and focuses instead on the exorcism of demons. In verse 41, Luke changes the subject, which is in every manuscript daemonia with exiebant in the plural (also different from the Greek text, which has the verb in the singular: ἐξήρχετο). Jesus does not cast out the demons with a detailed description of expelling the demons. Instead, the verb exire “to quit” or “to decamp”, and the participles clamantia et dicentia stand for the action of the demons. One important aspect is the recognition by the unclean spirits of Jesus as the Son of God (quia tu es filius Dei) and Jesus’ subsequent command to be silent.³¹ This impression is deepened with the summary in Luke 6:17– 19. In the best and earliest text manuscripts, Luke describes in two parallel infinitive phrases that many people came to hear Jesus (audire illum) and to be healed from illnesses (et curari et languoribus suis). Curari is defined with reference to their illnesses. In a second clause, which is also introduced with et, he again uses the verb curabantur, which is more closely defined through a relative clause qui vexabantur ab spiritibus immundis. The verb vexare refers to a common image or action of a disease as an agent that afflicts, troubles or harms a person. Caelius Aurelianus uses this verb very often in his Tardarum passionum, especially in the parts on epileptic seizures and manic afflictions, where it sometimes describes the harm that not only affects the body but also the soul.³² The spiritus immundus that is said to harm body and soul of a person is not cast out. Instead, Luke uses the verb curare. The most important meaning of curare is “to attend to (a patient’s) bodily needs”, “to take care of” or “to treat a sick person or a disease” (OLD, 475). To summarise my second point: Jesus’ encounters with the demonic world are located within a religious climate in which exorcisms were considered a legitimate way to combat evil. Whilst this aspect is true for all Synoptic Gospels, Luke deepens the meaning of demon insofar as the evil is not only defined as uncleanness but also as sickness. This raises the question of whether the narratives that mention demons refer to ancient medicine or have a strong Christian emphasis.

 Ille autem uniquique eorum manus inponens Codex e 2; qui uniquique eorum manibus impositis Codex a 3; ad ille singulis manus Codex b.  See e. g. Caelius Aurelianus, chron.: clamare 460,24; 488,30; clamatio 496,29; 834,17.  See Caelius Aurelianus, chron. 536,12: item permissus vexat, cum corpore evirato animae quoque substantia turbatur; see also 510,3; 492,27; 466,21; 472,11; 474,29; 482,14; 492,14; 498,1; 502,5; 508,34 and more often. See also Celsus 4.14.4 with regard to pneumonia; Plinius, Nat. Hist., 8,98; 20,76 and more often.

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3 The Embodiment of Illness and the Demonic Recent scholarship has attempted to illustrate that Jesus was “a physician before his time”. He was remarkably effective in treating people with mental disorders, which sometimes manifest themselves through physical symptoms, as Donald Capps and Harold Ellens argue.³³ Language about demons was actually a way to talk about psychosomatic, mental illness. Bernd Kollmann concurs with this, saying: “Bei Persönlichkeitsstörungen und Epilepsie ging er von dämonischer Besessenheit aus und bekämpfte sie mit Exorzismen.”³⁴ He also speaks of dissociative personality disorder in this context and is therefore using modern language to describe ancient phenomena related to illnesses. However, the majority of scholars evaluate the terms in narratives relating to a demon as “Volksmedizin”. I shall now analyse whether the Old Latin Gospel of Luke relates to the illness phenomena as ‚folk medicine‘ or not. The first example to consider is the story of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law in a private house. Mark 1:29 – 31 is often read as the female counterpart of the exorcism of the man with the unclean spirit in a synagogue in Mark 1:21b-28, both placed deliberately on the first day of Jesus’ ministry. In Luke, the story follows the first programmatic speech of Jesus and is often seen as an exorcism. Luke uses πυρετῷ μεγάλῳ “great fever”, translated in almost all Latin manuscripts with “magnis febribus”,³⁵ which is often evaluated in New Testament scholarship as a term reflecting ‚folk medicine‘ and therefore already an indicator that this illness may be understood outside the scope of ‚rational medicine‘. In ancient Roman medicine, which differs in many ways from Greek medicine, the illness “fever” is commonly understood simply as an “illness”.³⁶ Schulz has shown that fever, in fact different kinds of fever, are involved in the Latin distinctions morbus and vitium ³⁷ and that the term is also related to the different kinds of fever. In the writings by Theodorus Priscianus as well as in Celsus and Cassius Felix, terms alternate between Greek and Latin within one text, in using Latin paraphrases for a single Greek term without acknowledging the Greek origin. One can also speak of “silent alternation”³⁸: For Theodorus Priscianus, Greek medical language was the main language of all medical discourse (Graeco stylo quoniam medendi industriam sermone claro haec natio publicavit (1.6 – 7), and he promotes this perspective in his treatises. In the writings by Theodorus Priscianus, cotidiana febris, a “daily fever”³⁹ (sometimes called quotidian fever), and febris chronica are mentioned. This is different for Cassius, who is Latin-speaking. Recent  Capps (2008); Ellens (2008), 1– 14.  Kollmann (2017); also Kollmann (1996).  With the exception of Codex 3 (a) which is using febre magna.  Evidence for ancient understanding of fever is given by Diogenes Laertius 9.49 who refers to Democritus, in Celsus 3.3 – 7 and 4.4, Alexander Aphrodisias, febr.  See Schulze (2001), 45.  This phrase was first used by Marx (1915), XCVI.  Celsus 3.5.3.

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scholarship has shown Cassius Felix amalgamate parallel terminologies, and therefore his Greek terms always have a Latin equivalent.⁴⁰ Guy Sabbah offers a culturalhistorical interpretation of this commate Cassius would have been speaking on behalf of the Latin-speaking Christians of Roman North Africa, who were in solidarity with the Greek-speaking Eastern Empire.⁴¹ For reasons of space, I am not able to comment on this here; however, that this mutual interpenetration of Latin and Greek in the later Empire has a political motivation seems plausible. Cassius uses febris incendiosa. ⁴² Unlike Theodorus Priscianus and Cassius Felix, in writing a medical encyclopaedia, Celsus was not a medical professional, but he may have had medical experience, and he used his Greek sources with acknowledgment; his terms include febris acuta, “an acute fever”,⁴³ and febris ardens ⁴⁴ (sometimes also as in recenti vehementique praecipueque ardente febre 5.28.18b, to signify an intensification).⁴⁵ Fever is often regarded as lethal; the febris chronica or tertiana is considered especially dangerous, since its frequent attacks seriously interfere with predictions of the cycle of fever. As a result “great care is required to avoid a mistake […]. Many die suddenly from error one way or the other on the part of the practitioner plurimique sub alterutro curantis errore subito moriuntur.”⁴⁶ More evidence is provided by Ammanius, who let Julian express his fear that he could lose his life even by suffering only from febricula. ⁴⁷ The compound magnis febribus can hence be evaluated as a Latin compound which is not unusual for Roman medicine. However, Ammianus’ following verse seems to question this evaluation, saying et stans super illam imperavit febri et dimissit illam. Jesus is said to exercise authority over the fever (imperavit) and casts it out (dimissit).⁴⁸ A second example provides additional support for this interpretation: the healing of the bent/crippled woman in Luke 13:11– 13. In a periphrastic sentence, in Greek the two main terms describing the symptoms of her illness are ἀνακύπτειν and συγκύπτειν, which are related in an objective genitive to a spirit that causes her weakness. Apart from the pneuma astheneias, these terms do not refer to ancient medical texts. This is different in the Latin translation: First of all the term for the spirit that makes people weak is translated as spiritum infirmitatis or spiritum habuit languoris – in medical texts, the terms infirmitas and pestilentia are often accustomed exchange-

 Löfstedt (1959), 99 – 111 and 119; Sabbah (1985), 279 – 312, here esp. 292– 293.  Langslow (1992), 128 – 129.  Cassius Felix refers to causos latino sermone febris incendiosa dicitur 149.9 (synonymous with febris ardens? 142.15), however, Celsus has it as a current Latin expression.  Celsus.  In Celsus used pathologically (2.15.1; 5.28.18b), in Cassius mentioned as febris incendiosa (Cass. 142.15; 149.9)  For further discussion see Langslow (1992), 260.  Celsus 3.8. It is interesting that Celsus does not use the term medicus, but instead curans.  Ammianus Marcellinus 24.3.7; see for further examples Horn (1969), 877– 909.  Vulgate as well as Codices 5 (d), 6 (c), 8 (ff2), 13 (q), 11 (l), 15 (aur); e (2) uses demisit or remisit 4 (b).

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able and refer to morbus and pestis, which are frequently used in Roman medicine to refer to an illness that is difficult to treat. The term spiritus infirmitatis is used only once in Celsus with regard to epilepsy: It is the internal spirit, the breath, which causes epilepsy. This term is accompanied with two other terms that are not translated by the translators in a unique way; however, almost all the terms used refer to a distortion and curvature of the whole body – not only the back. Vulgate and Codex b (4) refer to inclinare, which is used in Caelius Aurelianus and Cassius Felix with reference to an epileptic seizure: the spine is distorted and randomly twisted owing to several seizures (Caelius Aurelianus, chron., 560,20; 494,15). The verb incumbare, which is used in Codex d (5), and which refers to a congealment of limbs after many seizures, has a similar meaning. The second term is mostly translated as erigere, which is used for great pain while moving. Some manuscripts (Codex b, c, l and q) refer instead to respicere, which is also a term used in ancient medicine and refers to the lack of response to external stimuli – the person is not able to look up. It is now interesting, that this term is used in Luke 1:48, in Mary’s Magnificat, where it is God who oversees the humble estate of his servant: quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae (inspexit). We can conclude – albeit only cautiously owing to the few sources available – that these terms mostly refer to the outside air, which is inhaled into the body and causes seizures that result in distortion. If we follow this result, then the Latin translation – assuming the Latin works have the same cultural framework as the medical texts – distances itself from the Greek text, insofar as the interpretation is now more oriented towards a medical reading of the text. I come now to my third example: rational medicine can be seen as the context for the narrative of the so-called epileptic boy that occurs in all three Synoptic Gospels albeit with different terminology. In Matthew the verb is σεληνιάζομαι, “being moonstruck” (17:15). In medical texts, this term appears for the first time in Aretaeus of Cappadocia, who along with his medical interpretation also refers to the ancient metaphorical background of this illness: But also it is reckoned a disgraceful form of disease; for it is supposed, that it is an infliction on persons who have sinned against the Moon (Selene): and hence some have called it the Sacred Disease, and that for more reasons than one, as from the greatness of the evil, for the Greek word ἱερὸς also signifies great; or because the cure of it is not human, but divine; or from the opinion that it proceeded from the entrance of a demon into the man: from some one, or all these causes together, it has been called Sacred.⁴⁹

In Aretaeus, Selene has caused the moon goddess’ resentment, who punished her with “epileptic phenomena”. A brief notice by Callimachus takes this up saying: “But in the afternoon an evil pallor came upon her; the disease seized her, which we banish on the wild goats and which we falsely call the holy disease. That grievous

 Aretaeus, SD, I 4.2 (38.28 ff. Hude); (Translation: Adams).

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sickness then wasted the girl even to the Halls of Hades.”⁵⁰ In this sense, the epileptic phenomena are deprived of access to humans and are called divine.⁵¹ Galen of Pergamon refers in several passages to the influence of the moon on the human body and mentions σεληνιάζομαι, “being moonstruck” as well as its Latin translation lunaticus. It is now interesting that the best texts, the Afra texts as well as some European texts, do not use the term lunaticus but instead use daemonium, even though the healing is translated as exivit ab eo daemonium et curatus or sanatus est (Itala and d (5) as well the Afra tradition). There are numerous references to ‚rational medicine‘ in Luke. In his descriptions, the author of the Gospel of Luke employs constructs of illness that were understandable within the culture of antiquity and that should only be viewed in this context. However, he does not mention the name “epilepsy”.⁵² It is now interesting that Celsus in the case of epilepsy never used the Greek name “epilepsy”. He calls the sickness comitialis morbus – “the greater one”: “The human being suddenly falls down and foam issues out of his mouth; after an interval he returns to himself, and actually gets up by himself – Homo subito concidit, ex ore spumae moventur, deinde interposito tempore ad se redit, et per se ipse consurgit.”⁵³ Instead of using the medical term epilepsia, many Roman medical authors use different medical expressions consisting of noun phrases (noun and a subjective genitive or ablative). These phrasal terms do not refer to a physical state, but rather name a disease and relate to pathology. Not only do medical texts as well as Mark and Luke refer to infans and pueri (Caelius Aurelianus, chron. 4,60: puerilis passio), but these medical texts also refer to the boy’s grinding his teeth – strindet dentibus (Mark), illisio dentium atque stridor et languae prolaptio (Caelius Aurelianus , chron. 5,65), foaming – per os atque nares spumarum (Mark and Luke, Caelius Aurelianus , chron. 5,65; Celsus 3.23,1,23,1) and convulsing – occupaverit (Luke), facilis sensus obtinente passione occupato corpore, sensuum privatio accessione or mentem partier apprehendat (Cael. Aur.), and describe him being thrown in fire and water (Celsus 3,23; Caelius Aurelianus, chron. 94). Especially important is the term spiritus. Celsus, Scribonius and Theodoris have spiritus as “breathing”, Scribonius has spiratio and Theodorus sputum, with the same meaning. It is now remarkable that spiritus – pneuma is seen as the cause of the disease that attacks the human body. Ancient medicine is familiar with two models of epilepsy.⁵⁴ Both start from the assumption of damage to the brain from bodily fluids, brought on by the congestion of breath in the arteries. One form manifests itself in conspicuous seizures, the other

 Callimachus, Aet. 75,121 ff. (Translation: Gelzer/ Whitman LCL).  Keydell (1969), 390.  For more details see Bendemann (2007; 2010) and Weissenrieder (2003); also Popkes (2009), 186 – 202.  Celsus 3,23,1.  See in detail Weissenrieder (2003), 227– 297 and Weissenrieder (2016), 265 – 285.

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results in paralysis. Whereas both phenomena are mentioned together in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 9) – an impossible scenario in the context of ancient medicine – the author of the Gospel of Luke omits the symptoms describing paralysis in the boy and limits himself to the depiction of a seizure brought on by phlegm, which includes a fit of dramatic physical movement. Jesus is presented here not as an exorcist, but more as a physician. It is in fact remarkable that Luke, who interprets epilepsy in the context of ancient medicine, still mentions a spiritus – however, in almost all the manuscripts the word is used without an adjective (Luke 9:42). Any interpretation of this text always has to take the ambiguity of the term spiritus into consideration. On the one hand, the unclean spirit refers to a demonic interpretation of the illness epilepsy (also mentioned in De morbo sacro); on the other hand, spiritus also refers to unclean breath inside the human body, which is the cause of the epilepsy. If one follows the interpretation of the unclean spirit as a demon, the question of this demon’s function arises.⁵⁵ The classicist Philip van der Eijk made a helpful remark in understanding the role of demons. They are to be understood as being “beyond human control, for the nature of this illness is sometimes beyond human control, though not divine”.⁵⁶ This might explain why Jesus has power over this disease while the disciples have not: if Jesus has power over an illness seen as beyond human control, he is divine,⁵⁷ and it is indeed interesting that the crowd was astonished at the majesty of God after Jesus rebuked the demon. This reaction is only plausible if Jesus defeats a power that was interpreted as being beyond human control. Another hint is found in the story of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, who was ill with a high fever (Luke 4:39). In addressing the fever, Jesus treats the fever as a demon and thus as a responsive being. Luke distinguishes between the sick person and the disease that invades the patient as an independent force from outside.⁵⁸ A comparable situation can also be found in Mark 9:20, where the pneuma recognises Jesus and the boy then loses consciousness and experiences an attack; or in Mark 9:25, where Jesus merely addresses the unclean spirit, not the boy: “you mute and deaf spirit, I command you […]”. Precisely for this reason, the patient is freed of the religious responsibility for his illness. This results in the paradoxical situation that the introduction of a demon is to be interpreted as antidemonic. Accordingly, the mention of the demon in Luke’s story of the healing of the epileptic boy demonstrates that the cause of the disease is not to be found in his alleged sins, but is to be understood as being beyond human control. We could consider this in a medical and

 For further details on epilepsy see Wohlers (1999); Temkin (1994) and Weissenrieder (2003), 227– 297, Weissenrieder (2016), 275 ff.  Van der Eijk (1990).  We find a similar expression in Vict. IV. 87, where the author writes: “Prayer is a good thing, but while calling on the gods one should also put in effort oneself.” (6.642 Littré).  Cf. Oeming (2013), 292: The patient has become the “victim of a demonic attack. That which disturbs physical or emotional well-being comes from outside”.

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sociological sense: If a religious community assumes that it can explain a disease’s etiology and thus any deviations from a healthy state through religion – if it ascribes illnesses to unclean spirits or demons and describes overcoming them not as a physiological process, but as a process of conquering these forces – that does not make the system any less medical. This insight is particularly apt when the physical symptoms are expressively understood in a medical sense, but the etiology is described demonologically. It is also worth noting that in Greek manuscripts (‫א‬, A, C, D, L) ἐξαίφνης belongs to κράζειν: the boy cries out suddenly. ⁵⁹ In the Old Latin manuscript tradition, however, ἐξαίφνης belongs to πνεῦμα, which reflects the medical tradition: the πνεῦμα seizes him suddenly. The demonological system of interpretation (the unclean, silent spirit) is thus seen as an expression of the medical understanding that the illness is caused by an unclean πνεῦμα. Potential therapeutic and exorcistic meanings can overlap here.

4 Roman Medicine and its Metaphorical Language What does the construct of demons, unclean and ill spirits, have to do with constructs of illness in ancient Roman medicine? Almost all the texts portray exorcism as an embodiment or “disembodiment”⁶⁰ – as Loren Stuckenbruck calls it – of unclean spirits and demons into or out of a human body. The terms used in Greek are ἐκβάλλειν– to cast out and ἐξέρχομαι – departing. Both terms include notions of action and movement. In Roman medicine we face a medical phenomenon: Symptoms and diseases, which may not have a corporeal existence, may be presented as if they were physical objects, and they are indeed often associated with predicates that imply that they are animate – even human – agents of the action of the verb. Actions and states that include a notion of movement, aggressive attack, force, capacity and occupation are also ascribed to body parts and remedies, and often implied with this are aspects of helping and repairing. Langslow calls this an “element of corporeality, animacy, and even anthropomorphism used of physiological processes”.⁶¹ First of all we find metaphors of an action of the human body, both, involuntary and voluntary. Almost all manuscripts of the Vetus Latina Mark and Matthew translate the polysemous Greek verbs βάλλω and ἐκβάλλω with eicere in the “European” text. Celsus has eicere for the “vomiting” of bodily substances, Scribonius has reiectio and reicientes for the “vomiting, bringing up” of poison, of blood and other substances,⁶² and Cassius Felix uses reiactatio “vomiting, bringing up” of blood/phlegm with the verb being used figuratively based on its basic sense of “to throw back violently”.  See Weissenrieder (2016), 277 ff.  This term was first used in context of demonology by Stuckenbruck (2014), 174; see for the following: Langslow (2000), 193 ff.  Langslow (2000), 194.  Scribonius Largus 47.22– 23; 48.19; 49.1 with reference to sanguinis; 62.20 stercus per os eicientem.

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Luke often refers to mittere and dimittere. In his narrative, fevers do bestow supernatural abilities and may count as the evil powers that cause pain, as mentioned in 4:36. Celsus uses decedere for the “abatement of an illness” and remittere (remissio) for the “remission or abatement of an illness” and speaks mainly of fever as a disease leaving the patient. The fever thus departs from a person. Scribonius talks of remissio – remittere of pain (see 52.10 and 16). Theodorus Priscianus speaks also of dimittere – “releasing” the patient from an illness, and he speaks of the fever as an “action of sending forth and letting go” (247.7). In addition, he speaks of the even more aggressive notion of occupare and occupatio (114.9), as we can also see in Luke’s version of the epileptic boy (Luke 9:40). Finally, Cassius Felix uses dimittere, as well as remittere and also an apprehensio “seizure” of the senses,⁶³ and he even can speak of an illness being born, its nativitas, which refers to the formation of growth of an illness.⁶⁴ The medical historian D.R. Langslow thus refers to a disease “approaching or more aggressively attacking the patient, seizing the patient, letting him go, and departing”.⁶⁵ These results suggest that the terms eicere, dimittere and remittere used in the Vetus Latina translation do not refer to exorcism, but much more resemble a medical description of an illness, which was experienced by ancient medical scientists as “approaching” or even “aggressively attacking” people. It is obvious from these sources that fever was seen as one of the illnesses that seize or occupy a person.⁶⁶ At least in the Latin translation used by the Vetus Latina Luke, the term may not refer to an exorcistic act. Moreover, these results imply that Jesus was not exercising authority as a “charismatic miracle worker […] and his victory over the fever appears to be rather the work of an exorcists”, as Reinhard von Bendemann recently argued. Instead, he was much more like a practical physician, a curans. ⁶⁷ It is Jesus’ virtus, which is engaged in health in Luke 8:46 (Codex e2: et omnes turba quaerebant tangere illum virtus enim ab eo proficiscebatur et curabatur omnes; Codex a3: et omnis turba quaerebat tangere enim: quoniam virtus ab illo exibat, et sanabat omnes). Codex c4 includes even another infinitive, curare, before virtus, where it says: et curare quia virtus ab eo exibat. The divine reality is represented by Jesus’ divine power (Luke 8:46), which brings healing through touch (Luke 5:13) or by word (Luke 5:17, 24), and is plausible within the context of Luke’s Gospel. Δύναμις – in the Latin translation virtus – is especially well-known in ancient medical texts as a quality of medicine, and it has a meaning similar to qualitas.⁶⁸ We may

 See already André (1963), 60 – 62, 65.  André (1963), 65 with reference to Cassius Dio 38.1. Vietmeier (1937), 53 – 54.  Langslow (1992), 196. For the following see André (1963); 47– 67 and Langslow, ibid.  Vietmeier (1937), 53 – 54.  Bendemann (2006), 100 – 124, here 111.  Soranos 17,13; 73,22; Anonymus, Par., 24 v.3; Caelius Aurelianus, chron. 4,134; 3,17: quoties viderimus constrictivam virtutem; III.9 est enim efficacioris virtutis; III.33: castoreum vero acerrimae esse virtutis nemo negat; III.42: emeticon vomificae virtutis.

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also take into consideration another possible translation for δύναμις – vis/vires – which is more a bodily power or physical strength and is often used for potestas.⁶⁹ This suggests, that Jesus’ “virtus” does not refer to his physical power, but is much more like a medicine that healed the sick.⁷⁰ Thus the text does not lead us to consider the story as an exorcism.

Conclusion “Translation”, as Walter Benjamin writes, “passes through continua of transformation, not abstract areas of identity and similarity”. In translating the Greek text of the New Testament Gospels with regard to exorcism, the Vetus Latina Luke undergoes several transformations. Overall, the terms referring to exorcism are increasingly used in the old “Afra” text tradition, especially in the Gospel of Matthew. This is different for Luke, where not only the terms signifying an illness can be made plausible in light of Roman medicine, but also the terms referring to an illness being vomited out and leaving a patient. These terms refer to serious life-threatening diseases that attack a human being. Christologically, the Lukan Jesus in the Vetus Latina removes the plague of illness rather than the plague of demons and unclean spirits.

Bibliography André, Jacques, “Remarques sur la traduction des mots grecs dans les textes médicaux du Ve siècle (Cassius Félix et Caelius Aurélianus)”, in: Revue de philology 37 (1963), 47 – 67. Bachmann-Medick, Doris, “Introduction. The Translational Turn”, in: Translation Studies 2 (2009), 2 – 16. Bastiaensen, Toon, “Exorcism: Tackling the Devil by Word and Mouth”, in: Demons and the Devil in Ancient and Early Christianity, ed. Nienke M. Vos/Willemien Otten, Leiden 2011, 129 – 143. Bendemann, Reinhard von, “‚Many-Coloured Illnesses‘ (Mark 1.34). On the Significance of Illnesses in New Testament Therapy Narratives”, in: Wonders Never Cease. The Purpose of Narrating Miracle Stories in the New Testament and its Religious Environment, ed. Michael Labahn/Bert Jan/Lietaert Peerbolte, London/New York 2006, 100 – 124. Bendemann, Reinhard von, “Christus der Arzt. Krankheitskonzepte in den Therapieerzählungen des Markusevangeliums”, in: Heilungen und Wunder. Theologische, historische und medizinische Zugänge, ed. Josef Pichler/Christoph Heil, Darmstadt 2007, 105 – 129. Bendemann, Reinhard von, “Christus der Arzt. Krankheitskonzepte in den Therapieerzählungen des Markusevangeliums (Teil I)”, in: Biblische Zeitschrift 54 (2010), 36 – 53. Bendemann, Reinhard von, “Christus der Arzt. Krankheitskonzepte in den Therapieerzählungen des Markusevangeliums (Teil II)”, in: Biblische Zeitschrift 54 (2010), 162 – 178.

 See Soranos 96.29; Caelius Aurelianus, chron.1,86: permittibus viribus; chron. 1,22: iuxta virium possibilitatem.  Vietmeier (1937), 53 – 54.

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Bendz, G; Pape, I. Caelii Aureliani: Celerum Passionum Libri III: Aucutarum Passionum Libri V, Teil I, Berlin 1990. Benjamin, Walter, Medienästhetische Schriften, Frankfurt, Main 2002. Bhabha, Homi K., The Location of Culture, London/New York 1994. Burton, Philip, The Old Latin Gospels. A Study of their Texts and Language, Oxford 2000. Capps, Donald, Jesus the Village Psychrist, Louisville/London 2008. Cassuto, Umberto, “The Jewish translation of the Bible into Latin and its Importance for the Study of the Greek and Aramaic Versions”, in: Biblical and Oriental Studies 1. Bible, ed. Umberto Cassuto, Jerusalem 1973, 274 – 319. Coleman, Robert, “The Formation of Specialized Vocabularies in Philosophy, Grammar, and Rhetoric: Winners and Losers”, in: Actes du Ve Colloque international sur le latin vulgaire et tardif, ed. Marius Lavency/Dominique Longrée, Louvain-la-Neuve 1989, 77 – 89. Coleman, Robert, “Vulgar Latin and the Diversity of Christian Latin”, in: Actes du Ier Colloque international sur le latin vulgar et tardif, ed. József Herman, Tübingen 1987, 37 – 52. Denecker, Tim, “The Nijmegen School and its ‚sociological‘ approach to the so-called Sondersprache of early Christians: a preliminary historiographical study”, in: Latomus 77 (2018), 335 – 57. Ellens, J. Harold, “Biblical Miracles and Psychological Process: Jesus as Psychotherapist”, in: Miracles. God, Science, and Psychology in the Paranormal, ed. J. Harold Ellens, Westport 2008, 1 – 14. Fischer, Bonifatius, “Zur Überlieferung des lateinischen Textes der Evangelien”, in: Cahiers de la Revue Théologique de Louvain, ed. Hermann Josef Frede/Roger Gryson/Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, Louvain-la-Neuve 1987, 51 – 104. Fischer, Bonifatius, Die lateinischen Evangelien bis zum 10. Jahrhundert (Vetus Latina, die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel 16), Freiburg 1989. Fisher, Elizabeth A., “Greek Translations of the Latin Literature in the Fourth Century A.D.”, in: Yale Classical Studies 28 (1982), 173 – 219. Gryson, Roger, Altlateinische Handschriften/Manuscrits Vieux Latins 1 – 275 (Vetus Latina. Reste der lateinischen Bibel 1.1), Freiburg 1999. Gryson, Roger, Altlateinische Handschriften/Manuscrits Vieux Latins 300 – 485 (Vetus Latina. Reste der lateinischen Bibel 1.2), Freiburg 2004. Horn, Hans-Jürgen, “Fieber”, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 7 (1969), 877 – 909. Houghton, Hugh, The Latin New Testament. A Guide to its Early History, Texts, and Manuscipts, Oxford 2016. Kedar-Kopfstein, Benjamin, “The Latin Translations”, in: Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Martin J. Mulder, Peabody 2004, 299 – 338. Keydell, Rudolf, “Kydippe”, in: Der Kleine Pauly 3 (1969), 390. Klutz, Todd, The Exorcism Stories in Luke-Acts. A Sociostylistic Reading, Cambridge 2004. Kollmann, Bernd, “Exorzismen”, in: Jesus Handbuch, ed. Jens Schröter/Christine Jacobi, Tübingen 2017, 310 – 318. Kollmann, Bernd, Jesus und die Christen als Wundertäter. Studien zu Magie, Medizin und Schamanismus in Antike und Christentum, Göttingen 1996. Lange, Armin/Lichtenberger, Hermann/Römheld, Diethard, Die Dämonen. Demons. The Demonology of Israelite-Jewish and Early Christian Literature in Context of their Environment, Tübingen 2003. Langslow, David R., “The Development of Latin Medical Terminology. Some Working Hypotheses”, in: Proceeding of the Cambridge Philological Society 37 (1992), 106 – 130. Langslow, David R., Medical Latin in the Roman Empire, Oxford 2000. Löfstedt, Einar, Late Latin, Oslo 1959.

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Lundström, Sven, Die Überlieferung der lateinischen Irenaeusübersetzung, Uppsala 1985. Lundström, Sven, Studien zur lateinischen Irenäusübersetzung, Lund 1943. Lundström, Sven, Neue Studien zur lateinischen Irenäusübersetzung, Lund 1948. Marti, Heinrich, Übersetzer der Augustin-Zeit, Munich 1974. Metzger, Bruce M., Early Versions of the New Testament, Oxford 1977. Mohrmann, Christine, Études sur latin des Chrétiens, Rom 1958. Niranjana, Tejaswini, Siting Translation. History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context, Berkeley 1992. Oeming, Manfred, “Krankheit”, in: Wörterbuch alttestamentlicher Motive, eds. Michael Fieger/Jutta Krispenz/Jörg Lanckau, Darmstadt 2013, 290 – 295. Popkes, Enno Edzard, “Die Heilungen Jesu und die Anfänge der Jesusbewegung. Beobachtungen zu den synoptischen Erzählungen von den ersten Heilungen Jesu”, in: Krankheitsdeutung in der postsäkularen Gesellschaft, ed. Günter Thomas/Isolde Karle, Stuttgart 2009, 186 – 202. Powell, Jonathan G. F., “Cicero’s Translation from Greek”, in: Cicero the Philosopher, eds. Jonathan G. F. Powell, Oxford 1995, 273 – 300. Reiterer, Friedrich V./Nicklas, Tobias/Schöpflin, Karin, Angels. The Concept of Celestial Beings. Origins, Development and Reception, Berlin/New York 2007. Sabbah, Guy, “Observations préliminaires à une nouvelle edition de Cassius Félix”, in: I testi di medicina latini antichi. Problemi filologici e storici. (Atti del 1. Convegno internazionale. Macerata-S. Severino, 26 – 28 aprile 1984), ed. Innocenzo Mazzini/Franca Fusco, Rome 1985, 279 – 312. Sanday, William, Studia Biblica. Essays in Biblical Archeology and Criticism and Kindred Subjects I, Oxford 1885, 234 – 239. Schäfer, Karl T., Die altlateinische Bibel, Bonn 1957. Schrijnen, Joseph, Charakteristik des altchristlichen Latein, Nijmegen 1932. Schrijnen, Joseph, Collectanea Schrijnen: Verspreide opstellen van Dr. Jos. Schrij, ed. Christine Mohrmann, Nijmegen/Utrecht 1939. Schulze, Christian, Celsus, Hildesheim 2001. Seidman, Naomi, Faithful Renderings. Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation, Chicago/London 2006. Soden, Hans von, Das lateinische Neue Testament in Afrika zur Zeit Cyprians nach Bibelhandschriften und Väterzeugnissen, Leipzig 1909. Sorensen, Eric, Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament and Early Christianity, Tübingen 2002. Sparks, Hedley, “The Latin Bible”, in: The Bible in its Ancient and English Versions, ed. H. Wheeler Robinson, Oxford 1940, 100 – 129. Stuckenbruck, Loren T., The Myth of Rebellious Angels. Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts, Tübingen 2014. Stummer, Friedrich, Einführung in die lateinische Bibel. Ein Handbuch für Vorlesungen und Selbstunterricht, Paderborn 1928. Temkin, Owsei, The Falling Sickness. A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology, Baltimore 1994. Thielmann, Philipp, “Die lateinische Übersetzung des Buches der Weisheit”, in: Archiv für lateinische Lexicographie und Grammatik 8 (1893a), 233 – 272. Thielmann, Philipp, “Die lateinische Übersetzung des Buches Sirach”, in: Archiv für lateinische Lexicographie und Grammatik 8 (1893b), 501 – 561. Twelftree, Graham H., In the Name of Jesus. Exorcism among Early Christians, Grand Rapids 2007. Twelftree, Graham H., Jesus the Exorcist. A Contribution to the Historical Jesus, Tübingen 1992. Van der Eijk, Philip, “The Theology of the Hippocratic Treatise On the Sacred Disease”, in: Apeiron 23 (1990), 87 – 119.

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Vietmeier, Karl, Beobachtungen über Caelius Aurelianus als Übersetzer medizinischer Fachausdrücke verlorener griechischer Schriften des methodischen Arztes Soranos von Ephesos, Münster 1937. Weissenrieder, Annette, Images of Illness in the Gospel of Luke. Insights from Ancient Medical Texts, Tübingen 2003. Weissenrieder, Annette, “Cultural Translation: The Fig Tree and Politics of Representation under Nero in Rome (Mark 11:13 – 15, 19 – 20; Matt 21:18 – 19, Luke 13:1 – 9)”, in: Miracles Revisited. New Testament Miracle Stories and Their Concepts of Reality, ed. Stefan Alkier/Annette Weissenrieder, Berlin 2013, 201 – 230. Weissenrieder, Annette, “Disease and Healing in a Changing World. ‚Medical‘ Vocabulary and the Woman with the ‚Issue of Blood‘ in the Vetus Latina Mark 5:25 – 34 and Luke 8:40 – 48”, in: Religion in the Roman Empire 3 (2017), 264 – 284. Weissenrieder, Annette, “[…] it Proceeded from the Entrance of a Demon into the Man”. Epileptic Seizures in Ancient Medical Texts and the New Testament, in: Embodiment in Evolution and Culture, ed. Gregor Etzelmüller/Christian Tewes, Tübingen 2016, 265 – 285. Wohlers, Michael, Heilige Krankheit. Epilepsie in antiker Medizin, Astrologie und Religion, Marburg 1999.

Nicole Hartmann

3 On Demons in Early Martyrology The notion of demons is not among the first associations that spring to mind when one thinks about early martyr acts and passions. In this article I want to share some reflections about the absence of the demonic in pre-Eusebian martyrdom literature and about the transformation processes that occurred when Christian thinkers started their attempt to dominate the idea of the demonic from a rather unexpected angle. One must bear in mind the contingency and immediateness of the events and the concentration of the reports on the acts of persecution, confession and execution. These texts contributed considerably to Christian identity discourses, were exchanged and transformed and processually integrated into the (proto‐)orthodox church narrative. Unsurprisingly not only do we find no coherent demonology in these martyr texts, which span the second to the early fourth centuries, east to west, north to south of the Roman Empire, but we barely find demonology at all. One basic preliminary assumption is that one should not look for demons where they are not explicitly named as such. Secondly, one has to identify the specific demonic notion where they are mentioned. David Frankfurter has recurrently warned that speaking about ‚demons‘ in any modern language overshadows the unbiased and unevilized (indeed not-yet demonized) connotations that came with the Greek or Latin terms daimon/daemon for the authors, readers and hearers in the period concerned. In his 2010 article “Where the Spirits Dwell. Possession, Christianization, and Saints’ Shrines in Late Antiquity” he demonstrates how local varieties of forms of spirits become in Christian terms demonized and in a long process subjugated to the negative connotation of evil. So he opts for using the term “spirit”, and “demon” only as “a historical contingent classification for a peripheral and generally hostile spirit” which is the sign of its Christianized transformation.¹ In his introduction to the special issue of Archiv für Religionsgeschichte from 2012, which is dedicated to demons, he discusses the use of the transliterated Greek “daimon” and whether this new etic category replacing “demon” “brings more clarity, more accuracy, or simply confuses the discussion with mere substitute names or the pretense of an insiders’ (emic) term”.² Both, Dayna Kalleres and Heidi Marx-Wolf, analysing the attempts of late antique intellectuals to clearly determine the worlds of spirits, provide more arguments why it is reasonable to reflect the categorial use of “daimon” vs. “demon”.³ Anders Klostergaard Petersen, too, has raised all the conceptual difficul-

 Frankfurter (2010), 29.  Frankfurter (2012), 2.  Kalleres (2012), (2015b). In her book City of Demons (2015a) she especially challenges the paradigms that have been prevailing in much of the literature about demons that seems to be ignorant of ancient contemporary non-Christian or non-intellectual views: “demons are an experiential part of the late antique city, materially impacting the lives not only of Christians, but all who live https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110632231-004

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ties with the “semantic versatility”⁴ of the Greek concept of daimones, which could refer to various spirits that were perceived as interacting with humans: ancestor or untimely deceased souls, lesser powers or nature spirits, the Olympian gods too – all could be adressed as daimones. His pointing towards a functional approach is indispensable for understanding the fluidity of the notion, its ongoing extensions and the biased Christian transformations.⁵ For the texts from the roughly 200 years that this article considers, I have decided to use the term daimones, in order to refer to a yet unevilized, not-yet Christianized, multifaceted class of superhuman or intermediary beings. The vocabulary may be the same but its meaning changed and one needs to be careful not to assume later connotations that were not prevalent earlier, or simply to assume that daimon was equivalent for devil. In what follows I will briefly outline the peculiar situation of martyr literature and the possible demonic encounters that audiences of this literature are to be expected to have been generally familiar with. Then I will explore the individual texts and distinguish their (non‐)dealing with demonic concepts before giving an outlook on the transformations happening in the sanctification processes of martyrs and martyr narratives.

1 Martyrs and Martyrology Martyrs are produced. It is now almost common sense in scholarship that only the speech about executed Christians constitutes them as “martyrs” in a process of constructing and conceptualizing Christian identity.⁶ It was a matter of contingency whether a Christ-believer was accused and brought in confrontation with Roman authorities. Not all confessors, who were tried and eventually executed were martyrs. Martyrs were primarily those who are specifically named as such by non-confessing

there” (3). For reasons of consistency she decides to speak of demon/s and apologizes: “it is almost impossible to find a solution that perfectly satisfies from a semantic point of view” (245). For her material it is consistent indeed, since she analyses post-Eusebian ecclesiastical leaders that were seeking to “Christianize and diabolize an urban setting” and spoke of daimones to “demonize” or marginalize them “as monstrous other” (245); cf. Marx-Wolff (2010) establishing the term daimon, whereas in her book “Spiritual Taxonomies” (2016) she opts for the transliteration daemon and speaks of demonology (133), which marks the latter as semantic construct.  Petersen (2003), 35.  See his concluding remarks: “The concept of demon has proven to be a particularly apt category in cases in which humans have negotiated, philosophised, theologised and reflected upon the relationship between the human and the transhuman world – whether that world be ascribed a negative or a positive value. During the course of the concept’s history of reception the notion has fulfilled an indispensable discoursive function enabling humans to talk about things beyond their own nature.” (Ibid., 39); cf. Frankfurter (2006).  Grig, (2004); Castelli (2004); Hartmann (2013); Moss (2010, 2012); Seeliger – Wischmeyer (2015).

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survivors or other testimonies.⁷ Situations of threat and persecution are attested in various early Christian texts,⁸ but the technical terminology derived from the Greek mártys was coined in Asia Minor some time in the second century. It took decades until members of proto-orthodox as well as other Christian groups accepted, confirmed and transformed the terminology of mártys and martýrion according to their specific demands. But at a certain moment before the end of the second century it was so widespread and even adapted in another language that there was no doubt anymore as to what situation was referred to when someone or something was called martyr or martyrdom. Once these were established as termini technici, people knew how to name and understand the events they were witnessing and how to integrate them into their Christian worldview. It became common practice to produce commemorating texts about martyrs as part of local Christian historiography and to exchange them to reinforce networks and affirm shared identity. We must admit, though, that the discourse was even more multifaceted and complex beyond what we can grasp in the handed down texts. Also the different, sometimes concurring text versions bear witness to many varying motives that are connected with the narratives. They need to be treated on their own accounts without being blocked by the question which is most authentic. Elsewhere I have argued for the necessity of paying more attention to the individual accounts, rather than looking predominantly for common motives.⁹ Alongside the passion narratives exhortative texts emerge that employ and fuel the martyrdom discourse and elevate its importance for the construction of Christian identity. Intellectuals like Tertullian, Cyprian and Origen developed their own theological agendas around the persecutions they witnessed and offered arguments for the necessity of martyrdom and how to channel the growing martyr veneration by the claimed authority of the episcopal church. The focus of this article, however, is not the intellectual products of martyrology but rather the single event narratives that concentrate on the suffering bodies of local martyrs.¹⁰ Most of these pre-Eusebian or pre-Christian empire martyrologies¹¹ cannot be attributed to specific authors. Their histories of transmission, wherever they are trace-

 Those tried by Pliny were nowhere referred to as martyrs in ancient sources. Neither do we find the elevation of single confessors as martyrs in apologetic texts of the Second Century. Only in Tertullians famous Apologeticum merges apologetic discourse with the martyr ideology.  Baumeister (1991).  Hartmann (2013).  See Grig (2002). They were also seen to proof the truth of the suffering Christ that was at the heart of the later canonical gospels. About the reciprocal affirmation of the narratives of Jesus’ passion and the martyrs’ sufferings see Hartmann (2013).  What Delehaye (1921) called “les passions historiques” are the more or less genuine martyrdom texts of the second, third and early fourth centuries, that have as their probable nucleus a historic situation of persecution, no matter how eleborated and motif-loaden the narrative is. Cf. Seeliger and Wischmeyer (2015). Pre-Eusebian means here an epochal border connected with the name of

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able, show that they have been constantly reworked.¹² They do not reflect an intellectual level that can be expected from the rhetorically and philosophically trained apologists or other theologians. Instead, they allow glimpses into their social world, their relations in that world and the social dimensions of the literary production.¹³ Despite all later reworkings and redactions, they have a very situational character that concentrates on the immediate events before, during and after trial and execution. They are considered here with Karen King in mind: “What difference does it make how people survive oppression, how they tell their stories, and how those stories are institutionalized and repeatedly performed in ritual and story?”¹⁴ Looking over the first two hundred years of martyrology and the ascent of the figure of the martyr the absence of any demonic notion is revealing. In the course of the fourth century – after the end of persecutions – the production of martyr narratives flourished, took new directions and several turns towards new forms of hagiography. One of these turns integrated the confrontation of martyrs with daimones – already during their lifetime, or at the place of their venerated relics. What daimones are and what they strived for had undergone an ongoing Christian evilization by then and became a powerful hagiographic topos. The following chapter examines demonic notions contemporaneous to early martyrology.

