Laudator Temporis Acti

Peter Brown, "The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity," Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971) 80-101 (at 88):

When little girls played games in fourth-century Syria, they played at monks and demons: one, dressed in rags, would put her little friends into stitches of laughter by exorcising them.<sup>105

105</sup> H.R. 1384

H.R. 1384 = Theodoret, Historia Religiosa, in Patrologia Graeca vol. 82, col. 1384 (see Clavis Patrum Graecorum 6221). A more recent edition is Théodoret de Cyr, Histoire des moines de Syrie, t. I, edd. Pierre Canivet and Alice Leroy-Molinghen (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1977 = Sources Chrétiennes, 234), pp. 422, 424 (Greek), 423, 425 (French), used as the basis of Theodoret of Cyrrhus, A History of the Monks of Syria, tr. R.M. Price (1985; rpt. Trappist, KY: Cistercian Publications, 2008 = Cistercian Studies Series, 88), p. 85 (9.9):

On another occasion, she brought along a cook of her household, who was troubled by an evil demon, and begged to receive his help. After praying, the man of God ordered the demon to tell the cause of his power over one of God's creatures, like some murderer or burglar standing before the judge's seat and ordered to say what he had done; so he proceeded through everything, compelled by fear to tell the truth, contrary to his wont. He declared that in Heliopolis, when the master of this domestic was once ill and the mistress was sitting by her husband because of his illness, the maidservants of the mistress of the house where they were staying were recounting the life of the monks practising philosophy at Antioch and how much strength they have against demons, and then these servants, as girls who enjoyed play, acted the part of raving demoniacs, while this domestic, putting on a goat's hair cloak, exorcised them like a monk. 'While this was being performed,' continued the demon, '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 them possessing. For this reason, leaving the maidservants, I intruded myself into this man, wanting to find out how I would be driven out by the monks. And now (he concluded) I have found out and need no further proof: at your command I shall immediately depart.' Saying this, he darted away, and the domestic recovered his freedom.

I won't transcribe the Greek text but merely note that Price's "maidservants" is παιδίσκας in Theodoret. Here is the entry for παιδίσκη in Franco Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek (Leiden: Brill, 2015), p. 1519:

παιδίσκη, -ης, ἡ [παῖς] little girl, girl, baby girl XEN. An. 4.3.11 MEN. Her. 18. Asp. 141, al. etc.; of a young woman PLUT. Cic. 41.3 || young servant, handmaid LYS. 1.12, 13.67 PHIL.² Congr. 154. al. NT Mark 14.66 etc. || prostitute HDT. 1.93.2 IS. 6.19 etc.

It's clear from Theodoret's account that 1) the person playing at being an exorcist was a male servant, a cook; 2) the servants playing at being demoniacs were females, but hardly little girls; 3) laughter, although it may well have been part of the play, isn't explicitly mentioned; and 4) the person playing the exorcist wasn't dressed in rags, but in a goat-skin cloak.

This is a rare slip on the part of a brilliant scholar.

Labels: typographical and other errors