This collection of essays approaches the role of demons and the devil in ancient and medieval Christianity from a variety of scholarly perspectives: historical, philosophical, and theological as well as philological, liturgical, and theoretical. In the opening article Gerd Theissen presents a wide-ranging overview of the role of the devil, spanning the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and patristic literature. The contributions that follow address texts on the devil, demons, and evil, and are drawn from ancient philosophy, the New Testament, early Christian apologetics, hagiography, and history. Covering primarily the patristic period, the volume also contains articles on medieval sources. The introduction discusses the different angles of approach found in the articles in an effort to shed fresh light on this familiar but also uniquely troubling theme.

This collection of essays analyzes the role of demons and the devil in ancient and medieval Christianity. Proceeding from a variety of scholarly perspectives—historical, philosophical and theological, as well as philological, liturgical and theoretical—the volume’s diverse approach matches the complexity of its chosen theme.

This is the second volume of a series of three, containing seventeen essays of altogether forty-three articles based on the topics of the interdisciplinary conference held on "Demons, spirits, and witches" in Budapest. Recognized historians, ethnologists, folklorists coming from four continents present the latest research findings on the relationship, coexistence and conflicts of popular belief systems, Judeo-Christian mythology and demonology in medieval and modern Europe. After a first volume, published in 2005, on "Communicating with the Spirits", the studies in the present volume examine the manifold interchanges between learned and popular culture, and its repercussions on magical belief-system and the changing figure of the witch. Book jacket.

In many near eastern traditions, including Christianity, Judaism and Islam, demons have appeared as a cause of illness from ancient times until at least the early modern period. This volume explores the relationship between demons, illness and treatment comparatively. Its twenty chapters range from Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt to early modern Europe, and include studies of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They discuss the relationship between ‘demonic’ illnesses and wider ideas about illness, medicine, magic, and the supernatural. A further theme of the volume is the value of treating a wide variety of periods and places, using a comparative approach, and this is highlighted particularly in the volume’s Introduction and Afterword. The chapters originated in an international conference held in 2013. "Ultimately, Demons and Illness admirably performs the important task of reminding modern scholars of premodern health of the integral role played by these complex and shifting entities in the lives of people across the globe and through the centuries." -Rachel Podd, Fordham University, in: Social History of Medicine 32.3 (2019) "Given the sheer breadth of its scope, the volume is, of course, illustrative rather than comprehensive in its coverage, yet there is a definite coherence to its content, aided by the introduction and afterword which bookend the work and help begin to draw out the threads of commonality and difference. As such it constitutes a significant and welcome resource for comparative explorations of historical-cultural links between demons, illness, medicine, and magic, while offering a clear invitation to future work." -Matthew A. Collins, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 43.5 (2019)

The Devil has fascinated writers and theologians since the time of the New Testament, and inspired many dramatic and haunting works of art. Today he remains a potent image in popular culture. The Devil: A Very Short Introduction presents an introduction to the Christian Devil through the history of ideas and the lives of real people.

During the early middle ages, Europe developed complex and varied Christian cultures, and from about 1100 secular rulers, competing factions and inspired individuals continued to engender a diverse and ever-changing mix within Christian society. This volume explores the wide range of institutions, practices and experiences associated with the life of European Christians in the later middle ages. The clergy of this period initiated new approaches to the role of priests, bishops and popes, and developed an ambitious project to instruct the laity. For lay people, the practices of parish religion were central, but many sought additional ways to enrich their lives as Christians. Impulses towards reform and renewal periodically swept across Europe, led by charismatic preachers and supported by secular rulers. This book provides accessible accounts of these complex historical processes and entices the reader towards further enquiry.