2 Demons in the Age of the Martyrs The authors and audiences of early martyrologies were as well as other inhabitants of the Roman Empire acquainted with the presence of all sorts of spirits, benevolent, malevolent or neutral. They were acquainted with various local practices of how to avoid them, how to deal with them, how to control them or where to find experts who could. People’s interaction with these intermediary beings as powerful figures is attested by various non-literary sources like amulets, magic papyri, defixiones etc. Christ-believers were not once for all abandoning their forms of knowledge about these beings, but they appropriated it and integrated these practices with their Christian belief.¹⁵ According to Kalleres the ability to interact with demonic forces was not exclusive, but passed down in various forms in families and tightlyknit communities. Knowledge production and thus affirmation for daimones was contested in ritual: “Through the mere sight of a woman, man, or small boy draped

this prominent promoter of the martyr ideology and divides the time before and after the end of persecution.  For a good accessible overview of the history of versions see the respective introductions to the single martyr texts in Seeliger and Wischmeyer (2015); also Rebillard (2017).  For one of the latest attempts to theorize the literary strategies of martyr texts see Maier (2016).  King (2011), 235.  Christoph Markschies in this volume discusses a couple of examples that point to the Christian appropriation; see also Frankfurter (2010) with bibliographical references for further reading.

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in apotropaia, the fear of daimones as well as the defense against daimones is communicated to others, and thus daimones themselves (though invisible) certainly continue to exist.”¹⁶ This meets with the assumption that there are spirits, which is informed by the theoretical framework presented by Jörg Rüpke. He asserts that religion as communication involves not only humans as agents but “the enlargement of the environment defined as relevant for the situation by introducing ‚divine‘ agents or instances”.¹⁷ Ellen Muehlberger has dedicated a thorough analysis to the other end of the spectrum and points to the reality of angels for late antique thinkers.¹⁸ And Valerie Flint observes: “Demons, whether they lived in the upper or the lower air, in the known world, in people, or in hell, were held to be real and powerful agents of human misfortune, and the possessors of supernatural powers.”¹⁹ So for early Christian thinkers it was necessary to identify the character of daimones and assign them a place within their Christian framework. The New Testament examples give insight into everyday situations of demonic encounter. They are engaged with in a competitive character about who has the true power of control over them. Jesus and his early followers take up the challenge to compete on the exorcism market.²⁰ Curiously, there seems to be a gap of interest between these exorcistic incidents in the Gospels and Acts and the exorcistic topos that becomes so prominent in late antique hagiographical literature. Graham Twelftree concludes his fine and unbiased analysis with the observation that exorcism was a topic of little interest in most second century patristic literature.²¹ Nevertheless, the complex of possession and exorcism was just one dimension of demonic encounter and it has to be assumed that early Christians continued to deal with daimones in the manifold ways they were used to. The everydayness of all sorts of interaction in the demonic field might be one of the reasons why it didn’t seem to support the purpose of early martyr accounts that reported extreme non-everyday events. Least did their anonymous authors and redactors reflect the intellectual enquiries that were undertaken to systematize and

 Kalleres (2015b), 266; cf. Frankfurter (2006): “It is in conversation that one identifies a demon, draws out it’s history and tendencies, and proposes a resolution to its afflictions. Demon-belief in this case is context-specific – to a certain affliction, to a certain group of participants in conversation – and it is ad hoc.” (15).  Rüpke (2015), 352; and 349: “For the period investigated here, it is usually not considered implausible that invisible agents are involved as such. Rather, the specific claims about their character are questionable. ,Implausibility‘ in the way it is used here refers to the risk envisaged or encountered by actors that their ascriptions of agency do not meet universal approval in the immediate situation or thereafter.”  Muehlberger (2013), 17– 19.  Flint (1999), 20.  Frankfurter (2006), 20; for the differences in Pauline and Gospel perspectives on demonic possession see Sorensen (2002).  Twelftree (2007), 208. More interest is to be found in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, see Bremmer (2017), 202– 208.

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classify the world of spirits. Heidi Marx-Wolf analyses the increasing discussion and exchange of systematic demonologies in which intellectuals considered it necessary to impose order into the cosmos of beings, whereas for most people, it was sufficient to accept that daimones exist – they didn’t ask further what place or hierarchy they occupied.²² Her study examines Platonists, priests and Gnostics in the third century, but it is valid for the apologetic literature of the second century too, what Frankfurter wrote in his Evil Incarnate: that these demonologies have to be seen as attempts to bring order in a world experienced as chaotic and unjust, but at the same time as being “divorced from the local experience of spirits.”²³ For most contemporaries of early martyr texts it was unthinkable that e. g. ancestor spirits should be companions of the devil or what they thought or have been instructed the devil was. From Christian authors contemporaneous to early martyrology we curiously only know from those who wrote apologetic treatises that they considered it their task to develop something like a systematic demonology. They were aware of the everydayness of people’s interaction with spirits and were seeking to control and rewrite the source and meaning of these encounters and eventually dominate the worldview.²⁴ In his so-called First Apology one can recognize Justin’s efforts to propagate a clear anti-demonic agenda. Annette Yoshiko Reed has demonstrated how he innovatively develops the idea of the fallen angels from Gen 6:1– 4 as daimones who masquerade as deities and cause persecution.²⁵ Justin aims to synchronise and synthesise various notions of daimones to mark them as diabolized beings.²⁶ Justin declares the devil as the leader of the δαίμονες φαῦλοι that named themselves gods, whose wickedness is strongly emphasised in 1 Apo 5, and whom he renders responsible for the killing of Socrates as well as Christians.²⁷ According to him the daimones seek sacrifices and persuade the irrational to persecute those who deny them.²⁸ Tertullian, in his Apologeticum 27, offers the perception of Roman authorities as being possessed by daimones because they act against any legal ratio and with unexplainable cruelty in the trials against Christian confessors. Having the same backdrop of events for their literary production, apology and martyrology present completely different communicative strategies to explain and react to persecution.²⁹ ‚Apologists‘ like Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras and Tertullian directed their arguments at the prevention and abolition of violent outrages and high-

 Marx-Wolf (2016).  Frankfurter (2006), 24; cf. Marx-Wolff (2010), 207.  Tatian, or. 16,1 indicates a treatise and Eusebius, h.e. 4.18 mentions a work of Justin about daimones but none of the demonologies of the “apologists” has survived.  Yoshiko Reed (2004); cf. see Seeliger (2008); Knust (2007).  Also Athenagoras, Leg. 23 – 25; and of course Tertullian, Apol. 22– 23.  Justin, Apol. 1 28.  Justin, Apol. 1 12,5; 23,3.  For the connections that might be seen in Apologies and Martyr Acts in terms of who is defending what for whom see: Lieu (2011).

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lighted the injustice and absurdity of sentencing Christians to death – and ascribed its irrationality to the work of daimones. Martyrology, by contrast, does not question the events but accepts them as necessary and presents them as part of God’s plan and a sign of being chosen. Here we do not find echoes of the systematic attempts of the apologetic treatises to defy the pagan gods as daimones and mark their deceitful actions as causing persecution. Yet, the demonological projections offered in apologetic literature may serve as a kind of litmus test to evaluate the absence of demonological notions in early martyrology. In the following chapter a sketch of the variations of possible demonic and diabolical notions will be drawn and we will see how important it is to differentiate them.

3 (Almost no) Demons in Early Martyrology The basic core of all martyr accounts is – of course – the accused’s denial of sacrifice to the gods, for the well-being of the emperor and the prosperity of the empire. They present it as one of the most important features in testifying to the uniqueness of just one god, who does not call for this kind of ritual. Most martyr texts present it as a mere fact that Christians don’t perform sacrifice, much to the incomprehension of the Roman officials. The Greek papyri about the trial of Phileas of Thmuis present an impressive example of how the accused and the accuser talk past one another. They have been dated to the beginning of the fourth century and thus the earliest original documents for a confessor trial.³⁰ In the Papyrus Bodmer version the praeses asks the confessor Phileas to at least swear an oath and – if he obeys – the sacrifice intended to prove his loyalty would be omitted.³¹ In the version of Papyrus Chester Beatty the accused is called to perform the ritual of sacrifice to worship his own god and no one would ask further as to who he is addressing in the accompanying prayer.³² But for Phileas the act itself would violate God’s will and make him (a) lapsed.³³ Martyrium Polycarpi 9.2 turns back the allegation of atheism when Polycarp is asked in the stadium in Smyrna to condemn the Christians as atheists. His cry αἶρε τοὺς ἀθἐους – away with the atheists, made with a gesture of a raised hand, is directed at the crowd in the stadium and denies the legitimacy or even existence of its addressees of sacrifice. Polycarp offers the proconsul a personal instruction in the Christian cause, but does not want to be hooted down by the crowd while defend-

 Seeliger and Wischmeyer (2015), 223.  ApPhls Bo 8 (Seeliger – Wischmeyer 240 – 241).  ApPhls Be 1 (Seeliger – Wischmeyer 232– 233); the Latin and Aethiopian tradition follow this narrative: see ibid.  MPion 12– 14 polemicizes harshly against accused who chose this option; cf. Ameling (2008), the Quintus episode in MPoly 4 is given also as counter example of proper Christian behaviour.

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ing himself. So the proconsul stays unenlightened as to why sacrifice is such a problem for Polycarp and his disciples who had been executed earlier. A little more explanation is offered in later acts of martyrs from the Diocletian period. The Latin recension of the Acts of Eupl(i)us, which reports an extended interrogation in Catania, lets Euplius reply to the command deos adora: Adoro Christum, detestor daemonia – “I adore Christ, I detest daimones” (2,4).³⁴ In 2,5 the reason is declared with a conflation of Jer 10:11 and Acts 4:24: pereant dii qui non fecerunt caelum e terram et quae in eis sunt – “perish the gods who did not make heaven and earth and all that is in them”.³⁵ A similar quotation appears in the Acts of Crispina, a matrona from Thacora in Numidia, whose martyrdom was also addressed in sermons by Augustine.³⁶ Here too it is explained with allusion to biblical texts that she would not sacrifice to daimones – daemoniis sacrificare – for there is only the God who has made heaven and earth and the sea and all things that are in them (1,7). A bit later she refuses to sacrifice by exclaiming Dii, qui non fecerunt caelum et terram, permeant – “Perish the gods who have not made heaven and earth” (2,3).³⁷ The authors of these two martyr stories use daemonia and dei interchangeably.³⁸ The basic outline of the accounts was set in the course of the fourth century, the versions we know are presumably much later and, still, did not pay much attention to an evilized notion of pagan gods. They rather mock them as non-existent and non-effective. Several passages in Martyrium Pionii reject the gods as gods and as idols, without any specific Christian demonization.³⁹ This holds true also for the letter from the churches in Lyon and Vienne, Martyrium Lugdunensium, although its whole composition is structured by the cosmic battle between Jesus Christ and his martyr athletes and the unspecified forces of the devil – the pagan gods have no part in it. As in these examples it can be noted in most martyr texts that – unlike in Justin, 1 Apo 5 – the notion of the pagan gods and the notion of the devil are clearly separated and do not belong to the same sphere. And, apart from the discussed Latin versions, not even the slightest terminological allusion by referring to the pagan gods as evilized daimones can be detected. The events that are reported in the Acts of Carpus, Papylus and Agathonice which took most probably place under emperor Decius are transmitted in quite dif-

 Musurillo 314– 319.  Musurillo 316 – 317. Not the Greek, only the Latin recension of the Acts of Eupl(i)us has the passages 2,3 – 6 to emphasize the superiority of Euplius; see Den Boeft – Bremmer (1991), 112– 113 for a short discussion of this quoting which they see as an underrated rationalistic tendency of early Christian religion.  Exposition on Psalm 120,13, 137.3.  Jer. 10,11; see Musurillo 302– 309; Knopf – Krüger – Ruhbach 109 – 111.  Especially in ACrisp 3 is a peculiar equation of dii, daemonia and idola, to which sacrifice is denied.  See MPion 5,2: τοῖς θεοῖς ὑμῶν οὐ λατρεύομεν; 6,3; 7,2: τοῖς εἰδώλοις.

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fering versions.⁴⁰ In the Latin recension, too, Carpus rejects sacrifice with the quote of Jer 10:11 and offends the proconsul: viui mortuis non sacrificant – “the living do not offer sacrifice to the dead” (2,1). He then explains that the statues of the gods (simulacris) that look like men are unfeeling and have no understanding and would be defiled by dogs and crows as soon as men deprive them of veneration.⁴¹ Again, the gods whom the proconsul requests to be venerated are denied any existence at all and are denounced as mere products of men. In this account they are not ascribed to have any connection to the devil, who in 4,2 is made responsible for the cruelty of the torturers, the ministri diaboli. In the Greek recension of the Acts of Carpus and companions, however, the same passages are embedded in a more elaborate exchange between Carpus and the proconsul and are laden with very different connotations.⁴² When Carpus is called to venerate the gods (τοὺς θεοῦς, 4) and sacrifice, he denies it with polemically calling them daimones (δαιμόνων) who have a deceptive appearance (6). He goes on to explain that as the ‚true worshippers‘ take on the image of god’s glory and become immortal with him, also those who worship these gods take on the image of the folly of the daimones (ματαιότητι τῶν δαιμόνων) and – this is noteworthy – perish along with them in Gehenna (7). So in this passage we have a clear location of the gods – daimones – in Gehenna, the realm of the devil. In the next sentence they are described as being in company with the devil and it is implied that worship of daimones was part of his plan to provoke and deceive men. Therefore Carpus would not sacrifice to them (8). This passage is anything but consistent with the following lines that have the allusion to Jeremia 10:11 (9) and the announcement that the living do not offer sacrifice to the dead (12). Here, as in the Latin recension, though extended, the irrelevance of the gods and their images is stressed, their material, men made aspect, their ineffectiveness and their consumption by time (14– 16). However again, in the next passages (17– 20) their divinatory abilities are discussed and revealed as part of the devils deception, building up further on the idea of their functionalization against men. Bremmer and Den Boeft see here a two-fold explanation: Such activities are not due to the non-existing gods, but to the evil spirits who make use of the facilities offered by polytheism. These spirits of course know their own wicked intentions and

 Eusebius, who places the trial events in Pergamum under Marc Aurel whereas the Latin version puts it under Decius, has not given a full report in h.e. 4,15,48. See Jones (2012) for a summary of the six versions and a convincing argumentation for a date in the middle of the third century.  ACarp 2,2– 3; similar Pamfilus in 3,4 (Musurillo 30 – 31).  Which is true for the whole account and has led to vivid scholarly discussion about the priority of the versions. See for a brief summary of the discussion Den Boeft – Bremmer (1991), 111– 12 and Jones (2012). This is not the place to discuss the origin and dating of each version, here it suffices to accept that they develop on a lost supposedly Greek original and that there are different reasons for what they tell and what not, how they combine it with other motives and what they leave out.

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future actions and, secondly, their great experience, which results from their long existence also contributes to their prophesying capacity.⁴³

So they draw a distinction between the non-existing pagan gods and evil spirits accompanying the devil. But this leaves out the first part of Carpus’ exposition, where no such categorical division can be detected. The whole argumentation from 6 – 20 is quite disconnected. It seems that some later editor expanded on the simpler view about the pagan gods employing the topos of Jeremia 10:11 with contemporaneous diabolized demonological notions without caring too much about consistency of the whole argument. These demonological notions of the pagan gods that are combined with the fallen angel motive clearly indicate a rather late date for the Greek text that is available to us.⁴⁴ And it stands out in the field of basically early martyr literature (by) giving demonology so much attention in an interrogation scene. In most martyr accounts demonological notions are completely absent and no malevolent daimones are considered to be involved in persecution.⁴⁵ Standing in contrast to this is what comes closest to a martyrological account in an apologetic treatise: In the short narration of the trial of Ptolemaios and his two companions as part of his so called Second Apology, Justin introduces the persecution as the work of daimones (1,2), meant as the pagan gods working against the Christians.⁴⁶ This causal relation is discussed in various places in Justins apologetic treatises but it is quite striking that no pre-Eusebian martyrological text takes up this argument. This observation supports once more the impression that apart from Tertullian apologetic and martyrological literature existed in parallel Christian spheres for some time.⁴⁷ It took Christian theologians centuries to establish the idea that pagan gods are the very same spirits that are invoked in spells and that afflict people as instruments of the one evil force intriguing against God. The same holds true for all the possible forms of people’s encounter with spirits as to be identified as temptations by Satan’s

 Den Boeft – Bremmer (1991), 113; this notion can be found in Justin, 1 Apo 9,1.  It may be seen as an argument from a different angle for the chronology of Giuliana Lanata (1973); Den Boeft – Bremmer (1991), 113 – 114 take Carpus’ dismissal of divination as a stage of development between the “impressions of the apologetes and Augustine’s systematic treatise” in De divinatione daemonum.  Compare also the observations of Wiśniewski in this volume that in many Latin vitae demons are no evil spirits to fight against.  Minns – Parvis 272– 73; this is recurring in 1 Apo 5.1– 4; 14,1; 54,1– 10; 56,1– 58,3; 2 Apo 7,2– 3. Interestingly Eusebius in his retelling of these events (h.e. 4.17) seems not to have shared Justin’s conclusion about the demonic cause of persecution; for Eusebius’ attitude towards the demonic see Hazel Johannessens revealing study from 2016.  Lieu (2011) attempts to show similarities between apologetic and martyr texts but the overall impression remains that they don’t owe much to each other; this seems to be true even for the writings of and about Justin: the creed of his own works is not reflected in the redactions of his martyr acts; see Ulrich (2006), 459.

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forces. The producers of early martyrology show no interest in participating in this establishment. Before we take into view how martyrology transforms into a host for demonology once more it has to be made clear that an equation of diabolical with demonological concepts is anachronistic for the period concerned here. Candida Moss has rightly stated that in most martyrdom accounts the devil is mostly a rhetorical trope, a “shadowy force that is responsible for persecutions, and tortures, and evil that plague Christians but whose involvement is largely superficial.”⁴⁸ Other than in the apologetic treatises which accredit him a clear role in events of persecution in most martyr texts he only has a subtle presence and is mentioned briefly. In the Acts of Marian and James, which as well as the Acts of Montanus and Lucius owe to Passio Perpetuae,⁴⁹ the viciousness of the devil works through the “madness of a blind and bloodthirsty prefect” – cruenti et caecati praesidis furor – and his soldiers with a vicious and savage spirit (2,4– 5). The magistrates are instrumentalized by the devil – diaboli magistratibus (5,1) – who carry the tortures that are born from his “poisened mind” (5,4).⁵⁰ Similar to the Latin Acta Carpi the Acts of Maximus describe the torturers as the ministri diaboli. ⁵¹ Here as in the Acts of Apollonius and the Acts of Agape figures the motive of the martyr overcoming the evil one.⁵² Though, in pointing to these examples it should not be forgotten that in many other texts the devil or any attribution to his is not referred to at all.⁵³ They can be roughly attributed to the 4th century with even later editings. Moss rightly observes that “references to the devil in early Greek acta appear to be inserted largely by later redactors or translators.”⁵⁴ An important exemption is of course the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis, where the role of the devil is prominent and connected with anxieties in the motive of the black-skinned other. David Brakke has convincingly demonstrated the cultural logic that is transported with this motive of darkness representing evil that pervades in early Christian literature.⁵⁵ Perpetua’s vision of her fight with an Egyptian and his

 Moss (2012), 114.  See Kitzler (2015), 65 – 69.  Musurillo 196 – 197, 200 – 201.  Acta Carpi 4,2 (Musurillo 32– 33); Acta Maximi 2,4 (Knopf – Krüger – Ruhbach 60 – 61); cf. the executioner in Acts of Julius the Veteran 4,5 (Musurillo 264– 265).  Acta Maximi 2,4 (Knopf – Krüger – Ruhbach 60 – 61), Acta Agapae 2,4; 4,1 (Musurillo 282– 283; 286 – 287); Acta Apollonii 47 (Musurillo 102– 103); Moss (2010a), 89 rightly states that the reference to Satan is out of place with the argumentation in this account.  Middleton does not take this into account in his argumentation regarding the Christians and the martyrs in cosmic conflict, giving little attention to redaction history (2006); ten years later he still grounds his whole argumentation of “a significant development in early Christian Satanology” in martyr acts (358) basically on Passio Perpetuae and Martyrium Lugdunensium only (2016).  Moss (2010a), 87– 102, 89.  Brakke (2001), especially 507– 508, the Egyptian as one step on the scale before the absolute impersonation of evil: the Ethiopian. For the Scriptural overtones of this motive: Heffernan (2012), 261;

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assistants (10,6) is interpreted as prefiguration of her combat with the devil, diabolus (10,14; 18,7), when she will encounter the beasts in the arena.⁵⁶ Here, as throughout the account a cosmic significance is given to her martyrdom and that of her companions as their battle for Christ’s cause. Those accompanying the devil are not named, least of all as daimones. Though it is safe to suppose that the angels who fell with Satan are meant, this does not allow for superimposing a concept of evil in demonological terms in this text.⁵⁷ An intriguing allusion to powers, maybe spirits, that execute orders from magical spells, brings PassPerp 16,2: the possibility that by magical incantation the prisoners could be released from prison – subtraherentur de carcere incantationibus aliquibus magicis – reported to be believed by the tribun is polemically rejected as foolish.⁵⁸ Thus, belief in superhuman powers that can be subjected to human will, is repudiated. If there is an idea of powers that work against the martyrs in the name of the devil, these powers are clearly not equated with the spirits that are known to be addressed in magical rituals. In Passio Perpetuae no clear expression or even interest in a distinguished demonological concept can be found.⁵⁹ Another key exception is the letter from the churches of Lyon and Vienne, Martyrium Lugdunensium. In no other martyr text is the involvement of the devil as primary antagonist as important as in this elaborate composition.⁶⁰ In MartLugd 1,5 the redactor starts his interpretation of the persecution events with referring to them as a glimpse of the final return, παρουσία, of “the adversary”, ὁ ἀντικείμενος, who has trained those with him, τοῦς ἐαυτοῦ, against God’s servants, who had become shut out of public life. The antagonist (1,38.42) and enemy (1,6) is satan (1,14.16) or

cf. Habermehl (2004), who gives more attention to the larger context of various Greco-Roman and Jewish-Christian negative topoi about Egypt and Egyptians (148 – 160) and the imaginations of all sorts of menace represented as black: human opponents, animals, gods of the underworld, daimones and other spirits (161– 177). He concludes: “Daß der nachtfarbene Teufel seine Karriere im Christentum erlebt, darf nicht den Blick dafür verstellen, daß sich in Perpetuas Gesicht eine Vorstellung findet, die sich in christlichen Texten noch kaum findet, wohl aber heimisch ist in paganen der frühen Kaiserzeit, wie Pausanias oder Lukian zeigen. Ähnlich den Petrusakten bereitet ihr Traum dem schwarzen Bösen den Weg in die frühchristliche Literatur.” (177). See also the comprehensive study of Gay. L. Byron (2002).  In the first vision account the devil appears as dragon (4,6), in both episodes Perpetua beats him by stepping on his head (4,7; 10,11) which according to Heffernan (2012), 252 reminds Gn 3:15 and Rv. 12.  The idea has been promoted by Justin, Athenagoras, Tatian and Tertullian. For a discussion of when and how the Hebrew “angel” was identified with what the Greeks called daimones see Martin (2010).  Cf. Heffernan (2012), 316; this accords with stories about Christians being attributed to have magical power and being charged for forbidden ritual practices and magic reported by various texts; see: Roig Lanzillotta (2007.  The fact that we have contemporaneous thoughts on this topic of Tertullian (and the discussion of his influence or even authorship of the text) does not help to illuminate the missing expression here.  1,5.6.14.16.25.27; for a plausible chronology of the events and their literary restructuring see Löhr (1989).

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diabolos (1,25.27) whose role is shaped in those New Testament texts that are referenced and affirmed by this martyr narrative.⁶¹ He gets defeated through the enduring of the martyrs. But it is not further specified who “those with him” were and what their nature was. The cosmic battle as preview of the last days is carried out primarily between the devil, who insufflates the Roman officials and torturers, and the martyrs. And as we have seen above, not only the notion of the pagan gods is clearly separated from the diabolical conception, but also no other sorts of spirits are explicitly included in the dualistic controversy.⁶² A similar performance of the devil, diabolos, can be seen in Martyrium Polycarpi 2,4– 3,1 and 17,1– 2, where he plots against the martyrs and incites the cruelty of the anti-Christian agents. The complex transmission process of MPol indicates these passages to be post-Eusebian redaction.⁶³ Zwierlein suggests that an editor stylized the account in reminiscence to Martyrium Lugdunensium 1,5 – 27 and with MPol 19,2 set a frame for this interpretation of the devil’s work being behind persecution.⁶⁴ The ἀρχῶν, the ruler of 19,2 is the devil who gets defeated by the endurance of Polycarp. This diabolical notion of the text that probably entered late into Polycarps martyr tradition has no demonological undertones. Another intriguing and complex case is the Martyrdom of Pionios. It supposedly reports events from the period of Decian persecution, but the elaboration of the extant text with its extensive apologetic sections took shape presumably quite late and in several stages.⁶⁵ In two passages Satan, ὁ σατανᾶς (12,11)‚ the enemy, ὁ ἐχθρός (18,12) is referred to as causing apostasy.⁶⁶ No responsability for persecution or any maltreatment during the reported events is attributed to him. However, in chap-

 διαβολικοῦ λογισμοῦ in 1,35: by diabolical thoughts confession would be prevented. See also Löhr (1989); Hartog (2015).  Here Moss (2012), 114 has misleadingly described the actions of the devil as demonic and even imposes the devil as “the Demon” in her translation of h.e 5.2,6, the second part of the dossier from Lyon and Vienne (115). But the evidence does not allow yet for such a terminological equation.  Paul Hartog (2013) offers the latest comprehensive overview of scholarship for or against interpolation theories or forgery (171– 187) and is on the side of scholars who render the core of the text for its particular details to the second century (177). He gathers and offers even new arguments that would support this view, against Moss (2010b), though he acknowledges her valuable contribution and her reminder that one has to speak of possibilities and probabilities in the dating of MPol (Hartog, 186); this corresponds with my view expressed in Hartmann (2013); cf. Seeliger – Wischmeyer (2015), 28 – 30.  Zwierlein (2014b), 196 – 198, 222– 225. He determines this editor according to his whole thesis as Pseudo-Pionios, which has to be discussed in another place.  In her dating of MPion Moss takes the elaborate discussion of satanic involvement as one of a couple of arguments for a later than Decian composition: Moss (2010a), 196; see also the overview of the historical and literary aspects in Seeliger – Wischmeyer (2015), 172– 177 and their plausible hypothesis for their development.  MPion 12,11 referring to Lk 22:31 and MPion 18,12 to Mt 13:39: Seeliger – Wischmeyer (2015) 155, 163; regarding one observation we can agree with Middleton (2016), 370: the paradoxical role of the devil causing persecution to produce apostates.

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ters 13 – 14 with their strong anti-Jewish overtones, daimones have a unique appearance in a martyr text. To defend the power of the executed Christ Pionios refers to the expulsion of daimones by his followers in past, present and future: δαιμόνια ἐξεβλήθη καὶ ἐκβάλλεται καὶ ἐκβληθήσεται (13,6).⁶⁷ It is the only mentioning of Christian exorcistic practice in an early martyr account and must be understood as representative for the many other miracles Christ-believers perform. Pionios then responds to accusations that Christians practiced necromancy⁶⁸ and goes on to retell the story of Samuels raising from the dead in 1 Sam 28 and claims the appearance of daimones of the underworld, δαίμονες ταρταραῖοι (14,11) as a sign of companionship with God’s apostates (14,9). Here the ‚good‘ exorcistic or other miracle works of Christ’s disciples are contrasted with sorcerers, magicians, conjurers and diviners that are assisted by diabolical servants. Seeliger and Wischmeyer consider these passages as a work from Pionios included by the “eyewitness” that produced the first version of the text as it probably had been included in Eusebius’ lost martyrdom collection.⁶⁹ Zwierlein on the contrary omits these passages, which are missing in the Armenian translation, from his “Urfassung” reconstruction as part of the Pseudo-Pionian redaction work.⁷⁰ Though his whole hypothesis is not entirely convincing, these elaborate but at the same time incomplete passages about daimones as diabolical servants point to a later than third century date. In conclusion of the above discussion concerning demonology in early martyrology we can distinguish between those texts (and their different versions) 1. that deny existence of demonic beings, 2. those that accept and affirm them to be acting (malevolently), 3. those that explain the source of their agency and 4. those that employ the devil without associating him with other (demonic) spirits. However, when we scan through early martyrdom texts and group these according to detected notions we should not ignore the fact that in many martyr accounts, e. g. Acta Scilitanorum, Acta Cypriani etc., there are no demonic notions at all. These authors and audiences did not have demonic notions in mind in their conception of the martyrdom complex – and it is possible that their knowledge about daimones simply did not fit into their Christian worldview. When diabolical and demonological notions begin to merge in the Christian orthodox cosmology, they resonated in martyrology also. For one particular example we have the rare chance to be able to trace the transformations and appropriations of a martyr narrative that suggest a diabolizing interpretation. It shows the fluidity of the narratives and how they are adapted to new contexts and needs.

 Musurillo translates: “By what other criminal’s name for so many years were devils expelled, are still expelled now, and will be in future?” (153) – the biothanatos becomes dubiously a criminal and the daimonia are improperly equated with devils.  13,9: They raised even Christ with the cross; see Den Boeft – Bremmer (1985), 117– 118.  Seeliger – Wischmeyer (2015), 173 – 174.  Zwierlein (2014).

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The trial of Justin and several of his companions took presumably place in Rome in 165/166 under the prefect Rusticus. Three versions of the Acta Justini are extant. Bisbee has argued that versions A and B are elaborations of a probable prototype of the commentarius of Justins trial.⁷¹ Seeliger and Wischmeyer agree on terminological grounds to date recension A shortly after 200.⁷² In this version the interrogation is presented in quite neutral terms, Rusticus almost seems to be concerned to not send all of the accused to execution. But finally he has to declare that all those, who do not sacrifice to the gods (τοῖς θεοῖς) have to be scourged and executed. Recension A is free of any diabolical and demonological connotations. Recension B of Acta Iustini amplifies⁷³ the motive of the refusal to commit sacrifice and develops on religious confrontation from the first sentence on. The events are placed in “the time of the wicked defenders of idolatry” against the pious Christians when they are called by “impious decrees” to offer libations to the frivolous idols (σπένδειν τοῖς ματαίοις εἰδώλοις, B 1,1).⁷⁴ The prefect Rusticus is introduced as forcing Justin to obey the gods (τοῖς θεοῖς) and the emperor. Here the editor sets a clear confrontation line between piousness and impiousness (again B 5,4) and pushes negative connotations of the pagan gods by denouncing them as empty images (also B 5,7). Bisbee has proposed dating recension B in the late third century, Seeliger and Wischmeyer place it in the Constantinian era.⁷⁵ It still has no diabolical or demonological connotations. Version C, however, marks the peak of rhetoric escalation in the projections of Justins trial. It can be dated clearly after the Ephesian council in 431 for its creedal formulation and the afterword that looks at the events in retrospect from the period of a Christianized empire. In this largely extended account, Rusticus is denounced in the crudest terms and as impious, when “the saints” are brought before him (C 1,1). It was not according to the emperors decree that they were accused, but on the council of Satan that they were hunted down, tortured and put to death by sword. The magistrates are not only wicked, δυσσεβής (C 1,1.3), but they are the ministers of Satan, τοῖς ὑπηρὲταις τοῦ σατανᾶ (C 1,2). What for Rusticus are the immortal gods, τοῖς ἀθανάτοις θεοῖς (C 1,4) are for the editor the soul-destroying daimones, δαίμονας ψυχοφθόρaς (C 4,4).⁷⁶ So, for the editor and audience of this version – from a time when pagan religion was perceived as something from the remote past – an (intertwined) demonological conception of the pagan gods as companions of Satan is plausible and now clearly expressed in a martyr text illustrating this past.

 Bisbee (1988), 117.  Seeliger – Wischmeyer (2015), 124 following Ulrich (2006), 460.  Cf. Seeliger (2008), 171.  Ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τῶν ὰνόμων ὑπερμάχων τῆς εἰδωλολατρείας προστάγματα ὰσεβῆ κατὰ τῶν εὐσεβούντων Χριστιανῶν κατὰ πόλιν καὶ χώραν ἐξετίθετο, ὥστε αὐτοὺς ὰναγκάζεσθαι σπένδειν τοῖς ματαίοις εἰδώλοις.  Bisbee (1988), 117; Seeliger (2008), 171; Seeliger – Wischmeyer (2015), 124.  Cf. Eus., h.e. 10.4,14.

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We can trace in these three versions of the Acta Iustini a history of escalation in the projections of the encounter between Justin and Rusticus. But the notion of the martyr resisting the human and demonic agents of the devil is introduced and highlighted only in the latest account. This seems to be due to the significant change in the horizon of expectation of the audiences that were by then acquainted with hagiographical material about martyr-daimon encounters and had become used to interpret these as part of the battle against the Evil One. By this time martyrs figure prominently in the contest of power over spirits – especially at their burial places that attract ever growing numbers of pilgrims.⁷⁷ Another example of the late projection of an escalation in a trial of an accused Christian is the so called Roman Acts of Ignatius. Undoubtedly, this text does not offer any historical information about the life and death of its protagonist or helps to illuminate the matter of genuineness of the Ignatian letter corpus. Instead it is one sign for the evaluation of this figure as an important predecessor of orthodox Christianity. The text seems to be a product of an admirer or group of admirers of the figure Ignatius as it is drawn in the Ignatian letter to the Romans.⁷⁸ Lightfoot opts for Alexandria as place of origin and dates it between the end of the 4th and the end of the 6th century.⁷⁹ According to this account, Ignatius is put on trial by the emperor Trajan and the senate in Rome. In a lengthy and voyeuristic back and forth dialogue he is offered release if he offers sacrifice, is threatened and tortured, but refuses again and again.⁸⁰ The torture-ridden imagination of the exchange between the emperor and the accused displays an emphasized rejection of the cult of the pagan gods. The idea of these beings which had been worshipped in the past is charged with various notions of bad or wrong religion and traced eventually to the one evil source. This somehow anachronistic extensive interest in the pagan gods curiously responds to the myth-demonology in Justins so called Second Apology.⁸¹ So throughout the widely ramified and undiscernible transmission processes of concepts and texts and the ongoing Christian binarisation of the good and evil forces this conception of pagan gods as evil daimones has found its way into this narrative of a martyr trial.

 For the power dynamics in these processes see Morehouse (2016).  Curiously, this was not the only attempt to provide such a textual monument to commemorate this famous figure in the form of a martyr act. Around one century earlier, in the course of the fifth century another act was produced – on suggestion of Joseph Barber Lightfoot this one is called Antiochene Acts, because here the story takes place primarily in Antioch.  Lightfoot (1889 II.2), 383; further on this text Nicole Hartmann (forthcoming).  The text reflects the few early external testimonials for the Ignatian letters, as it takes Polycarps letter to the Philippians and Irenaeus’ testimony and combines it with the Trajan-Plinius letter exchange.  2 Apo 4,2– 5 (Minns – Parvis 282– 285); cf. Seeliger (2008), 172.

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4 Conclusion The early martyrdom literature is astoundingly lacking in demons or even demonological notions. The authors do not reveal their supposedly multifaceted demonic belief or appropriate it in the complex of martyrdom accounts. If there are any allusions at all to spirits that could be seen as predecessors of Christian demons they don’t have a sharp or distinguishable profile. The focus of identity shaping was on witnessing and validating the Christian option martyrs had chosen: the one centered on violent death. In later editing processes demonological notions sometimes find their way into the texts but stay somehow unrelated to the argumentation and do not substantially support the presentation of the martyr’s superiority. Situations and conditions of later martyr literature should not be projected back onto early martyr accounts. If we stay attentive as to what conceptions of the demonic were known and accepted we can trace the changing horizons of expectations and knowledge about the identity of daimones. In some cases it seems that later editors felt the need to insert demonic involvement in the reported persecutions. As generally, processes of identity formation shifted from ‘othering’ pagans to ‘othering’ Christ-believers with different worldviews, the objectives of martyr accounts have changed after the end of persecutions and the figure of the martyr undergoes a change of paradigm. It is well established by then and is associated with new themes and functions that are connected with his or her dead body and its memorial. Peter Brown and David Frankfurter especially have shown the paths of inquiry in this field.⁸² At a time when “the performative construction of demons”⁸³ was at its peak, the martyrs had become powerful agents. Later martyrology shifts from the spectacle of martyrdom to the spectacle of the exorcistic power of the martyrs. The boom in monumentalisation of martyr’s burial sites and its literary reflection, e. g. in Prudentius,⁸⁴ stands for the reorganization of religious landscapes, as Frankfurter has made clear. Shrines and sites serve as theaters for the manifestation of spirits and their shaping⁸⁵ – and thus through the power contests between the martyr and the spirits that are conceived to have afflicted people they are the places of Christianization, that means diabolization, of the multifaceted notions of daimones. The contexts of exorcism were coded and demanded settings where the power over spirits could be recognized. In the communicative strategies of pre-Eusebian martyr texts the two settings were not seen as fitting together. Early martyrology did not contribute substantially in the shaping of specific Christian demonology.

   

Brown (1970), (2014); Frankfurter (2010); cf. Thomas Pratsch (2005). Frankfurter (2010), 38; for the new functions of demons see Brakke (2006). On exorcizing martyrs in Prudentius see Grig (2002), 333. Frankfurter (2010), 29.

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Bibliography Ameling, Walter, “The Christian lapsi in Smyrna, 250 A.D. (Martyrium Pionii 12 – 14)”, Vigiliae Christianae 62 (2008), 133 – 160. Baumeister, Theofried, Genese und Entfaltung der altkirchlichen Theologie des Martyriums, Bern 1991. Bisbee, Gary A., Pre-Decian Acts of Martyrs and Commentarii, Philadelphia 1988. Boeft, Jan den/Bremmer, Jan, “Notiunculae Martyrologicae III”, in: Vigiliae Christianae 39 (1985), 110 – 130. Boeft, Jan den/Bremmer, Jan, “Notiunculae Martyrologicae IV”, in: Vigiliae Christianae 45 (1991), 105 – 122. Brakke, David, “Male Sexuality, the Black-Skinned Other, and the Monastic Self”, in: Journal of the History of Sexuality 10.3 (2001), 501 – 535. Brakke, David, Demons and the Making of the Monk. Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity, Cambridge, MA 2006. Bremmer, Jan N., Maidens, Magic and Martyrs in Early Christianity, Tübingen 2017. Brown, Peter, “Sorcery, Demons, and the Rise of Christianity from Late Antiquity into the Middle Age”, in: Witchcraft Confessions and Accusations, ed. Mary Douglas, London 1970, 17 – 45. Brown, Peter, The Cult of Saints. It’s Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Enlarged Edition), Chicago 2014. Byron, Gay. L., Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christian Literature, London 2002. Castelli, Elizabeth, Martyrdom and Memory. Early Christian Culture Making, New York 2004. Delehaye, Hippolyte, Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires, Brü ssel 1921. Flint, Valerie, “The Demonisation of Magic and Sorcery in LateAntiquity: Christian Redefinitions of Pagan Religions”, in: Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. Vol. 2: Ancient Greece and Rome, ed. Bengt Ankarloo/Stuart Clark, Philadelphia 1999, 277 – 348. Frankfurter, David, Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History, Princeton 2006. Frankfurter, David, “Where the Spirits Dwell: Possession, Christianization, and Saints’ Shrines in Late Antiquity”, in: Harvard Theological Review 103 (2010), 27 – 46. Frankfurter, David, “Introduction”, in: Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 14.3 (2012), 1 – 8. Grig, Lucy, “Torture and Truth in Late Antique Martyrologies”, in: Early Medieval Europe 11.4 (2002), 321 – 336. Grig, Lucy, Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity, London 2004. Habermehl, Peter, Perpetua und der Ägypter oder Bilder des Bösen im frühen afrikanischen Christentum. Ein Versuch zur Passio Sanctarum Perpetua et Felicitatis, Berlin 22004. Hartmann, Nicole, Martyrium. Variationen und Potenziale eines Diskurses im Zweiten Jahrhundert, Frankfurt 2013. Hartmann, Nicole, “Bones Ground by Wild Beast’s Teeth. Late Ancient Imaginations of Ignatius of Antioch”, in: Desiring Martyrs in Space and Time, ed. Harry Maier/Katharina Waldner, Berlin (forthcoming). Hartog, Paul Antony, Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians and the Martyrdom of Polycarp. Introduction, Text, and Commentary, Oxford 2013. Hartog, Paul Antony, “The Devil’s in the Details: The Apocalyptic ‚Adversary’ in the Martyrdom of Polycarp and the Martyrs of Lyons”, in: Studies on the Text of the New Testament and Early Christianity Essays in Honour of Michael W. Holmes, ed. Daniel M. Gurtner/Juan Hernández, Jr., Leiden 2015, 432 – 452. Heffernan, Thomas J., The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, Oxford 2012.

