Referat zostanie wygłoszony w ramach seminarium późnoantycznego, w czwartek, 17 maja, o godz. 16.45, w Bibliotece Papirologii i Prawa Rzymskiego, w budynku Wydziału Prawa (Collegium Iuridicum I).
Abstract
The title (not entirely seriously) quotes an article published in The New York Times on 19 April 2018. It concerned a course on exorcism taught by Cardinal Ernest Simoni at the Pontifical University Regina Apostolorum in Rome. The course dealt with questions such as how to distinguish possession from what we now call mental illness, and cited obiter dicta such as “Satan you can recognize,” and “Jesus knows all languages.” These points are important not only for Catholic priests with concerns about cell-phones and the intrusive evils of the internet, but also for students of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The paper, which quickly bounces off this present news-item as a springboard to the past, will contextualize both normal and troubling phenomena involving divided selves and welcome and unwelcome internal guests in Classical Antiquity before turning to its main business: close readings of selected narratives of possession from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, concentrating on the demonic utterance in its oral-aural dimensions.