Belief in the devil and other evil spirits of the Christian tradition is a topic that has been widely discussed in recent years. Since the release of movies such as 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'The Exorcist', more people are wondering, Is Satan really dead? Is there such a phenomenon as obsession or possession? In 'The Devil, Demonology, and Witchcraft', Henry Ansgar Kelly postulates his belief that the existence of evil spirits is not probable and suggests that Christians would be better off acting on the assumption that they do not exist. To prove his claim, the author sets forth a history and analysis of the impact of demonological traditions developed within Judaism and Christianity over the centuries. He then considers the incorporation of these notions into early Christian teaching with the resulting demonological dotrines of witchcraft, possession, and temptation. Kelly's conclusion is that Satan is dead, and demonology should be eliminated from Christian dogma since, according to his thesis, these manifestations in the Bible reflect the beliefs of local cultures and not divine revelation. The present edition has been substantially revised and updated by the author to include an evaluation and critique of 'The Exorcist', wherein Kelly challenges William Peter Blatty's facts of the alleged possession in 1949 on which 'The Exorcist' is based.

Essay from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,5, Ruhr-University of Bochum, language: English, abstract: In this essay I am going to argue that the medieval perception of the Devil incorporated iconography previously associated with the deities of pre-Christian Europe as part of their demonization under the interpretatio Christiana. While numerous literary portrayals of Satan from that period draw from “heathen” imagery, they do not always exemplify the larger trend of demonizing pagan gods. Although Satan’s tricephalic form in Dante’s Divina Commedia is likely to have been at least partially inspired by the Greek goddess Hecate, for instance, there do not seem to have been enough depictions of the Devil as having three faces to use this as an example of how Hecate was demonized. It is the more prevalent, folkloric portrayals of the Devil with hooves, horns, a forked tongue and carrying a pitchfork, bearing little resemblance to his theological counterpart (cf. Russell, Lucifer), that highlight the interpretatio Christiana of the Germanic Æsir and the Greco-Roman pantheon. As Richard Kiekhefer states in Magic in the Middle Ages (1989), “orthodox opinion” in early medieval Europe “held that pagan religion was no true religion but mere demon-worship”. Thus, while figures such as Loki were imbued with Satanic qualities in later retellings of Norse myths, reinterpreting his shapeshifting and gender-fluidness as a sign of evil, iconography associated with Norse and Greco-Roman gods, such as goat legs, dogs, snakes and tridents, was incorporated into medieval Christian Devil folklore.

"Demons-evil angels or fallen angels-form an inescapable part of the religious and cultural landscape of the European Middle Ages. This book explores their significance across fifteen hundred years of European history, from the North African desert homes of the eremites in the Late Antique period, to the miracle tales of the medieval monasteries of Western Europe, the academic disputes of the Scholastics, and conjuring of necromancers in the later Middle Ages. It argues that for all these groups, demons constituted a necessary part of the cosmic structure, whether by defining a monastic calling, fulfilling a role in God's properly ordered universe, or holding out the promise of untold wealth and knowledge. By the end of the Middle Ages, however, concern about the impact of demons and their connection with heresy would lead to the witch hunts that would sweep Europe and the New World in the early modern era."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Trance states, prophesying, convulsions, fasting, and other physical manifestations were often regarded as signs that a person was seized by spirits. In a book that sets out the prehistory of the early modern European witch craze, Nancy Caciola shows how medieval people decided whom to venerate as a saint infused with the spirit of God and whom to avoid as a demoniac possessed of an unclean spirit. This process of discrimination, known as the discernment of spirits, was central to the religious culture of Western Europe between 1200 and 1500.Since the outward manifestations of benign and malign possession were indistinguishable, a highly ambiguous set of bodily features and behaviors were carefully scrutinized by observers. Attempts to make decisions about individuals who exhibited supernatural powers were complicated by the fact that the most intense exemplars of lay spirituality were women, and the "fragile sex" was deemed especially vulnerable to the snares of the devil. Assessments of women's spirit possessions often oscillated between divine and demonic interpretations. Ultimately, although a few late medieval women visionaries achieved the prestige of canonization, many more were accused of possession by demons.Caciola analyzes a broad array of sources from saints' lives to medical treatises, exorcists' manuals to miracle accounts, to find that observers came to rely on the discernment of bodies rather than seeking to distinguish between divine and demonic possession in purely spiritual terms.