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Johannessen, Hazel, The Demonic in the Political Thought of Eusebius of Caesarea, Oxford 2016. Jones, Christopher, “Notes on the Acts of Carpus and some related Martyr-Acts”, in: Pignora Amicitiae. Scritti di storia antica e di storiografia offerti a Mario Mazza, ed. Margherita Cassia/Claudia Giuffrida/Concetta Molè/Antonio Pinzone, Acireale/Rome 2012, 259 – 268. Kalleres, Dayna S., “‘Oh Lord, Give This One a Daimon, So That He May No Longer Sin’. The Holy Man and His Daimones in Hagiography”, in: Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 14.3 (2012), 205 – 235. Kalleres, Dayna S., City of Demons. Violence, Ritual, and Christian Power in Late Antiquity, Oakland 2015 (a). Kalleres, Dayna S., “Demon”, in: Late Ancient Knowing. Explorations in Intellectual History, ed. Catherine M. Chin/Moulie Vidas, Oakland 2015 (b), 259 – 284. King, Karen “Factions, Variety, Diversity, Multiplicity: Representing Early Christian Differences for the 21st Century”, in: Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 23 (2011), 216 – 237. Kitzler, Petr, From ‘Passio Perpetuae’ to ‘Acta Perpetuae’. Recontextualizing a Martyr Story in the Literature of the Early Church, Berlin 2015. Knopf, Rudolf/Krü ger, Gustav/Ruhbach, Gerhard, Ausgewählte Märtyrerakten (Neubearbeitung der Knopfschen Ausgabe von Gustav Krü ger und Gerhard Ruhbach), 4. Aufl., Tü bingen 1965. Knust, Jennifer, “Enslaved to Demons: Sex, Violence and the Apologies of Justin Martyr”, in: Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourses, ed. Todd C. Penner/Carolin Vander Stichele, Leiden 2007. Lieu, Judith, “The Audience of Apologetics: the Problem of the Martyr Acts”, in: Contextualizing Early Christian Martyrdom, ed. Jakob Engberg et al., Frankfurt 2011, 205 – 224. Lightfoot, Joseph Barber, The Apostolic Fathers. Revised Texts with Introductions, Notes, Dissertations, and Translations 2 vols., London 1889. Löhr, Winrich A., “Der Brief der Gemeinden von Lyon und Vienne (Eusebius, h.e. V,1 – 2(4))”, in: Oecumenica et Patristica: Festschrift für Wilhelm Schneemelcher, ed. Damaskinos Papandreou/Wolfgang A. Bienert/Knut Schäferdiek, Stuttgart 1989, 135 – 149. Maier, Harry O., “Early Christian Martyrology, Imperial Thirdspace and Mimicry: Taking the Spatial Turn to the Arena”, in: Space Time of the Imperial, ed. Susanne Rau/Holt Meyer/Katharina Waldner, (Spatio Temporality/RaumZeitlichkeit 1), Berlin 2016, 354 – 384. Martin, Dale B., “When Did Angels Become Demons?” in: Journal of Biblical Literature 129 (2010), 657 – 677. Marx-Wolf, Heidi, “Third Century Daemonologies and the Via Universalis: Origen, Porphyry and Iamblichus on daimones and Other Angels”, in: Studia Patristica 46 (2010), 207 – 215. Marx-Wolf, Heidi, Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority: Platonists, Priests, and Gnostics in the Third Century C.E, Philadelphia 2016. Middleton, Paul, Radical Martyrdom and Cosmic Conflict in Early Christianity, London 2006. Middleton, Paul, “Overcoming the Devil in the Acts of the Martyrs”, in: Evil in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Chris Keith/Loren T. Stuckenbruck, Tübingen 2016, 357 – 374. Minns, Dennis/Parvis, Paul, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies. Edited with a Commentary on the Text, Oxford 2009. Morehouse, Nathaniel J., Deaths Dominion. Power, Identity, and Memory at the Fourth-Century Martyr Shrine, Sheffield 2016. Moss, Candida R., The Other Christs. Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom, Oxford 2010 (a). Moss, Candida R., “On the Dating of Polycarp: Rethinking the Place of the Martyrdom of Polycarp in the History of Christianity”, in: Early Christianity 1 (2010) (b), 539 – 574. Moss, Candida R., Ancient Christian Martyrdoms. Diverse Practices, Theologies and Traditions, New Haven 2012.

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Muehlberger, Ellen, Angels in Late Ancient Christianity, Oxford 2013. Musurillo, Herbert, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, Oxford 1972. Petersen, Anders Klostergaard, “The Notion of Demon – Open Questions to a Diffuse Concept”, in: Dämonen. Die Dämonologie der israelitisch-jüdischen und frühchristlichen Literatur im Kontext ihrer Umwelt, ed. Armin Lange/Hermann Lichtenberger/K.F. Diethard Römheld, Tübingen 2003. Pratsch, Thomas, Der hagiographische Topos: griechische Heiligenviten in mittelbyzantinischer Zeit, Berlin 2005. Rebillard, Éric, Greek and Latin Narratives about the Ancient Martyrs, Oxford 2017. Roig Lanzillotta, Lautaro, “The Early Christians and Human Sacrifice”, in: The Strange World of Human Sacrifice, ed. Jan N. Bremmer, Leuven 2007, 81 – 102. Rüpke, Jörg, “Religious Agency, Identity and Communication. Reflections on the History and Theory of Religion”, in: Religion 45.3 (2015), 344 – 366. Seeliger, Reinhard M., “Gefallene Engel und schnelle Quälgeister. Aspekte der patristischen Dämonologie”, in: Theologische Quartalschrift 188 (2008), 171 – 180. Seeliger, Reinhard M./Wischmeyer, Wolfgang, Märtyrerliteratur, Berlin 2015. Sorensen, Eric, Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament and Early Christianity, Tübingen 2002. Ulrich, Jörg, “Das Glaubensbekenntnis “Justins” in den Acta Iustini AB 2”, in: Studia Patristica 39 (2006), 455 – 460. Yoshiko Reed, Annette, “The Trickery of the Fallen Angels and Demonic Mimesis of the Divine: Aetiology, Demonology and Polemics in the Writings of Justin Martyr”, in: Journal of Early Christian Studies 12.2 (2004), 141 – 171. Zwierlein O., Die Urfassungen der Martyria Polycarpi et Pionii und das Corpus Polycarpianum 1: Editiones criticae (a); 2: Textgeschichte und Rekonstruktion. Polykarp, Ignatius und der Redaktor Ps.-Pionius (b), Berlin 2014.

Emmanouela Grypeou

4 Demons of the Underworld in the Christian Literature of Late Antiquity

According to the text known as Visio Baronti Monachi Longoretensis, dated 25 March 678 or 679 and attributed to a monk called Barontius, this same monk experienced a vision of heaven and hell around 678.¹ Barontius narrated a vision that he had after falling into a coma. In this vision, as he was flying through the air and the heavens, demons attacked him and tormented him, trying to pull him down to hell while bringing condemning evidence against him “over all the sins that he had committed”. According to this Latin vision, which stems from the late seventh but most probably from the early eighth century, there is no doubt that hell is inhabited by demons, who punish the sinners.² This view of a demonic afterlife that became a common topos in medieval apocalyptic literature reflects the development of a long and complex tradition of apocalyptic ideas and beliefs on the nature and character of afterlife punishment and reward for Christians in the world of Late Antiquity.³ Of course, the perception of demons in the underworld is linked with parallel developments in different cultural contexts. Istvan Czáchesz observed that the role of the demons in the Hellenistic Jewish literature, as in the Book of Tobit, and in the Dead Sea Scrolls, is perceived as negative and evil, in marked difference to the Graeco-Roman notions of a neutral understanding of demons as super-human powers.⁴ However, chthonic punishing powers were also well known in the pagan world.⁵ The Erinyes, the infernal deities of vengeance, would persecute and pursue the inhabitants of the Orphic underworld. Accordingly, these vengeful powers might have influenced the development of the idea of the tormenting angels of the underworld. In early Christian literature, such as in the Revelation of John (20:1– 4) or the 2 Epistle of Peter (2:4), Satan and/or the fallen angels are depicted as chained in hell and hence as prisoners punished in the realm of the underworld. In later Christian apocalyptic writings, demons achieve the status of the prison guards and even tormentors. This shift in the role, function and conceptualisation of the demons of the underworld with respect to the afterlife could possibly indicate a shift in the gen See Visio Baronti 5, 368 – 394 (Ciccarese [1987]; Ciccarese [1981]).  See Moreira (2010), 10: “The seventh century visions of Barontus and Fursey, in particular, have been invoked as evidence for […] the emergence of visionary literature in the West.”.  Cf. early and later medieval literature featuring “demons”: Furseus’s vision (633 CE); Charles the Fat’s Vision (855 CE); St. Patrick’s Purgatory (1154 CE); Tundale’s Vision (1149 CE), Visio Thugdali; The Monk of Eyesham’s Vision (1196 CE); Thurkill’s Vision (1206), in: Gardiner (1989).  Czáchesz (2009), 432.  See Johnston (1999), 250 – 288; Dieterich (1893), 55 – 60. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110632231-005

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eral understanding of the nature of the demonic in Christianity. Significantly, as David Frankfurter remarks: “The early Jewish and Christian texts provided their readers and audience with especially monstrous images of punitive afterlife angels”.⁶ The ambivalence of the nature of these agents as a merciless but probably also a necessary and serviceable force was most prevalent in the hell vision accounts of Late Antiquity. Tormenting angels were present in early Jewish apocalyptic texts of the Second Temple Period. In the Parables of Enoch (56:1), the seer observes “an army of angels of punishment, holding scourges and chains of iron and bronze” in the context of punishment of Azazel and the fallen angels in the fiery abyss (1 Enoch 53 – 56). Thus, the tormenting angels in 1 Enoch actually acted against the “fallen angels”, not human sinners. Martha Himmelfarb suggested that “it appears, then, that a new class of angels not found in the Bible, was emerging in Judaism and Christianity in the early part of this era, probably under the influence of Greek ideas”.⁷ Punishing angels in hell are also present in the apocalyptic text known as Second Apocalypse of Enoch (also known as the Slavonic Enoch).⁸ The seer here describes his visit to the terrible, cruel and gloomy sites of murky fire where frightful and merciless angels bearing “angry” weapons punish the sinners (§ 39). The text further describes the key-holders of the gates of hell standing like great serpents. Their faces looked like extinguishing lamps, their eyes were of fire and their teeth sharp (§ 42). Punishing spirits in the lowest dark heaven are also mentioned in the Testament of Levi (3:2– 3), whereas the Testament of Abraham knows of merciless angels and especially of the fiery and pitiless angel Puruel (πυρουὴλ), the angel of judgment (ἂγγελος κρίσεως) (§ 12– 13).⁹ A more detailed description of the tormentors in hell is given in the fragmentary Apocalypse of Zephaniah. The Apocalypse of Zephaniah is a Jewish work that probably originated in Egypt and is preserved only in Coptic. In this text, the seer, Zephaniah, observes how a “lawless” soul is punished by 5000 angels by being beaten with 100 lashes daily. The text further envisions the accuser, who will come up from Amente (underworld) for each soul. His body resembles a serpent. According to this early evidence, the accuser (Kategoros), a clearly monstrous figure is directly associated with the punishments in hell for the sinners (§ 6).¹⁰ The angels of the accuser, servants of the creation, take the souls of the ungodly men and cast them into their eternal punishment. These too look monstrous. They have animal faces and other beastly features. Their eyes are mixed with blood and their hair is loose like

 Frankfurter (2012), 90.  Himmelfarb (1983), 120. According to Himmelfarb the punishing angels are connected with “environmental” punishments (ibid., 121). For these Greek, Orphic inspired, ideas of tormenting angels see Jan N. Bremmer (2018), 162– 84, 170 – 72.  See Andersen (1983), 91– 213.  Πυρουὴλ, would be understood as the angel: ὁ ἐπὶ τοῦ πυρὸς ἒχων, see Delcor (1973), 148.  Wintermute (1983), 497– 516.

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that of women. They hold fiery scourges in their hands (§ 5). Despite their monstrous features and nature they are still called angels and significantly, it is a shiny and glorious angel, called Eremiel, who presides over the abyss and the Amente. Thus, the early apocalyptic tradition stresses an ambiguous understanding of the angels of the underworld. These punishing angels, even if they bear frightening theriomorphic features and are merciless, are the executors of divine justice. Accordingly, the tormenting angels are hostile to the sinners but ultimately remain servants of God and act as mediators between the divine power and humans and their actions. However, it may be argued that the graphic description of these angels would have inevitably led to their transformation into demons – that is, into utterly hostile powers with clearly sadistic features. The theriomorphic appearance of these punishing angels is a feature that most probably originates in Ancient Egyptian lore related to the punishers of the underworld. Although this theriomorphic aspect is evident in early Jewish texts, and most significantly in texts of probably Egyptian provenance, it seems that it becomes obsolete in the description of the punishing angels of the early Christian apocalypses. Early Christian visions of hell retain the ambiguity concerning the nature of the tormentors there. The angels of hell both preside over punishments and occasionally prepare or also perform the specific torments for the different categories of sinners. The idea of specific angels sent or assigned by God for the punishments of the sinners is attested in the New Testament¹¹ and established in early Christian literature, for instance in the works of the Church Fathers.¹² Angels in charge of the torments in hell are mentioned in various Christian apocalyptic and related writings. The Second Book of the Sibylline Oracles describes immortal angels who bind sinners with chains of flaming fire and punish them by scourge (II.350 – 355).¹³ However, the roles and functions of the angels of the underworld are analysed in more detail in the extant Christian apocalyptic texts, such the Apocalypse of Peter and the Apocalypse of Paul. ¹⁴ The Apocalypse of Peter, the earliest Christian apocalyptic text composed in Greek – and preserved partly in Greek but more extensively in Ethiopic – deals with visions of the afterlife and describes punishing angels with their dark raiment (§ 20). These are tormenting angels afflicting sinners (§21), whereas men and women are also beaten by evil spirits (§ 27).¹⁵ The Apocalypse of Paul that originated roughly

 Matthew 13:42.50.  See, for example, Origen, who mentions the angels who are in charge of hell (ἄγγελοι τῆς κολἀσεως τεταγμἐνοι [Ep. ad Afr.; PG 11:64]).  See Collins (1983), 352.  On these texts see Bremmer (2009).  Ap.Petr., XII.27.: μαστιζομένοι ὑπὸ πνευμάτων πονηρῶν (James [1892], 92). However, the much later Ethiopic version of the same text uses the word “demons”, see Grébaut (1910), 213; cf. Bremmer (2009), 298 – 345: “As the Ethiopic version was probably translated from an Arabic translation of a

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in the mid or late fourth century was the most influential apocalypse of ancient Christianity. The text was originally written in Greek, but was soon translated in Latin, Coptic, Syriac and other local languages.¹⁶ This text emphasises the dichotomy between evil angels (πονηροί/maligni) and good angels (ἀγαθοί/sancti) that write down sins and righteous deeds, respectively, then claim the souls of the dead accordingly (§ 15). Significantly, we have here an early but clear reference to “evil angels”. Merciless souls are to be delivered to an angel, Temelouchos, and to be cast into outer darkness, the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Merciless and dreadful angels dominate the imagery of hell in this text. Other evil sinners are to be delivered to the angel(s) of Tartarus, the Tartarouchos, to be guarded until the great Day of Judgment. The seer, the apostle Paul, observes how angels bring the sinners to the punishments. In other instances, the angels of hell would inflict various gruesome but righteous torments on sinners. Characteristically, the angel Temelouchos is shown pulling the entrails out of the mouth of an old man using a triple-pronged fork (§ 34). The aforementioned and best known punishing angels named in the Christian apocalypses are Tartarouchos and Temelouchos. Both Tartarouchos and Temelouchos are designations that refer to these angels’ function and relation to the underworld. In the later apocalyptic tradition these designations would only be used as proper, personal names. Temelouchos is mentioned both in the Apocalypse of Peter and the Apocalypse of Paul. Clement of Alexandria (Eclogae Propehticae 41,1; 48 – 49) and Methodius of Olympus (Symposium 2.6) report that the Apocalypse of Peter mentions this specific angel, Temelouchos (i. e., perhaps, the care-taker), who takes care of the victims of infanticide. Thus, Temelouchos was not initially perceived as a punishing angel. He represents, however, one of the earliest examples of angels in the Christian hell with a specific role and title. Still, in the later apocalyptic tradition, he clearly becomes a punishing figure. In the First Apocalypse of John,¹⁷ he is called Temelouch. In the graphic description that follows, Temelouch is introduced as the door keeper, who commands Tarouk (probably a corrupt form of Tartarouchos), the key-holder, to open the gateway to punishments and judgement, the darkness and the abyss of Hades, to wake up the fat, three-headed snake and to bring together monstrous animals to consume the souls. Finally, Temelouch would bring together all the droves of sinners and the earth would split open in order to swallow them, sending them to their horrible punishments.¹⁸

Greek original, one must conclude that older and newer versions continued to co-exist peacefully” (ibid., 301). On the language transmission of the Apocalypse of Peter, see also Müller (1987), 564.  Jirousková, (2006).  Tischendorf (1866), 94.  In the Coptic version of the Apocalypse of Paul, he is called Aftemelouchos (Budge [1915], 543 f.). In the Coptic Testament of Isaac, the same infernal figure is called Abdemerouchos, a servant in hell (Kuhn (1967), 325, 1.1– 4); cf. TestIs 9.7– 8: “Abdemerouchos is in charge of the fire punishments, made all of fire, threatening the tormentors in hell, saying, ‚Beat them until they know what God is‘). In the

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According to Richard Bauckham, the name of Temelouchos was no longer literally understood – it became redundant and was sometimes even replaced by Tartarouchos, whose meaning and function was far more obvious and less confusing.¹⁹ Jean-Marc Rosenstiehl, who analysed in detail the evidence and the provenance of these two names, notes that the appellation “Tartarouchos” is quite rare in Greek and it turns up mainly in magical texts, in which it refers to infernal deities of Greek mythology.²⁰ Specifically, Tartarouchos was a common name for Hecate, the chthonic deity. As Jan Bremmer argues: “Apparently, the early Church borrowed this angelic name from its pagan environment by letting the ‚mistress of the Tartarus‘ undergo a sex-change”.²¹ However, this particular angelic name was also used in patristic texts referring to angels of the underworld. In addition, Hippolytus uses the term in plural, when describing those angels as punishers and chthonic spirits.²² In the Apocalypse of Peter, Tartarouchos is a punishing angel along with Urael and Israel. In the Apocalypse of Paul, he becomes the chief punishing angel. The name comes up in numerous passages of the Latin versions of the text and demonstrates its dissemination as a proper name for principal punishing angels (16,34,40). Thus, it would eventually be used as the name of a leading angelic character in the afterlife drama.²³ As already indicated above, in the First Apocalypse of John, Tartarouchos is a servant or rather a subordinate to Temelouchos. An infernal angel Tartarouchos is also mentioned in the Nag Hammadi Text, The Book of Thomas the Contender (NHC 2,7,40 – 41).²⁴ Jan Bremmer observes that “the name, not surprisingly, Ethiopic Apocalypse of the Virgin, he is called Temleyakos (Chaine (1909), 77 [T]; 65 [V.]); cf. also the discussion in Himmelfarb (1983), 101– 103; and a detailed discussion of the source evidence in Rosenstiehl (1986), esp. 34– 42; see also a tenth century Coptic iconographic reference in a church in Tebtunis to “Aftemelouchos, the angel of Punishments”, in: Walters (1989), 202. In a later Byzantine text, the Dialogue between Christ and the Devil, he is probably referred to as the angel Melouch, who brings the unrepentant sinners to the lake of fire, where also the devil and his demons are (CaseyThomson [1955], 51:1.41– 42).  Rosenstiehl has identified Temelouchos with Poseidon as the fellow-god of Tartarouchos, Pluto, arguing that this identification would better explain their presence as a couple of hellish angels in the Christian apocalypses. However, as Jan Bremmer pointed out this identification is not convincing ([2003], 9).  Rosenstiehl (1986), 29; cf. Bohak (2008), 268: “tartatouchos‚ the holder of Tartarus [is] one of the most common epithets of the chthonic goddess Hecate, in the Greco-Egyptian magical texts”.  The name “tartarouchos” for chthonic deities is used in diverse magical contexts, see Wünsch (1897), XXI, Anm. 2; cf. Audollent, (1904), 409; see Fairbanks (1900), 241– 259; cf. Preisedanz (1935), 2,2245.  See Hippolytus, Ref., 10,34 (292,17): Ταρταρούχων ἀγγέλων κολαστῶν and Hippolytus, Comm. Dan., 2,29,11 (98,13): ἔπειτα τὰ καταχθόνια ὠνόμασαν πνεύματα ταρταρούχων ἀγγἐλων καὶ ψυχὰς δικαίων.  In the Ethiopic version of the Apocalypse of Peter 13, the angel Tatirokos is mentioned, who will come to punish mercilessly. Thus, the Ethiopic does not translate the Greek name but simply transcribes it as a proper name in a somewhat corrupted form (Grébaut [1910], 214).  This text describes the punishment of the “blind men”, who “will be thrown into the abyss and be tormented […] will be handed over to the ruler […] and will cast him down to the abyss and will be

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occurs only in Christian literature clearly depending on the Apocalypse of Peter, such as the Apocalypse of Paul”.²⁵ Rosenstiehl concludes that Tartarouchos becomes assimilated to Satan, the master of the Christian hell or underworld. The designation “Tartarouchos” is explicitly attributed to Satan in the Questions of Bartholomew 4,25.²⁶ In this text Satan explains: “at the first I was called Satanael, which is interpreted a messenger of God, but when I rejected the image of God my name was called Satanas, that is, an angel that kept hell (Tartarus)”.²⁷ So, Satan’s alienation from God transforms him into an angel of hell. In this context he is further identified – as usual – with the chief of the fallen angels.²⁸ As C.D.G. Müller stresses, the notion of an angel becomes ambiguous in these writings. On the one hand, angels carry out the punishments by order of God, but on the other, they seem to bear a strong similarity to the “angels of Satan”, who, as fallen angels, should actually be regarded as demons.²⁹ The Latin Vision of Ezra is probably one of the most representative eschatological texts in which the tormenting angels are explicitly identified with the “angels of Satan” and thus acquire a distinctive demonic quality. The Latin Vision of Ezra describes seven angels, who are in charge of Tartarus, although they mainly function as guides through hell for the seer (§ 2). Devils administer hell fire or strike the sinners with a club of fire (§ 13). In another place, four angels in charge of Tartarus would pierce the eyes of bound sinners (§ 19). When the sinners arrive, the angels of Satan place them in fire “pressing fiery, fork-shaped yokes unto their necks” (§ 27, 518). In general, angels of Satan are associated with fire throughout this text (see esp. § 37).³⁰ The association of Satan with the angel of hell is encountered in the Christian literature as early as in the fourth century. In the Acts of Thomas 1,32 a great black serpent (or actually, a dragon) speaks to the apostle and identifies himself as the devil and remarks: “I am a reptile and the noxious son of a noxious father (devil son of devil). I am he that inhabited and held the deep of hell Tartarus”.³¹ Accord-

imprisoned in a narrow dark place, that is Hades, a place of heavy bitterness. There they will be punished over to […] angel Tartaruchos and fire will be pursuing them; fiery scourges and fire everywhere” (Turner [1975], 8).  Bremmer (2003), 6.  See Bonwetsch (1897), 22.  Cf. also the Latin version of the Questions: 4,12; 4,25: ‚nomen meus sathanas, quod interpretatur angelus Tartaricus‘ (Tisserant-Willmart [1913], 179); cf.: quod est angelus tartarus (Moricca [1921], 503).  James (1924).  Müller (1959), 78.  See Bauckham, who notes that the manuscripts refer to “dyaboli (§13) and dyaboli tartaruti (§19), but these readings assimilate the text to the medieval view that the tormentors in hell are devils. In the older apocalyptic literature tormentors are not evil beings but angels of God, put in charge of hell and its judgment by God, administering his justice in obedience to him. Other manuscripts have angeli” (Bauckham [2010], 329, note 25).  Quest. Barth. §32: ἐγὼ εἰμι ὁ τὴν ἄβυσσον τοῦ ταρτάρου οἰκῶν καὶ κατέχων (Lipsius-Bonnet [1903] 149,18).

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ingly, the devil is also envisioned as a dragon in this context. Theriomorphic punishers in hell were attested in early Jewish apocalyptic literature, as mentioned above. In the early Christian apocalypses, sinners are tormented by beasts – albeit often dragon-like – rather than by theriomorphic angels. In the Apocalypse of Peter there are dragons gnawing at the bodies of the sinners (§ 25). In the Apocalypse of Paul sinners are tormented upon a spit of fire while beasts tear them apart (§ 40). Sinful monks and nuns clad in rags full of pitch and fire have dragons twine around their bodies while angels with horns of fire constrain them. Winged or two-headed beasts or dragons with three fiery heads also appear torturing sinners in a later apocalyptic text, the Apocalypse of the Virgin, Mary (§ XVII).³² Similarly, merciless theriomorphic tormentors appear in the later hagiographical and martyrological literature. The Life of Pisentius describes animal-shaped tormentors in hell for the idolaters, such as serpents with seven heads and scorpions.³³ In the Coptic Testament of Isaac the tormentors look monstrous and/or have faces of beasts (VIII 8 – 10).³⁴ The tradition of graphic descriptions of fearsome punishing angels in hell is further attested in the monastic literary tradition. In the Bohairic Life of Pachomius, the abbot Pachomius travels in the course of an out-of-body experience to the regions of the dead. Pachomius sees north of the Paradise of delights, rivers, canals and ditches filled with fire in which the souls of sinners are tormented by angels of an exceedingly frightening aspect, holding fiery whips in their hands. They whip the souls hard and thrust them even further down into the fire. These torturing angels are filled with joy and gladness and do not feel any sorrow for the wicked but they punish the souls pleading for mercy with even fiercer torments. When souls are brought over to them, these angels are overjoyed over the downfall of the wicked (Pachomius Vita § 88).³⁵ In the Coptic literary tradition, the tormentors in hell are occasionally called decans. The decans inhabit parts of the netherworld and appear in a well-established tradition of Egyptian and Gnostic texts as astrological rulers. Later, however, they receive new functions and responsibilities as the executioners and tormentors in hell, while retaining their name. Thus, certain Coptic texts describe decans as set over punishments of hell and being occupied with devouring (eating, chewing) souls.³⁶ The idea that cruel, evil angels operate as tormentors in hell is prevalent in early Christian apocalyptic literature and also extends to other literary genres that envision the afterlife. These angels are often specifically called “merciless angels” or “angels of wrath/cruelty” and their designations and frightful description should have been

 James (1892), 121.  Budge (1913), 329. In the martyrdom of St Macarius, the dead idolater encounters in the place of absolute darkness the never-sleeping worm that has a crocodile head and is surrounded by reptiles that would throw souls to it: see Hyvernat (1886), 56 f.  Kuhn (1967), 325 – 335; cf. Himmelfarb (1983), 119.  Veilleux (1980), 113 – 117.  Budge (1915), 577; 1044.

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particularly terrifying but also edifying for the intended audience of the local communities. The Coptic text “On the Falling Asleep of Mary”³⁷ depicts the gloomy darkness of hell with its pitiless tormentors, whose faces keep changing. The text specifically stresses that God sent them to teach the lawless.³⁸ Bishop Psote of Psoi (Ptolemais in the Thebaid) mentions in his last sermon before his martyrdom: “merciless avengers, and decans who are without form, and who preside over [the infliction of] punishment”.³⁹ The frightful features and tormenting functions of the angels of hell are in agreement with the monstrous depictions of the personification of Death or his angels that very often appear in literature of Egyptian provenance, and include descriptions of the afterlife. The angels that approach the soul at the time of death are described in a similar fashion to the punishing angels of hell. Accordingly, their appearance is frightening and they have theriomorphic features. Similarly, they are merciless and cruel with the souls of the sinners that are intended to fetch. In a way, the punishment of the soul already begins at the time of death in these writings. Characteristic is the description and development of the figure of the angel of death, Abbaton.⁴⁰ In the fourth century Homily on Abbaton by Timothy, the patriarch of Alexandria, Abbaton, the Angel of Death, is described with exaggeratedly monstrous features.⁴¹ Death personified is often escorted by a company of fierce and monstrous-looking assistants who help with the violent extraction of the soul from the bodies of the dead.⁴² In the pseudepigraphon, The History of Joseph the Carpenter, preserved in Coptic and Arabic,⁴³ Joseph sees from his deathbed Death approaching: “He arrived near the house followed by Amente, who is his instrument along

 Robinson (1896), 96.  In the Book of the Enthronement of Archangel Michael it is a voice from the inside of the veil that commands the “evil angel” to bring the sinners to their punishments. In the same text, angels of wrath throw sinners in the river of fire and bring them to their punishments; see Müller (1959), 200 f.  Cf. Budge (1915), 154; 733; decans are also mentioned and depicted in the paintings from Tebtunis, as “the decan who chews the souls”; see Walters (1989), 203.  Cf. Theophilus of Alexandria (d. 412 AD), who writes in his Homily on Repentance and Continence: “In that hour […] those beings shall come for us, and by the horror of their forms which shall benumb us, and by the terrifying aspect of their faces, and by the gnashing of their teeth, and by the wrath of their eyes, and by the quaking of their limbs, and by the striding of their legs, and by the roaring of their lips, and by all the forms which they have, and by their rushing in upon us because they wish to devour us.” (Budge [1913], 72; 218).  Budge (1915), 488 – 496. Abbaton is also known in the Revelation of John, where he is the “Angel of the Abyss” (Revelation 9:11). In the paintings in the church of Tebtunis, Abbaton, “the angel of death” is depicted as “a gigantic winged figure” (see Walters [1989], 200 – 202).  In the Life of Pisentius, a dead idolater describes how Death appeared to him hanging in the air in many forms accompanied by pitiless angels who also change their form. The idolater is then cast into the outer darkness, and is tormented by beasts and monstrous reptiles. The animals represent the pagan gods who as demons become the punishers in hell, see Budge (1913), 329 f.  See Morenz (1951).

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with the Devil and by a countless troop of officers clothed with fire, their mouths breathing out smoke and sulphur” (20,1).⁴⁴ Jesus intervenes on behalf of Joseph, drives back death, and the “powers of darkness” (21,8). Similarly, in the Testament of Abraham, Death demonstrates his multiple fierce appearances and his pitiless, fierce and unclean look, when he comes for the sinners (§17). Visions of hell were also particularly popular in the later Coptic literature and, significantly, in the martyrological accounts that date to the sixth century and later. As Violet MacDermott has noted: “Coptic martyr stories appear to have been a form of ‚popular‘ apocalyptic literature”.⁴⁵ In various martyrological accounts preserved and possibly also composed in Coptic, such as the Encomium of Saint George of Cappadocia or the Martyrdom of Philotheus, the pagan sinners are punished in hell by the idol that they used to worship during their lifetime.⁴⁶ Accordingly, the demons of the pagan environment are transformed into tormentors of the underworld for their dead pagan followers. The Martyrdom of Philotheus further describes the angel of hell sitting on the throne of fire and all his executioners, whose eyes cast fire into the faces of the sinners and with their claws they tear out eyes and tongues (§ 24). The “angel of hell”, Tartarouchos, is also mentioned later in the Martyrdom in an episode that describes a magic duel between St. Philotheos and a pagan magician, in the course of which Tartarouchos is invoked in the context of a failed necromantic ritual (§ 51).⁴⁷ A similar episode is found in the Martyrdom of Helias of Hnes in which the necromantic invocation succeeds and Tartarouchos appears, followed by many chained and tormented souls.⁴⁸ The Martyrdom of St. Shenoufe and his Brethren recounts the descent to the underworld of another magician of his own will. This magician immediately finds himself surrounded by demons, who start discussing what to do with him: should they kill him, or decapitate him, or skin him alive or pull out his eyes?⁴⁹ The association with necromancy is compelling here. The magicians in these stories – adversaries of the martyrs and Christianity – invoke spirits of the dead and, through the connection with malevolent magic and necromancy, can only be demons. These narratives, of course, presuppose that the demonic associates

 Ehrman/Plese (2011), 157– 196; cf. the 6th century Life of Saint Euthymius by Cyrill of Scythopolis, in which Tartarus is envisioned, personified, while taking the soul of a dying man. Euthymius watches how Tartarus from Hades with his fiery trident extract with a lot of effort the soul of a dead sinner (Schwartz [1939], 37; 1:13).  MacDermott (1971), 83. On demonology in Egyptian monasticism, see Frankfurter (2003), 339 – 385.  See Budge (1888), 303; on the Martyrdom of Philotheus, see Kouremenos (2014); Rogozhina (2015).  The “angel of Hell Tartarouchos” is invoked but fails to turn up and the magician falls into the abyss which appeared at his pleading, while the martyr wishes him to “go down to hell and have enjoyment with his father, the devil until the end of time” (see Kouremenos (2014), §51).  Sohby (1919), 103.  Balestri – Hyvernat (1907), 88 – 89.

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of the necromancer inhabit the underworld from where they are summoned. As David Frankfurter has shown, demons or explicitly marginal spirits (such as those connected with Amente) were “by far the most frequent ‚demons‘ invoked in the Coptic spells”.⁵⁰ These underworld figures were conceived and invoked as the archons of Amente. However, the Greek magical papyri also mention demons as “evil beings of Hades”.⁵¹ As Frankurter notes, these texts paint a picture of an elaborate realm of monstrous beings who serve eternally in specific roles to punish and destroy. Furthermore, he stresses that: “The Amente spirits are violent, bloodthirsty […] hence labelled ‚daimon‘ in some texts, to be classified as ‚demonic‘ only for their function as monstrous denizens of the underworld and not by association with Satan or opposition to God”.⁵² Thus, certain demons are specifically invoked for their function of punishing sinners. Characteristically, a Coptic magical text invokes Temeluchos, who is in charge of the merciless punishments to torment the lawless, the liars and the perjurers. To his assistance Uriel would bring the worm that never sleeps, Raphael would come with his fiery sword and Temelouchos would examine the sinners in a demonic way.⁵³ Tartarouchos as a demon of the underworld features in Coptic magical texts as well.⁵⁴ Similar to the punishing angels of Jewish and later also of Christian apocalyptic literature, the demons of Amente in the Coptic spells take on horrific appearances and perform cruel operations against the wicked. Their invocation and involvement aims at the protection of the supplicant against adversary agents and, ultimately, the restitution of a balance between good and evil. Along with the punishing angels and other personified figures associated with death, they constituted “a mortuary pantheon” in the Late Antique Christianity, which would inform the construction of afterlife as a vivid reality.⁵⁵ These magical spells as well as the hagiographies and martyrdoms paint a picture of the underworld as an elaborate torture chamber that is very similar to the descriptions of the afterlife that we encounter in the Jewish and Christian writings discussed above. We observe that the appearance and function of the tormentors in the afterlife were shared by a number of cultural environments and would be found in various literary and belief traditions that relate to the underworld. This observation points to a shared afterlife imagery in Late Antiquity in which boundaries and nomenclatures become blurred. Thus, the mutation of cruel angels into cruel demons in certain contexts can be viewed as an interchange in nomenclature, rather than a real transformation with regard to their nature and function in the afterlife.

 Frankfurter (2007), 455.  See PGM XIII.800 (Betz, 191).  Frankfurter (2007), 467; on these Amente demons and their function in Amente see Frankfurter (2012), 95 – 96.  See Kropp (1931), 86 – 87.  See Pap. Copt. Berol. 8314, 14– 21; Kropp (1931), 21; cf. Fauth (1998), 57.  Cf. Frankfurter (2007), 461.

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Hell was envisioned as a divine judicial construction, in which God’s agents, i. e. the angels, operate in order to restore theodicy in the afterlife. The representation of hell as a divine punitive system reflects in many ways the ambiguity about the perception of the nature of demons that was ubiquitous in early Christianity. Furthermore, the extravagant illustrations of the divine punitive system and its agents through representations of hell would elucidate nuances and developments in the understanding of issues related to theodicy, crime and punishment by the various Christian communities. It seems that in later texts the “angelic” element as such gradually disappears from hell and is replaced by the “demonic”. The angelic servants of the underworld acquire frightening physical traits and sadistic psychological aspects in agreement with their tormenting functions and merciless job. According to the evidence discussed, it appears that probably, after the fifth century C.E., these angels would be time and again called “demons” or “devils” or “angels of Satan” – interestingly, in particular in texts that are transmitted in Latin. The demons who were traditionally seen as kept in the underworld or the abyss as prisoners are later perceived and described as tormentors themselves. Accordingly, the gruesome tortures of sinners, which also became with time more organised, more detailed and more horrifying, is now assigned to evil powers that, according to common belief, reside in the underworld. This new understanding of sin and punishment and the relevant nomenclature reflect the emergence of a theological dichotomy. The underworld is depicted as the absolute realm of sin and evil, in which there is hardly any space for divine mercy. God, despite being all merciful, becomes increasingly distant from the flawed world, prone to human sin. This understanding would become prevalent already in the early medieval visions of hell and would produce a rich graphic imagery of tormenting devils that will eventually dominate Christian imagination for centuries to come.

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Grébaut, Sylvain, “Littérature éthiopienne pseudo-clémentine”, in: Révue de l‘Orient Chrétien 15 (1910), 198 – 214, 307 – 323. Himmelfarb, Martha, Tours of Hell. An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature, Philadelphia 1983. Hippolytus, Werke, 1. Band, Exegetische und Homiletische Schriften, ed. Georg Nathaniel Bonwetsch/Hans Achelis (GCS 1), Berlin 1897. Hippolytus Werke, 3. Band, Refutatio Omnium Haresium, ed. Paul Wendland (GCS 26), Leipzig 1916. Hyvernat, Henri, Les actes des martyrs de l’Égypte, Paris 1886. James, Montague Rhodes, The Apocryphal New Testament, Oxford 1924, Reprint 1955, 504 – 21. James, Montague Rhodes/Robinson, J. Armitage, The Gospel according to Peter. and The revelation of Peter: two lectures on the newly recovered fragments together with the Greek texts, London 1892. Jirousková, Lenka, Die Visio Pauli. Wege und Wandlungen einer orientalischen Apokryphe im lateinischen Mittelalter unter Einschluß der alttschechischen und deutschsprachigen Textzeugen, Leiden 2006. Johnston, Sarah Iles, Restless Dead. Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece, Berkeley 1999. Kouremenos, Nikolaos, The Coptic Passion of Saint Philotheus of Antioch according to the Codex M583 of Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, Rome 2014. Kropp, Angelicus, Ausgewählte koptische Zaubertexte, 3 vols., Brussels 1930/31. Kuhn, Karl Heinz, “An English Translation of the Sahidic Version of the Testament of Isaac”, in: Journal of Theological Studies 18 (1967), 325 – 33. Lipsius, Adelbert/Maximilian Bonnet, Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha II,2, Leipzig 1903. MacDermot, Violet, The Cult of the Seer in the Ancient Middle East, Berkeley/Los Angeles 1971. Moreira, Isabel, Heaven’s Purge. Purgatory in Late Antiquity, New York 2010. Moricca, Umberto, “Un nuovo testo dell’ Evangelo di Bartholomeo”, in: Révue Biblique NS 18 (=30) (1921), 481 – 516; NS 19 (=31) (1922), 20 – 30. Müller, C. Detlef G., Die Engellehre der koptischen Kirche, Wiesbaden 1959. Müller, C. Detlef G., “Offenbarung des Petrus”, in: Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung. Band II: Apostolisches, Apokalypsen und Verwandtes, ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher, Tübingen 61987, 562 – 578. Morenz, Siegfried, Die Geschichte von Joseph dem Zimmermann, Berlin/Leipzig 1951. Preisendanz, Karl, “Nekydaimon”, in: Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft XVI (1935), 2240 – 2266. Robinson, Forbes A., Coptic Apocryphal Gospels, Cambridge 1896. Rosenstiehl, Jean-Marc, “Tartarouchos – Temelouchos. Contribution à l’étude de l’Apocalypse apocryphe de Paul”, in: Deuxième journée d’études coptes [Cahiers de la Bibliothèque Copte 3], Louvain/Paris 1986, 29 – 56. Rogozhina, Anna, And from his side came blood and milk: the martyrdom of St. Philotheus of Antioch in Coptic Egypt, DPhil. University of Oxford 2015. Schwartz, Eduard, Kyrillos von Skythopolis, Leipzig 1939. Sohby, George P.G., Le martyre de Saint Hélias et l’encomium de l’évêque Stephanos de Hnès sur saint Hélias, Cairo 1919. Tischendorf, Constantin von, Apocalypses Apocryphae, Leipzig 1866. Turner, John D., The Book of Thomas the Contender from Codex II of the Cairo Gnostic Libraryfrom Nag Hammadi (NHC 2,7). The Coptic Text with Translation, Introduction and Commentary, Montana 1975. Walters, Clifford C., “Christian Paintings from Tebtunis”, in: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 75 (1989), 191 – 208.

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Wilmart, André/Tisserant, Eugène, “Fragments grecs et latins de 1’Evangile de Barthelemy”, in: Révue Biblique 10 (1913), 161 – 90, 321 – 68. Wintermute, Oscar S.W., “Apocalypse of Zephaniah”, in: Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James Charlesworth, New York 1983, 497 – 516. Wünsch, Richard, Defixionum Tabellae in Attica Regione Repertae, Berlin 1897. Veilleux, Armand, Pachomian Koinonia. Vol 1: The Life of Saint Pachomius and his Disciples, Kalamazoo 1980.

