Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-Modern Period

448 Pages·2017·6.84 MB·English

by  Siam Bhayro

Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-Modern Period
Magical and Religious Literature
of Late Antiquity
Series Editors
Shaul Shaked
Siam Bhayro
Volume 5
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mrla
Demons and Illness
from Antiquity to the
Early-Modern Period
Edited by
Siam Bhayro and
Catherine Rider
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustation: Artist’s impression of image on magic bowl MS 1927/39 (from the Martin Schøyen
Collection), showing hybrid demon with horns. © Dr Naama Vilozny—used with kind permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bhayro, Siam, editor.
Title: Demons and illness from antiquity to the early-modern period / edited
 by Siam Bhayro and Catherine Rider.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2017. | Series: Magical and religious
 literature of Late Antiquity, ISSN 2211-016X, Volume 5 | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016050017 (print) | LCCN 2016057358 (ebook) | ISBN
 9789004338531 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004338548 (E-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Demonology—History. | Medicine, Magic, mystic, and spagiric.
Classification: LCC BL480 .D46 2017 (print) | LCC BL480 (ebook) | DDC
 202/.16—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016050017
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 2211-016X
isbn 978-90-04-33853-1 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-33854-8 (e-book)
Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and
Hotei Publishing.
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Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
Contents
Preface ix
Contributors x
1 Introduction 1
Siam Bhayro and Catherine Rider
Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt
2 Shifting Alignments: The Dichotomy of Benevolent and Malevolent
Demons in Mesopotamia 19
Gina Konstantopoulos
3 The Natural and Supernatural Aspects of Fever in Mesopotamian
Medical Texts 39
András Bácskay
4 Illness as Divine Punishment: The Nature and Function of the
Disease-Carrier Demons in the Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts 53
Rita Lucarelli
5 Demons at Work in Ancient Mesopotamia 61
Lorenzo Verderame
Second Temple Judaism and Late Antiquity
6 Demons and Illness in Second Temple Judaism: Theory and Practice 81
Ida Fröhlich
7 Illness and Healing through Spell and Incantation in the Dead Sea
Scrolls 97
David Hamidović
8 Conceptualizing Demons in Late Antique Judaism 111
Gideon Bohak
vi Contents
9 Oneiric Aggressive Magic: Sleep Disorders in Late Antique Jewish
Tradition 134
Alessia Bellusci
10 The Influence of Demons on the Human Mind according to
Athenagoras and Tatian 175
Chiara Crosignani
11 Demonic Anti-Music and Spiritual Disorder in the Life of Antony 192
Sophie Sawicka-Sykes
12 Over-Eating Demoniacs in Late Antique Hagiography 215
Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe
Medieval
13 Miracles and Madness: Dispelling Demons in Twelfth-Century
Hagiography 235
Anne E. Bailey
14 Demons in Lapidaries? The Evidence of the Madrid MS Escorial,
h.I.15 256
M. Carolina Escobar Vargas
15 The Melancholy of the Necromancer in Arnau de Vilanova’s Epistle
against Demonic Magic 271
Sebastià Giralt
16 Demons, Illness, and Spiritual Aids in Natural Magic and Image
Magic 291
Lauri Ockenström
17 Between Medicine and Magic: Spiritual Aetiology and Therapeutics in
Medieval Islam 313
Liana Saif
18 Demons, Saints, and the Mad in the Twelfth-Century Miracles of
Thomas Becket 339
Claire Trenery
Contents vii
Early Modernity
19 The Post-Reformation Challenge to Demonic Possession 359
Harman Bhogal
20 From A Discoverie to The Triall of Witchcraft: Doctor Cotta and
Godly John 376
Pierre Kapitaniak
21 Healing with Demons? Preternatural Philosophy and Superstitious
Cures in Spanish Inquisitorial Courts 396
Bradley J. Mollmann
22 Afterword: Pandaemonium 412
Peregrine Horden
Index of Subjects 419
Index of Texts 421

Preface
This volume contains selected papers from the Demons and Illness: Theory
and Practice from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period conference, held at the
University of Exeter (April 22–24, 2013). We would like to thank Claire Keyte
for all her hard work in organising what turned out to be a very successful and
happy gathering of scholars from eleven countries. We would also like to thank
the University of Exeter’s Centre for Medical History and College of Humanities
for providing funding, and the Royal Historical Society and the British Society
for the History of Science for financing student bursaries. During the confer-
ence, we were very ably assisted by the following students: Tamsin Gardner,
Lori Lee Oates, Abigail Pearson and Harriet Walker. The following colleagues
participated in the conference without presenting papers: Professor Jonathan
Barry, Dr Peter Elmer, Professor Morwenna Ludlow (all from the University
of Exeter), Dr Jo Edge (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Professor
Marco Moriggi (Università di Catania). As part of the festivities, a public lec-
ture was presented by Professor Lauren Kassell (University of Cambridge) at
the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (Exeter)—we would like to thank the
museum staff, in particular Penny Hammond, for facilitating this event. We are
grateful to the publisher, and would like to extend a special thanks to Katelyn
Chin and Meghan Connolly for their enthusiasm and support. Finally, on a per-
sonal note, we are very grateful to our partners, Lisa and Laurence, for their
constancy and encouragement; and Catherine would also like to thank Siam
for holding the fort in the last stages of the editing while she was on maternity
leave.
Siam Bhayro and Catherine Rider
Exeter, August 2016