The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West

367 Pages·2013·14 MB·English

by  Brian Levack

THE DEVIL WITHIN
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Possession & Exorcism
in the Christian West
BRIAN P. LEVACK
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW HAVEN AND LONDON
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Copyright © 2013 Brian P. Levack
All rights reserved. This book may be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form
(beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright
Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission
from the publishers.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Levack, Brian P.
The Devil within : possession and exorcism in the Christian West / Brian Levack.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-300-11472-0 (cl : alk. paper)
1. Exorcism—Europe—History. 2. Demoniac possession—Europe—History. I. Title.
BV873.E8L48 2013
133.4'26094—dc23
2012042933
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Contents
Illustrations vi
Preface vii
Acknowledgements xi
1 Making Sense of Demonic Possession 1
2 Possession and Exorcism in Christian Antiquity 32
3 Possession in Christian Demonology 56
4 Expelling the Demon 81
5 Demonic Possession and Illness 113
6 The Performance of the Possessed 139
7 The Demoniac in Society 169
8 The Demoniac and the Witch 191
9 Possession in the Age of Reason 215
10 Possession: Past and Present 240
11 Conclusion 254
Notes 266
Bibliography 314
Index 336
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Illustrations
1. Gerard Hoet, Jesus Expels an Unclean Spirit, Dutch Bible of 1728.
2. Manuscript illustration in a book of Gospels by T’oros Roslin, 1262. The Walters Art
Museum, Baltimore.
3. Unknown artist, St Eligius performing an exorcism, in a fifteenth-c entury life of
St Eligius. Museo Diocesano di Orte. Art Resource.
4. St Catherine of Siena exorcizing a demon from a possessed woman, French School,
seventeenth century. Bibliothèque nationale de France/The Bridgeman Art Library.
5. Panel of the Small Mariazell Miracle Altar, Danube School, 1512. Alte Galerie,
Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria.
6. Thomas Belot, engraving in Jean Boulaese, Le Thrésor et entière histoire . . . à Laon l’an
1566 (Paris, 1578).
7. Woodcut of the exorcism of Nicole Obry in Pierre Boaistuau, Histoires prodigieuses
extraictes de plusieurs auteurs (Paris, 1575), 1566.
8. Urbain Grandier burned at the stake. Wood engraving, French School, seventeenth
century. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Archives Charmet/The Bridgeman Art
Library.
9. Peter Raul Rubens, The Miracles of St Ignatius Loyola, c. 1619 Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna.
10. Unknown artist, The Exorcism of Madeleine Bavent by Mgr. de Péricard, Bishop of
Evreux, seventeenth century. Mary Evans Picture Library.
11. Jacques Callot after Andrea Boscholi, The Possessed Woman, or Exorcism, 1630.
12. Johann Christoph Haizmann, two paintings of the Devil, 1677. Österreichisches
Nationalbibliothek.
13. Jean-François Badoureau, drawing of an hysterical attack by Louise Lateau in
D.- M. Bourneville, Science et miracle: Louise Lateau ou la stigmatisée belge (Paris, 1878).
14. Illustration of hysterical contortion in Paul Richer, Études cliniques sur la grande hystérie
ou hystéro- épilepsie (2nd edn, Paris, 1885). Harry Ransom Humanities Research
Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
15. Title page of A True and Fearefull Vexation of One Alexander Nyndge (London, 1615).
© The British Library Board.
16. William Hogarth, Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism: A Medley, in The Works of
William Hogarth (London, 1837), 1762. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center,
The University of Texas at Austin.
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1 Christ expels an unclean spirit.
The eighteenth-century Dutch
artist Gerard Hoet depicts Christ
healing the demoniac in the
synagogue at Capernaum at the
beginning of his public ministry.
The engraving was included in
a Dutch Bible to illustrate the
exorcism text of Mark 1: 23.
2 Christ exorcising
a demoniac. This
thirteenth-century
manuscript illustration
depicts the demon
as a man with wings
who is addressing
Christ. The image was
intended to represent
the exorcism at
Capernaum, in which
the demon asked
Christ, ‘What have
you to do with us,
Jesus of Nazareth?’
3 St Eligius performing an exorcism. St
Eligius (c. 590–659) was the bishop of
Noyon. Painted in the fifteenth century
by an anonymous artist, Eligius is shown
praying, while two men are restraining
the demoniac. The departing demon,
depicted here as exceptionally large, has
horns and bat wings.
4 St Catherine of Siena exorcizes a
possessed woman. This seventeenth-
century French engraving depicts
St Catherine of Siena (1347–80)
performing an exorcism of a female
demoniac. Most exorcisms were
performed by men, but Catherine’s
holiness qualified her for this role.
5 Exorcism of a young German woman in the fourteenth century. A sixteenth-century panel
painting of an exorcism that took place in 1370 at the shrine of the Virgin Mary at Zell in Styria
shows the exorcist has wrapped his stole around the woman’s neck. The demoniac had been so
tortured by the demons that she had killed her parents and infant, shown on the floor to the left.
The numerous exorcised demons are leaving through the window.
6 The exorcism of Nicole Obry at
the Cathedral of Laon in 1566. In the
foreground Obry is being carried in a
procession to the cathedral, while in
the centre a crowd gathers below an
improvised stage to witness different
scenes of the exorcism. Near the top
the exorcized demons are departing.