Robert Wiśniewski

5 Demons in Early Latin Hagiography Every student of late antique demonology is familiar with hagiography and many scholars, when asked for a specific literary genre that reflects best what the people of this period thought about evil spirits, would name the lives of saints. And they would be right, but only up to a point. This is for two reasons. Firstly, because those who say “hagiography”, usually think of the Life of Antony, which is obviously a very particular text in its way of presenting evil spirits.¹ Secondly, because when studying the role of demons in the world of Late Antiquity we are often, quite understandably, drawn to the vitae that are full of demons, and, more importantly, tend to omit those that scarcely mention them at all. And this is dangerous, for we cannot really assess how important the demons were in the mentality and literature of this period if we ignore the latter texts. In this article, I raise the question of what role demons played in the early Latin lives of saints, but I also try to address another issue, more important for the study of mentality, namely, whether these vitae mirrored widespread and coherent views of evil spirits, their nature and activity. Because of what I said about the syndrome of the Life of Antony, a single text that attracts significant scholarly attention, I will refer to a more or less complete dossier of the fourth- and fifth-century lives of saints, occasionally discussing also passages from later vitae or Greek hagiography. In addition, while I will obviously quote mostly the vitae that abound in stories about demons, like Jerome’s Life of Hilarion, Sulpicius Severus’ Life of Martin, or Paulinus’ Life of Ambrose, it must also be emphasised that vitae that hardly mention them, like Jerome’s Life of Paul of Thebes, Possidius’ Life of Augustine or Hilary of Arles’ Life of Honoratus, will also be taken into account. Nevertheless, I shall start with Athanasius’ Life of Antony, not just as a good point of comparison, but also as the text that actually gave rise to Latin hagiography. Shortly after it was written in Greek, most probably in the 360s, it was translated twice into Latin – by an anonymous author working possibly in Egypt, and by Evagrius of Antioch, a friend of Jerome of Stridon – all this before 374.² Furthermore, I start here because two of the earliest lives of monks written directly in Latin were composed in a close, if not entirely friendly, dialogue with the Life of Antony. The first of them, Jerome’s Vita Pauli, published in the 370s, was an open polemic; the second, Vita Hilarionis, written almost two decades later by the same author, fol-

 On the demonology of the Life of Antony, see: Daniélou (1956), Munich (1996), and Brakke (2006).  For the Greek text: Athanase d’Alexandrie, Vie d’Antoine, ed. Bartelink (1994); the anonymous Latin translation: Vita di Antonio, ed. Bartelink (1974). Evagrius’ translation (completed before 374): Bertrand (2006). For these two translations see: De Vogüé (1991), 17– 22 (though his vision of how the anonymous translation was made is a bit naïve). For the popularity of the Life of Antony see Bremmer (2019), 40 – 45. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110632231-006

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lowed the model created by Athanasius.³ It is not easy to say how widely Evagrius’ Latin version of the Life of Antony was read in Late Antiquity; it survived in an impressive number of over 300 manuscripts, but none of them dates from the pre-Carolingian period.⁴ Yet already in the 5th century several writers referred to this text, and it had an impact on most Latin hagiographers of this period. The Life of Antony does not really match the definition of hagiography that we find in Hippolyte Delehaye.⁵ It was certainly not written in order to promote the cult of a saint, or even in connection with it. It was written to provide a model of monastic life, and the struggle against demons was at the heart of this model.⁶ Thus, while Athanasius actually relates much about demons, he does not intend to give a systematic presentation of their nature, but to show how they fight against monks and how the monks should fight back against them. Even his considerations about demonic topography, bodies, swiftness and foreknowledge, which seem to create a consistent image of evil spirits, actually aim to instruct the readers on how to conduct the ascetic life in the desert.⁷ There is only one sphere in which the Life of Antony presents the activity of demons without any connection to the teaching on the rules of ascetic life: heresy. This is perfectly understandable in the work of Athanasius, who, during almost fifty years of his episcopacy, had few moments that were entirely free of the Arian conflict. Yet, interestingly, the responsibility of demons for the rise of Arianism, though direct,⁸ is hardly emphasised in comparison to what the Life of Antony says about temptations and stratagems by which evil spirits try to trap monks. Demons are apparently a monastic business. Many Latin writers were familiar with the Life of Antony and its demonic conception of the desert and monastic life. However, as we will see, most of them shared this view only to a limited degree. This does not mean that demons are entirely absent from their writings. Demonic presence can be stronger or weaker, but they are present all right in several Latin lives of saints. Nevertheless, the Latin hagiographers are not interested in and do not deal with evil spirits as such. Like Athanasius, they do not intend to sketch a general vision of demonology. Yet unlike him, they usually do not try to warn against them or to teach anything about their ruses or temptations. Athanasius knows that the power of demons was broken by the first coming of Christ, but admits that they are still dangerous, even if their strength lies only in trickery and fear.⁹ None of the Latin hagiographers, however, seem to fully share

 Leclerc (1988), Nehring (2003).  For the manuscript tradition see Bertrand (2006), 89 – 154. The database of Latin hagiographical manuscripts accessible on the website of the Bollandists lists 159 copies: http://bhlms.fltr.ucl.ac.be (accessed on 3 October 2018). The anonymous Latin translation survived in only in one manuscript.  Delehaye (1955), 2.  See esp. Brakke (2006).  Esp. Athanasius, V. Anton. 21– 43.  Athanasius, V. Anton. 82 and 91.  Athanasius, V. Anton. 9, 24 and 40 – 41.

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this anxiety. They rarely present demons as a real threat to their heroes or readers. They mention them and tell stories about them, but this always serves a specific literary purpose and does not have anything to do with the fight against evil spirits. The authors of the Latin vitae use demons as literary tools.

1 Diverse ways of depicting demons The roles that the demons play in the lives of saints vary and it has to be said, once again, that evil spirits by no means appear in all, or even most, of the vitae. Some of them, like those of Hilarion of Gaza or Martin of Tours, abound in demons; though do not necessarily present them in the same way. In other vitae, like those of Paul of Thebes, Augustine, Honoratus, and Hilary, which I have already mentioned, demons are virtually absent. In consequence, when studying their role in Latin hagiography, we should not seek to reconstruct one coherent image based on passages from diverse texts. It would be like trying to match pieces of a puzzle that actually do not belong to the same image. The difference between the lives that abound in demons and those that hardly mention them reflects, up to a point, the difference between the vitae of monks and bishops. Further on we will see “episcopal” lives which mention demons frequently, but, generally speaking, demons are more susceptible to appear in the lives of monks. This is due to the fact that the spiritual combat and the fight against temptations, which were easily assimilated with demons, was an essential element of monastic religiosity, or at least some of its currents. This is manifest not only in hagiography, but also in other writings produced in and destined for the monastic milieu. In Latin literature this preoccupation can be seen especially in John Cassian. Conversely, the fear of temptation is at best a marginal issue in the writings aimed at non-monastic clergy, so it is not strange that we do not find this problem in the lives of bishops. The extent to which the ecclesiastical position of the hero determines the presence of demons in his vita should not be exaggerated, however. In fact, the lives of monks differ seriously among themselves in the ways in which they depict demons and the same can be said about the lives of bishops. This shall be briefly demonstrated by the following examples. In Jerome’s Life of Hilarion, where Hilarion is presented as the protagonist of monastic life in Palestine, we encounter a number of demons that tempt and attack him in the desert, betray his hiding place, beg him for mercy, are attracted by and flee from his power.¹⁰ But in the Life of Honoratus, the founder of the community in the island of Lérins, which focused on the monastic period of his life, demons are entirely absent and the devil is mentioned only twice. First, he appears in a general remark in the description

 Jerome, V. Hilarion. 3 (attacks and temptations), 9 – 14 (demoniacs), 25 – 26, 30.3 (demons betraying Hilarion’s hiding).

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of Honoratus’ conversion: “There Christ invites to the eternal Kingdom; here, the devil tempts to the temporal”.¹¹ Then, in describing the way in which Honoratus runs his community, Hilary, the author of his vita, says that his “intention was to make light the yoke of Christ upon everybody and to remove whatever the devil put on”.¹² For Hilary, the devil is obviously the enemy of men, but neither of these passages suggests that he intervenes actively in the course of human life. Interestingly, this vita does show that monastic life can be difficult. In the description of his own conversion, Hilary avows that the decision to abandon the world did not come to him easily. Nevertheless, he had to struggle with himself, and not with evil spirits: “My spirit argued with myself, as in a conversation with a friend, as to what must be abandoned and what must be pursued”.¹³ Hilary also shows how dramatic Honoratus’ decision was to settle on a desert-island that upon his arrival was waterless and full of snakes.¹⁴ In relating this story, Hilary refers to the description of Antony’s hermitage that can be found in his vita. The construction of the episode and the specific phrases, such as venena animalia and turba serpentium, are borrowed from Evagrius’ translation.¹⁵ Hilary obviously read this text attentively. Yet, very unlike Athanasius, he does not fill the desert and monastic life with demons. Do these two images reflect different views of monastic life? In this case, the answer is most probably in the affirmative. That the Lerinian vision of the monastic desert was free of demons can be seen also in other writings from this milieu, such as Eucher of Lyon’s treatise De laude eremi. This text, written shortly before the Life of Honoratus, was dedicated to its author, Hilary of Arles. It presents the desert as a delightful place, prepared by God for his saints from the beginning of the world. The devil has no access whatsoever to the island of Lérins, which is a desert par excellence.¹⁶ Admittedly, according to Eucher, the desert was a place of confrontation with the devil, but only in the distant past, when Christ, the New Adam, triumphed over the Enemy who had defeated the Old Adam in Paradise.¹⁷ By contrast, the contemporary desert, both for Eucher and for Hilary, more resembles paradise in blossom than a battlefield of the war against demons. The Lerinian views on monastic life, from which the fight against demons is absent, are consistent and can be found also in another vita originating in this milieu, that of the aforementioned Hilary, author of the Vita Honorati, written by another Honoratus, bishop of Marseille. In this Life of Hilary the role of the devil, as the enemy of mankind, is marked more strongly than in the Life of Honoratus,¹⁸ but

       

Hilary, V. Hon. 7. If not indicated otherwise, the translations are by the author. Hilary, V. Hon. 18 Hilary, V. Hon. 23. Hilary, V. Hon. 15. See Pricoco (1978), 32 and Brunert (1994), 198. Eucher, De laude eremi 5 and 38. Eucher, De laude eremi 23. Honoratus, V. Hil. 26.

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the demons are still entirely absent from the desert. In all, the hagiography from southern Gaul seems to reflect a general and important trait of the spirituality of Lérins, in which the monks came to the desert to look for God and not to fight against unclean spirits. Interestingly, in two other monastic vitae by Jerome, the image of demons and the role that they play in the life of the monks differ from those in the Vita Hilarionis. In the Life of Paul, Jerome’s first hagiographical exercise, written shortly after the publication of the Life of Antony, and about twenty years before the Life of Hilarion, demons are very consciously and utterly removed from the picture of the desert. The same images, biblical references, and even specific episodes that Athanasius used to show that the life of the monk is a constant struggle against hosts of evil spirits, are here used to demonstrate that the desert is a space entirely free of demons, inhabited by people, creatures, and animals who praise God. In this desert, a she-wolf, raven, and lions help monks at God’s orders and a creature, half-animal, half-human, that in the Life of Antony was a companion of demons now confesses his faith in Christ. It is rather the city, Alexandria, which attracts demons from the whole world.¹⁹ This is, again, an open polemic against Athanasius (the bishop of Alexandria!), according to whom demons were chased away from the cities by Christians and looked for hiding in the desert, from where the monks are expelling them now.²⁰ The role of demons is still different in Jerome’s Life of Malchus, written in the same years as his Life of Hilarion. The plot of this vita is set in the desert that is dissimilar to that of the Life of Paul. It is not inhabited by strange albeit pious creatures: wild animals living there keep their ferocious nature. Yet it does not resemble the desert of the Life of Hilarion either. Demons do not come to Malchus in person, they do not try to tempt or frighten him. Still, the devil has an impact on his life. The Enemy brings about two dramatic events that change the course of Malchus’ life and risk to put an end to his monastic career. Firstly, he makes Malchus abandon his abbot and monastery, which starts a series of unfortunate adventures for the monk: as Malchus travels through the desert he is captured by Saracens and sold into slavery.²¹ Secondly, when Malchus finally manages to settle and conduct a quasi-monastic life in slavery, the devil suggests to his master to marry Malchus to a fellow-slave woman, which starts a new series of events: a pretend marriage, escape from the slavery, pursuit of the master, and hiding in the lioness’ den.²² While demons are absent from this text, the role of the devil is important from a narrative point of view; he is a prime mover of the plot. Yet he is only mentioned at the two turns of the action, and later disappears completely. His actions, presence, or temptations do not bother the hero on a daily basis. His role seems much closer to that which the contentious and invidious daimon plays in Greek novels in    

Jerome, V. Paul. 7 and 8. See Athanasius, V. Anton. 41. Jerome, V. Mal. 3. Jerome, V. Mal. 6.

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which the heroes, young man and woman, are usually also kidnapped, enslaved and moved from one place to another, while all the time, like Malchus and his sham wife, trying to keep their chastity.²³ All in all, it is hardly possible to determine a consistent demonology of Jerome on the basis of his three vitae. The difference between the Life of Paul, who lives in the paradisiac desert free of demons, and the Life of Hilarion, who has to struggle against them all his life, can be partly explained by Jerome’s changing views. The former vita was written during his first monastic stay in the desert of Chalkis when he was most enthusiastic about the eremitic life. By the time he wrote the Vita Hilarionis, he was aware that life in the desert does not necessary resemble paradise. Nevertheless, this hardly explains the difference between the lives of Hilarion and Malchus, written in the very same years. Another part of the explanation is that in each of the three vitae, Jerome has a different way of constructing the plot and the personage of the hero. In the Life of Paul, he presents his protagonist, and the desert he lived in, in opposition to Athanasius, against whose Life of Antony he openly polemicized. In the Life of Hilarion, the image of the hero is also drawn in close relation with the Life of Antony, but this time, Jerome does not show him as an “Anti-Antony”, rather as a new Antony who has surpassed the old one, but whose life follows the same pattern, which includes the fight against evil spirits. In the Life of Malchus, he probably chooses another narrative convention – that of the novel – in which demons functioned as scene changers. In each case, the function of demons is different and designed for a specific text, and should be analysed in light of its literary form and purpose.

2 Major functions of demons The fact that the depiction of demons differs across Jerome’s vitae does not imply that it is impossible to grasp any distinct pattern of their role in Latin hagiography. In fact, while the presentation of evil spirits differs in specific vitae, their basic literary functions can be seen in several texts of this genre. Some hagiographers used demons to attain the main goal of every vita; that is, to construct an image of the saint. This was done in two ways. The first one was to show that the hero was submitted to temptations, ruses, and other attacks of evil spirits, which he successfully overcame. Hilarion, as we have seen, had to face trials quite similar to those described in the Life of Antony: demons sought to frighten him or seduce him by visions of splendid feasts and naked women.²⁴ But such depictions are rare. The only other early Latin  See e. g. Xenophon, Ephes. 1.16.3, 2.7.5; 3.2.4; 4.5.6; Chariton, Call. 1.1.16, 3.2.17, 6.2.11. On the plot twists in the Life of Malchus, similar to those in Greek romances, see: Coleiro (1957), 173 – 174; Fuhrmann (1977), 63 – 68; Kech (1977), 59 – 160, and now Gray (2015), 25 – 30 and 199. Similar elements in other vitae by Jerome: Weingarten (1997) and Bauer (1961).  Jerome, V. Hilarion. 3. and 31.4.

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vita whose hero had to resist the personified forces of evil is Sulpicius Severus’ Life of Martin. ²⁵ At the beginning of Martin’s monastic career, the devil in person announced that he would always oppose him (V. Mart. 6), but then he tried to mislead rather than scare or tempt the hero and other people. The devil visited Martin “in his proper form, or changed himself into different shapes of spiritual wickedness” (V. Mart. 21), namely “into the person of Jupiter, often into that of Mercury and Minerva” (V. Mart. 22), and once appeared to him pretending to be Christ (V. Mart. 24). Sulpicius Severus takes this demonic trickery very seriously. He portrays it as a symptom of approaching eschatological events and acknowledges that other people, including a seemingly holy monk and a bishop, failed to detect the ruse. Martin’s discretion proves that he was a saint who recognised and resisted the coming of the Antichrist. Nevertheless, Sulpicius Severus, strongly convinced that the Antichrist had been already born, was not followed in this respect by other Latin hagiographers.²⁶ In most vitae, we do not encounter any tests to which a saint is submitted. The vitae of Germanus of Auxerre, of Ambrose, and of Augustine, are good examples.²⁷ Those of Honoratus and Hilary tell about temptations which their heroes had to overcome, but do not mention demons in this context.²⁸ Another, more widespread way of using demons in order to strengthen the literary image of a saint was to show him casting out evil spirits from people, animals, and places. This motif is obviously borrowed from the New Testament, and so assimilates the saint to Christ and his direct disciples, though the vitae often show the expulsion of evil spirits in a more dramatic way than the Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles. In the Life of Martin, for instance, we find a dangerous demoniac from whom people flee in panic, presented in the following way: Martin inserted his fingers into his mouth, and said: “If you possess any power, devour these”. But then, as if red-hot iron had entered his jaws, drawing his teeth far away he took care not to touch the fingers of the saintly man; and when he was compelled by punishments and tortures to flee out of the possessed body, while he had no power of escaping by the mouth, he was cast out by means of a defluxion of the belly, leaving disgusting traces behind him.²⁹

The physical signs of the demon’s expulsion are interesting and I will return to them. Here, it is important to emphasise that the saint is presented as having a power inaccessible to other people, and the evil spirit volens nolens brings witness to it. This motif is common in hagiography. Even in the Life of Augustine, we find a short remark: “I know also that both while he was presbyter and bishop, when asked to

 See for detailed analysis of these two vitae the conributions of Elm and Vos in this volume.  Sulpicius Severus. V. Mart. 24; Dial. 2.14; see Vaesen (1988).  The Life of Augustine mentions temptations but without any reference to the story of its hero: Possidius, V. Aug. 22.3 and 26.2.  Hilary, V. Hon. 5 – 7; Honoratus, V. Hil. 3, but compare with Hilary’s sermons about the temptations of and the struggle against demons in V. Hil. 26.  Sulpicius Severus, V. Mart. 17, trans. Roberts (1994).

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pray for certain demoniacs, he entreated God in prayer with many tears and the demons departed from the men”.³⁰ And this is the only reference to demons in this text. Its author, Possidius of Calama, was familiar with the Life of Ambrose, which describes numerous exorcisms, healings, and visions, and although he did not include any of Augustine’s other miracles in his account, he probably felt obliged to show at least this one proof of his saintly power. Evidently, chasing away demons was what the saints were supposed to do. This function of demons, showing the power of saints to resist and to strike back, is quite straightforward. The saint repels the temptation, as Christ did, and performs the same miracles as Christ and the Apostles performed, thus showing that he is a worthy heir of their power. More interestingly, in several vitae, evil spirits are introduced into the narration not to be just chased away, but in order to speak. In some cases, they simply confess, through the mouth of demoniacs, their own identity and crimes, as an energumen from the early sixth-century Life of the Jura Fathers described thus: “This wretched man was suspended two cubits above the ground for almost half an hour, confessing with wails and yells the misdeeds of the demon which possessed him”.³¹ In other episodes, however, demons tell something more: they profess whose power tortures them, who is a man of God, and who teaches the correct doctrine. This can be seen in the Life of Ambrose, written by Paulinus of Milan at the beginning of the 420s, in which demoniacs and demons appear often, but which contains no specific scene that ends with chasing an evil spirit away.³² The demons are introduced in order to make the demoniacs talk. For instance, an episode about Arians’ disbelief in the authenticity of the relics of Gervasius and Protasius, which Ambrose discovered in Milan, ends with the following passage: But God, who is accustomed to adding to the grace of his Church, did not long allow his holy ones [sc. Gervasius and Protasius as well as Ambrose] to be abused by the perfidious. And so, one of that very multitude number [of Arians] was suddenly seized by an unclean spirit, began to cry out that just as he was being tormented, so also would they be tormented who denied the martyrs and did not believe the unity of the Trinity, which Ambrose taught.³³

In this short passage, the demons confirm first the authenticity of the martyrs and their relics, secondly the truth of the Trinitarian creed, and thirdly, Ambrose’s role as the guardian of orthodoxy.³⁴ From a rhetorical point of view, such an involuntary

 Possidius, V. Aug. 29.4, trans. Weiskotten (1919), 43.  V. Patr. Jur. 42; see also Sulpicius Severus, Dial. 3.6.4; Jerome, V. Hilarion. 13.7; Constantius, V. Germ. 7 and 14.  Demoniacs healed (no specific description): Paulinus, V. Ambr. 14.3 – 15.3, 28.1 and 43.3; a man whose body is handed over to demons: 43.1– 2; demons tormented, but not cast away: 16.1– 3, 21.1– 3, 33.3 – 4 and 48.2.  Paulinus, V. Ambr. 16.1, transl. Ramsey (1997), 202.  See Kalleres (2015), 231– 235.

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witness of the evil spirit is very attractive, although slightly problematic. On the one hand, this evidence is very strong, because demons certainly knew the truth, and at the same time, unlike the hagiographer himself, had no interest in praising the saint or acknowledging his orthodoxy, and so the reader is susceptible to believing their avowals. On the other hand, the support of demons could have done a disservice to the Nicene case and to Ambrose’s reputation, because even if they actually knew the truth, they were widely considered to be liars. Paulinus was aware of this problem. That is why, following a distinction made by Ambrose himself, he observed that: “this is not to be taken as the testimony (testimonium) of the demons, but as their confession (confessio)”.³⁵ This distinction is important in Roman law. Testimonium is the evidence which may only be given in court by a reliable witness. Confessio is a true avowal that can be obtained by torture even from otherwise untrustworthy slaves or scoundrels.³⁶ The revelations made by demons are usually presented in hagiography as confessiones. They tell the truth not because they want to, but because they are forced to do so by the power of the saint, which inflicts on them diverse torments, visible in the bodies of energumens, which they inhabit.³⁷ This motif is used, for instance, in an episode from the Life of Germanus in which the saint detects a thief: The bishop enjoined patience, promising that all would be well. Soon afterward, before setting out for Mass, he gave orders for one of the sufferers from demoniacal possession to be brought before him privately; and who should be brought to him but the man responsible for the theft. He put him through a strict examination, saying that it was impossible for a crime on his conscience to remain concealed. Then he ordered the enemy who had been prompting these evil deeds to admit the truth of the matter without delay. But the wicked spirit denied having committed a crime. At this the bishop, in righteous anger, ordered the liar to be produced in front of the congregation and, without further delay, set out to celebrate Mass. He gave the solemn salutation to the people, then prostrated himself at full length in prayer. All at once, the unhappy man, the captive and at the same time the servant of the demon, was lifted high into the air. The church was filled with his screams, the whole congregation was in confusion, yelling out the bishop’s name as if he were in the midst of flames, [he] confessed his crime.³⁸

Hanging, burning, and, as a result, confessing crimes are normal elements of the judicial procedure or questio. In some vitae confessions of demons, obtained in this way, are evidently more important than proper exorcisms. The lives of Ambrose and Germanus show evil spirits that avow that the power of the saint made them suffer. Sometimes hagiographers add that the saint, imitating Christ and demonstrating his humility, ordered evil spirits to fall silent. But they often do not tell the end of the

 Paulinus, V. Ambr. 15.3; taken from Ambrose, Ep. 77.22.  Berger (1953), 406 and 735.  Wiśniewski (2002), 372– 374.  Constantius, V. Germ. 7; trans. F.R. Hoare, in Soldiers of Christ, ed. Thomas F.X. Noble & Thomas Head, University Park, PA 1995, 82; see also 9, 13 and 26.

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story, and do not mention what finally happened to the possessed.³⁹ This was not really essential for the presentation of the saint as a powerful judge. We can see this in an episode from the Life of Ambrose that tells about a demoniac from Rome who was sent to Milan and did not display there any symptoms of the possession, but once back home began to be troubled again by the same evil spirit: When he was asked by exorcists why he had not appeared in him [the demoniac] as long as he was in Milan, the devil confessed that he was afraid of Ambrose and had therefore withdrawn for a while and waited in the spot where he had left the man until he returned, and that when he returned, he sought out once more the vessel that he had forsaken.⁴⁰

This short story is a good example of the hagiographer’s attitude toward demoniacs. He is perfectly satisfied with the evil spirit’s avowal of his fear of Ambrose. Of course, he makes us guess that the demon was finally chased away, but we are not told so. There is no need: the power and sanctity of the hero have already been demonstrated and this was the intent of the author.

3 Significant absence of demons It is perhaps even more important to say what role the demons did not play, or played rarely. It is puzzling that in Latin hagiography they were very seldom used as an explanation of diverse calamities that fell upon mankind. Only one author, Constantius of Lyon, makes them responsible, in his Life of Germanus of Auxerre, for natural calamities: a tempest and a plague.⁴¹ In other vitae, elementary disasters such as earthquakes, hailstorms, drought, plague of reptiles, and most diseases are never presented as caused by evil spirits.⁴² Interestingly, outside hagiography, the link between demons and the elemental catastrophes is not entirely uncommon. While recognising that they cannot happen without God’s consent, Christian authors, especially apologists, often claim that it is evil spirits that directly produce bad harvest, famine, and the plague. Storms and the plague were especially susceptible to be attributed to demons because the air was considered to be the proper zone of their activity.⁴³ It is also worth noticing that no Latin hagiographer attributes wars to the activity of de-

 See n. 34, also: Honoratus, V. Hil. 16 – 17.  Paulinus, V. Ambr. 21.3; transl. Ramsey (1997), 204.  Constantius, V. Germ. 8 (plague) and 13 (storm).  See Jerome, V. Hilarion. 22.2 (drought) and 29.1 (earthquake); Sulpicius Severus, Dial. 3.14.1– 2; Hilary, V. Hon. 15 (snakes).  Minucius Felix, Oct. 27.2; Origen, C. Cels. 8.31– 32; Theodoret, Graec. affection. cur. 3.9 – 16, 63. In Greek hagiography we can see demons causing plague in the Life of Symeon Stylite the Younger, but its author emphasises that they do it having obtained God’s permission: V. Sym. Iun. 69 and 126; similarly Procopius, Bell. Pers. 2.22; see Congourdeau (2001), 97– 99 and Janiszewski (2000) for historiography.

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mons, in spite of the fact that some of them witnessed violent barbarian invasions; and Possidius of Calama in his Life of Augustine and Eugippius in his Life of Severinus refer directly and frequently to the problems which they caused.⁴⁴ Actually, the association between wars and the forces of evil, depicted in terms taken from the Apocalypse, can be stronger in other types of Christian writings.⁴⁵ In all, contrary to what one might suppose, most hagiographers do not feel any need to refer to demons in order to explain misfortunes that afflict the people.⁴⁶ Even more strikingly, the responsibility of demons seems to be limited in a purely religious sphere. They are only occasionally connected with doctrinal errors, and whenever this link appears at all, it is always vague. Constantius of Lyon is the only Latin hagiographer who presents demons as actively supporting heretics, namely Pelagians, by trying to prevent two orthodox bishops, Constantius and Lupus, from travelling to Britain.⁴⁷ No hagiographer holds demons responsible for the emergence of a heresy, and this is true also of the vitae of Martin and Ambrose in which the hero’s confrontation with heretics plays an essential role, and in which evil spirits are otherwise present. Interestingly, Ambrose himself in his writings did make a link between demons and Arianism.⁴⁸ So did Augustine. In the City of God, he presented the demonic origin of the heresy in the following way: “But the devil, seeing the temples of the demons deserted, and the human race running to the name of the liberating Mediator, has moved the heretics under the Christian name to resist the Christian doctrine.”⁴⁹ This link, however, is entirely absent from the Life of Augustine, which otherwise deals at length with its hero’s fight against schisms and heresies. All this does not necessarily mean that the hagiographers’ vision of the world was less demonized than that of the bishops about whom they wrote. It shows rather that in late antique Christian literature, the link between heresy and demons was instrumental – we can find it in polemical writings that served to discredit theological opponents. Hagiography could have had such function – we have seen it in the Life of Antony,⁵⁰ but in the Latin vitae it was rare, and here demons seemed unnecessary. Demons are certainly more strongly and commonly associated with “pagan” religion. As discussed above, in the Life of Paul of Thebes, Jerome presents the city as a lair of evil spirits: “Woe to you, Alexandria, who instead of God worship monsters! Woe to you, harlot city, into which have flowed together the demons of the whole world! What will you say now? Beasts speak of Christ, and you instead of God wor-

 Possidius, V. Aug. 28.4– 13.  See Victor of Vita, Hist. persec. Afr. 3.1 and Hydatius, Chron. 118; these and other passages quoted by Courcelle (1964), 188, n. 5.  Quite contrary to what Brown (1972), 131– 132, claims.  Constantius, V. Germ. 13.  Ambrose, De fide 5.11.135, 5.19.230; Exp. Ev. sec. Luc. 4.26; De paenit. 2.4, see McHugh (1978), 222.  Augustine, Civ. 18.51.1; see also C. Faust. 14.10.  See n. 9.

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ship monsters”.⁵¹ In the Life of Hilarion, Jerome associates evil spirits with the cults of Marnas, Aesculapus, and Venus,⁵² and Sulpicius Severus tells of demons coming to Martin in the persons of Jupiter, Mercury, and Minerva.⁵³ This vision of the pagan religion, however, is hardly specific to hagiography. The conviction that the pagan gods are actually demons, responsible for the rise and spread of the heathen cults in which they take an active part when they inhale the smoke of sacrifices and proclaim oracles, has a biblical basis. It is also strongly expressed in the second-century apologists and, indeed, may be found in diverse genres of Christian literature.⁵⁴ Thus, we are dealing here with a deeply rooted literary convention. Interestingly, the way in which this convention is applied in early hagiography is different in the East and West. While the Latin authors do not doubt the general demonic character of the pagan cults, they never make a direct link between a specific western temple and evil spirits, whereas we may find many stories about demons living in eastern shrines.⁵⁵ Because this distinction may be seen also in other literary genres, it seems to reflect different attitudes toward pagan shrines in the East and West, and not just different hagiographical conventions. Several Greek temples, especially oracular and incubatory sanctuaries, were considered by Christians to be the real demons’ lairs, and even Latin authors shared this opinion.⁵⁶ Western shrines did not evoke such associations and so even if hagiographers described their violent destruction, they did not mention any evil spirit living there.⁵⁷ All this shows what the late antique Latin writers needed demons for, and where they found mentioning them unnecessary. Moreover, although normally an argumentum ex silentio is unsatisfactory, I think that we can build on these omissions no less than on stories showing saints being tempted by or talking with demons. I do not find any reason why the demons would not have been blamed for wars, plagues, and heresies, had there been a strong consensus that they were responsible for such things. I find no evidence, either, that old temples in the West were considered dangerous places inhabited by demons. Therefore, it seems to me that hagiography actually shows quite well the limits of the demonization of the world of Late Anti-

 Jerome, V. Paul. 8.5.  Jerome, V. Hilarion. 11.3 – 12, 12.1– 10, 16.1– 2.  Sulpicius Severus, V. Mart. 22.1.  Lev 17.7, Deut 32.17, Ps 95.5 and 105.37, Bar 4.7, 1 Cor 10.20, Rev 18.2. Apologists: Minucius Felix, Oct. 27.1; Clement, Protr. 40 – 43; Athenagoras, Leg. 26 – 27. See Roig Lanzilotta (2010).  See e. g. Gregory of Nyssa, V. Greg. Thaum. GNO X 1, 20; Mark the Deacon, V. Porph. 61; Theodoret, Hist. rel. 16.1 and 28.1– 2 and; V. Daniel. Styl. 14; V. Matron. pr. 14– 15.  Jerome, V. Hilarion. 8.5, 11.3, 12.1– 9, 31.4, mentions demons living in pagan shrines or their ruins, but these shrines are in Palestine, Egypt, and Cyprus, not in the West.  The only exception that I know about is the Vita S. Romani, presbyteri in castro Blaviensi (BHL 7306) 11– 12, in which demons are shown as actually living in a temple near Bordeaux, but we are not certain about the dating of this text; it could have been written or was at least reworked in the 6th century, when the paradigm of the pagan shrines in the West began to change. Generally, on this phenomenon see: Wiśniewski (2015).

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quity, especially in the Latin-speaking West, where only one phenomenon was attributed unanimously to the activity of evil spirits, namely demonic possession.

4 Real fears: demonic possession In Late Antiquity, demonic possession was a reality of life. This can be seen both in and outside hagiography, and even those authors of the lives of saints who normally mention demons only for the specific literary purposes named above tell us, often inadvertently, something about this phenomenon. In this case, the image of evil spirits is not just a literary construction, but reflects, up to a point, real opinions, fears, and sometimes also behaviours of the late antique Christians, including those who were considered and considered themselves to be possessed by demons. It is reasonable to say first who qualified as possessed. As a general rule, two categories of people who remained under the power of unclean spirits were distinguished: those who acted at their promptings and those who were controlled by them physically. These two ways in which demons could influence people can be seen in hagiography, but they are most clearly distinguished by John Cassian, in one of the very rare passages in literature devoted to the theory of demonic possession: It is a fact that those men are more grievously and severely troubled, who, while they seem to be very little affected by demons in the body, are yet possessed in spirit in a far worse way (qui cum corporaliter ab ipsis suppleri minime uideantur, animo tamen perniciosius possidentur), as they are entangled in their sins and lusts. For as the Apostle says: Of whom a man is overcome, of him he is also the servant. Only that in this respect they are more dangerously ill, because though they are their slaves, yet they do not know that they are assaulted by them, and under their dominion. But we know that even saintly men have been given over in the flesh to Satan and to great afflictions for some very slight faults, since the Divine mercy will not suffer the very least spot or stain to be found in them on the day of judgment, and purges away in this world every spot of their filth, as the prophet, or rather God Himself says, in order that He may commit them to eternity as gold or silver refined and needing no penal purification.⁵⁸

The distinction between those possessed by demons in spirit and those possessed in the body is also reflected in narrative texts. The former are distinguished by their behaviour: they grind their teeth, foam at the mouth, wail, bite people around them, or attack them in another way. A Frankish guard of the emperor Constantius, for instance, had a demon “who forced him in the night to howl, groan, and gnash his teeth”.⁵⁹ It is from this sort of demoniacs that saintly monks and bishops ejected evil spirits. Those who were possessed “in spirit” normally were not subject to exor-

 John Cassian, Conl. 7.25; transl. C.S. Gibson, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 11, ed. Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, Buffalo 1894.  Jerome, V. Hilarion. 13.2.

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cism. However, if the very existence of the two categories of people ensnared by demons is clear, the precise border between them is less so. The terminology which the hagiographers used to describe possession is often floating. There are technical terms that serve to identify people who are physically possessed by demon, such as energumenus and daemoniacus,⁶⁰ but more frequently their state is portrayed in a descriptive fashion. They are mentioned as “affected by a demon”, “seized by a demon”, “one who has a demon”, “who has an unclean spirit”, “is taken by an unclean spirit”, “possessed by a demon”, “filled by a demon”, “bound by a ghost”, “one who suffers”, “one who has become a possession of the enemy”, “prisoner of the enemy” or “tormented by a demon”.⁶¹ In some cases, it is difficult to decide whether the author considers a person he refers to in this way to be physically possessed or not. In the Life of Hilarion, for instance, Jerome tells a vivid story of a young man who fell in love with a Christian virgin, and using magical arts, had a demon possess her in order to inflame her erotic passion.⁶² The girl was brought to Saint Hilarion who, before forcing the demon to leave, commanded him to say why he had not entered into the young man himself instead of the girl. The demon answered that it would have been useless because the man had already had in him his colleague, a demon of love (habebat collegam meum, amoris daemonem). What does this mean? The young man did not show any symptoms of the bodily possession and so one is inclined to consider the term spiritus amoris to be a description of a sinful passion or a metaphor of a “demonic love”, and not a personal being. But if that were so, why did the demon that physically possessed the girl call the other collega meus, a “demon like myself”? It is not easy to say whether Jerome thought about the young man as corporally possessed or simply tempted by an evil spirit.⁶³ Still, the existence of the two categories is evident. And it is worth emphasising that this proper, spectacular possession, which manifested itself in crying like animals, foaming at the mouth, bending one’s body in an unnatural way, speaking foreign or strange languages, and having superhuman strength, was considered a physical phenomenon. The somatic character of demonic possession is frequently expressed by the phrase obsessa corpora. “Likewise, [those who had] bodies pos-

 Energumenus: Sulpicius Severus, Dial. 1.20.9, 2.8.9, 3.6.2, 3.6.3, 3.13.5, 3.14.1; Possidius, V. Aug. 29.4; daemoniacus: Sulpicius Severus, V. Mart. 17.2, 18.1.  Affectus daemone (Jerome, V. Hilarion. 10.2), arreptus a daemone (V. Hilarion. 16.4 and 25.1), correptus a daemone (Sulpicius Severus, Dial. 1.20.7– 8), qui habet daemonem (V. Hilarion. 12.9), qui habet inmundum spiritum (V. Hilarion. 30.3), immundis spiritibus occupati (V. Hilarion. 19.1), possessus daemone (V. Hilarion. 10.5, 13.2), inpletur a daemone (Sulpicius Severus, Dial. 1.22.4), phantasmate constrictus (Honoratus, V. Hil. 16), qui uexari/pati consueuerant (Constantius, V. Germ. 7 and 9), possessio fieret inimici (V. Germ. 22), captiuus inimici (V. Germ. 32), daemonio uexabatur (V. Germ. 39).  Jerome, V. Hilarion. 12.  Similarly, John Chrysostom was accused that he called holy Epiphanius “a fool and possessed by a demon” – as we should probably translate the word daimoniarios (Photius, Bibl. 59). In this case it is quite sure that John did not consider Epiphanius to be a dwelling of evil spirits, but when Gregory of Nazianzus says the same about Julian the Apostate, it is not so obvious.

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sessed by unclean spirits were healed and returned home with the deepest gratitude”, says Paulinus of Milan.⁶⁴ The same phrase can be found in Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, and Paulinus of Perigueux.⁶⁵ The bodily character of this phenomenon also explains why saints cast out demons from animals and places, why demons entered and left their victims through orifices of the body, as we have seen in the Vita Martini, and also why, according to Gregory the Great, one could inadvertently swallow a demon sitting on a lettuce. In order to be possessed, it sufficed to have a body, or physical dimensions – a soul was not necessary.⁶⁶ This observation is important because modern scholars quite often claim that the people in Late Antiquity believed that the saints were able to heal both the body and the soul, that is to expel diseases and evil spirits.⁶⁷ In principle, people did believe that the saints could in fact do both. Healing and exorcising were the two most important aspects of the thaumaturgical activity of the holy men who were often called healers of the bodies and souls. Nevertheless, the healing of souls was not achieved by casting away demons, but by eradicating sin and spiritual error. In an episode in the Vita Hilarionis, for instance, a charioteer from Gaza, paralysed by a demon, was brought to the saintly monk and learned that he would not be healed until he believed in Christ and abandoned his profession. The two kinds of healing are clearly distinguished: “He believed, he promised, and he was healed: and rejoiced more in the saving of the soul than in that of the body”.⁶⁸ A similar distinction can be found in the Greek Life of Pachomius; it is worth quoting for it shows very clearly the same idea that we can find in the Latin vitae: He [Pachomius] also taught that besides visible physical healing there was also spiritual healing. “For if a man is blind in his mind”, he said, “because he does not see the light of God on account of his idolatry, but is subsequently guided by faith in the Lord and receives sight to recognize the only true God, is it not a healing and salvation? And if another person is

 Paulinus, V. Ambr. 14.3.  Sulpicius Severus, V. Mart. 17.7, Dial. 1.20.2; Rufinus, Hist. Mon. 13.4. Outside hagiography: Victricius, De laude sanct. 8; Jerome, Ep. 42.1 and 46.8; John Cassian, Conl. 15.1 and 10; Peter Chrysologus, Serm. 12.91, 51.27 and 144.45; Chromatius of Aquileia, Tract. 16.100, to name just a few examples.  Jerome, V. Hilarion. 14.1– 6, Sulpicius Severus, Dial. 2.9.1; Gregory, Dial. 1.4.7.  E.g. Adnes & Canivet (1967), 57; Fontaine (SCh 133, s. 93). See also the evidence quoted by Horden (1993), 4– 13. Fontaine in his commentary on the Vita Martini, p. 849, n. 3 and p. 850 claims that, while for earlier authors demonic possession was rather a psychological phenomenon, Sulpicius Severus considered it to be a somatic issue. He quotes Cyprian, De mort. 4 and Hilary of Poitiers, In Matth. 14.9, both of whom tell about the obsessa mens, whereas in the V. Mart. we can find only obsessa corpora. However, Fontaine agrees that the somatic vision of the possession can be found also in Cyprian. Also, Hilary mentions both obsessae mentes and obsessa corpora, he obviously distinguishes spiritual from somatic possession.  Jerome, V. Hilarion. 9.6.

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dumb from lying, not speaking the truth, but is instructed by men of God to speak what is true, has he not also been spiritually healed?”⁶⁹

This shows plainly that spiritual healing consisted in putting an end to idolatry and sins, and not to a demonic possession. That spiritual diseases are healed by teaching and not expelling evil spirits can be seen also in the Life of Germanus. Its hero, upon entering Milan, efficiently exorcised a demoniac and then, “following his miracles with sermons, he healed souls as well as bodies”.⁷⁰ Exorcism cured the latter, preaching the former. This somatic possession was considered a serious misfortune, but it did not affect the soul of the victim, and so, as Cassian says, spiritual possession, or the state of remaining in sin or error, was much more disastrous. In some cases, the physical possession was presented even as beneficial. In the Life of Severinus, Eugippius tells a story about vainglorious monks whom the hero of the vita corrected in the following way: When Severinus had ascertained that each of them upon being visited with reproach was hardened in his sin, he prayed that the Lord should receive them into the adoption of sons, and deign to reprove them with the paternal lash. Before he had ended his tearful prayer, the three monks were in one and the same instant seized violently by a demon and tormented, and with cries confessed the stubbornness of their hearts. Let it not seem to any one cruel or wrong, that men of this sort are delivered “unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh”, as the blessed apostle teaches, “that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”⁷¹

Needless to say, this passage presented a paradox: an apparent misadventure turned out to be beneficial for the soul. Yet it is the same kind of paradox as in a story of someone who becomes seriously ill but finds God, or who loses his wealth but gains the kingdom of heaven. Loss of property, illness, and demonic possession belong to the same category of earthly misfortunes. The way in which hagiographers describe the saints expelling demons out of the possessed is often spectacular, and certainly we should not think that it faithfully reflects reality. It is rather the comparison that hagiographers sometimes made between normal exorcists and the saints who expelled demons in a swifter or more efficient way that bring us closer to the usual practice.⁷² Sulpicius Severus says, for instance, that Martin, unlike other clerics, ejected demons without touching energumens or “conjuring them with words” (neminem sermonibus increpabat).⁷³ We may guess what kind of “conjuring with words” other exorcists used. The sacra-

 S. Pachomii Vita Graeca Prima 47; transl. A. Veuilleux, Pachomian Koinonia, vol 1. The Life of Saint Pachomius and his disciples, Kalamazoo, MI, 1980, 329 – 330.  Constantius, V. Germ. 32. See a similar passage in Theodoret, Hist. rel. 16.3.  Eugippius, V. Sev. 36, quoting 1 Cor 5.5; transl. George W. Robinson, Cambridge, MA 1914.  Sulpicius Severus, Dial. 2.8.9; see also 3.13.5 and 3.14.1.  Sulpicius Severus, Dial. 3.6.3.

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mentaries with long formulae of exorcisms come only from the later period (8th century),⁷⁴ but hagiography may give us an idea what they looked like. The Life of the Jura Fathers quotes the following letter of exorcism: Eugendus servant of Christ, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father, and the Holy Ghost. By this letter, I order you, the spirit of gluttony and anger, fornication and love, the spirit of Diana and of the moon, the spirit of noon, day and night, and every unclean spirit to go out of this man who has this letter with him. I adjure you by the Son of the living God: go out quickly and do not dare to enter into him again. Amen.⁷⁵

The formula evokes God whose power should expel the evil spirit and contains diverse names or designations of the demon. It is not dissimilar to those that can be found in magical spells. Martin expelled demons immediately, but real exorcists must have recited long ritual texts and spent a lot of time when trying to achieve the same goal. Moreover, they were not necessarily successful, and even if they did make it, the effects often did not last long. Constantius of Lyon emphasises that a man out of whom Germanus cast away the evil spirit was no longer troubled by it, which suggests that normally the state of demoniacs, apparently healed, tended to worsen over time.⁷⁶

5 Theology and reflection on the nature of demons In the Latin Lives of saints, one hardly finds any systematic theological reflections on demons. Hagiographers do not deal with their origin, ultimate fate, or hierarchy. Even the terminology that they use is often confusing. While the words “Satan” or “devil” (diabolus) are consistently used in the singular, and demons, evil or unclean spirits appear often in the plural, the devil is sometimes presented not as a distant and mighty king of lesser ghosts, but as one of them, personally trying to seduce or frighten a man. The hagiographers refer sometimes to demons in the context of contemporary theological debates, linking them, in a simple way, to “heretical” views or making them confirm the truth of the “orthodox” doctrine, as we have seen in the Life of Ambrose. Only in one text, the Life of Hilary by Honoratus of Marseille, is the image of demons’ activity connected with the theological discussions in a more subtle manner. In his long sermon, otherwise in many aspects similar to the teachings of Antony presented in his vita, Hilary claims that man is too weak to face up to the power of the devil without divine help. He emphasises the necessity of this help: “We clashed with the rulers of this world, with whom, as the apostle says, we wage an incessant  Bastiaensen (2011), 139 – 142.  V. Patr. Jur. 144.  Constantius, V. Germ. 22. Church canons that tell about daily exorcisms suggest that their expected efficiency was limited: Statuta ecclesiae antiqua 62.

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war. No one who wants to reach happiness, the heavenly grace preceding and the diligence following, will avoid this war.”⁷⁷ This phrase should be read in the light of the semi-Pelagian controversy that agitated southern Gaul in the middle of the 5th century. The author puts stress on the power of demons, rulers of this world, quite in contrast to Antony who claimed that after the coming of Christ, evil spirits lost their power.⁷⁸ Honoratus does this very consciously, because, following the teaching of his contemporary Faustus of Riez, he wants to show the necessity of the prevenient grace (gratia precedente), whose role was still debated in his milieu.⁷⁹ But at the same time, he emphasises the role of human activity (industria subsequente). Such a theological reflection, however, is exceptional and sometimes the lack of theological sensitivity in the Latin vitae can be surprising.⁸⁰ In the Life of Germanus of Auxerre, for instance, we find a long episode about his journey to Britain, where he was to fight the “Pelagian heresy”, the same that was discussed indirectly in the Life of Hilary. At some point, the author says that Germanus and Lupus arrived in the Isle “possessing the earth by body, the heaven by merits (caelum meritis possidentes)”.⁸¹ This seemingly banal praise is puzzling if read in the context of the struggle against Pelagianism, the opponents of which should have highlighted the role of grace, and certainly not that of merit. Constantius, writing in Lyon, where Faustus’ theology was strongly supported,⁸² must have known it very well. Yet one should not expect narrative texts to be always doctrinally precise. Apparently, in this passage, Constantius wanted to put stress on the virtue of his hero, not to convey his theological views. The Lives of saints tell us more about their authors’ views on the physical character of demons. Already in the Life of Antony, the demons are presented as having light, etheric bodies that permit them to move swiftly in the air.⁸³ At the same time, however, they need room on the earth: when Christians expel them from the cities, demons hide in the desert. When monks expel them from the desert, the devil complains to Antony: “I no longer have any place”.⁸⁴ In Jerome’s vitae, demons are also presented as bodily creatures that need a place to live in. We have already seen that in the Life of Paul the demonic topography is different than in the Life of Antony. Here, the desert is free of demons that abide in the cities. Nevertheless, we should not try to reconstruct a concise vision of demonic geography and their physical char Honorat, V. Hilar. 26.19 – 23.  Athanasius, V. Ant. 28.  Cf. Faustus, Ep. 1 and De gratia 1.9. For Faustus’ views see: Tilbetti (1979).  Hagiographers in general often mention theological controversies, but, understandably, rarely tell their stories in a way that illustrate specific doctrinal convictions. The anti-Pelagian teaching on grace can be seen for instance in the Life of Severinus by Eugipius (5.2, 11.1 and 14.3); see Van Uytfanghe (1999), 164– 165.  Constantius, V. Germ. 12.7– 9.  Miele (1996), 217– 221 and Mathisen (1989), 247– 248.  Athanasius, V. Anton. 31.  Athanasius, V. Anton. 41.4.

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acter on the basis of hagiography. For instance, in the Life of Hilarion, an evil spirit being chased away by the hero from a boy at the sea is afraid that he will fall into the abyss.⁸⁵ This would suggest that the demon fears drowning, which would mean that he cannot swim or fly, very unlike demons in the Life of Antony. Yet, again, we should not go that far when interpreting these texts. The purpose of this passage is to tell readers something about the power of Hilarion, which was compared to that of Christ whom the legion of demons begged to let them enter into the herd of pigs lest then they would have to go into the abyss,⁸⁶ and not about the physical nature of the evil spirits. Several vitae show that demons were supposed to know things that people did not know. This issue is dealt with in detail in the Life of Antony. In his long sermon about the stratagems of evil spirits, Antony explains that their alleged foreknowledge actually results from the character of their bodies: demons fly in the air at a great speed, and so are able to communicate events that have already happened; but they happened far away and so will be known to others only when a messenger comes, sometimes after many days.⁸⁷ Later hagiographers do not explain the origin of the knowledge of demons but show their heroes using it. According to Sulpicius Severus, when people in Trier were in fear of an incursion of Germans, Martin of Tours called some energumens and questioned them whether the rumour was true (it was not).⁸⁸ When a tax collector lost the money he had gathered, Germanus of Auxerre summoned and interrogated a demoniac.⁸⁹ Both episodes confirm that the knowledge of demons was entirely natural – in Trier, they spread a false rumour themselves and the money in Auxerre turned out to be stolen by the very same demoniac who was brought to Germanus. The authors seem anxious not to suggest that the demoniacs can have a real foreknowledge, useful for the local community. This concern is visible in an episode from the Life of Hilary, which tells about a woman in Arles, who had a spirit of divination (spiritus pythonis). She was arrested and brought to Hilary, who tied her to the chancel in the church and preached a long sermon against divinatory consultations with demoniacs. This shows that such a practice really existed and the hagiographers, who sought to show the power of saints to force demons to tell the truth, did not want to encourage people to do the same on their own.⁹⁰

     

Jerome, V. Hilarion. 25.2. Luke 8.30 – 33. Athanasius, V. Anton. 31, see also Augustine, De div. daem. 7. Sulpicius Severus, V. Mart. 18.1– 2. Constantius, V. Germ. 7. See Wiśniewski (2005).

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Conclusions The image of demons presented in this article is not specific to hagiography and taken altogether, in the Latin Lives of saints, reality does not seem to be particularly shaped by the presence and activity of evil spirits. Nevertheless, hagiography is a narrative genre and, because of this, it depicts evil spirits in a more vivid way, for stories are usually more colourful than theological treatises. Of course, one can argue that such stories can also be found in historiography. Gregory of Tours’ Histories and Lives of the fathers, for instance, present a similar image of demons. Still, demons are more visible in the latter work, because being a saint consisted in chasing them away and so their presence was necessary from a narrative point of view. And that is the main reason why the Lives of saints are more influential in shaping our vision of late antique demonology than other forms of literary activity. It is tempting to ask whether the word “Latin” in the title of this article is necessary, that is whether Latin and Greek hagiographers differed in their presentation of demons. It certainly would not be prudent to make a firm and general distinction: the views on the activity and responsibility of demons both within Latin and Greek hagiography were quite similar. Still, as we have seen, eastern pagan shrines and statues were quite often presented in the Lives of saints as dwelling places of demons, whereas temples in the West were not. In addition, the presentation of monastic life as the fight against evil spirits, and of the desert as battlefield, was much weaker in Latin monastic hagiography. The reasons for this are complex, but the difference, which can be observed also outside hagiography, does not seem to be purely literary. It probably reflects a more general vision of the world. This, in turn, leads to the question that all contributors to this volume somehow have in mind, namely, what the literary evidence tells us about the level of demonization of the mental world of late antique Christians. Many students of this period remember the view expressed by Norman Baynes who, seventy years ago, wrote the following: It needs some imagination to recover a sense of the burden which this belief in the universal presence of demons must have laid upon men. If we believed that the myriad bacilli about us were each and all inspired by a conscious will to injure man we might then gain a realization of the constant menace which broods over human life in the biographies of Byzantine saints. ⁹¹

A dozen years later also André Festugière claimed that from the 5th century on, people had seen demons everywhere and considered them responsible for most misfortunes of human life.⁹² He quoted a string of examples drawn from the Lives of Daniel the Stylite and Hypatios, but claimed that the same could be found in any other text

 Dawes & Baynes (1948), xii.  Festugière (1961), 26 and 33, see also Devoti (1989), 33 – 34.

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of this genre. This claim, however, is not really valid even for the entire Greek hagiography of this period. Not only in the Lives of the holy bishops the presence of demons was weaker than in those of the monks, but even the authors of the monastic vitae were rarely as strongly preoccupied with demons as was Athanasius. Kallinikos, the author of the Life of Hypatios, one of the vitae quoted by Baynes to illustrate his thesis, indeed attributed to demons all kinds of misfortunes, but even he was sometimes hesitant about their responsibility. He avows to be unable to say whether people who threw rubbish into the aqueduct were inspired by the devil or merely stupid; this hesitation clearly suggested the latter. The only phenomenon for which the demons were made responsible without any hesitation was demonic possession. This, however, was a misfortune of relatively limited consequences. It was certainly bad luck, but so was a broken arm; worse things could happen. All in all, the simile of Norman Baynes can be useful only if understood in a way that was not necessarily intended by the author.⁹³ Nowadays, we know well that the “myriad bacilli” are around us all the time. Many of them are harmful, some really damaging. But we are accustomed to that and the place they occupy in our minds is usually quite restricted.

Bibliography Primary Sources Athanase d’Alexandrie, Vie d’Antoine, ed. Gerard J.M. Bartelink, Sources Chrétiennes 400, Paris 1994. Vita di Antonio, ed. Gerard J.M. Bartelink, Milan 1974. Constantius of Lyon, Vita Germani: Constance de Lyon, Vie de saint Germain d’Auxerre, ed. R. Borius, Sources Chrétiennes 112, Paris 1967. Hilary of Arles, Sermo de vita sancti Honorati: Hilaire d’Arles, Vie de saint Honorat, ed. M.-D. Valentin, Sources Chrétiennes, Paris 1977. Honoratus of Marseille, Vita Hilarii: Honorat de Marseille, La Vie d’Hilaire d’Arles, ed. S. Cavallin, Sources Chrétiennes 404, Paris 1995. Jerome, Vita Pauli: Edizione critica della Vita Sancti Pauli Primi Eremitae di Girolamo, ed. B. Degórski, Rome 1987. Jerome, Vita Hilarionis: Vita di Ilarione, ed. A.A.R. Bastiaensen, in: Vite dei Santi 4, Milan 19932 Jerome, Vita Malchi, ed. Ch. Gray, Oxford 2015. Paulinus of Milan, Vita Ambrosii: Vita di Ambrogio, ed. A.A.R. Bastiaensen, in Vite dei santi 3, Milan 1975. Possidius, Vita Augustini: Vita di Agostino, ed. A.A.R. Bastiaensen, Vite dei santi 3, Milan 1975. Sulpicius Severus, Vita Martini: Sulpice Sévère, Vie de saint Martin, ed. J. Fontaine, Sources Chrétiennes 133 – 135, Paris 1968. Sulpicius Severus, Dialogi: Sulpice Sévère, Gallus, ed. Jacques Fontaine, Sources Chrétiennes 510, Paris 2006.

 See the justified criticism of Horden (1993).

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Secondary Sources Adnès, André/Canivet, Pierre, “Guérisons miraculeuses et exorcismes dans l’Histoire Philotée de Théodoret de Cyr”, in: Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 171 (1967), 53 – 82, 149 – 179. Bastiaensen, Antoon A.R., “Exorcism: Tackling the Devil by Word of Mouth”, in: Demons and the Devil in Ancient and Medieval Christianity, ed. Nienke Vos/Willemien Otten, Leiden/Boston 2011, 129 – 142. Bauer, Johannes Baptist, “Novellistisches bei Hieronymus. Vita Pauli 3”, in: Wiener Studien 74 (1961), 130 – 137. Berger, Adolf, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, New Jersey 1953. Bertrand, Pascal, Die Evagriusübersetzung der Vita Antonii. Rezeption – Überlieferung – Edition. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Vitas Patrum-Tradition (Diss.) Utrecht 2006 (https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/7821, last accessed 27 november 2018). Brakke, David, Demons and the Making of the Monk. Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity, Cambridge, MA 2006. Bremmer, Jan, “Athanasius’ Life of Antony: Marginality, Speciality and Mediality”, in: Marginality, Media, and Mutations of Religious Authority in the History of Christianity, ed. Laura Feldt/Jan Bremmer, Leuven 2019, 23 – 45. Brown, Peter, “Sorcery, Demons and the Rise of Christianity: From Late Antiquity into the Middle Ages”, in: Religion and Society in the Age of St. Augustine, ed. Peter Brown, New York 1972, 119 – 146. Brunert, Maria-Elisabeth, Das Ideal der Wüstenaskese und seine Rezeption in Gallien bis zum Ende des 6. Jahrhunderts, Münster 1994. Coleiro, Edward, “St. Jerome’s Lives of the Hermits”, in: Vigiliae Christianae 11 (1957), 161 – 178. Congourdeau, Marie-Hélène, “La Perception de la peste en pays chrétien byzantin et musulman”, in: Revue des Études Byzantines 59 (2001), 95 – 124. Courcelle, Pierre, Histoire littéraire des grandes invasions germaniques, Paris 31964. Daniélou, Jean, “Les Démons de l’air dans la Vie d’Antoine”, in: Antonius Magnus Eremita, ed. Basilius Steidle, Rome 1956, 201 – 228. Dawes, Elizabeth A.S./Baynes, Norman H., Three Byzantine Saints. Contemporary Biographies translated from Greek, Oxford 1948. De Vogüé, Adalbert, Histoire littéraire du mouvement monastique dans l’antiquité, vol. 1, Paris 1991. Delehaye, Hippolyte, Les Légendes hagiographiques, Brussels 21955. Devoti, Domenico, “All’origine dell’onirologia cristiana”, in: Augustinianum 29 (1989), 30 – 53. Festugière, André-Jean, Les moines d’Orient, vol. 1, Paris 1961. Gray, Christa, Jerome, Vita Malchi. Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary, Oxford 2015. Fuhrmann, Manfred, “Die Mönchsgeschichten des Hieronymus. Formexperimente in erzählender Literatur”, in: Christianisme et formes littéraires de l’Antiquité Tardive en Occident, ed. Helena Junod-Ammerbauer/Frnaçois Paschoud/Manfred Fuhrmann Genève 1977, 41 – 100. Horden, Peregrine, “Possession without Exorcism: the Response to Demons and Insanity in the Earlier Byzantine Middle East”, in: Maladie et société à Byzance, ed. Évelyne Patlagean, Spoleto 1993, 1 – 19. Janiszewski, Paweł, “Żywioły w służbie propagandy, czyli po czyjej stronie stoi Bóg. Studium klęsk żywiołowych i rzadkich fenomenów przyrodniczych u historyków Kościoła w IV i V w.”, in: Chrześcijaństwo u schyłku starożytności, ed. Tomasz Derda/ Ewa Wipszycka, vol. 3, Kraków 2000, 11 – 191. Lanzillotta, F. Lautaro Roig, “Christian Apologists and Greek Gods”, in: The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations, ed. Jan N. Bremmer/Andrew Erskine, Edinburgh 2010, 442 – 464.

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Kalleres, Dayna S., City of Demons. Violence, Ritual, and Christian Power in Late Antiquity, Oakland, CA, 2015. Kech, Herbert, Hagiographie als christliche Unterhaltungsliteratur. Studien zum Phänomen des Erbaulichen anhand Mönchsviten des hl. Hieronymus, Göppingen 1977. Leclerc, Pierre, “Antoine et Paul: Métamorphose d’un héros”, in: Jérôme entre l’Occident et l’Orient: XVIe centenaire du départ de saint Jérôme de Rome et de son installation à Bethléem. Actes du Colloque de Chantilly (Septembre 1986), ed. Yves-Marie Duval, Paris 1988, 257 – 265. Mathisen, Ralph, Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Controversy in Fifth-Century Gaul, Washington 1989. McHugh, Michael, “The Demonology of Saint Ambrose in Light of the Tradition”, in: Wiener Studien 91 (1978), 205 – 231. Miele, Maurizio, La Vita Germani di Costanzo di Lione: realtà storica e prospettive storiografiche nella Gallia del V secolo, Rome 1996. Munich, Olivier, “Les Démons d’Antoine dans la Vie d’Antoine”, in: Saint Antoine entre mythe et légende, ed. Philippe Walter, Grenoble 1996, 95 – 110. Nehring, Przemysław, “Jerome’s Vita Hilarionis. A Rhetorical Analysis of its Structure”, in: Augustinianum 43 (2003), 417 – 434. Pricoco, Salvatore, L’isola dei santi. Il cenobio di Lerino e le origini del monachesimo gallico, Rome 1978. Tilbetti, Varlo, “Libero arbitrio e grazia in Fausto di Riez”, in: Augustinianum 19 (1979), 259 – 285. Vaesen, Jos, “Sulpice Sévère et la fin des temps”, in: The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, ed. Werner Verbereke et al., Leuven 1988, 49 – 71. Van Uytfanghe, Marc, “La Formation du langage hagiographique en Occident latin”, in: Cassiodorus 5 (1999), 143 – 169. Weingarten, Susan, “Jerome and the Golden Ass”, Studia Patristica 33 (1997), 383 – 389. Weiskotten, Herbert, The Life of Saint Augustine, Princeton, NJ 1919. Wiśniewski, Robert, “La consultation des possédés dans l’Antiquité tardive: pythones, engastrimythoi, arrepticii”, in: Revue d’études augustiniennes et patristiques 51 (2005), 127 – 152. Wiśniewski, Robert, “Pagan Temples, Christians, and Demons in the Late Antique East and West”, in: Sacris Erudiri 54 (2015), 111 – 128. Wiśniewski, Robert, “Suspended in the Air. On a Peculiar Case of Exorcism in Late Ancient Christian Literature”, in: Euergesias Charin. Studies Presented to Benedetto Bravo and Ewa Wipszycka, ed. Tomasz Derda et al., Warsaw 2002, 363 – 380.

Eva Elm

6 Hilarion and the Bactrian Camel Demons and Genre in Jerome’s Life of Hilarion Gustave Flaubert’s novel The Temptations of Saint Anthony, published in 1874, encompasses the time-span of one night, during which Anthony, monk, ascetic, hermit and father of Egyptian monasticism in the fourth century AD, is confronted with a multitude of frightening phenomena and temptations.¹ Events begin with an autobiographic retrospection, in which Anthony muses upon his earliest life as an ascetic and nostalgically remembers his companion, the young Hilarion, a follower and companion of Anthony who was the founder of monasticism in Palestine. As the night progresses, Hilarion appears to Anthony first as a small child, but then gradually changes his appearance to morph into a giant. All the while, Hilarion derides the ascetic lifestyle as hypocrisy and radically deconstructs incompatible dogmata of the church, while Anthony has no other recourse than to consider these dogmata the sole source of truth and insight. However, Hilarion offers Anthony an out: the freedom of science and rational knowledge as the only way toward salvation. Evidently, Hilarion, the representation of science, is none other than the devil in person.² Besides the devil the novel features several demonic creatures which Anthony combats with the aid of the Bible.³ In Flaubert’s novel Hilarion takes Anthony by the hand to present him with the entire spectrum of different forms of religiosity. At the beginning Gnostics and heretics are allowed to expound their doctrines in detail. Whereas in the Vita Antonii, written by the church father Athanasius in the fourth century AD, the deep inner connection of the saint with the Nicaean Catholic church is emphasized – something which does not come as a surprise since Athanasius, a profound antagonist to Arianism, presented the life of the saint and his apotropaic powers as arguments in favor of a uniform doctrine – Flaubert’s Anthony admits that he feels attracted to the heretics’ point of view that all ways lead to God. The panorama of different religions which Hilarion presents to Anthony is then extended to the different religions in the past and in the present. In Flaubert’s novel Hilarion points out that the same religious principles are active in all shapes of belief. Christianity is therefore only one of many syncretistic religions. Finally, Hilarion, in other words science or the devil, takes Anthony on his wings and shows him the immenseness of the world. As Gemeinhardt points out, a personal God who is accessible through prayer must seem absurd vis à vis this enormity.⁴ In the end, Anthony returns to his hermitage. He is

   

Harter (1998), 37– 40. Gemeinhardt (2013), 187– 193. For the figure of the devil in Flaubert see Neiland (2001), 147– 159. For this passage see Gemeinhardt (2013), 187– 193. Gemeinhardt (2013), 191.

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visited by a new procession of demonic creatures. Finally, he makes the sign of the cross and returns to prayer. Flaubert does not disclose whether the entire experience had just been a dream. As Gemeinhardt points out, we do not learn whether “Antonius zur asketischen Idiorhythmie zurückkehren kann oder ob die nächtlichen Erfahrungen sein Verständnis von Gott und der Welt umgestürzt haben.”⁵ When Michel Foucault encountered Gustave Flaubert’s novel The Temptations of Saint Anthony, he considered it a work of the archives. For Foucault, Flaubert’s work had been a novel entirely of the book, made possible solely “in and through the concatenation of things already written.”⁶ In other words, for Foucault, Flaubert’s novel fused existing knowledge into a phantastical creation. Indeed, when writing the Temptation of Saint Anthony, Flaubert used a number of different stylistic elements. Passages of high abstraction written as philosophical dialogues, discussions and dramatic scenes alternate with lyric episodes and poems in prose. As Foucault has pointed out, Flaubert’s work is the fruit of scrupulous research. One of Flaubert’s sources was Jerome’s Life of Hilarion, written around 390 AD. The close relationship between Anthony, the father of Egyptian monasticism, and Hilarion, the “founder” of anchorite monasticism in Syria and Palestine, plays a central role in Jerome’s work. For Flaubert, Hilarion becomes instrumental in broadening Anthony’s horizons, whereas in Jerome’s Vita Hilarion is clearly Anthony’s disciple. Indeed, Hilarion’s life, as described by Jerome, resembles his own far more closely than that of Anthony.⁷ Just like Jerome, Hilarion was well educated. The son of prosperous pagan parents, born in Thabatha, south of Gaza, around the year 291, Hilarion received a classical education in Alexandria, the center of Hellenistic learning. However, there is nothing in Jerome’s life that would predestine Hilarion to become the emblem of scientific learning of Flaubert’s later novel; certainly, his first-rate classical education does not warrant such a reading. And, even though his power, or dynamis, as miracle worker and conqueror of demons exceeded mere human measures, Jerome never hints at anything remotely demonic or diabolic. What Flaubert’s novel and the Life of Hilarion share, however, and here we approach the topic of my paper, is the fact that neither conforms to easy specifications of genre or literary form. Marc van Uytfanghe sees in Jerome’s description of Hilarion more a vita than in his other two Lives of monks.⁸ Jacques Fontaine considers the oeuvre instead a romance novel with clear influences of the aretology of travel. He likens the three monastic Lives to “des romans ou des épopées ascétiques en miniature.”⁹ Dassmann sees very strong autobiographical elements,¹⁰ a view shared by

 Gemeinhardt (2013), 192.  Foucault (2002), XXVIII.  For the life of Jerome see Rousseau (20102), 99 – 123; Rebenich (2002), 1– 61.  Van Uytfanghe (2001), 1245; Kech (1977), 49. The following chapter-divisions and -descriptions according to White (1989) and Van Uytfanghe (2001), 1247– 1249.  Fontaine (1967), 79.  Dassman (1999), 114– 116.

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Christine Mohrmann, who points out that Jerome skillfully incorporated and embedded elements of his own itinerant life into the travel narrative of Hilarion. In the praefatio Jerome announced that he will talk about the conversatio, vita et virtutes of Hilarion: that is, he announces the three classical components of a vita, and hence alludes very clearly to his great exemplar, Athanasius and his Life of Saint Anthony. In fact, Jerome’s Life of Hilarion has a very clear structure. It can be divided into five parts.¹¹ In the first part, Jerome begins with a description of Hilarion’s education in Alexandria and then recounts his first encounter with Anthony, followed by Hilarion’s decision to emulate Anthony in Palestine. Jerome then surveys the different steps on Hilarion’s way toward ascetic self-perfection. In chapter 11, Jerome provides an overview of Hilarion’s continuously intensifying fasting habits that become more and more rigorous over the course of his life. Here, Jerome also mentions, though cursorily, his temptations by demons that taunt Hilarion sexually and in other ways as well.¹² Part two is dominated by a sequence of 11 miracles that take place in and around the city of Gaza and that spread Hilarion’s fame into more remote provinces of the empire.¹³ In addition to healing the sick and cleansing the possessed – following the model of Christ – Hilarion also has several encounters with demons that will be central to my remaining observations. For example, Jerome describes the dissolving of a spell cast by pagan competitors over the race horses of a Christian owner and charioteer;¹⁴ the nullification of a love magic slipped under the threshold of a young woman dedicated to God;¹⁵ the expulsion of a demon using Syriac and Greek incantationes and artes magicae from a Germanic Questor of the emperor Constantius¹⁶ and, finally, the exorcism of a large camel plagued by rabies.¹⁷ At the close of this part, so central for my discussion, Jerome first introduces Anthony, whom he describes as so deeply impressed by the fame of the thaumaturgos that he initiates an epistolary correspondence with Hilarion. Subsequently, Anthony refers all those seeking his help who come from Syria directly to Hilarion. Indeed, so Jerome, immense numbers of monastic communities spring into existence in Palestine, all of which regard Hilarion as their spiritual father.¹⁸ The third part of Jerome’s Life then recounts Hilarion’s transition from a sedentary to a migrant way of life.¹⁹ The fourth part is devoted to Hilarion’s itinerant life as a pilgrim.²⁰ According to Jerome,

         

Kech (1977), 59/61; Van Uytfanghe (2001), 1247. For the nexus between sexuality and demons see Böcher (1972), 18 – 22. Jerome, Life of Hilarion, chapters 12– 24. Jerome, Life of Hilarion, chapter 20. Ibidem chapter 21. Chapter 22. Chapter 23. Chapter 24. Chapters 25 – 28. Chapters 29 – 43.

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Hilarion chose the life as a wandering monk as his attempt to escape his increasing fame as miracle worker. An attempt that ultimately failed. This led Berschin to talk of monastic tourism, reminiscent of Jerome’s own travels.²¹ Indeed, Hilarion journeyed to the mountain of saint Anthony, to Aphroditopolis, to Bruchium in the vicinity of Alexandria, to the Libyan oasis, to Sicily, to Epidaurus in Dalmatia and, finally, to Cyprus, where he and his faithful companion Hesychius remained for five years in a protected locus amoenus. The final part²² of Jerome’s Life is the account of Hilarion’s death in Cyprus, his burial there and the transfer of his body to Palestine by Hesychius, who then buries him in Hilarion’s monastery close to Gaza. Both sites, the hortulus Hilarionis on Cyprus and the place of his burial in the monastery near Gaza, then witness a vast number of miracles. As Hoster remarked in Die Form der frühesten lateinischen Heiligenviten von der Vita Cypriani bis zur Vita Ambrosii und ihr Heiligenideal, published in 1963, one of the principal differences between the Vita Hilarionis and the Vita Antonii is the fact that Jerome focused less on writing a manual for future monks than on “den wunderbaren Vorgang […], wie Mönche, die einsam in der Wüste leben, in aller Welt berühmt werden.”²³ Accordingly, so Hoster, the Life of Hilarion can be seen as the attempt to craft a vita publica as the result, or better, the product of a vita privata (monastica). ²⁴ In so doing, it is imperative that the protagonist be represented as fully aware of, indeed torn by the fact that the loss of monastic solitude was the greatest monastic challenge for the one living the fame: publicity as ascetic torment. It is this specific form of ascetic torment and the use of the demonic in expressing it that will be the focus of my following remarks. Indeed, I would like to suggest that this use of demonic power in a monastic and ascetic context is specific to Latin, Western Lives and as such quite distinct from the use of demons in the Greek monastic milieu. In Hoster’s view, Jerome’s Vita Hilarionis is what he calls an “Aufstiegsbiographie”.²⁵ Such a biography of ascent in a Christian context is, so Hoster, a Vita that portrays the life of a person as a constant struggle to reach God through an ascetic life. Therefore, the content of such a Life is the description of ascetic practices and monastic and ascetic ideals. In terms of form, such a Life has to be crafted so as to demonstrate this progress, which means – according to Hoster – that sufficient room must be given to describe the inner conflicts and the slow progress toward perfection, so that it becomes apparent that the dynamis to work miracles is the result of the ascetic labors involved in achieving progress. For Hoster, the Life of Saint Anthony is the paradigm of such an “Aufstiegsbiographie” and that is also the model Jerome had in mind for Hilarion. However, rather than focusing on Hilarion’s slow ascetic progress, Jerome emphasized his fame. This has structural consequences as well.     

Berschin (1986), 139. Jerome, Life of Hilarion, Chapters 44– 47. Hoster (1963), 79. Hoster (1963), 79. Hoster (1963), 80.

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Though the idea of progress is still visible in chapters 2 to 12, when Jerome describes Hilarion’s asceticism, and though the rest of the Life still maintains the tenor of progress, the level of Hilarion’s success remains stable. Indeed, it is this theme of success remaining constant once a certain ascetic proficiency has been reached that led Hoster to describe the Life rather as an ‚Erfolgsvita‘.²⁶ To support his view, Hoster points to the fact that Hilarion’s engagements with the demonic are reduced to a minimum, in comparison to the Life of Anthony. ²⁷ Hoster refers to the attacks of the demons in the first part of the life and not to the exorcism in the latter chapters. As we will see, Jerome dwells on exorcism in these later chapters, but the attacks of demons on Hilarion’s psyche are indeed rather compressed when compared to the detailed and precise accounts in the Life of Anthony. For Hoster the vague account of Jerome was “leer, nicht vom Wunsche nach Darstellung, sondern lediglich um darzutun, daß auch Hilarion solche Versuchungen und Kämpfe zu ertragen hatte, dorthin gesetzt.”²⁸ In my view, however, Jerome’s seemingly superficial depiction of the struggle with demons is not an isolated instance, but rather a phenomenon characteristic for many biographies written in the Latin speaking West.²⁹ As far as I can tell, in Eastern monasticism the focus is on the struggle of the monks and anchorites with their own personal shortcomings. This is particularly the case in the Vita Antonii and to a lesser extent in actual Egyptian Lifes such as the Life of Pachomius and the Life of Shenoute, where the focus shifts to the community of the monks, a privileged inner circle versus the outside as alien. In the Vita Antonii, however, the most influential Life for East and West, the battle with the ‚other‘ or the ‚alien‘ takes place above all within the psyche of the monk. The psyche is the locus of the chasm between virtutes and vitia, and demons are the means to make manifest and visible the monk’s continuous struggle between them. Or, to paraphrase Evagrius Ponticus, demons, logismoi, are the source and the inducement of these psychomachiai. Thus, the struggle with the vice of porneia takes place within the soul of the monk, so that demons often appear in the guise of the opposite sex or in enticing representations of one’s own gender.³⁰ In investigating appearances of demons in early Egyptian monasticism in the guise of Ethiopians, David Brakke points out that: “I study accounts in which demons appear as Ethiopians or black persons and describe how such appearances enable monks to represent as ‚other‘, and to renounce, aspects of their selves.”³¹ Likewise, in the case of female appearances the drama of temptation takes place within the monk’s souls, so that Brakke speaks of a paradox at the heart of the monastic project: “The monk must

     

Hoster (1963), 80. Hoster (1963), 80. Hoster (1963), 81. Weingarten (2005), 105 – 153 looks at the Roman context of the Vita Hilarionis. Brakke (2006), 200. Brakke (2006), 200.

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always consider at least a part of himself to be demonic.”³² For Peter Brown, these instances of the demonic figures are an extension of the ego. “A relationship with the demons involved something more intimate than attack from the outside: to ‚be tried by demons‘ meant passing through a stage in the growth of awareness of the lower frontiers of the personality.”³³ Indeed, in Athanasius’ Vita, Anthony first fights the demons in thought, and only later is he able to engage them in physical battle to progress on his way toward virtue and God.³⁴ In his long speech in chapters 16 – 43 Anthony declares the battle with demons as conducive to the progress of the soul, so that the engagement with the demons represents and makes visible, in Nienke Vos’ words, “the growth process of the saint aim[ed] at transparency: he has to become completely translucent in order for the divine light, goodness, and power to shine through.”³⁵ As becomes apparent in chapter 23, for Athanasius: The demons are hostile to all Christians, but they especially hate those who are monks and virgins of Christ. They set traps along their paths and strive to undermine their commitment by means of irreverent and obscene thoughts, but let them not strike terror into you. For the prayers and fasting of those who have faith in the Lord cause the demons to collapse immediately, but even if they are driven back a little way, do not think that you have gained complete victory. For they have a tendency, when wounded, to rise up with even greater violence and to change their method of attack: when they have no success with dirty thoughts, they use fear to terrify, transforming themselves into women one moment, wild animals the next moment and then serpents as well as huge bodies with a head reaching to the roof of the house, and finally turning into troops of soldiers and an infinite number of different shapes. All these vanish as soon as the sign of the cross is made. When these means of deception have also been recognized, the demons begin to prophesy and to try to predict future events, but when they have been thwarted in these efforts, too, they summon the leader of their wickedness, the culmination of all evil, to assist them in their fight.

When Anthony is 35, about the same age as Jesus when he died, his battles with demons, at the periphery of the town close to the graves of the deceased, grows particularly intense (chapters 8 – 10). Anthony encounters demons at spatial and temporal borders – but these demons’ sole focus is to impede the progress of his soul. Eva-

 Brakke (2006), 200. Ibidem, footnote 8: “For example Shenoute’s physical combat with a demon was a rare event, even for him. Most of the Egyptian monks’ conflicts with the demonic had no visual content, but consisted of thoughts, suggestions or inclinations, which they attributed to demons.” Ibidem, 10: “For the most part, monastic demonologies concern themselves with the roles that adversarial spirits play in the monk’s ethical life, not with the uncanny forces that haunt perilous intersections or reside in threatening animals – the demons of local religion that interest most anthropologists and historians of religion…. Monastic demons certainly appeared to people, caused diseases, and even possessed people, but they more often suggested evil thoughts, provoked disagreement between monks, or stirred up a monk’s passions.”  Brown (1978), 90.  Chapter-divisions and translations White (1998), 1– 71.  Vos (2011), 163.

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grius Ponticus’ Praktikos expresses this concept of the progress of the soul through battles with demons particularly well. Here, Evagrius identifies eight different passions or demons against which the monks have to fight, a number John Climacus later reduced to three when he evoked three trenches filled with demons to hamper them on the path toward God: direct attack, renewed attacks when they have been rebuffed, and finally, excessive praise, the last the most virulent temptation.³⁶ Though Christ’s incarnation broke the power of the demonic, Christians cannot rest. Only in constant combat with the demons can they hope to gain salvation.³⁷ Such notions of progress made visible through combating demons evolves from the soteriology of Origen, according to whom only man was endowed with the free will capable of guiding him to the good, while the daimones, though rational as well, lacked that discerning power.³⁸ Therefore, only man’s soul is capable of rising up toward the divine through moral virtue, the recognition of God’s rational ordering principles as evident in nature and the contemplation of the divine. The Life of Saint Anthony, in chapter 20, expresses a similarly optimistic view of mankind’s potential: I beg you not to fear the word ‘virtue’ as if it were something unattainable. Do not think that such an endeavor which is dependent on our will is alien to you or something remote. Man has a natural inclination to this kind of effort and it is something that only awaits our willingness. Let the Greeks pursue their studies across the seas and go in search of teachers of useless literature in foreign lands. We however feel no compulsion to travel or cross the waves, for the kingdom of heaven is to be found everywhere on earth: that is why the Lord says in the Gospel ‚The kingdom of God is within you‘. The virtue that is within us only requires the human will. For who can doubt that the natural purity of the soul, were it not tainted by filth from outside, would be the fount and source of all virtues? A good creator must necessarily have made the soul good.

It is such faculties within man’s soul that Anthony’s combat with the demons makes manifest. Similar optimistic concepts of humanity and its potential in the fight against demons can also be found in the Life of Pachomius (for example in chapter 15), which unlike the Vita Antonii was written for a monastic community. Whereas in the Vita Antonii the focus is on the internal fight of the monk against demons, in the literature on Pachomius and the monks surrounding him another focus comes to the fore. To cite David Brakke, an expert on demons in Egyptian monasticism: “The literature emanating from the federation of monasteries founded and led by Pachomius adapted contemporary ideas about demons to its ideal as the monk as brother, one who lives in community in submission to a rule and in support of his colleagues.”³⁹ In this context demons play more of a social role, they attack the monks as a group. Shenoute, the head of an even greater monastic community, ac-

   

Scal. 26. Orig. in Num. Hom. 14,2 [GCS 30,123,7/12]; mart. 42; c. Cels. 8,47); Kallis (1976), 707– 712. Princ. I,8,3, 2,2. For a comparison between Anthony’s and Origen’s conceptions see Bright (1999). Brakke (2006), 13.

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cording to Brakke, “presented himself as a prophet who was called to end idolatry among the heathens and to expose hypocrisy among the people of God: he wielded the dualistic contrast between Christ and Satan as a sword to bring clarity to the fluid religious situation in late ancient Egypt.”⁴⁰ The social component in the fight against demons becomes even greater. A similar observation can be made in many hagiographies of the Latin West. The focus in most biographies is less on the soul than on the exterior, social aspect of the saint’s ascetic life. This comes as a surprise in as much as the Vita Antonii was highly influential on the biographies of saints in the West. Anthony was not only an authority for the Pachomians in Egypt, as well as for the coenobites in Asia minor, but the Vita Antonii became also a prototype of hagiographical writing in the West.⁴¹ Because the saint fights less of a battle within his or her own soul, i. e. focusses less on his or her shortcomings, in the West demons play a far less prominent role in general – there are several Lives such as the Vita Pauli and the Vita Augustini in which they play no role at all.⁴² Rather, the saint acts as patronus and therefore protects the people around him from demonic afflictions. In keeping with the expanded functions of a patronus as saint, he acts as an agent of stability. As such, the saint protects his community against the foreigner and the other, but this foreigner or other is indeed a social, ethnic or political other: this other is not an aspect of the saint’s divided soul, but that of his divided and imperiled community. Correspondingly, in the Western Latin Lives, the protagonists appear more prominently as healers, whose personal significance (according to Rousselle) increased in inverse relation to the loss of influence of local pagan healing cults: what had once been accomplished by a god of healing, was now done through the saint’s exorcisms.⁴³ In this context, it is significant that in Latin Lives demons usually take possession of people at the margins of the action, even though not necessarily at the margins of society. The protagonists, the pastores animarum, are rarely afflicted by demons in sharp contrast to the Eastern Lives. As a consequence, those who suffer the onslaught of demons are the “ordinary” members of the saints’ community, who therefore require their pastor’s intercession. The protection against demons thus offered also includes ordinary monks. Whether or not this development, especially in later Lives, correlates with Augustinian notions of grace and his less than optimistic view of mankind, remains open to discussion. Saint Martin, who differs from Anthony in that he is represented as remaining constant, without undergoing an inner development – idem enim constantissime perseverabat qui prius fuerat – (VM 10,1) acts as bishop mostly as a miracle worker. He dedicates his particular dynamis entirely to the promulgation of the faith and to caritas, which enables him to convert pagans, reanimate the dead and to heal the sick.    

Brakke (2006), 6. Gemeinhardt (2013), 143 – 151 with further literature. This meets with the observations of Wiśniewski in this volume. Rousselle (1990).

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The Vita Martini abounds with examples where Martin encounters demons of a decidedly social or even political inclination over whom he prevails in his role as miracle worker and exorcist. In chapter 18, for example, ten demons try to lure him to abandon the city by spreading rumours that a barbarian attack is imminent; of course, the saint stays.⁴⁴ The encounters between Ambrosius and demons likewise serve entirely to increase his authority as bishop; they too take place in the spirit of caritas and are not expressions of an inner fight or internal development. In general, Ambrose’s vita has a decidedly worldly character.⁴⁵ The bishop is depicted as powerful exponent of the Catholic church, who represents its interests vis à vis wordly powers, and as a miracleworker who has power over matters of life and death. Most of the miracles accomplished by Ambrose are directed against Homoians; indeed, the number of miracles is highest in the time immediately after his election as bishop in a period where he is engaged in dealings with the ‚Arian’ empress Iustina. Thus, fittingly, the fight of his Arian opponents against Ambrose gets even more embittered once he has established himself as an exorcist. When an exponent of the Arian or Homoian belief falls victim to demons, is saved, and starts to praise Ambrose, his former co-believers do not fail to kill him. In the Vita Ambrosii Ambrose does not only appear as miracle worker, he is also characterized as propagator and supporter of the cult of relics. The translation of the relics of Gervasius and Protasius to Milan plays an important role in the Vita. According to Paulinus, the author of the Vita, the furor of the Arians increases after the translation of the relics. They start an intrigue at the court and spread rumors, according to which Ambrose bribed people to state in public that they were delivered from demons through the power of the relics or cured from sickness. The magnitude of the anti-Arian polemic in the Vita and the severity of the penalties dealt out by God against them, correlate to the importance Paulinus and Ambrose attribute to these problems, they are also responsible for the dark character of the Vita. ⁴⁶ Similar miracles of a political nature characterize the Vita of Caesarius of Arles, just to name another episcopal life. Here, chapters 21– 24 recount a political intrigue against Caesarius mounted by the devil in person, which leads to an accusation of treason that forces Caesarius into exile in Bordeaux for some time, a story remarkably similar to that of Martin.⁴⁷ Given this background, what does a closer examination of the demonic passages in the Life of Hilarion reveal? As mentioned, these passages form part of a sequence of eleven miracles which take place in and around Gaza. Specifically, a woman, barren for 15 long years of marriage, becomes pregnant through his intercession. Hilarion then heals three children, who suffer from malaria and are close to death. Fur   

Elm (2003), 78 – 90; see also the contribution of Nienke Vos in this volume. See Mohrmann (19812), XXXIV. Elm (2003), 90 – 99. Elm (2003), 176 – 182.

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ther, he miraculously cures someone who has suffered for ten years. In addition to healing physical sufferings, in direct imitatio Christi, Hilarion also dominates the devil and demons.⁴⁸ A man made demonically lame is cured once he promises to convert to Christianity.⁴⁹ In chapter 17, Hilarion expels a demon after seven days of struggle, then he must confront a giant with enormous strength, plagued by a legion of demons. He overpowers them with a mere smile and serene calm. Hilarion’s antidemonic powers expand further and wider in their reach. Not only humans but also animals are freed from possession. Indeed, the culmination of the description of Hilarion’s ever increasing demon fighting powers is the exorcism of the rabid camel. Two episodes are especially remarkable in this sequence: here Hilarion engages the powers of pagan magicians. In chapter 21, a youth seeks to entice a virgin dedicated to God through tactu, jocis, nutibus, sibilis et ceteris. When his seductions remain ineffective, he proceeds to Memphis and the sanctuary of Asclepius to receive instructions in love magic from the local priests. Upon his return he performs a defixio – a binding magic. I quote: He buried beneath the threshold of the girl’s house certain magical formulæ; and revolting figures engraven on a plate of Cyprian brass. Thereupon the maid began to show signs of insanity, to throw away the covering of her head, tear her hair, gnash her teeth, and loudly call the youth by name. Her intense affection had become a frenzy. Her parents therefore brought her to the monastery and delivered her to the aged saint. No sooner was this done than the devil began to howl and confess.

Hilarion defeats the demon, of course, and it is he who plays the central part, not the possessed virgin. Neither her strength nor her ascetic life protected her – solely the help of the saint as her intercessor. Indeed, her life was less than perfect, despite her asceticism, because, so Jerome, she lived it such that the demon gained entry. The second episode concerns the pagan charioteer who acted against a Christian rival. It is located in Maiouma, an important port city in Gaza, where the local duumvir attacked the Christian Italicus, who, in Jerome’s words: Kept horses for the circus to contend against those of the Duumvir of Gaza who was a votary of the idol god Marnas. This custom at least in Roman cities was as old as the days of Romulus, and was instituted in commemoration of the successful seizure of the Sabine women. The chariots raced seven times round the circus in honour of Consus in his character of the God of Counsel. Victory lay with the team which tired out the horses opposed to them. Now the rival of Italicus had in his pay a magician to incite his horses by certain demoniacal incantations, and keep back those of his opponent.⁵⁰ Italicus therefore came to the blessed Hilarion and besought his aid not so much for the injury of his adversary as for protection for himself. It seemed absurd for the venerable old man to waste prayers on trifles of this sort. He therefore smiled and said, ‚Why do you not rather give the price of the horses to the poor for the salvation of your soul?‘ His vis-

 Chapters 16 – 18.  Chapter 16.  This was not unusual in horse races, see Gordon (2013).

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itor replied that his office was a public duty, and that he acted not so much from choice as from compulsion, that no Christian man could employ magic, but would rather seek aid from a servant of Christ, especially against the people of Gaza who were enemies of God, and who would exult over the Church of Christ more than over him. At the request therefore of the brethren who were present he ordered an earthenware cup out of which he was wont to drink to be filled with water and given to Italicus. The latter took it and sprinkled it over his stable and horses, his charioteers and his chariot, and the barriers of the course. The crowd was in a marvelous state of excitement, for the enemy in derision had published the news of what was going to be done, and the backers of Italicus were in high spirits at the victory which they promised themselves. The signal is given; the one team flies towards the goal, the other sticks fast: the wheels are glowing hot beneath the chariot of the one, while the other scarce catches a glimpse of their opponents’ backs as they flit past. The shouts of the crowd swell to a roar, and the heathens themselves with one voice declare ‚Marnas is conquered by Christ‘. After this, the opponents in their rage demanded that Hilarion as a Christian magician should be dragged to execution. This decisive victory and several others which followed in successive games of the circus caused many to turn to the faith.

The episode is remarkable in many ways: first and foremost, the realm of the saint and his demonic encounter occurs in an extremely, indeed, quintessentially public space and engages the highest representatives of public power: on the one hand the duumvir, in the other the ascetic founding father of the entire region. As Johannes Hahn pointed out in his paper “Martyrium und christliche Identität im spätantiken Südpalästina”, the most important characteristic of civic life in late antique Gaza, and even more so in the port city of Maiouma, was its steadfast adherence to the old religion: Bis mindestens zum Ende des 4. Jahrhunderts erschien [die Gesellschaft Gazas] so gut wie unberührt vom Christentum, vielmehr unvermindert den traditionellen lokalen Kulten der Stadt zugewandt. Gaza ist zweifellos bis gegen 400 n.Chr. – also noch in den Jahren nach dem Tod des Theodosius I. (395), der seine anti-pagane Religionspolitik reichsweit mit bemerkenswerten Erfolgen durchgesetzt hatte – mit vollem Recht als die letzte Bastion des Paganismus im südlichen Palästina, ja wohl ganz Palästinas anzusprechen – eben eine urbs gentilium, wie sie der Hieronymus aus dem nahen Jerusalem wahrnahm.⁵¹

The principal sanctuary in Gaza was the temple of Marnas, just mentioned, a local Baal, identified with the Cretan Zeus, and in direct competition with the Serapeion in Alexandria.⁵² It is this demonic power, the lasting and seemingly unwavering force of Marnas, that Hilarion engages publicly, in the very arena of the hippodrome, in which the demon received his worship during the races.⁵³ Indeed, such is the force of this particular demonic power, that the saint (and hence Jerome) even temporarily suspends condemnation of such games: rather Hilarion achieves a spectacular, pub-

 Hahn (2008), 632.  Hahn (2008), 632– 633, particularly footnote 22 for further literature on the temple and cult of Marnas; Lipinski (2013).  Chapters 11 ff.

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lic victory in Marnas’ own territory. And, where the charioteers go, the city of Maiouma and then Gaza is soon to follow; Hilarion’s anti-demonic powers, demonstrated through the medium of Italicus, will soon conquer the stubborn pagans of Palestine. In other words, both in the case of the virgin, saved for the monastery, and of the charioteer and his city, saved for Christianity, the demonic is the external other, public to a spectacular degree. This is far removed from the demons as part of a tormented psyche. Yet, even this externalized nature of the demonic power, where the saint is called upon to safeguard the community rather than himself and his own spiritual progress, has repercussions for the saint. Because these public feats of demonic combat cement the saint’s fame and enhance it far beyond the local space, they become also, in time, the source of his torment: Hilarion becomes so famous as a demon fighter that he has to leave and become an itinerant monk, but not even that protects his soul. In the end only his own ascetic powers can achieve that feat. Perhaps it is this aspect – the incapability even of Hilarion to combat the prize of fame – that gave rise to Flaubert’s vision of Hilarion as the devil, engaged in yet another Faustian bargain, this time with a camel rather than a poodle. Let me, in conclusion, return to Flaubert’s novel on Anthony. The novel was written against the backdrop of intense dispute within the Catholic church about modernity, which had been condemned by pope Pius IX in 1864 since modernity was seen as a means to curtail the monopoly of the Catholic church as the authority on doctrine and of the papal primacy.⁵⁴ The reasons for the loss of authority, according to Ursula Harter, were the French Revolution, modern sciences, methods of comparative history and psychology.⁵⁵ The increase of desacralisation and the increasingly aesthetic reception of Christian believes furthermore went hand in hand with criticism of the cult of saints and martyrs and its dogmatic piety considered naïve and a rejection of the belief in the devil. Evil became objectified and considered part of human nature. As Peter-André Alt writes in his work on the aesthetics of evil “…die moderne Geschichte des Bösen ist eine Geschichte seiner Verlagerung in die Psychologie… Wesentlich dabei ist eine Verschiebung, die es von physischen Attributen abkoppelt und verstärkt im Inneren des Menschen lokalisiert.”⁵⁶ Even though there were precedents for this process in earlier times – as we have seen – one can, according to Alt, state that it began to develop systematically at the end of the 19th century under the premise of the autonomy of the arts. What characterizes this new momentum is the more stringent connection between the beautiful and the evil. Historically speaking this development took place at the end of the 19th century when the category of evil was freed of its traditional metaphysical Christian connection. Systematically speaking there was a connection between literary concepts and the cultural meaning of evil; definitions of natural philosophy, anthropo-

 Harter (1998), 12.  Harter (1998), 12.  Alt (2010), 13.

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logy, and psychology were integrated into poetic fiction. Alongside the enlightened criticism of superstition, the devil was driven out of the sphere of the arts and was losing his privileged status as personification of sin, vice, and the breaking of rules.⁵⁷ In the words of Charles Forbes Comte de Montalembert (1810 – 70), one of the keenest exponents of Catholic doctrine in the 19th century, the Catholic church continued to consider the saints’ lives as the expression of “the diversity, the pathetic, the sublime, the epic simplicity of a human species, naive like children and strong like giants.”⁵⁸ Montalembert was right to the degree that the original Life of Anthony by Athanasius left room for modern psychological interpretations of the narrative of the threatening demons and the devil as becomes obvious by looking at the literary reception of the Life in the 19th century. What remains to be investigated is what influence later interpretations such as Flaubert’s had on modern scholarly research on late antiquity and the demons. It is obvious that modern psychological terms cannot explain the doctrine of vices and the concept of demons cherished by Evagrius Ponticus or Athanasius. The power and influence of a desacralised interpretation such as Flaubert’s points to the difficulty of modern research to analyze late antique conceptions of demons in their own context. What remains significant however is the fact that it is the Vita Antonii, with its internal, psychological approach to demons, together with the Vita Hilarionis, with its dramatization of success, that influenced writers such as Flaubert and his contemporaries.

Bibliography Primary Sources Athanasius Alexandrinus, Vita Antonii, in: Athanase d’Alexandie. Vie d’Antoine, ed. by Gérard J. M. Bartelink (Sources Chrétiennes 400), Paris 1994. Comte de Montalembert, Charles Forbes, Les moines d’Occident, Paris 1869. Bastiaensen, Antoon A. R. (ed.), Vita di Cipriano, Vita di Ambrogio, Vita di Agostino (Vite dei Santi 4), Verona 21981. Fontaine, Jacques (ed.), Sulpicius Severus, Vita Martini (Sources Chrétiennes 133), Paris 1967. Morales, Edgardo M./Leclerc, Pierre (ed.), Jérôme. Trois vies de moines (Sources Chrétiennes 508), Paris 2007.

Secondary Sources Alt, Peter-André, Ästhetik des Bösen, Munich 2010. Berschin, Walter, Biographie und Epochenstil im lateinischen Mittelalter 1. Von der Passio Perpetuae zu den Dialogi Gregors des Grossen (Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters 8), Stuttgart 1986.

 Alt (2010), 11– 14  Comte de Montalembert (1880), 58.

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Böcher, Otto, Das Neue Testament und die dämonischen Mächte (Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 58), Stuttgart 1972. Bouyer, Louis, La vie de s. Antoine: Essai sur la spiritualité du monachisme primitive, Bégrolles-en-Mauges 19772. Brakke, David, Demons and the Making of the Monk, Harvard 2006. Bright, Pamela, “The Combat of the Demons in Antony and Origen”, in: Origeniana Septima. Origenes in den Auseinandersetzungen des 4. Jahrhunderts, ed. Wolfgang A. Bienert /Uwe Kühneweg, Leuven 1999, 339 – 343. Brown, Peter, The Making of Late Antiquity, Cambridge 1978. Brown, Peter, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity, Oakland 1982. Comte de Montalembert, Charles Forbes, Die Mönche des Abendlandes. Vom heiligen Benedikt bis zum heiligen Bernhard, Regensburg 1880. Dassmann, Ernst, “Autobiographie in Hagiographie. Beobachtungen zu den Mönchsviten und einigen Nekrologen des Hieronymus”, in: Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia 8 (1999) 109 – 124. Elm, Eva, Die Macht der Weisheit. Das Bild des Bischofs in der Vita Augustini des Possidius und anderen spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Bischofsviten (Studies in the History of Christian Thought 109), Leiden 2003. Foucault, Michel, “Introduction”, in: Gustave Flaubert. The Temptations of Saint Anthony, New York 2002, XXIII-XXXVII. Fürst, Alfons, Hieronymus. Askese und Wissenschaft in der Spätantike, Freiburg 2003. Gemeinhardt, Peter, Antonius der erste Mönch. Leben – Lehre – Legende, Munich 2013. Gordon, Richard, “Fixing the race: Managing risks in the Circus at Carthage and Hadrumetum”, in: Contesti magici, ed. Marina Piranomonte/ Francisco Marco Simón, Rome 2013, 47 – 71. Greschat, Katharina/Tilly, Michael, Die Mönchsviten des Heiligen Hieronymus, Wiesbaden 2009. Hahn, Johannes, “Martyrium und christliche Identität im spätantiken Südpalästina”, in: Berührungspunkte. Studien zur Sozial- und Religionsgeschichte Israels und seiner Umwelt. Festschrift für Rainer Albertz zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, ed. Ingo Kottsieper/Rüdiger Schmitt/ Jakob Wöhrle, Münster 2008, 627 – 647. Harter, Ursula, Die Versuchung des Heiligen Antonius. Zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft. Flaubert – Moreau – Redon, Berlin 1998. Hoster, Dieter, Die Form der frühesten lateinischen Heiligenleben von der Vita Cypriani bis zur Vita Ambrosii und ihr Heiligenideal, Köln 1963. Kalleres, Dayna, City of Demons. Violence, Ritual and Christian Power in Late Antiquity, Philadelphia 2015. Kallis, Anastasios, “Geister (Dämonen) C.II: Griechische Väter”, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 9 (1976), 700 – 715. Kech, Herbert, Hagiographie als christliche Unterhaltungsliteratur. Studien zum Phänomen des Erbaulichen anhand der Mönchsviten des heiligen Hieronymus, Göppingen 1977. Lipinski, Edward, “Marna and Maiuma”, in: Latomus 72 (2013), 919 – 938. Mohrmann, Christine, “Introduzione”, in: Vita di Cipriano, Vita di Ambrogio, Vita di Agostino, ed. A.A.R. Bastiaensen, Milano 21981, 42 – 63. Neiland, Mary, ‚Les Tentations de saint Antoine‘ and Flaubert’s Fiction: A Creative Dynamic, Amsterdam 2001. Rebenich, Stefan, Jerome, London/New York 2002. Rousseau, Philip, “The Spiritual Authority of the Monk-Bishop”, in: The Journal of Theological Studies 22 (1971), 380 – 419. Rousseau, Philip, Ascetics, Authority, and the Church in the Age of Jerome and Cassian, Notre Dame 22010. Rousselle, Aline, Croire et guérir. La foi en Gaule dans l’Antiquité tardive, Paris 1990.

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Van Uytfanghe, Marc, “Biographie II (spirituelle)”, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum. Suppl. 1 (2001), 1088 – 1364. Vos, Nienke, “Demons without and within: The representation of demons, the saint, and the soul in early Christian lives, letters and sayings”, in: Demons and the Devil in Ancient and Medieval Christianity, ed. Nienke Vos/Willemien Otten, Leiden 2011, 159 – 183. Weingarten, Susan, The Saint’s Saints. Hagiography and Geography in Jerome (Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 58), Leiden 2005. White, Carolinne, Early Christian Lives, London 1998.

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7 The Ambiguity of the Devil A Discourse-Linguistic Reading of Sulpicius Severus’ Vita Martini 21 and 24

Introduction In late antique Christianity, the devil and the demons are ambiguous figures. On the one hand, the conception of the demonic is often employed to create clarity: to oppose good and evil, demonstrating which is which. The demons represent evil: they form the black which helps to foreground the white of salvation.¹ In developing their harmful schemes, however, they are able to take on different shapes and forms. They are not always easy to recognize. This is why the virtue of discernment (diakrisis in Greek, discretio in Latin) is so vital. It becomes particularly difficult for the Christian believer when demons take on “holy” shapes and forms, for instance, when they appear quoting Scripture. And when the devil impersonates Christ himself, who will be able to unmask him? Thus, it appears that demons are conjured up to create clarity, while simultaneously staging confusion. There is both a didactic and an existential side to this dynamic. On the one hand, it encourages and challenges readers to discern for themselves and to arrive at an understanding of both the black and the white in order to make a personal decision about which to choose. On the other hand, this didactic aspect is transcended by the more existential belief that the faithful are actually involved in a permanent battle between good and evil: in this way, the depiction of the devil and his demons illustrates the hazards of life itself and the spiritual journey one may undertake. In addition to the double role played by the demons as symbolizing both clarity and confusion on both a literary and an existential level, the dividing line between the demons, the devil, and the faithful is not always so marked. The demons are sometimes described as inhabiting human beings, infiltrating their thoughts, and taking over their neighbours. This view occurs, for instance, in the long speech delivered by saint Antony in his vita: So, when they see that all Christians, and especially monks, love to work and to make progress, they first attack them and tempt them by placing obstacles in their way. Their obstacles are impure thoughts. But we shouldn’t fear their suggestions. […] It also happens that they take on the appearance of monks feigning to speak piously.²

 See, for instance, Vos (2011), 159 – 182.  Quotations are from VA 23,1– 2 and VA 25,3 (my translation); see also VA 20,9 (“let us guard ourselves against impure thoughts”). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110632231-008

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Compared to this hagiographical representation, the images offered in letters and sayings may be even more diffuse as they allow for notions that are quite ambiguous. In Letter 6, Antony daringly says: “we are their bodies”.³ In the same letter, the pluriformity of the demons is – in a way reminiscent of Origen’s ideas – contrasted with the One, to which humans will eventually return.⁴ Thus, their multiplicity symbolizes the limitations and problematic nature of life on earth. Similarly, the sayings often present the demons as logismoi – as thoughts inhabiting human minds, creating a close identification between the human and the demonic. When a brother, for example, asked abba Isaiah why it was necessary to practice hēsychia (peace/quiet) in the cell, he answered: “To practice peace within the cell is to prostrate oneself before God and to do what one can in order to oppose every thought which is sown by the Enemy”.⁵ Therefore, while demons bring out the clarity of evil, they also constitute confusion – they are even part of humanity itself. They are, in the eyes of Evagrius of Pontus, the vices we can counter with our virtues.⁶ Generally speaking, the demons are imagined as both external and internal figures: in the external world, they are more easily recognized and boundaries may be quite defined. Internally, however, the situation may be more muddled and ambiguous as boundaries become more fluid. Still, the genre of hagiography mostly seems to present images of holiness that are – compared to letters and sayings – relatively straightforward, including saints that are often described as lacking in internal conflict. In this genre, then, confusion tends to be employed as a tool to construct clarity and this article will present a case in point as I will discuss two passages from Sulpicius Severus’ Life of Martin, written towards the end of the fourth century CE.⁷ Thus, I will focus on the specific genre of hagiography, exploring the ambiguity of the demonic. In doing so, I will take a discourse-linguistic approach. Basically, discourse linguistics pays close attention to linguistic phenomena in order to clarify how discourse is constructed and what it aims to effect. Within the field of classics, its application has led to the development of a methodology that correlates linguistic features with the so-called “discourse modes”, which will be discussed in the following section. The term “discourse modes” refers to the different ways in which an author can communicate with his audience, for instance, a narrative mode, when he is telling a story, or an argument mode, when he is making an argument. Research has shown that different modes of discourse are characterized by certain linguistic features, which sheds light on how texts are constructed, especially on the meso-level of the text,⁸ that is, on the level in between the micro-level of the sentence and

 Rubenson (1995), 219.  See Letter 6 in Rubenson (1995), 216 – 224.  My translation. The quotation is from the chapter on hēsychia in the Systematic Collection of the Apophthegmata Patrum (saying 15), 132– 133.  Harmless (2004), 318 – 329 and 345 – 346.  For more on this particular vita and its author, see Stancliffe (1983).  See Stienaers (2015), 211. Cf. also Allan (2009), 171– 173.

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the macro-level of the text as a whole. An analysis of textual units occurring on the meso-level of the text, where the variations in the modes of discourse appear, deepens our understanding of an author’s narrative technique and of the ways in which the modes of discourse may oscillate between, for example, narration and argumentation. In the specific case of Sulpicius Severus, whose Vita Martini is the focus of this article, a discourse-linguistic reading of the text brings into focus the author’s narrative and argumentative technique as well as the envisaged aim of this carefully constructed text. In the following section, I will introduce some basic methodological tools needed for our analysis of Vita Martini 21 and 24.

1 Hagiography and Discourse Linguistics: Methodological Prolegomena In the two passages from Vita Martini that I will be discussing shortly, the devil appears as an external figure, which seems to be characteristic of the hagiographical genre. First, he appears as an external figure that can be easily recognized, while in the second instance he causes ambiguity – all of this, as we shall see, in the service of portraying Martin as a saintly figure who is in possession of both virtus (virtue/power) and discernment. This function of the devil’s appearances as highlighting the saint’s discernment becomes clear when we analyze the narrative using concepts from both discourse linguistics and narratology. This approach combines the notion of discourse modes, that was briefly introduced in the previous section and that will be elaborated on below, with a basic set of narrative elements that constitute a story. In recent years, this integration of linguistics with reflections on how narratives, and other texts or text types, are constituted has also been applied successfully to early Christian texts. Paula Rose, for example, has written a discourse-linguistic commentary on Augustine’s tractate on the care for the dead: De cura pro mortuis gerenda. ⁹ In addition, doctoral work has been more recently completed and is in its final stages which applies discourse linguistics to other early Christian texts: Augustine’s Confessions and Carmen Paschale, the Easter Song – a work of biblical epic by Sedulius from the 5th century.¹⁰ This research on Augustine and Sedulius demonstrates how texts are made up of smaller textual units that display the features of a variety of discourse modes, moving, for instance, in and out of narration, and in and out of argumentation or comment. Such a reading allows us to see how texts that are often viewed primarily as narrative

 Rose (2013).  See Math Osseforth, Friendship in Saint Augustine’s Confessions: between social convention and Christian morals (doctoral thesis, defended at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, 27 June 2017a) and Osseforth (2017b). The dissertation on Carmen Paschale is being prepared by Gerben Wartena see also Wartena (2017).

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texts, such as Augustine’s Confessions and Sedulius’ paraphrase of the Gospel story in Carmen Paschale, are actually highly argumentative. Now, let us take a closer look at how this works. Discourse linguistics, as practiced by Greek and Latin classicists at Amsterdam,¹¹ basically consists of two important components. First, they work with a framework of narrative structure based on the work of William Labov.¹² In the seventies, Labov developed a set of narrative elements: basic building blocks of which stories are made up. I will characterize these briefly. Generally speaking, stories start with an abstract: a short summary of what the story will be about. Then the orientation follows in which the scene is set. Next, the story starts to develop: the complication. When the story comes to a head, this is defined as the peak. After the peak, the resolution follows, explaining what happened afterwards – how the story ended. Often, the story is accompanied by some evaluation: the narrator draws conclusions about the meaning of the story. Finally, a coda may be included: the end of the story is clearly marked, a final conclusion may be drawn, and in the case of an embedded story (a shorter story embedded within a larger narrative or argumentative framework), the narrator will move back to the main line of the argument or the wider narrative context. It is important to note that these building blocks do not always occur all at once and they may deviate from the pattern just described: some elements may be left out or – alternatively – may be included more than once, and they may appear in a different order.¹³ Still, these basic elements help to analyze what is going on in stories: how they are set up, how they develop, and which point they are trying to make. Added to this basic scheme of storytelling (originally developed in the context of oral storytelling on the streets of modern cities) is the theory of discourse modes that has already been mentioned briefly above.¹⁴ This theory states that in texts, authors may use various discourse modes (also called [local] text types) – different ways in  Major contributions to the development of this methodology have been made by Caroline Kroon, Irene de Jong (with a focus on narratology), Rutger Allan, Lidewij van Gils, Suzanne Adema, and David Stienaers. A representative collection of articles is available in The Language of Literature. Linguistic Approaches to Classical Texts, ed. Rutger Allan and Michel Buijs, Leiden 2007. An important monograph is Textual Strategies in Greek and Latin War Narrative ed. Lidewij van Gils/Irene de Jong/Caroline Kroon, Leiden 2019. This study is based on the research project led by Irene de Jong (professor of Greek) and Caroline Kroon (professor of Latin) on “Ancient War Narrative”.  Labov (1972). Cf. Jong (2014), 39 – 41. The original scheme did not include the element of the “peak”; this term, or rather its equivalent “the climax”, was introduced by Longacre (19962). See for the use of Labov in the context of classical studies also Rose (2013), 56 – 58; Allan (2009), 186 – 189 (see also Allan [2007], 93 – 121; esp. 110 – 113); and Stienaers (2013). In his article, Stienaers includes a section entitled “The prototypical narrative structure of an episode” as well as an appendix that is similar to the one included in this article that is based on a lecture given by Caroline Kroon at Yale University in 2010.  Cf. Allan (2009), 189.  This combining of narrative elements and discourse modes was introduced by Caroline Kroon and Rutger Allan: see Kroon (2002), 189 – 200; Allan (2009), 171– 199.

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which they are presenting their material.¹⁵ For the analysis of Sulpicius Severus’ Life of Martin presented below two discourse modes are especially relevant: the narrative mode and – what is now generally called – the discursive mode.¹⁶ The first, narrative mode is – unsurprisingly – used for telling stories. Suzanne Adema, having researched Vergil’s Aeneid and Livy’s Ab urbe condita, distinguishes between two ways of storytelling or two variants of the narrative mode: retrospective and pseudo-simultaneous. ¹⁷ In a narrative mode that is retrospective, the narrator is positioned in the “here and now”,¹⁸ and looks back, telling a story that is situated in

 See, for instance, the work of Suzanne Adema (2008). A monograph based on this dissertation is Adema (2019). Chapter 1 of the study by Adema includes an exposé on the application of the theory of discourse modes to Vergil’s famous epic. The terms of “discourse mode” and “(local) text type” were developed by Carlota Smith in her study Modes of Discourse. The Local Structure of Texts, Cambridge 2003. Three other relevant publications for the field of classics (all included in The Language of Literature edited by Allan and Buijs in 2007) are by Suzanne Adema (“Discourse Modes and Bases in Vergil’s Aeneid”, 42– 64, with a useful table on 44), Caroline Kroon (“Discourse Modes and the Use of Tenses in Ovid’s Metamorphoses”, 65 – 92, with a helpful table on 72) and Rutger Allan (“Sense and Sentence Complexity. Sentence Structure, Sentence Connection, and Tense-Aspect as Indicators of Narrative Mode in Thucydides’ Histories”, 93 – 121). See also Allan (2009).  As the theory is currently developing, terms and definitions are still under debate. Some scholars do not speak of a “discursive mode” but may use other, more specific, terminology such as “report mode”, “comment mode” or “argument mode”. (These modes can be understood as specifications of the more general notion of the “discursive mode”; common denominator is the fact that the narrator communicates from the standpoint of “discourse now” as opposed to “story now”. See for the notions of “discourse now” and “story now” Allan (2009), 173 – 174 and 181– 182.) Depending on the term chosen, a different semantic value is attributed to the discourse mode. “Report mode” signals that an author reports in a non-narrative manner (giving the facts from the standpoint of “speaker’s time” without paying attention to sequence of events), “comment mode” refers to the fact that the narrator/author includes comments that can be distinguished from the story proper. The term “argument mode” emphasizes that there is an argumentation going on within the text. For the oscillation between narrative mode and argument mode, see the study by Van Gils (2009). Other modes are: informative/information mode (providing generally valid information); descriptive/description mode (describing persons, objects, places in the story world); direct mode (representing direct speech). See for the definitions regarding the different modes also the publications mentioned in footnote 15 (cf. esp. Kroon (2007), 67– 71, with a helpful reference to the categories of Smith (2003), 67).  Adema (2007) explains these two modes of narration in her article using, however, a different terminology from which she has now departed. Adema (2019) speaks of retrospective versus pseudo-simultaneous narrative mode. Kroon refers to “a retrospective narrative discourse mode” (2007), 77, but the term “pseudo-simultaneous” is not yet employed. This term is used in an article by Stienaers (2015), 212. Stienaers, however, does not use the term “retrospective narrative mode” for the counterpart of the pseudo-simultaneous narrative mode. Rather, he speaks of “subsequent narrative mode” (Ibid., 212). In the context of Greek narrative, Allan makes a similar distinction referring to “immediate diegetic mode” (for pseudo-simultaneous mode) and “displaced diegetic mode” (for retrospective/subsequent narrative mode); see Allan (2007 and 2009). In Allan (2007), 102, the term “mimetic mode” is included as a synonym for “immediate mode” (with reference to Kroon (2002)); the latter is preferred by the author. The difference between the two types of narrative mode are visualized by Kroon (2007), 70 and Allan (2007), 100.  This standpoint may also be referred to as “speaker’s time”, see Kroon (2007), 70 and 72.

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the past: the “perfect” tense is used to express the sequence of events. Another way of telling the story occurs when the narrator moves, as it were, into the story world,¹⁹ taking the readers (or “narratees” in narratological terms) – with him – sometimes even immersing them in the story.²⁰ In this case, the “historical present” is used. It is also significant that as the narrator recedes into the background, the story becomes increasingly alive.²¹ The second discourse mode that is crucial for our reading is called “discursive” mode.²² This mode refers to those portions of a text in which the narrator is positioned in the present, in “discourse now” as it is called,²³ communicating with his/her (envisaged) audience.²⁴ Therefore, the “actual present” may be used, but also particles that are related to what has been referred to as “interactional management”, that is, management of the interaction between author and audience (by the author/narrator). In her work on Latin particles, Kroon distinguishes between particles that are related to the narrator’s interaction with his audience and those which function primarily on an intratextual level. The latter are related to textual coherence (indicating, for instance, causal connections between units in the text) and textual advancement (signalling the development of an argument or storyline).²⁵ Thus, it must be noted that discourse modes are qualified by specific linguistic features such as the use of particular tenses and the use of particles. In addition, Greek and Latin linguists have established correlations between the different discourse modes and the narrative building blocks of Labov and scholars that elaborated upon his work such as Robert Longacre.²⁶ The various narrative elements of Labov and Longacre have also been linked to other linguistic features such as attention to detail and the use of specific vocabulary. A schematic outline of the correlations between narrative elements, discourse modes, and linguistic features is included in an appendix to this article.²⁷ In the following section, we will see what discourse linguistics has to offer with reference to our Martinian text. We will consider two embedded

 Other terms referring to the dimension of the “story world” (the term is used, for instance, by Kroon (2007), 81 are: “reference time” (Adema (2007), 42) and “story now” (Allan (2009), 173 – 174.  For the literary phenomenon of immersion, see for instance Schaeffer (2014), 191– 194. See also the Dutch article by Allan/Jong/Jonge (2014), 202– 223. For an introduction into the narratological reading of classical texts, see De Jong (2014).  Cf. Allan’s discussion of the two subtypes of the narrative mode in Allan (2009), 173 – 179 with a reference to the notion of “narratorial control” on (173 – 174).  See, for instance, Allan (2009), 181– 186.  There is no temporal progression in discursive mode. See, for instance, Allan (2009), 183 (cf. also the table on 186). This is also true for the description mode. See, for instance, Adema (2007), 51; Kroon (2007), 71– 72; Allan (2009), 179 – 181. Note the narratological term “pause” in Allan’s table (2009), 186 with reference to both the descriptive and the discursive mode.  Cf., for instance, Allan (2009), 181– 186.  Kroon (1995), 371– 375. Cf. also Rose (2013), 53 – 55.  Cf. also the work of Fleischmann (1990); Toolan (2001); Fludernik (2009).  This table is based on an unpublished paper by Kroon (2010).

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stories in chapters 21 and 24 that frame a specific textual unit on appearances of the devil set within the context of apocalyptic expectations.

2 Life of Martin 21: A Murder Mystery Vita Martini 21 opens with an abstract-like section which concerns the entire unit of 21 through to 24. It announces what the following passages and stories will be about: It is certain (Constat autem) that angels often appeared to Martin, even going so far as to enter into conversation and talk with him. But as for the devil, Martin could see him so easily and so clearly that whether he retained his own form or turned himself into various evil shapes, Martin could recognize him, whatever his disguise. But when the devil realized that he could not escape, he would frequently hurl abuse at Martin, because he was unable to deceive him by his wiles.²⁸

Significantly, the particle autem is used in the opening sentence to signal the advancement of the argument as the author starts a new thematic chain in the discourse structure.²⁹ In the opening section, which functions as an abstract in the Labovian sense, we learn that Martin conversed with the angels and that he was able to see the devil, whether he appeared in his “own nature” (in propria substantia) or in some kind of disguise: in diversas figuras nequitiae (the verb transtulisset used in this sentence signals the notion of transformation). The main point Sulpicius (or strictly narratologically speaking: the narrator) is making, is this: in whatever form he appeared, Martin was able to recognize him. Here, we have a reference to the many forms the devil may take on and the crucial virtue of discernment needed to unmask him.³⁰ The abstract continues: because the devil knew he couldn’t escape Martin, he haunted him. Subsequently, in chapters 21– 24, we read a number of embedded stories – all relating to this theme, the first and last of which we will consider up close.³¹ The first (embedded) story is actually quite strange from a Labovian point of view: a proper orientation appears to be lacking and there doesn’t really seem to

 Translation by Carolinne White (White [1998], 153); VM 21,1– 2: Constat autem etiam angelos ab eo plerumque visos, ita ut conserto apud eum invicem sermone loquerentur. Diabolum vero ita conspicabilem et subiectum oculis habebat ut, sive se in propria substantia contineret, sive in diversas figuras nequitiae transtulisset, qualibet ab eo sub imagine videretur. Quod cum diabolus sciret se effugere non posse, conviciis eum frequenter urguebat, quia fallere non posset insidiis. The Latin is quoted from Fontaine (1967).  See Kroon (1995), 226 – 280, esp. 269 – 277.  Cf. my point made in the introduction to this article concerning Antony’s Letter 6 and the theme of “the one and the many”.  I thank Suzanne Adema for her willingness to analyze these stories with me and for her valuable comments.

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be a complication.³² We read: Now at a certain time, he burst into his cell with an incredible noise, carrying the bloody horn of an ox in his hand. Showing his bloody hand he announced with glee a crime that he had just committed: ‚Martin‘, he said, ‚where is your power? I have just killed one of your men.‘³³ As readers, or – narratologically speaking – narratees, we are immediately plunged into the peak of the story, which is unusual indeed. There is no orientation telling us where we are, introducing the characters and the action. There is no careful building up of tension, no development of the story in a complication. Instead, the narrator starts with the peak! We know this because of certain linguistic features, mainly strong visual detail and the inclusion of direct speech. The visual details are: the bloody horn and the bloody hand. The narratees are encouraged to imagine these vividly. Concerning direct speech, it must be said that this is an indicator of the peak because in direct speech narrative time and narrated time coincide.³⁴ In stories, as one approaches the peak of the story, the pace of storytelling generally slows down: narrated time and narrative time are slowly moving towards equivalence. In direct speech, such equivalence is actually realized: in direct speech, narrated time and narrative are identical.³⁵ In this case, it reads: ‚Martin, where is your power?‘. After this surprising peak opening, the story continues. In this particular case, we don’t have a complication culminating in a peak, but a peak that is followed by a complication. We read how the story develops: the tense that is employed is the present functioning as a historical present. At first, it occurs no less than four times, mainly in combination with infinitives, creating instances of indirect speech: refert, praecipit, nuntiant, and iubet. ³⁶ In White’s translation, this portion of the text reads as follows (the verbs just mentioned are in italics): Then Martin called the brothers together and told them what the devil had revealed. He told them to go carefully round all the cells to find out who had suffered this fate. They reported

 Strictly speaking, the complication comprises three words: quodam autem tempore. It signals the transition to the anecdote that follows.  This free translation or paraphrase is my own. The text (in VM 21,2) reads: Quodam autem tempore, cornu bovis cruentum in manu tenens, cum ingenti fremitu cellulam eius inrupit, cruentamque ostendens dexteram et admisso recens scelere congaudens: ubi est, inquit, Martine, virtus tua? unum de tuis modo interfeci. Translation by White (1998), 153: One time he burst into Martin’s cell with a loud roar, holding in his hand a bull’s bloody horn. He showed his bloody hand, and glorying in the crime he had just committed, he said: ‚Where is your power, Martin? I have just killed one of your friends.‘  See, for instance, Fludernik (2009), 33.  On the slowing down of tempo and direct speech (and other characteristics) relating to the peak, see, for instance, Allan (2009), 187– 188 with a reference to Longacre (1996), 38 – 50. See also Stienaers (2015), 908.  VM 21,3: Tunc ille convocatis fratribus refert quid diabolus indicasset; sollicitos esse praecipit per cellulas singulorum quisnam hoc casu adfectus fuisset. Neminem quidem deesse de monachis, sed unum rusticum mercede conductum ut vehiculo ligna deferret, isse ad silvam nuntiant. Iubet igitur aliquos ire ei obviam.

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that none of the monks was missing but that one peasant, hired to transport some wood, had gone into the forest. Martin therefore ordered some of them to go and meet him.³⁷

Next, two additional instances of historical present are included: invenitur and indicat. ³⁸ Thus, we are in pseudo-simultaneous narrative mode: the narrator has transported us to the story world and is telling the story in the historical present. We read in the translation by Carolinne White (and again the verbs cited above are in italics): He was found not far from the monastery, already on the point of death. As he breathed his last, he revealed to the brothers the cause of his deadly wound: when his oxen were yoked together, as he was tightening the straps which had come undone, an ox shook his head free and drove his horns into the peasant’s groin.³⁹

As said, we are in pseudo-simultaneous mode and the action narrated is quite dramatic, but by using indirect speech in the complication, the author is – as the term indicates – narrating “indirectly” and thus rather serenely; in fact, the events are narrated quite drily and the narrative tempo is relatively high.⁴⁰ Considering the content of the story, this is surprising, because the story as it develops in this section is actually quite exciting: Martin assembles the brothers and orders them to check all the cells to find out who the victim is. They visit the individual cells but all the monks are there and nobody is hurt. This is not a “whodunit”, since we know that the perpetrator of the murder is the devil, but there is a mystery to be solved: who is the victim? Next, they inform Martin that a farmer, hired to transport some wood, had gone to the forest. The saint orders them to go out to meet him. Not far from the monastery they find him: barely alive. He is drawing his final breaths explaining what has happened: one of the oxen broke loose and planted his horn in his groin causing a lethal wound. In this passage, the word for “horn” is repeated: cornu. It is the same cornu that was mentioned in the opening sentence of the story: the devil was waving the bloody horn. This repetition of cornu creates an instance of inclusion, connecting  White (1998), 153 [Italics N.V.].  VM 21,4: Ita haud longe a monasterio iam paene exanimis invenitur. Extremum tamen spiritum trahens, indicat fratribus causam mortis et vulneris: iunctis scilicet bubus dum dissoluta artius lora constringit, bovem sibi excusso capite inter inguina cornu adegisse. The verb constringit is part of a subordinate clause starting with dum which requires a present tense as a matter of course.  White (1998), 153 (Italics N.V.).  For the occurrence of a relatively high narrative tempo in pseudo-simultaneous mode, see Stienaers (2015), 213: Stienaers argues that “the narrator is recounting events that are the most relevant to him”. Cf. Stienaers (2016), 913, footnote 13: “the story is recounted from a temporal proximity (historical present tense forms), but at a high narrative pace. The story appears to be reduced to the most essential events in the narrator’s opinion.” Concerning the combination of the historical present (used for the subsequent steps taken in the story) with indirect speech, Suzanne Adema has observed that this may create an atmosphere that is businesslike, distanced, and serene (observation shared by Suzanne Adema in private conversation, October 2015).

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the opening sentence that exemplified the peak of the story to the closing sentence of the complication that followed. The resolution, the wrapping up of the story in terms of Labov, takes up only one sentence: “Not long after he breathed his last” (Nec multo post vitam reddidit).⁴¹ The verb reddidit is a perfect tense, signalling that the narrator has now moved from a pseudo-simultaneous to a retrospective narrative mode. It means that he has changed the position from which he narrates (the so-called “base”):⁴² he no longer partakes in the story world and story now, but has moved to the time of speaking/ speech, that is, “discourse now”. Consequently, we (the readers/narratees) have left the story world and have been transported back to “discourse now”. Thus, this shift from pseudo-simultaneous to retrospective narrative mode has resulted in a shift to “discourse now”, which – in turn – enables the next shift in discourse mode to take place, namely, a shift to the discursive mode. This is the mode in which “the states of affairs referred to by the speaker are directly related to the communicative situation”.⁴³ In what follows, it becomes clear that “the communicative situation” is in full view as the narrator even addresses the narratees individually by way of the second person singular, inviting them to reflect on the basis of which decision (judgement) God had provided the devil with the power to do all this.⁴⁴ At this point, the readers have entered the realm of the evaluation: here, they learn the meaning of the story. One might have thought that this story suggests a weakness on the part of Martin since he was unable to save the farmer, but as it turns out, this is not the point the narrator wants to make at all. On the contrary: his point is Martin’s exceptional clairvoyance, for the saint knew what was going on even at a distance. Thus, he possesses the crucial virtue of discernment (discretio) – needed to fight against the devil and his demons. As Sulpicius is now communicating directly with his audience, it is apparent that he has taken on a different role: he is no longer telling a story, but making an argument. In fact, the story is told in service of the argument and the argumentation to which the author has now turned is marked by the shift in discourse mode: it is the discursive or, more specifically in this case, the argument mode that characterizes this evaluative portion of the text.⁴⁵

 VM 21,4. White translates: “A short while later he yielded up his life.” (White (1998), 153).  See for the concept of the “base”: Kroon (2007), 66 – 70 (where she distinguishes between a retrospective base = base in narrator’s time and an internal base = base in reference time; cf. Figure 1 on 70). Adema also uses the term (see, for instance, Adema (2007), 42). Cf., in addition, Figure 1 in Allan (2007), 100.  Allan (2009), 181.  The Latin in VM 21,4 reads: Videris quo iudicio Domini diabolo data fuerit haec potestas. In translation: “It is for you to decide by what judgement of the Lord this power was granted to the devil.” (White (1998), 153).  For the notion of argument mode, and the possibility of qualifying it as a (sub‐)type of the discursive mode, see footnote 16.

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In view of this, it is important to note that in the opening sentence of the story, the devil asks: Ubi est virtus tua?, that is, ‚Where is your power?‘ The story, then, provides an answer to this question: virtus is located precisely in this ability to discern. On a more general level, we must be aware that in the Life of Martin as a whole virtus is a central concept because it refers to different aspects of Martin’s holiness at once: his special powers (in this case, his clairvoyance), his virtue (which is the basis for his power rooted in his ascetic lifestyle), and his miracles because the plural virtutes denotes the many miracles that he performs.⁴⁶ Recapitulating, I would like to emphasize that some interesting things are going on in this passage: the story opens with the peak, pointing to the central category of Martin’s virtus, while the actual story about the murdered farmer, which has all the ingredients of an exciting tale – including “peak material”, is told rather swiftly and businesslike, without the clustering of linguistic features that would indicate a “peak”. Thus, the story about the murdered farmer is subordinated to the opening scene in which the devil waves the horn. As a result, the expected peak has been displaced.⁴⁷ Taking this in, we see how cleverly the author has organized his material and opted for a mode of presentation that suits his communicative goal, which in this section is the highlighting of Martin’s special powers of clairvoyance and discernment. These become the focus of attention. Towards the end of this article, I will widen the scope and comment on the communicative aim of the vita as a whole. But first let us move to chapter 24.

3 Life of Martin 24: The Devil in Disguise In Vita Martini 24, paragraph 4, our second story starts. The section opens with one sentence, the abstract, announcing the tale to come: “I think I ought to mention what exceptional cunning the devil used to try and tempt Martin at that time.”⁴⁸ Then follows an orientation in which the devil is described: he appears dressed in a royal robe, enveloped in a purple light, wearing a diadem of gems and gold, with feet covered in gold, a serene face, and a joyful appearance. I would interpret this quite elaborate orientation as highlighting an allusion to the Son of Man from Revelation 1, which fits with the apocalyptic character of chapters 21– 24 as a whole.⁴⁹ The narrator

 Cf. for the important notion of virtus in the Life of Martin, Stancliffe (1983), 6, 9, 161– 162, and 248.  In her commentary on Augustine’s De cura pro mortuis gerenda, Paula Rose provides a fascinating analysis of the same phenomenon, displacement of an anticipated peak. See Rose (2013), 57– 58 and 517– 555.  White (1998), 156. The Latin (VM 24,4) reads: Non praetereundum autem videtur quanta Martinum sub isdem diebus diabolus arte temptaverat.  Revelation 1,12– 16: “Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. His head and his hair were

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comments on the appearance of this apocalyptic figure as follows: “No one would have thought it was the devil” or, in other words, “not in the least bit looking like the devil”, making Martin’s later recognition even more exceptional.⁵⁰ But for now, the saint is struck dumb: “When Martin first saw him he was stunned and for a long time they both maintained a profound silence.”⁵¹ Subsequently, this silence is broken by the devil and we move into direct discourse which signals the peak of the narration: ‚Acknowledge, Martin, whom you see: I am Christ. At the point of descending to earth, I wanted to reveal myself to you first.‘⁵² Clearly, the devil alludes here to the second coming of Christ, a major theme in the Life of Martin. When Martin remains silent, the devil continues: ‚Martin, why are you in doubt? Believe your eyes: I am Christ.‘⁵³ Then, the narrator explains that the Holy Spirit reveals to Martin the truth, namely, that this is actually the devil. This mention of the Spirit’s revelation enhances the suggestion that this was indeed a very difficult disguise to recognize.⁵⁴ Martin’s subsequent reply is also in direct speech, thus creating for the first time in the textual unit of chapters 21– 24, on confrontations with the devil and his demons, a dialogue: Christ has not foretold that he would return dressed in purple and shining with a diadem. I will not believe that Christ has come unless he appears in the form in which he suffered, carrying the signs of the cross.⁵⁵

white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.” (Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version, Oxford 1989).  VM 24,4: Quodam enim die, praemissa prae se et circumiectus ipse luce purpurea, quo facilius claritate adsumpti fulgoris inluderet, veste etiam regia indutus, diademate ex gemmis auroque redimitus, calceis auro inlitis, sereno ore, laeta facie, ut nihil minus quam diabolus putaretur, oranti in cellula adstitit. White translates: “One day he appeared to Martin who was praying in his cell: he was preceded by a bright light with which he also surrounded himself in the hope of more easily tricking Martin by means of a feigned brightness. He wore a royal robe and was crowned with a diadem made of gold and jewels, wore gilded sandals, had a serene expression and a look of joy – no one could have looked less like the devil!” (White (1998), 156).  White (1998), 156; VM 24,5: Cumque Martinus primo aspectu eius fuisset hebetatus, diu mutum silentium ambo tenuerunt.  My translation. White (1998), 156 renders the passage as follows: “Martin, recognize who you are looking at. I am Christ. Intending to come down to earth I wished to reveal myself first to you.” – VM 24,5: agnosce (inquit) Martine, quem cernis: Christus ego sum; descensurus ad terram prius me manifestare tibi volui.  VM 24,6: Martine, quid dubitas? Crede, cum videas! Christus ego sum. White translates: “Martin, why do you hesitate? Believe, since you can see: I am Christ.” (White (1998), 156).  VM 24,7: Tum ille, revelante sibi spiritu ut intellegeret diabolum esse, non Dominum […]; “Then, as a result of the spirit’s revelation, Martin understood that it was the devil, not the Lord […]” (White (1998), 156 – 157).  My translation. VM 24,7: non se, inquit, Iesus Dominus purpuratum nec diademate renidentem venturum esse praedixit; ego Christus, nisi in eo habitu formaque qua passus est, nisi crucis stigmata prae-

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Then follows the resolution as the devil vanishes like smoke, leaving a distinctive stench.⁵⁶ Unlike some other stories that Sulpicius narrates in chapters 22– 23,⁵⁷ having heard them from other people, he claims that he learned this story directly from the mouth of Martin himself. In this final coda-like sentence, the reader is encouraged to believe in this climactic dialogical story, which represents the peak of the entire unit of chapters 21– 24. Let us consider for a moment the central theme of this adversarial scene: the nature of Christ – his suffering, his poverty – mirrored by Martin in his ascetic lifestyle. It means that this story about the devil points us to the central message of the entire vita. This is corroborated by the fact that the vision, occurring towards the end of the vita (after chapter 24 follow only chapters 25 – 27 which comprise 3 chapters adding up to some 3,5 pages) is mirrored structurally by the famous visionary story positioned at the beginning of the vita in chapter 3 (occurring after the dedication and the two opening chapters equalling 4,5 pages including the letter of dedication, with chapters 1 and 2 together covering 3 pages). In the memorable chapter on Martin’s so-called “conversion”, the narrator recounts how Martin gave half his mantle to the beggar at the gate of Amiens after which he sees Christ in a dream: the Saviour is wearing half of Martin’s mantle, identifying with the beggar. In a clever move, the narrator presents Christ as corroborating his own words, namely, “whatever you have done to one of these little ones, you have done to me” (Matthew 25:40), a statement from the apocalyptic chapter in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 25.⁵⁸ Thus, the peak of chapter 24 in the vita not only functions as the peak of the larger unit comprising chapters 21– 24, it also confirms the main message of the vita as a whole – as a mirror image of chapter 3: the true Christ and the false Christ juxtaposed.

Conclusion When we consider the two embedded stories analyzed above and the vita as whole, we encounter at least two genres, or rather: two discourse modes. We come across narrative and argumentation represented in, respectively, narrative and discursive ferentem, venisse non credam. In White’s translation (1998), 157: “and so he said, ‚The Lord did not foretell that He would come in splendid clothes and with a shining crown; I will not believe that Christ has come unless He wears the same garments and has the same appearance as at the time of His suffering, and unless He bears the marks of the cross.‘”  VM 24,8: Ad hanc ille vocem statum ut fumus evanuit. Cellulam tanto foetore conplevit ut indubia indicia relinqueret diabolum se fuisse. In White’s words: “At these words the devil immediately vanished like smoke. He filled the cell with such a strong smell that he left clear proof that he was the devil.” (White (1998), 157).  See White (1998), 154– 156.  See White (1998), 137– 138, for the story about the beggar at the gate of Amiens and Martin’s subsequent visionary experience.

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mode. When we look more closely, we find that the stories that are being told are embedded in a larger framework of argumentation: the author is making a point and trying to convince his audience (like Cicero) – not simply to entertain them.⁵⁹ This seems to be typical of early Christian narrative texts: they tend to be highly argumentative as is the case with Augustine’s autobiographical Confessions and Sedulius’ retelling of the Gospel story in Carmen Paschale. ⁶⁰ In these stories from the Life of Martin, then, the ambiguity of the demonic, culminating in the devil’s claim to be Christ, is the black that foregrounds the white of Martin’s holiness. The representation of the devil posing as Christ in terms of wealth fits – as a photographic negative – with the author’s theological focus on the poor, suffering Christ and the imitation of Christ in asceticism which the readers are encouraged to emulate.⁶¹ Thus, once more, the message of salvation is put into sharp relief with reference to the devil and his demons.⁶²

Bibliography Primary Sources Apophthegmata Patrum, in: Les Apophtegmes des Pères. Collection Systématique I-IX, Sources chrétiennes 387, ed. Jean-Claude Guy, Paris 1993. Athanasius Alexandrinus, Vita Antonii, in: Vie d’Antoine, Sources chrétiennes 400, ed. Gerard J. M. Bartelink, Paris 1994. Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version, Oxford 1989. Sulpicius Severus, Vita Martini, in: Vie de Saint Martin, tome 1, Sources chrétiennes 133, ed. Jacques Fontaine, Paris 1967.

Secondary Sources Adema, Suzanne M., Discourse Modes and Bases. A Study of the Use of Tenses in Vergil’s Aeneid, Amsterdam 2008 (independent publication). Adema, Suzanne M., “Discourse Modes and Bases in Vergil’s Aeneid”, in: The Language of Literature. Linguistic Approaches to Classical Texts, ed. Rutger J. Allan/Michel Buijs, Leiden/Boston 2007, 42 – 64. Adema, Suzanne M., Tenses in Virgil’s Aeneid: Narrative Style and Structure, Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology 31, Leiden/Boston 2019.

 Cf. the work of Van Gils (2009).  See the earlier section in this article entitled “Hagiography and Discourse Linguistics: Methodological Prolegomena”; cf. footnote 10.  See my discussion of the Life of Martin in an article entitled “The Saint as Icon. Transformation of Biblical Imagery in Early Medieval Hagiography”, in Iconoclasm and Iconoclash. Struggle for Religious Identity, Jewish and Christian Perspectives 14, Leiden/Boston 2007, ed. Willem van Asselt et al, 201– 216, esp. 202– 207.  Cf. Vos (2011).

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Allan, Rutger J./Jong, Irene J. F. de/Jonge, Casper C. de, “Homerus’ narratieve stijl: enargeia en immersion”, in: Lampas 47 (2014), 202 – 223. Allan, Rutger J./Buijs, Michel, The Language of Literature. Linguistic Approaches to Classical Texts, Leiden/Boston 2007. Allan, Rutger J., “Sense and Sentence Complexity. Sentence Structure, Sentence Connection, and Tense-Aspect as Indicators of Narrative Mode in Thucydides’ Histories”, in: The Language of Literature. Linguistic Approaches to Classical Texts, ed. Rutger J. Allan/Michel Buijs, Leiden 2007, 93 – 121. Allan, Rutger J., “Towards a Typology of the Narrative Modes in Ancient Greek. Text Types and Narrative Structure in Euripidean Messenger Speeches”, in: Discourse Cohesion in Ancient Greek, ed. Stéphanie J. Bakker/Gerry C. Wakker, Leiden/Boston 2009, 171 – 199. Fleischmann, Suzanne, Tense and Narrativity. From Medieval Performance to Modern Fiction, Austin 1990. Fludernik, Monika, An Introduction to Narratology, Abingdon 2009. Gils, Lidewij van, Argument and Narrative. A Discourse Analysis of Ten Ciceronian Speeches, Amsterdam 2009 (independent publication). Gils, Lidewij van/Jong, Irene J. F. de/ Kroon, Caroline H. M. (eds), Textual Strategies in Ancient War Narrative. Thermopylae, Cannae and Beyond, Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology 29, Leiden/Boston 2019. Harmless, William, Desert Christians. An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism, Oxford 2004. Jong, Irene J. F. de, Narratology and Classics. A Practical Guide, Oxford 2014. Kroon, Caroline H. M., Discourse Particles in Latin. A Study of nam, enim, autem, vero and at, Amsterdam 1995. Kroon, Caroline H. M., “How to Write a Ghost Story? A Linguistic View on Narrative Modes in Pliny EP 7.27” in: Donum Grammaticum. Studies in the Latin and Celtic Linguistics in Honour of Hannah Rosén, ed. L. Sawicki/D. Shalev, Leuven 2002, 189 – 200. Kroon, Caroline H. M., “Discourse Modes and the Use of Tenses in Ovid’s Metamorphoses”, in: The Language of Literature. Linguistic Approaches to Classical Texts, ed. Rutger J. Allan/Michel Buijs, Leiden 2007, 65 – 92. Kroon, Caroline H. M., “Narrating the Unnarratable. Narrative Structure in the Pisonian Conspiracy (Tacitus A. 15.47 – 74)”, (unpublished paper read at Yale University in 2010). Labov, William, Language in the Inner City. Studies in Black English Vernacular, Oxford 1972. Longacre, Robert E., The Grammar of Discourse, New York/London, 19962. Osseforth, Math, Friendship in Saint Augustine’s Confessions: between social convention and Christian morals, Amsterdam 2017a (independent publication). Osseforth, Math, “Augustine’s Confessions: A Discourse Analysis”, Studia Patristica 98 (2017b), 545 – 552. Rose, Paula J., A Commentary of Augustine’s De cura pro mortuis gerenda. Rhetoric in Practice, Leiden/Boston 2013. Rubenson, Samuel, The Letters of St. Antony. Monasticism and the Making of a Saint, Minneapolis 1995. Schaeffer, Jean-Marie, “Fictional vs. Factual Narration” in: Handbook of Narratology, ed. Peter Hühn/John Pier/Wolf Schmid/Jörg Schönert, Göttingen 2014, 179 – 196. Smith, Carlotta S., Modes of Discourse. The Local Structure of Texts, Cambridge 2003. Stancliffe, Clare, St. Martin and His Hagiographer. History and Miracle in Sulpicius Severus, Oxford 1983. Stienaers, David, “Linguistic features of PEAKS in Latin narrative texts”, in: Latinitatis Rationes. Descriptive and Historical Accounts for the Latin Language, ed. Paolo Poccetti, Berlin/Boston 2016, 902 – 916.

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Stienaers, David, “Tense and Discourse Organization in Caesar’s De Bello Gallico”, in: Latin Linguistics in the Early 21st Century. Acts of the 16th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Uppsala, June 6th-11th, 2011, ed. Gerd Haverling, Uppsala 2015, 208 – 220. Toolan, Michael, Narrative. A Critical Linguistic Introduction, London 2001. Vos, Nienke M./Otten, Willemien, Demons and the Devil in Ancient and Medieval Christianity, Leiden 2011. Vos, Nienke M., “Demons Without and Within: The Representation of Demons, the Saint, and the Soul in Early Christian Lives, Letters, and Sayings”, in: Demons and the Devil in Ancient and Early Christianity, ed. Nienke M. Vos/Willemien Otten, Leiden 2011, 159 – 182. Wartena, Gerben, “Epic Emotions: Narratorial Involvement in Sedulius’ Carmen Paschale”, Studia Patristica 97 (2017), 193-202. White, Carolinne, Early Christian Lives, London/New York 1998. Appendix: A Schematic Overview of the Correlation between Narrative Elements, Discourse Modes, Tenses, and Other Features (based on Kroon, 2010, reproduced with kind permission) Narratological function

Dominant discourse mode

Dominant tenses

Other features

Abstract

announcement & outline discursive of the story

st person references; perfect tense for past events; particles (actual) present & future tenses

Orientation

setting the scene, speci- narrative & fying participants, build- description ing up tension

imperfect pluperfect

presentational sentences; topic confirmation by is, hic, or qui

alternations of perfect & imperfect

participles

Complication development of narrative narrative action; advancement of narrative time Peak

climax or ‘hinge’ of story (pseudo-simul- historical pretaneous) nar- sent rative

Evaluation

discursive e.g. comment on the content of the story and its significance; often contains the ‘ideological point’

perfect; (actual) st & nd person propresent tense nouns and verb forms; interactional particles; non-indicative modi; evaluative vocabulary

Resolution

outcome of story; aftermath

perfect

discursive & narrative

‘covert’ narrator; slowing down of tempo; noncomplex sentences; direct speech; visual details

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe

8 Demonic Speech in Hagiography and Hymnography

Demons in early Christian texts were frequently represented as noisy, loquacious creatures who terrorized humans by shouting, cursing, and talking in barbarian languages. But how did demonic speech and language relate to human speech and language, and how far was it a stable and reliable expression of demons’ identity and selfhood? This article tackles these questions by focussing on representations of demonic speech in two different kinds of early Christian texts of the fourth to sixth centuries: Greek, Latin and Syriac hagiographies of ascetics from Syria and Palestine, and Syriac and Greek liturgical hymns. Both kinds of texts reveal complex relationships between human and demonic voices and identities. Hagiographies are studded with stories about demons possessing humans and altering or even erasing their speech patterns, whether through speaking a language unknown to the host, or tying the victim’s tongue; they also contain anecdotes in which demons’ language choices are carefully aimed at, or reflect, the language spoken by a particular human target. Liturgical hymns dramatized scriptural episodes in part through lengthy invented first-person speeches, including speeches for infernal characters like Satan, death, and demons. In performing hymns, the singer or singers were themselves directly voicing demonic speech, effecting a real-time, audible slippage between human performer and demonic character, and revealing that the boundary between human and demon was not firm or static, but dangerously blurry. As well as exploring the content and style of demons’ speech, this article will also examine the different rhetorical and grammatical strategies for reporting it, from the “diegetic” to the “mimetic”.¹ Novelistic hagiographies tend to privilege diegetic third-person narrative, providing characterizations of demons’ speech patterns and languages at one remove; by contrast, liturgical hymns are more consistently mimetic, drawing on a rich dramatic and musical heritage to incorporate lengthy passages of direct, firstperson demonic discourse. As we will see, these different modes of representing demons’ speech, themselves drawing on a range of scriptural and classical archetypes, put human readers and listeners into different relationships of proximity and immediacy with demonic speakers.

 On diēgēsis and mimēsis in Plato, see Burnyeat (2012), 59 – 61, and on the specific meaning of diēgēsis as narrative in hagiography, see Rapp (1998), 431– 448. On the representation of speech in fiction more generally, see Fludernik (1993). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110632231-009

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1 Demonic speech in hagiography Jerome’s late-fourth-century Life of Hilarion recounts the numerous miracles of a Palestinian holy man, including two important stories about disruptive demonic speech. In the first episode, a wealthy and important citizen of Aila called Orion is said to have been possessed by a legion of demons.² The demoniac lifted up Hilarion from behind in a wrestling hold, and the saint retaliated, invoking torture on the “crowd of demons” while stretching out his hands, perhaps in a cross figure, and treading on his feet.³ Hilarion pronounced a pithy exorcistic formula of release, which is the only passage of direct speech in the entire anecdote: ‚Lord Jesus, release this wretched man, release this captive. Yours it is to conquer many, no less than one.‘ Jerome continues: ‚what I now relate is unheard of (inauditam): from one man’s mouth were heard different voices and as it were the confused shout of a multitude‘ (ex uno hominis ore diversae voces et quasi confusus populi clamor audiebatur). This passive sentence structure avoids specifying the mechanism by which multiple demons could speak “through” Orion, merely stating that the demonic voices were heard “from one man’s mouth” and using the (nicely aural) inauditam to stress that this was an unprecedented phenomenon. Jerome’s story contains notable echoes of the gospel accounts of the Gadarene demoniac possessed by a demon or demons that self-identify as “Legion”.⁴ In Mark and Luke, the possessing spirit is introduced as a singular creature, is quoted explicitly in direct discourse using first-person singular verbs and pronouns, and is addressed in the singular by Jesus. In Mark, once the demon has identified itself as multiple (‚My name is Legion; for we are many‘, Mark 5:9), the demoniac-cum-demonic speaker, now rendered in indirect discourse, slips between singular and plural (‚And he begged him eagerly not to send them out of the country‘, Mark 5:10), making it hard to tell whether the possessing entity should be understood to be single or multiple, although its speech is clearly unified and comprehensible. The textual conceit that a group comprising multiple individuals could speak with one voice underpinned the representation of other kinds of crowds – especially human crowds – at other points in the gospels.⁵ By contrast, Jerome’s story does not attempt a mimetic representation in direct discourse of the words of the demonic crowd inhabiting Orion, but provides a more distanced evocation of its overall din, which is incomprehensible where Legion’s speech was comprehensible. The demons that possessed Orion thus emerge as a crowd whose very confused multiplicity rendered their indi-

   

Jerome, V. Hilarion. 18. On this pose see Trzcionka (2007), 149. Mark 5:1– 13; Luke 8:26 – 33. On “Legion”, see Van der Toorn et al. (1999), 507– 8. On crowds in the gospels, see Cousland (2002).

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vidual voices and words indistinct: this was not the organized group chant of an acclamation in a hippodrome, but a tumult of cries.⁶ Jerome’s Life of Hilarion contains another story in which a demon speaks through its human victim, although this time the demon is clearly and distinctively singular.⁷ A Frankish army officer possessed by a demon was interrogated by Hilarion in Syriac, and replied by “roaring wildly” (immane rugiens) in Syriac. Jerome continues, showing off his own knowledge of the sounds of Syriac: “Pure Syriac was heard flowing from the mouth of a barbarian who knew only Frankish and Latin, so that no hissing, nor aspiration, nor any idiom of Palestinian speech was lacking” (ut non stridor, non aspiratio, non idioma aliquod palaestini deesset eloquii).⁸ The demon confessed how it had entered into the man: it had been conjured and bound by magic. Jerome tells us that Hilarion then switched to Greek, so that the Frank’s interpreters, who knew only Greek and Latin, might understand, and the demon gave the same reply in the same words – presumably this time in Greek. In this episode, the possessing demon is strongly individuated through its facility in Syriac and Greek, languages not spoken by its human host. However, in the medium of indirect speech in a Latin story, Jerome can only gesture towards the demon’s multilingual capacities, rather than reporting them directly. There are precedents in the classical novel for flagging up a speaker’s code-switching without actually representing it directly, as for example in an episode in Apuleius’ Latin Metamorphoses in which a Roman soldier is said to switch speaking Latin to Greek, but the words of his direct discourse are nonetheless reported in Latin.⁹ Indeed, the only portion of direct speech in Jerome’s story about the Frank is, as in the Orion episode, the saintly Hilarion’s pronunciation of a pithy exorcistic formula (‚I command you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to come out‘).. The tendency to quote this kind of exorcistic command directly may reflect the idea that the efficacy of such formulae was thought to be closely dependent on the very form of the words themselves; reporting exorcism, a powerful form of speech-act, in indirect speech would arguably have deadened its very power.¹⁰ The demon inside the Frank spoke not just one, but two languages alien to its host, thereby demonstrating its linguistic flexibility.¹¹ But did demons have a natural language all of their own? In rabbinic literature and magical texts we find the notions

 On the collective personality and voice of the crowd, see Lunn-Rockliffe (2017)..  Jerome, V. Hilarion. 18.22.  On Jerome’s revelation of his linguistic range see King (2009), 212; on Jerome’s struggles with Aramaic, see Adams (2003), 268 – 9.  Apuleius, Met., 9.39; see Weingarten (1997), 386 for a comparison between this episode with Jerome. There are also examples of characters in classical Latin drama and satire who do code-switch into Greek in passages of direct speech; cf. Adams (2003), 21, 351– 355.  See Kalleres (2015), 73 – 82 on the “compulsory, ex opere operato efficacy” of exorcisms found in John Chrysostom.  Trzcionka (2007), 151.

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that angels and demons communicated in a single language, whether some esoteric heavenly language unknown to man, or a human language like Hebrew or Aramaic.¹² By contrast, Evagrius, highly influential in monastic circles, reported the notion that demons had no language of their own and had to learn human languages in order to speak to humans: “Now someone said that their languages too are varied, because of the variety of human beings. There are some who say that among them there are even ancient languages, so that there may be found opposing the Hebrews those who use the Hebrew language, opposing the Greeks those who speak Greek and so on.”¹³ That is, demons chose languages appropriate to their particular targets. The idea that demons operated a policy of linguistic “targeting” can be seen in a famous anecdote in Theodoret’s mid-fifth-century Religious History, a text which is explicitly framed as a set of narratives (diēgēmata) about the struggles and triumphs of holy men against the demons.¹⁴ In his Life of James of Cyrrhestica, Theodoret recounted a frightening nocturnal encounter in which his association with the holy James (provided in the form of an old cloak of the saint) protected him from harm: Once by night there came a wicked demon who exclaimed in Syriac, ‚Why do you war on Marcion? Why on earth have you joined battle with him? What harm has he ever done to you? End the war, stop your hostility, or you will learn by experience how good it is to stay quiet. Know well that I would long ago have pierced you through, if I had not seen the choir of the martyrs with James protecting you.‘¹⁵

The snappy questions and threats of the demon are here expressed in direct discourse, perhaps flagging up the fact that Theodoret himself was at the scene, although he also invented vivid speeches for scenes where he had not been present, and had stressed in his prologue to the Religious History that his account was reliable whether he had been an eyewitness or not, in the same way that all of the evangelists were reliable, even though only two (Matthew and John) were eyewitnesses to the events they retold.¹⁶ The significance of the fact that Theodoret’s demon spoke Syriac has been interpreted in various ways by scholars, for example as a way of Theodoret stressing his own bilingual capacities and authority over and popularity among “rural, lowly” peoples, or as reflecting the associations between Aramaic and (demonic) pagan religious practice.¹⁷ But the story also reveals the pragmatic cunning of the demon in its choice of language, speaking in Syriac in order to make itself understood to both the bilingual Theodoret and his presumably monolingual compan-

 Poirier (2010) and Smelik (2013), 130.  Evagrius, Kephalaia Gnostica 4.35. See Brakke (2006), 75.  Theodoret, Hist. eccl., prologue 4– 6. On Theodoret and diēgēsis, see Rapp (1998) and Krueger (2004), 15 – 32; on demons in this text, see Adnès/Canivet (1967).  Theodoret, Hist. eccl., 21.15 – 16.  Theodoret, Hist. eccl., prologue 11. On Theodoret’s construction of his own credibility and discussion of eyewitness accounts, see Krueger (2004), 28 – 30.  See Urbainczyk (2000), and Taylor (2002), 315.

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ions, for the latter were explicitly said to have overheard, and (implicitly) to have understood the demon.¹⁸ Where in Jerome’s Latin Life of Hilarion a demon was reported in indirect speech to have spoken in Syriac and Greek, in Theodoret’s Greek Life of James of Cyrrhestica, a demon which is said to have spoken Syriac is nonetheless quoted directly in Greek, highlighting the artificial quality of what otherwise seems like mimetic reportage. This phenomenon can be paralleled in hagiographic texts in other languages, as in one of John of Ephesus’ Syriac Lives of the Eastern Saints, where demons harass Paul the Anchorite; they were described at first as cry), presumably in incomprehensible Hunnic language, but ing “barbarously” ( there follows a passage of direct demonic speech in which their cries coalesce into unified Syriac speech: ‚Henceforth the cross has protected this man against us. This man has conquered‘.¹⁹ Alongside the idea that demons were linguistically competent and flexible, able to switch human languages at will to target their victims most effectively, we find in hagiography allied notions that demons had some kind of preferred human language, whether the first one that they had learned, one that they had learnt through a particular human victim, or one that was spoken in the region they haunted; that is, demons had something akin to a “mother tongue”. Cyril of Scythopolis’s mid-sixth century Life of Euthymius added to the narration of the life of the fifth-century saint an account of miracles worked by his relics at his monastery in the Judean desert in Cyril’s own day, which included a story about a fellow-monk “of Galatian stock” called Procopius who had been terrorized for years by an evil spirit.²⁰ The demon manifested itself when Procopius was received in the monastery and performed an act of veneration at Euthymius’ tomb: “[Procopius] was repeatedly hurled to the ground, and his tongue was tied, so that he was prevented from speaking to us; if he was firmly forced to do so, he spoke to us in Galatian.” (Presumably Procopius spoke in Greek the rest of the time, in order to be comprehensible to his fellowmonks). A miraculous cure was eventually effected by the relics of the saint, “who expelled the demon and loosed the tying of his tongue”. This anecdote suggests some kind of elision of demonic and human linguistic capacity and identity; either a Galatian monk had attracted a Galatian demon, or an indwelling demon had learnt the native language of his host. If “ethnic” identity in late antiquity was partly constructed through cultural markers such as language, then demons too could be said to have some kind of ethnicity, or at least sense of origin and “home”.²¹ The linking of a demon’s language and local background were not a Christian hagiographical invention; they are fa-

 See Millar (2007), 119.  John of Ephesus, Life of Paul the Anchorite.  Cyril of Scythopolis, Lives of the Monks of Palestine (Life of Euthymius) 55. On Cyril’s Life of Euthymius, see Krueger (2004), 75 – 9.  On language and ethnic identity in late antiquity, see Pohl (1998), 22– 7. For another perspective on the “ethnicity” of demons, see Johannessen (2015).

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mously found in Lucian’s second-century Lover of Lies, which describes an exorcism performed by a Syrian from Palestine: He stands over them as they lie, and asks the spirit where it is from. The patient says not a word, but the demon in him makes answer, in Greek or in some foreign tongue as the case may be [ἑλληνίζων ἢ βαρβαρίζων ὁ πόθεν ἂν αὐτὸς ᾖ], stating where it comes from, and how it entered into him.²²

By juxtaposing demons’ affinity for a particular language with the notion of their having a distinct place of origin, Lucian here implies some connection between the two. Indeed, pinning down a demon’s identity and origin was an important goal for exorcistic interrogations, which regularly included questions such as “who are you?”, and “where are you from?”. For example, Theodoret tells a story about a rustic demoniac brought by his (Theodoret’s) maternal grandmother to Peter the Galatian: “he [Peter] asked him where he came from [πόθεν τε ἔιη] and what gave him power against one of God’s servants.”²³ Despite repeated interrogation and prayer, the demoniac resisted in silence. Eventually, after Peter ordered the “sinful one” (ἀλιτήριος) to speak by the power of God (in a pithy formulation reported in direct speech), the “avenging spirit” (ἀλάστωρ) responded: “shouting in a great voice, he said: ‚I haunt Mount Amanus and seeing this man draw water from a spring I made him my abode‘”. The demon’s eventual confession reveals that it had a profound sense of belonging to, even ownership of, a particular place in a natural landscape; indeed, the affinity of demons for particular spots in the wilderness uninhabited by humans is commonly reported in late antique literature, as also in modern Greece.²⁴ There is some important ideological “othering” in many of the episodes discussed above. Languages spoken by demons were often deemed to be bestial, barbaric, or both; indeed, Kaster suggests that switching from a “language of culture” to the vernacular was a mark of demonic possession, as demonstrated by Jerome’s Frankish army officer.²⁵ We have already seen how Jerome described the demon inside the Frank as “roaring” (rugiens) in Syriac, using a verb that was most often applied to animals, especially lions.²⁶ Jerome’s description of the sounds of Syriac in this passage also highlights its wild and rough qualities, in line with his explicitly pejorative characterization of the language elsewhere as “barbarous gibberish” (bar-

 Lucian, Philops., 16.  Theodoret, Hist. eccl., 9.10.  On the place of demons in the ascetic desert, see Brakke (2006) passim, and on the place of demonic exotiká in the modern Greek countryside, see Stewart (1991), 164– 172.  Kaster (1988), 20, n. 25.  See, for example, 1 Peter 5:8, in which the devil is described “tamquam leo rugiens” (cited by Jerome in his Letter 14.4). Two lions also appear in Jerome’s Life of Paul of Thebes 16.3, “fremitu ingenti rugientes”.

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barus semisermo).²⁷ Cyril’s inclusion of the detail that the otherwise dumbstruck demoniac Procopius would, when forced, only speak in Galatian, could be a rare piece of evidence for the survival of Galatian, or it could just be a loose labelling of the demoniac’s otherwise incomprehensible language.²⁸ In Syriac texts, other languages were “demonized”, such as the “barbarous” language of Huns by John of Ephesus.²⁹ That is, demons’ affinity for barbarous languages revealed something of their wild and bestial character. Besides alterations of language, we have seen that demons affected the speech patterns of their victims in other ways, notably raising their volume in line with the gospel model of the Gadarane demoniac.³⁰ In Jerome’s Life of Hilarion, demons’ voices mingled in a shout (clamor). The Syriac-speaking demon that appeared to Theodoret came “shouting” (βοῶν) and “exclaiming” (κεχρημένος), and the demon from Mount Amanus “proclaiming in a great voice, shouting” (φωνῇ μεγίστῃ χρησάμενος ἐβόα). However, another possible effect of possession was to silence the human victim, as in the cases of the tongue-tied Procopius described by Cyril, and the silent demoniac interrogated by Peter the Galatian reported by Theodoret. Somewhat later, John of Ephesus suggested that when John the Nazirite was silently contesting with demons, anyone who was present thought that he “had a demon in that he had become silent”.³¹ Again, the archetype for the muting effect of possession can be found in the gospels.³² Both noisy and silent demoniacs shared the complete effacement of their human personhood – a phenomenon which was often emphasized in the framing narrative. Thus, for example, Cyril relates how a foreigner was driven to the monastery of Euthymius by a demon, which croaked: ‚What have you to do with me, Euthymius? […] Where are you drawing me? I shan’t come out!‘. The demoniac spent a restorative night incubating at the tomb of the saint and the next morning was “in his right mind and speaking intelligibly.” When asked, ‚Why did you come here and why were you shouting?‘, the exorcised man replied: ‚I do not know what you mean, nor how I came here‘.³³ This shows how the personality and memory of the demoniac had been so totally displaced or erased by his possessing demon that he did not remember the experience of being possessed nor what he had said while possessed. This distinct separation between demonic speaker and silent host had been specified earlier by Lucian, in his account of a typical exorcism effected by a Syrian: “the patient says not a word, but the demon in him makes answer” (ὁ μὲν νοσῶν αὐτὸς

 Jerome, Epist., 7.2.  Clackson (2012), 46 – 7.  John of Ephesus, Life of Paul the Anchorite.  Matthew 8:29, “he cried out, saying” (ἔκραξαν λέγοντες); Luke 8:28, “he cried out [ἀνακράξας][…] and said with a loud voice” (φωνῇ μεγάλῃ εἶπεν).  John of Ephesus, Life of John the Nazirite.  Cf. Matthew 9:32– 3; 12:22; Luke 11:14.  Cyril of Scythopolis, Life of Euthymius 56.

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σιωπᾷ, ὁ δαίμων δὲ ἀποκρίνεται). Another way of distinguishing the speaking spirit from its human host was to differentiate the speech patterns of the two, as in Philostratus’ account of a teenager possessed by a demon – who turns out to be the ghost of a soldier – who was described by his mother as not retaining his own voice, but speaking “in a deep hollow tone, as men do” (ἀλλὰ βαρὺ φθέγγεται καὶ κοῖλον, ὥσπερ οἱ ἄνδρες).³⁴ Such notions of the separation of voice and agency of demonic possessing spirit and victim were also widespread in Christian hagiography. For example, in an account of the demonic possession of a young woman who is seated on the bishop’s throne in a martyrs’ chapel and pretending to be Mary, John of Ephesus describes her encounter with a group of monks thus: “that young woman, being unaware even herself of what was happening, spoke with them – or rather, the demon in her, spoke to them”.³⁵ A crucial further feature of demonic speech is the character of their contents: demons lamented, complained, and cursed. They frequently resisted interrogation, persecutors, themselves almost always quoted in direct speech. They also defended themselves. In Jerome’s story about the possessed Frankish army officer, the demon confessed how he had entered his victim, and excused this on the grounds of the operation of magic. Theodoret tells a story about a cook employed by his mother who had been possessed; Peter the Galatian asked the indwelling demon to tell the cause of his power.³⁶ Theodoret reports the beginning of the demon’s reply in indirect speech: he had witnessed the cook dressing up as a monk and performing fake exorcisms on servant girls who were acting as raving demoniacs. He then switches into direct speech to explain his motivation for possession: ‚I was standing at the door […] finding these boastful remarks about monks unbearable, I decided to learn by experiment the power these servants bragged of possessing […] I intruded myself into this man […] and now I have found out how I would be driven out by the monks.‘

These defences were in part instructive, revealing demonic modes of operation to humans in ways that underscored the dangers of activities from magic to acting tales of possession and exorcism.

2 Voicing demons in hymnography Demonic speech was not only embedded in hagiographical tales; it also featured in monologues and dialogues in hymns performed in liturgical contexts. Syriac madrashe by Ephrem and Greek kontakia by Romanos expanded on scriptural stories such as the descent to hell, or the exorcism of the Gadarene demoniac, through in-

 Philostratos, Ap., 3.38.  John of Ephesus, Lives of Two Monks.  Theodoret, Hist. eccl., 9.9.

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venting speeches for the protagonists, including death, Satan, and the demons.³⁷ Although these hymns mostly comprise lengthy portions of direct speech, they also contain framing passages of theological and moral commentary in the poet’s own voice, and regularly include cues which inform the listener of a change of speaker, and sometimes describe their mode of speech. Speakers in the hymns are further differentiated in the style of their speech (which ranges from lengthy, lyrical monologue to more staccato exclamations), and in its content, which reveals varying emotions (from confidence to despair) and moral characteristics (from pride to humility). The practice of composing direct speeches for scriptural and other protagonists drew on both classical and near eastern traditions. In the Greek-speaking world, we must look to the well-established schoolroom practices of ethopoeia and prosopopoeia, the imitation of a person speaking (whether fictional, dead, or a personification), in which Christian writers were steeped.³⁸ Christians writing in Syriac may not all have been educated in the Greek rhetorical tradition, but they would have had access to examples of invented speech in translations of Greek patristic texts into Syriac; they also had access to, and were likely steeped in, a much long Mesopotamian tradition of dialogue poetry, which Brock has shown was formative to the tradition of precedence disputes or soghyatha. ³⁹ It is also likely that Ephrem’s poems influenced Romanos, whether directly or through some intermediary, explaining some of the echoes and resemblances between the two.⁴⁰ Where the hagiographies discussed above could have been read both “on the page” and out loud, these hymns were primarily composed to be performed in church for particular liturgical occasions. Ephrem’s madrashe were sung to a named melody (a qala) either by a soloist or by choirs of consecrated women, and Romanos’ kontakia were chanted by himself or another singular cantor, with congregational participation in the refrains.⁴¹ The fact that both kinds of hymns were sung, rather than spoken, would have served to mark them off from everyday speech. As Derek Krueger has shown, first-person liturgical speech both revealed and constituted the selves of singers and listeners, aligning them with biblical characters, whether villains or heroes.⁴² The tradition of inventing speeches for infernal characters in hymnography would have created the suggestive spectacle of Christian performers “ventriloquizing” evil speakers from the demons and death to Satan himself, thereby raising questions about the relationship between demonic character and human performer.

 On Satan’s speeches in a kontakion of Romanos, see Frank (2013).  See Schamp/Amato (2005) for a number of case-studies of ancient ethopoeiai.  For a study of the longue durée of Aramaic poetry, see Rodrigues Pereira (1997), and on the Mesopotamian inheritance of Syriac dispute poems, see Brock (2001).  Brock (1985; 1989).  On the choral performance of Ephrem’s hymns, see Cox Miller (2005); on the composition and “first-person” performance of Romanos’ kontakia, see Krueger (2014), 29 – 44.  Krueger (2014), 1– 28.

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Ephrem’s Nisibene Hymns were composed for performance in Edessa, where Ephrem had fled after the Persians took Nisibis in 363. The first half of the cycle, 1– 34, centre on the city of Nisibis, while the remainder, 35 – 77, deal with scriptural and theological topics, including a cycle (35 – 42) of madrashe set before and during Christ’s descent to Sheol which contain dramatic dialogues between infernal characters.⁴³ The first stanza of the first hymn in the descent cycle (35) sets the scene: the Devil and his ministers gathered and “they began one by one to relate all which they had endured”.⁴⁴ In the stanzas that follow, sin, Satan, death and Sheol take turns in mournfully enumerating Jesus’ miracles, expanding on gospel pericopes and sometimes relating them to Old Testament prophecies. These speakers are powerfully singular and have distinct personalities and outlooks. Satan debates whether to kill Jesus or not, weighing up the evidence for his human weakness against some troubling indications of his purity and power. He summarizes a long speech by proclaiming: ‚Lo! I am afraid of both things, as well as [Jesus’] death, so also his life.‘ The demons, speaking “chorally” as a group, encourage him in their reply: The demons answered the evil one and counselled him: ‚Though both these things be grievous, somewhat lighter to us is the trouble, that we should choose his death rather than his life. Let death tell us whether any one from among the righteous has ever from the first been aroused again‘.⁴⁵

This is one of many speeches made by infernal characters which is rich in dramatic irony, since the singers and audiences of this hymn would have been expected to know that Jesus had indeed rescued the righteous dead from Sheol. The demons are relatively minor players in these hymns. In contrast to the major speakers Satan and Death, they are not individuated, but act as a corporate body, a crowd speaking in one voice, much as the Legion of demons in the Gadarane demoniac. When they do speak, they are consistently at odds with Satan. Later on in Nisibene Hymn 35, Ephrem describes the demons rebuking the Devil for dithering thus: “Then clamoured the host of demons and said: ‚Hateful is the sign that we see in you, for never from the beginning has it thus happened to you. In prompt counsels you were excellent.‘” They then command him with singular imperatives to ‚Arise, go forth‘, before shifting to a first-person plural imperfect to demand ‚let us fight with him (i. e. Jesus)‘.⁴⁶ They conclude by admitting that ‚this would be a reproach to us, that we being many should be overcome by one‘. This is another unwittingly prophetic comment, since Ephrem’s congregation would have known that this was precisely what was going to happen. In Nisibene Hymn 41, towards the end of the cycle, the demons con-

   

Rodrigues Pereira (1997), 110 – 14. Ephrem, Nisibene Hymn 35.1. Ibid., 35.15. Ibid., 35.19.

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tinue to be characterized as quarrelsome: “The servants of the evil one disputed with him and refuted his words with rejoinders”.⁴⁷ There then follows a portion of direct demonic speech in which the demons argue that even the powerful Elisha who had raised the dead is himself dead in Sheol. Satan turns their words back on them, reminding them that Elisha’s very bones had raised the dead, and that Jesus might have an even more dramatic effect in Sheol if he were to die. Satan goes on to make a kind of inadvertent confession, commanding the demons, ‚remember how much greater Jesus is than us my comrades‘.⁴⁸ The demons emerge from their brief portions of speech in the Nisibene hymns as disputatious, eager to fight, and unwisely incautious, compared to their wordier and more prudent leader, Satan. The demons’ words reveal them to have some knowledge of scripture, but, like heretics, an imperfect understanding of its meaning. Their failure to understand the true nature of Jesus is related to a fatal ignorance that they are bringing on their own destruction. Their speech thus makes important moral, exegetical and theological points, and is also comically misguided. Ephrem’s madrashe required good scriptural knowledge and a sense of theological propriety on the part of his congregation; armed with this, listeners would have understood that the demons and Satan knew the contents of the Old Testament well but had not correctly discerned its prophetic messages about Jesus. The performance of these hymns may also have shaped their reception. The singer or singers performing these hymns were regularly using first-person singular and first-person plural verbs and nouns in passages of direct demonic speech, thus eliding evil characters from the scriptural past with the liturgical self of the present. From what we know about the musical performance of Ephrem’s hymns, demonic speech would not have been set apart from that of other speakers in musical terms, since each stanza in a particular madrasha would have been sung to the same qala or melody.⁴⁹ The only potential performance direction comes in the framing narrative of a madrasha indicating the tone or volume of the direct speech that follows: thus, for instance “Then the host of demons clamoured ( ) and said […]”.⁵⁰ A distinctive timbre was also sometimes conferred on passages of demonic speech through poetic devices of rhythm, alliteration and assonance, as for example noted by Pereira of Nisibene Hymn 35.19, where the demons “lend extra force to their words by the accumulation of /k/-, /kr/- and /kt/- sounds”.⁵¹ Demonic speech was not just instructively theological, filling out scriptural episodes like the descent to hell which were otherwise obscure. It could also be reassuringly, triumphally comic. In the final hymn in the Nisibene cycle (42) on Christ’s descent into Sheol, Satan laments for the sufferings of the demons in the present tense:     

Ibid., 41.10 Ibid., 41.11. Brock (2008), 660 – 2. Ephrem, Nisibene Hymn 35.19. Rodrigues Pereira (1997), 121.

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‚The party of the demons, lo!, it is spoiled; the party of the devils endures stripes; though there be none that lifts the rod openly, the demons bellow with pain‘.⁵² Satan uses the vivid Syriac verb “to bellow” or “low like a bull” to characterize the demons’ noise, evoking their wordless, pained lament. Satan is speaking at the moment immediately after Jesus entered Sheol and rescued the dead; however, the vivid present tense of his monologue brings this event into the liturgical present. Indeed, the broad theme of Nisibene Hymn 42 is the painful effect in the present day on Satan and the demons of the relics of the apostle Thomas, whose presence at Edessa was already celebrated in the third-century Acts of Thomas. ⁵³ Satan’s own words, and the noisy suffering of the demons which he reported, were thus set in a more immediate time-frame than that of Christ’s descent into hell, reminding Ephrem’s congregation that the effects of Jesus’ descent were continuous and contemporary. Writing over a hundred years later, and likely with some knowledge of Ephrem’s hymns, Romanos also composed direct demonic speeches in kontakia to be sung by a cantor in church in Constantinople. A kontakion on the crucifixion opens with the Devil lamenting to the demons that Jesus’ healings are wounding and destroying him, and asking them for advice.⁵⁴ They reply more sympathetically than Ephrem’s demons: ‚Belial, do not fear, take courage and be strong in mind‘, and remind him that he has human allies in the descendants of Cain, naming various agents of the passion.⁵⁵ Romanos reports that “As soon as he heard these words, the Devil was pleased, and rejoicing, he said to them: ‚Friends, I am delighted that you strengthened me in my plans, with the result that I advance with confidence and unite with the Jews‘”.⁵⁶ Again, as in Ephrem, although the bulk of this kontakion comprises direct, present-tense first-person speech, the past-tense framing narrative helps to direct the performer and listeners to interpret the state of mind of the speaker. When Romanos sang that the Devil was pleased with the demons’ counsel and rejoiced, this could have been a cue for the performer to inflect his demeanour and delivery accordingly, and it also reminded the congregation that speech could persuade or galvanise action, whether bad (as here), or good. In a kontakion on the Gadarene demoniac, the direct speech of the possessing demon(s) Legion expands considerably on the Gospel accounts of its speech to Jesus, and slips like its Gospel archetypes between singular and plural pronominal and verbal self-description: “[he] said: ‚What do you have to do with us, Jesus? You are a man to all appearances; we do not submit to a man; but if you are God,

 Ephrem, Nisibene Hymn 42.8.  Saint-Laurent (2015), 33 – 35.  Romanos, Kontakion 28.1– 3 (numbering according to edition by de Matons; no. 21 in the edition by Maas-Trypanis).  Ibid., 28.4– 6.  Ibid., 28.7.

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I beg you do not put me to torture, O Master of all‘”.⁵⁷ The demon’s lament contains some instructive Christological speculation; Jesus is defined as a “a man to all appearances” and is criticized later for acting “as though he were God”. The fact that such notions are put in the mouths of demons of course alerts the listener to reject them as heresy. Romanos’ kontakia show his infernal characters – like Ephrem’s – to have knowledge but not a good understanding of the contents of scripture. They also display a kind of knowing comedy in their integration of a confessional refrain as the last line of each strophe, to be sung by the whole congregation, meaning that Satan and the demons alike undercut their bold plans to conquer Jesus, and their denials of his divinity, by inadvertently confessing him, as here, to be “Master of all”. The functions of speeches for demons in madrashe and kontakia were varied. In late antique progymnasmata by writers like Aphthonius, it was suggested that invented speeches should have an ethical purpose, that is, that they should reveal something important about the character of the speaker. As Krueger has shown of liturgical texts, voicing the thoughts of characters encouraged performers and listeners alike to identify and align their own thoughts and speech accordingly – in the case of the demons, eschewing any moral, exegetical or theological position which they espoused. As well as having a serious instructive purpose, demonic speech was simultaneously reassuring and comic: demons’ speech revealed them to be weaker than feared, whether self-deludingly over-confident, or pathetically defeated. It could thus be humiliating for the demons themselves. In the very opening of his kontakion on the Gadarene demoniac, Romanos stated in propria persona that there was something powerfully efficacious in the very liturgical act of rehearsing the downfall of the demons, using deliberately dramaturgical language: “Whenever we rejoice in making a comedy of their fall, whenever in the churches we represent the dramatic triumph over the demons, the devil really suffers”.⁵⁸ That is, the audience for demonic speech included the demons themselves, who were humiliated and defeated by the repetition of their downfall, and by hearing their own fatally ignorant or overly confident words with the painful wisdom of hindsight.

Conclusions We have encountered a number of loquacious demons in different kinds of late antique Christian texts – both those whose speech is narrated indirectly in hagiography, and those who are voiced directly by the performers of liturgical hymns. Hagiographical texts share a vivid sense of the disruptive effect on human behaviour  Romanos, Kontakion 22.15 (numbering according to edition by de Matons; no. 11 in the edition by Maas-Trypanis).  Romanos, Kontakion 22.2 (numbering according to edition by de Matons; no. 11 in the edition by Maas-Trypanis).

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of demonic possession. Demons’ speech was often loud, rough, and barbarous, and differed in tone or language from that of their victims. They were given to lamenting and cursing, and could only be expelled or subdued by the powerful exorcistic words of holy men. Lives of saints nonetheless varied in their strategies for reporting demonic speech. Most reported it in general terms, either through indirect speech and paraphrase, or through characterization of the horrible sounds and noises made which cannot, except perhaps through onomatopoeia, be represented in words on the page. However, some texts contain portions of direct demonic speech which are variously responses to saintly interrogations, direct accusations, threats, curses, or excuses. These kinds of speech are arguably more dramatically effective in direct than reported speech, vividly evoking the horrible reality of living with a demon inside, and even offering comic relief, when the demons confess themselves to be beaten. They also break up the indirect texture of past-tense narrative, and serve to underpin authorial truth claims, whether as direct earwitnesses to the speeches reported, or as reporting accounts of others who were present. By contrast, liturgical hymns relied much more heavily on extended passages of direct demonic speech, in line with their preference for dramatic dialogue and monologue. In this context, the speech of demons was occasionally differentiated from that of other speakers through framing details about its tone or volume, but in general, the character of demons emerged through the very style and sound of their speech (as in, for example, the harsh cadences of their choices of words), or through its content (whether arrogant or disputatious). Furthermore, the fact that demons’ speeches in hymns were couched in the present tense served to bring the scriptural past right into the present, meaning that the humiliation of the demons at key points such as the exorcism of the Gadarene demoniac, the crucifixion, and Jesus’ descent to hell, became urgently contemporary, and allowed congregations to overhear the demons’ defeat in their own day. In both hymns and hagiographies, the powerful archetypes of demonic speech found in scripture can be discerned. Thus the influence of the story of the Gadarene exorcism, in its slippage between singular and plural demons shouting, lamenting and pleading with Jesus, can be seen not just in the liturgical re-telling of the episode by Romanos, but in the numerous hagiographic narrations of encounters between late antique holy men and demons. Christian writers of late antiquity could also draw on notions of the behaviour of possessing spirits found in non-Christian novels and satires of the second sophistic. Finally, while there may be evidence for considerable intertextuality in early Christian representations of demonic speech, we must also remember that these hagiographies and hymns were composed within and for communities which thought themselves to be living with demons. As such, they should be approached as texts with both descriptive and prescriptive powers, narrating and imitating the speech of demons to commemorate the demonic past and present in recognizable terms, and to instruct their readers and listeners in the weaknesses of those demons, and the means to defeat them.

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Bibliography Adams, James, Bilingualism and the Latin Language, Cambridge 2003. Adnès, André/Canivet, Pierre, “Guérisons miraculeuses et exorcismes dans l’Histoire Philothée de Théodoret de Cyr”, in: Revue de l’histoire des religions 171.1 (1967), 53 – 82. Brakke, David, Demons and the Making of the Monk, Harvard 2006. Brock, Sebastian, “Syriac and Greek Hymnography: Problems of Origins”, in: Studia Patristica 26 (1985), 77 – 81. Brock, Sebastian, “From Ephrem to Romanos”, in: Studia Patristica 20 (1989), 139 – 51. Brock, Sebastian, “The Dispute Poem from Sumer to Syriac”, in: Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 1 (2001), 3 – 10. Brock, Sebastian, “Poetry and Hymnography (3): Syriac”, in: The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, ed. Susan Ashbrook Harvey/David G. Hunter, Oxford 2008, 657 – 671. Burnyeat, Myles, “Art and Mimesis in Plato’s Republic”, in: Plato on Art and Beauty, ed. Alison E. Denham, Basingstoke 2012, 54 – 74. Clackson, James, “Language Maintenance and Language Shift in the Mediterranean World during the Roman Empire”, in: Multilingualism in the Graeco-Roman Worlds, ed. Alex Mullen/Patrick James, Cambridge 2012, 36 – 57. Cousland, J.R.C., The Crowds in the Gospel of Matthew, Leiden 2002. Cox Miller, Patricia, “Revisiting the Daughters of the Covenant: Women’s Choirs and Sacred Song in Ancient Syriac Christianity”, in: Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 8.2 (2005), 125 – 149 (http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol8No2/HV8N2Harvey.html, last access 21st July 2016). Fludernik, Monika, The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction. The Linguistic Representation of Speech and Consciousness, London 1993. Frank, Georgia, “Memory and Forgetting in Romanos the Melodist’s On the Newly Baptized”, in: Between Personal and Institutional Religion. Self, Doctrine and Practice in Late Antique Eastern Christianity, ed. Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony/Lorenzo Perrone, Turnhout 2013, 37 – 55. Johannessen, Hazel, “The Genos of Demons and ‚Ethnic‘ Identity in Eusebius’ ‚Praeparatio Evangelica‘”, in: Journal of Ecclesiastical History 66.1 (2015), 1 – 18. Kalleres, Dayna, City of Demons. Violence, Ritual and Christian Power in Late Antiquity, Philadelphia 2015. Kaster, Robert, Guardians of Language. The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity, Berkeley 1988. King, Daniel, “Vir quadrilinguis? Syriac in Jerome and Jerome in Syriac”, in: Jerome of Stridon. His Life, Writings and Legacy, ed. Andrew Cain/Josef Lössl, Aldershot 2009, 209 – 224. Krueger, Derek, Writing and Holiness. The Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East, Philadelphia 2004. Krueger, Derek, Liturgical Subjects. Christian Ritual, Biblical Narrative, and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium, Philadelphia 2014. Lunn-Rockliffe, Sophie, “Chaotic Mob or Disciplined Army? Collective Bodies of Demons in Ascetic Literature”, in: Studia Patristica 82.8 (2017), 33 – 50. Millar, Fergus, “Theodoret of Cyrrhus. A Syrian in Greek dress?”, in: From Rome to Constantinople. Studies in Honour of Averil Cameron, ed. Hagit Amirav/Bas ter Haar Romeny, Leuven 2007, 105 – 26. Pohl, Walter, “Telling the Difference. Signs of Ethnic Identity”, in: Strategies of Distinction. The Construction of the Ethnic Communities. 300 – 800, ed. Walter Pohl/Helmut Reimitz, Leiden 1998,17 – 69. Poirier, John, The Tongues of Angels. The Concept of Angelic Languages in Classical Jewish and Christian Texts, Tübingen 2010.

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Rapp, Claudia, “Storytelling as Spiritual Communication in Early Greek Hagiography. The Use of Diegesis”, in: Journal of Early Christian Studies 6.3 (1998), 431 – 448. Rodrigues Pereira, Alphons S., Studies in Aramaic Poetry. c. 100 BCE – c. 600 CE. Selected Jewish, Christian and Samaritan Poems, Assen 1997. Saint-Laurent, Jeanne-Nicole Mellon, Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches, Berkeley 2015. Schamp, Jacques/Amato, Eugenio, Ethopoiia. La représentation de caractères entre fiction scolaire et réalité vivante à l’époque impériale et tardive, Salerno 2005. Smelik, Willem, Rabbis, Language and Translation in Late Antiquity, Cambridge 2013. Stewart, Charles, Demons and the Devil. Moral Imagination in Modern Greek Culture, Princeton 1991. Taylor, David, “Bilingualism and Diglossia in Late Antique Syria and Mesopotamia”, in: Bilingualism in Ancient Society. Language Contact and the Written Word, ed. James Noel Adams/Mark Janse/Simon Swain, Oxford 2002, 298 – 331. Trzcionka, Silke, Magic and the Supernatural in Fourth-Century Syria, London/New York 2007. Urbainczyk, Theresa, “‚The Devil spoke Syriac to me.‘ Theodoret in Syria”, in: Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity, ed. Stephen Mitchell/Geoffrey Greatrex, London 2000, 253 – 65. Weingarten, Susan, “Jerome and the Golden Ass”, in: Studia Patristica 33 (1997), 383 – 388. Van der Toorn, Karel/Becking, Bob/van der Horst, Pieter Willem, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Leiden 21999.

Jan N. Bremmer

Demons: An Epilogue

At the end of this interesting and innovative collection of papers, the following question naturally emerges: what have we learned. Despite the original aim of the organisers of the conference on which this book is based, I think it is fair to say that questions of genre were not uppermost in the mind of most speakers. In that respect the definitive title, Demons in Late Antiquity. Their Perception and Transformation in Different Literary Genres, better reflects the various contributions. I will come back to the problem of genre at the conclusion of my epilogue, but I will first make some observations on the problems raised by the various contributions, such as what terminology should we use? Where do we locate the demons? Who are they? What do they do? And, not to be neglected, how do we get rid of them? But I will start by saying something about the origin and development of the term daimôn, as both its etymological origin and early development are still not well explained in the recent literature surveyed by Eva Elm in her Introduction.¹ In Homer, our oldest source for the term, it is used whenever the Greeks felt that a divinity intervened, for a short time, directly and concretely in their life.² The concrete action probably has to be connected with its etymology. Daimôn derives from Greek daiomai, ‚to divide, to distribute’.³ This division and/or distribution is not something abstract but derives from the sacrificial vocabulary, just like the related Greek word dais, the Homeric word for banquet.⁴ In theory this distribution was in equal parts, but in reality of course not all pieces of meat are the same, and one could be lucky or unlucky with the cutting up of the sacrificial animal. Thus we already find the terms eudaimôn, ‚lucky‘, and kakodaimôn, ‚unlucky‘, in the earliest Greek texts, and in the fifth century daimôn is often almost equivalent to ‚chance‘.⁵ Similarly, the names of the most important Greek gods of fate, Moira and Aisa (related to Oscan aeteis, ‚part‘) are also words meaning ‚portion of meat‘. Apparently, the Greeks took their ideas about fate from sacrifice, the occasion in life where portions of meat were cut and distributed. It is only in Empedocles, but perhaps via Hesiod (Op. 122 – 26 with Verdenius ad loc.), that we start to hear of a special category, whereby the meaning of daimôn in

 The fullest modern survey now is Quack (2012); add Gieseler Greenbaum (2016); Bohak (2017); Feldt, (2018); Hartmut Leppin (2018), 92– 104.  De Jong (1987), 158, 239 – 240.  Beekes (2010), 1.297.  Bakker (2013), 38 – 39.  Eudaimôn: Hesiod, Op. 826; Eumelus, fr. 8.1 Bernabé; Alcman fr. 5.col.2.12 Davies. Kakodaimôn: Hesiod, fr. 302.21 Merkelbach/West; Euripides, Hipp. 1362. Fifth-century: Fraenkel on Aeschylus, Ag. 1314. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110632231-010

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his text is still not wholly clear.⁶ But certainly new is the fact that we now do hear of evil daimones. However, it is not before Plato’s Symposium (202d/203a) that we find the demons as a category between mortals and immortals and similarly so in the Laws, as was still the case for Plotinus. In some ways, they occupy the same position as the pagan heroes, who will be considered demons in Late Antiquity, by Augustine, for example.⁷ How do we account for this development? As far as I can see, nobody has offered a convincing explanation so far. It may be that with the increasing philosophical critique on traditional religion a need arose for new supernatural categories, but that is as far as we can go. In any case, we can see an increasing ‚demonisation‘ in the course of late antique Christianity, as Nicole Hartmann (Chapter 3) and Emmanouela Grypeou (Chapter 4) persuasively argue, even though this may partially be due to the great influence and weight of the hagiographical writings and their focus on temptations of the ascetics. In the early Greek texts we see no specific names for the daimones. We should also note that in earlier Greek religion demons basically still are a collective, not individuals. In the Gospels, however, as Annette Weissenrieder (Chapter 2) shows, they often are individual ones and mentioned in the singular. Moreover, in the Luke Vetus Latina we now find a much more varied vocabulary, often deriving from medical authors, distancing itself in this respect from the Gospel’s Greek original and perhaps wanting to cater for a Western readership that was less used to demons (below). Yet in his hagiographical biographies Jerome still mentions Fauni, satyrs and incubi, that is, an identified but still collective group of demons, of which the Fauni of course lived in the wilderness (below), like the satyrs, whereas incubi were especially active at night in the home. Just as the ancients could speak of the midday demon, the daemon meridianus, so the night was also a typical time for the appearance of demons in antiquity, as it still is today, at least in horror movies.⁸ Where do we locate the demons? It is perhaps not surprising that there are demons in hell. But as Grypeou shows, it would be wrong to see all malicious inhabitants of hell as demons. Some are avenging angels, whereas others are just monstrous figures who are not associated with Satan or necessarily put in opposition to God. In late antiquity, though, as hagiographical literature illustrates, the wilderness is the locus par excellence of demons, as is clear from several of the contributions, especially from Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe (Chapter 8). This is of course already the case in the oldest hagiographical biography, the Vita Antonii. In this respect, the demons could easily merge with Greek and Roman ideas about civilisation, as hybrid

 See, most recently, Tor (2017), 318 – 339, but note that his text of B 115 DK differs considerably from that of Empedocles 8b Mansfeld-Primavesi.  Aug. Civ. Dei 10.21, cf. Den Boeft (1979), 250 – 252. Augustine’s airy heroes (aeriae potestates) derive from Varro, cf. Arnobius 3.41 = Varro, Ant. fr. 209 Cardauns; Augustine, Civ. Dei 7.6 = Varro, Ant. fr. 226 Cardauns, but the idea was also present in the East, cf. Russell/Wilson (1981), 162 §414.5 – 6.  Demon meridianus: Bremmer (2008), 226 – 228 (with bibliography). Night: Ogden (2009); De Temmerman (2018), 276.

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creatures, such as the Centaurs and the Roman Fauni, who also belonged to the territory outside the civilised urbes and poleis. Often they were located in the mountains, which were the non-civilised landscape. It is in line with this location that in later antiquity the Greek word oros, ‚mountain‘, could also be used for the Egyptian desert, as in the Vita Antonii. ⁹ However, we should perhaps not overstress this particular location. Certainly in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles demons can also inhabit persons living within the city boundaries, and in the Gospel of Matthew they live in tombs, certainly outside the civilised area but just as certainly not yet in a mountainous territory.¹⁰ As in the Apocryphal Acts the apostles move mainly within urban areas, it is not so strange to find demons in cities. It is more surprising that in late antiquity they are again present in big cities, such as Alexandria, where they are associated with pagan cults, albeit perhaps more as literary fiction (Robert Wiśniewski: Chapter 5) than as a reflection of living pagan religion. Who are the demons? According to Aeneas of Gaza, as Christoph Markschies (Chapter 1) reminds us, they could assume human shapes, and that is also what we find in the Lives of the hermits. Aeneas did not mention, though, if there was a gender difference there, but in our contributions we seem to hear much more about male demons than about ancient female ones. Did women ever exorcise? Were more men than women possessed by demons? Or did our male authors focus on male subjects? Like Aeneas, earlier thinkers like the pagan Porphyry and the Christian Calcidius, also thought demons to be material and corporeal, but in the hagiographical texts they are much more often heard than seen, unlike children in the Netherlands of whom my father always said: “Children should be seen but not heard!” There is a strong auditory aspect in our texts, much more so than a visual one. Whereas icons and later paintings do show us many demons, the texts here discussed are much more reticent. Yet they are very informative regarding the manner the saints spoke to the demons and how the demons spoke to them and to others. We hear demons in direct speech, but also in reported time, historical present or even plusquamperfect, as Nienke Vos (Chapter 7) shows. Demons did not prefer a civilised language or a civilised manner of speaking. They shout and roar, and occasionally opt for a language other than civilised Greek, for a language of minorities such as the country bumpkin Galatians and the desert-inhabiting Syrians. What would Celtologists not have given for a few words of the Galatian of the possessing demon (Lunn-Rockliffe), who must have been one of the last speakers of that dwindling language. Regarding their appearance, it is only in the Coptic texts analysed by Grypeou that we read about theriomorphic demons, and continuity, via perhaps Demotic texts or the many pictures in papyri and on buildings, cannot be excluded. Theriomorphy does seem to be a typically local Egyptian aspect of demons, and this would fit the idea that demons are usually local demons. There is also an olfac-

 Cadell/Rémondon (1967), 343 – 349.  Cf. Feldt, (2014), 163 – 192.

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tory aspect to demons as they could be smelled: they would often, as in the Life of Saint Martin (c. 17), leave a stench when exiting possessed persons or places. A further question about the nature of demons is their relationship to the Devil, which is mentioned already in the New Testament, but seems to have received a different focus in different times. The Devil can hardly be imagined without demons, but there were many demons without the Devil. The Devil already plays a role as the great adversary in the early Acta martyrum and the apologetic literature of the second century, as Hartmann argues, and can be very present in hagiographical Lives, as Vos showed with her discourse analysis of the Life of Saint Martin. Demons were depicted in a great plurality, for example in Luke, but very colourful in the Gadarene episode in the New Testament and associated with impure animals, the pigs. Evidently, there was scope for various ways of expressing this multitude, and in later Byzantium we hear of the Devil with his army of demons. Was that metaphor also current in the West? But what do demons do? Here I would stress that in our conference an important difference between East and West appeared in several papers. As Wiśniewski argued, demons are much less visible in early Latin hagiographic texts than in the East. This may also be one of the reasons that demons are less present in the early martyrological literature as Hartmann observes. And when they are present they play a minor role. They are more literary figures than reflections of a daily reality. They are also not connected with pagan shrines, whereas in the East demons like to inhabit temples. The answer, I suggest, has to do with the fact that Roman religion had much less space for intermediate supernatural agents than Greek religion.¹¹ In other words, in the West there simply was no tradition of daimones which the early Christian authors could elaborate. Here we also note a difference in the power factor. In the late antique West, exorcism is typically the prerogative of the priest and bishop, whereas in the East it is the holy man, undoubtedly because in the West the tradition about holy men was much less strong. Although, then, demons were much less represented as active in the West, Augustine clearly gives them high marks for their mobility and sharp observations, even of our inner thoughts. These qualities are not immediately obvious in the New Testament, and we may wonder if Augustine here depends on Porphyry, whose work was familiar to him. It may perhaps be supposed that when Augustine wrote a work on demons he appropriated both pagan and biblical traditions.¹² Both in the East and the West they were connected with many areas of life. They could be the causes of diseases, as both Markschies and Weissenrieder show, but also of disasters like the plague. On the other hand, they could also heal via amulets, even via amulets made by priests. They could be connected with heretics, but they could also

 The contrary view of Liou-Gille (1980) has not been accepted.  Den Boeft (1996 – 2002), 213 – 222.

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be seen as predicting the future, although in the Vita Antonii this only became known after the fact. It is not wholly clear to me how we should deal with the battles with demons outside and inside the own soul. To what extent do modern psychological theories play a role here? Is there also, as Eva Elm (Chapter 6) suggests, a difference between East and West here? Is the modern fascination with Antony, as based on Athanasius’ biography, really a good interpretation of the ancient demons or more a product of the nineteenth century? Should we take the expression ‚inner demons‘ more literal than we usually do? On the other hand, the appearance of demons at night might point to a psychological aspect as it is also our own experience, I think, that certain thoughts are less easy to get rid of at night. How do we expel demons? Exorcism is not an early Greek phenomenon and was probably invented by Jews in some Greek-speaking urban context.¹³ The way in which hagiographers describe the saints expelling demons from the possessed is often spectacular, and it is doubtful whether such descriptions completely reflect reality. Yet it is striking to see that, as Markschies notes, already a fourth-century written exorcism invokes the “four gospels of the Son”, which shows the increasing magical weight attached to the books of the (later) canonical Bible, as indeed we can observe beginning at the end of the fourth century.¹⁴ Even if literature might dramatise exorcism, the expulsion of demons must have been visible by the possessed and his environment. That is why exorcism is always a public event and is bound to show, in one way or another, the success of the exorcist.¹⁵ Finally, to what extent are demons represented differently in different genres. We have already mentioned differences in hagiography in East and West, but very little about differences in the representation of demons in, say, homilies, commentaries, biographies, philosophical tractates or prayer books. Mostly, the confrontation between saints and demons serves to demonstrate the virtus of the saint, as in the Life of Saint Martin. This lack of differentiation between the genres is perhaps not really surprising. Since the late 1980s, the Belgian early medievalist Marc Van Uytfanghe has argued in a series of articles that we no longer should speak of a hagiographical genre but of a hagiographical discourse, which can be found in pagan and Christian biographies, epitaphs, hymns, letters, novels and sermons. This discourse can be summarised in four points: 1. The subjects are close to God, but not God or the gods themselves; 2. The discourse is rooted in oral tradition but freely borrows from historic and invented materials when written down; 3. It is more performative than informative;

 Ritoók (1992) 503 – 08; Zografou (2015), 267– 280; Faraone (2018), 222.  Bremmer (2015), 241– 69, 264– 269.  Bremmer (2017), 202– 208.

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It pictures the world in fixed terms where good and evil are clearly distinguishable.

In this late antique world the Devil and his demons are the representatives of the world of evil. But because that remains the same in all genres, the question of a specific genre does not always arise. The Devil, but not demons, is present in early Acta martyrum, as Hartmann has shown. Perhaps we can say that in the hymns quoted by Lunn-Rocklife, we naturally will find fewer details about roaring or smelling, but those are the more marginal aspects of the demons, although very helpful in distinguishing them. The discourse analysis as introduced by Vos helps us to better see the narrative means employed but does not lead to a basically different perspective on the demons. Evidently, the demons of the underworld in their torturing and punishing function are rather different from the tempting demons in the hagiographical vitae, but in many ways demons are not much dependent on genres, but a living presence in the whole of the late antique world.

Bibliography Bakker, Egbert J., The Meaning of Meat and the Structure of the Odyssey, Cambridge 2013. Beekes, Robert, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2 vols, Leiden 2010. Boeft, Jan den, “Some Etymologies in Augustine”, Vigiliae Christianae 33 (1979) 242 – 259. Boeft, Jan den, “Daemon(es)”, in: Augustinus-Lexikon 2, ed. Cornelius Mayer, Basel 1996 – 2002, 213 – 222. Bohak, Gideon, “Conceptualizing Demons in Late Antique Judaism”, in: Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-Modern Period, ed. Siam Bhayro/Catherine Rider, Leiden 2017, 111 – 133. Bremmer, Jan N., Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Leiden 2008. Bremmer, Jan N., “From Books with Magic to Magical Books in Ancient Greece and Rome”, in: The Materiality of Magic, ed. Dietrich Boschung/Jan N. Bremmer, Munich 2015, 241 – 69. Bremmer, Jan N., Maidens, Magic and Martyrs in Early Christianity. Collected Essays 1, Tübingen 2017. Cadell, Hélène/Rémondon, Roger, “Sens et emplois de τὸ ὄρος dans les documents papyrologiques”, in: Revue des Etudes Grecques 80 (1967), 343 – 349. Faraone, Christopher, The Transformation of Greek Amulets in Roman Imperial Times, Philadelphia 2018. Feldt, Laura, “Ancient wilderness Mythologies. The Case of Space and Religious Identity Formation in the Gospel of Matthew”, in: Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 16 (2014), 163 – 192. Feldt, Laura, “Monster Theory and the Gospels: Monstrosities, Ambiguous Power and Emotions in Mark”, in: The Gospels and Their Stories in Anthropological Perspective, ed. Jos Verheyden/John.S. Kloppenborg, Tübingen 2018, 29 – 52. Gieseler Greenbaum, Dorian, The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology. Origins and Influence, Leiden 2016. Jong, Irene J.F. de, Narrators and Focalizers, Amsterdam 1987. Leppin, Hartmut, Die frühen Christen von den Anfängen bis Konstantin, Munich 2018. Liou-Gille, Bernadette, Cultes ‘héroiques’ romains. Les fondateurs, Paris 1980. Ogden, Daniel, Magic, Witchcraft and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds, Oxford 22009.

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Quack, Joachim F. et al., “Demons, demonology”, in: The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception 6, Berlin and Boston 2012, 531 – 583. Ritoók, Zsigmond, “Horkos und Exorkismos”, in: Intellectual Heritage of Egypt. Festschrift L. Kákosy, Budapest 1992, 503 – 08. Russell Donald A./Nigel G. Wilson, Menander Rhetor, Oxford 1981. Temmerman, Koen De, “Novelistic Nights”, in: La Nuit. Imaginaire et réalités nocturnes dans le monde gréco-romain (Entretiens Hardt LXIV), ed. Angelos Chaniotis, Vandoeuvres 2018. Tor, Shaul, Mortal and Divine in Early Greek Epistemology. A study of Hesiod, Xenophanes, and Parmenides, Cambridge 2017. Zografou, Athanassia, “Les formules d’adjuration dans les Papyrus Grecs Magiques”, in: Écrire la magie dans l’antiquité, ed. Magali De Haro Sanchez, Liège 2015, 267 – 280.

About the Authors Jan Bremmer Jan Bremmer studied Classics and Spanish at the Free University, Amsterdam and the University of Bristol. After several years as school teacher in Classics he received his PhD from the Free University with his dissertation The Early Greek Conception of the Soul in 1979. In 1990 he was appointed to the Chair of Religious Studies at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Groningen that he held until his retirement in 2009. Bremmer specialises in Greek, Roman, early Christian and contemporary religion, social history, and the historiography of ancient religion. His publications range from Greek and Roman Mythology and religion, the apocryphal traditions about Jesus’ apostles, life after death, ancient humor and magic to modern secularisation and contemporary New Age. His contributions to the field have been nationally and internationally recognised. Eva Elm Since 2008 Eva Elm has been Research Associate at the chair of Ancient Christianity at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin where she has been researching the transformation of healing cults in ancient Christianity as part of a special research area of “Transformationen der Antike”, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Before that she was Research Associate at the Institute of Greek and Latin Philology of the Freie Unviersität Berlin where she received her PhD in 2000 with a thesis on Possidius and other late antique and early medieval episcopal lives. Her habilitation in Marburg in 2010 was on the damnatio memoriae from the early Roman republic to late antiquity. Her focus of interest is memory, hagiography, the body and sexuality, demons and animals in late antiquity. Emmanouela Grypeou Emmanouela Grypeou is Senior Lecturer for the History of Christianity at Stockholm University. She has studied History of Religions and Sociology in Freiburg i.Br. and received her doctorate in Languages and Cultures of the Christian Orient in Tübingen. Her doctoral dissertation dealt with ancient Gnosticism and questions relating to Gnostic biblical exegesis and Gnostic ethics. She further researched and published on Jewish and Christian biblical exegesis on the Book of Genesis in Late Antiquity, as well as on the development of apocalypticism and eschatology in the early post-Islamic Christian literature. She is currently working on a comprehensive monograph studying the history of Christian eschatology in Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages. Nicole Hartmann Nicole Hartmann is Assistant Professor at the Chair of Ancient Christianity at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. She studied Religious Studies and History in Cologne, Bologna and Berlin with a focus on ancient religious history, including early Christian and Jewish religion. After obtaining her Dr. phil. at the University of Erfurt with a thesis about the emergence of Christian martyrdom discourses she worked at the Institute of Religious Studies at the University of Leipzig. Her focus of interest lies in religious communication, boundary marking and connected identity shaping. Currently she works on positions of religious critique and indifference and the dynamics they set free, often countered as ‚atheism’ or ‚apostasy’.

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Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe is Lecturer in Patristics at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, since 2016. There she gained her PhD in Late Antique History with a study about the political thought of Ambrosiaster in 2004. From 2006–2016 she taught Roman History in the Classics Department at King’s College London. Her research centres on the life and thought of the church in a ’long’ late antiquity in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean and in the Syriac-speaking world. Her current major project is on late ancient ideas of the devil and demons, concentrating on notions of diabolical agency. She also has long-standing interests in patristic biblical exegesis, political thought, the history of liturgy, inter-religious relations in late antiquity, and magical texts and objects. Christoph Markschies Christoph Markschies studied Protestant Theology, Classical Philology and Philosophy in Marburg, Jerusalem, Munich and Tübingen. He was granted his theological doctoral degree in 1991 with a dissertation entitled “Valentinus Gnosticus?” and attained his habilitation with a study on anti-Arianism in Ambrosius and the Latin West in 1994. Since 2004, following professorships in Jena and Heidelberg, he has been Chair of Ancient Christianity at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, which he also presided from 2006-2010. He is the author and editor of numerous books and series in and beyond his area of expertise. His focus of interest is Christian intellectual history and history of ideas as well as the transformation of (Platonic) philosophy in Christian theology. Among his latest research are pagan, Jewish and Christian notions of the body of God in antiquity. Nienke Vos Nienke Vos is Assistant Professor (tenured) and Senior Lecturer in Early Christian Greek and Latin at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She studied theology at the University of Utrecht where she also received her PhD in Church History in 2003 with a thesis entitled Biblical Biography: Scripture and Ascetic Change in Early Christian Vitae. Her research focuses on early Christian texts, specifically the use of Scripture and the genre of hagiography. She combines it with her interest in narratology and discourse linguistics. Recently she has been working on the Apophthegmata Patrum, the sayings of the desert fathers and mothers. Annette Weissenrieder Annette Weissenrieder is Professor of New Testament at the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg and director of the Corpus Hellenisticum Institute. She graduated in Protestant Theology from the University of Heidelberg, where she also submitted her dissertation on images of illnesses in the Gospel of Luke. From 2008–2017 she was Full Professor for New Testament at San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union. Her focus of research is on New Testament theology, anthropology and the understanding of God, as well as on ancient medicine and philosophy, especially the question of religion and medicine. She currently works on the Old Latin version of the Gospel of Luke, the Vetus Latina Luke. Robert Wiśniewski Robert Wiśniewski is Associate Professor of ancient history at the University of Warsaw. His research is focused on the religious history of Late Antiquity, and particularly on Christian divination, demonology, hagiography, cult of relics and clergy. He was responsible for the Latin evidence in the international project The Cult of the Saints in Late Antiquity (to c. 700 AD) and currently runs the project on Presbyters in the late antique West.