Imagining Evil: Representations of the Devil and Demons in Late Antiquity

魔鬼的历史学家一再声明，在早期基督教艺术中没有魔鬼。本书将首先证明，这一声明的前提是有缺陷的，涉及不合时宜的搜索，并未能找到中世纪拟人化的恶魔形象在古代晚期。其次，它将探讨基督徒如何想象魔鬼在他们自己的条件，考虑艺术和文学一起作为一个复杂而微妙的早期基督教恶魔般的想象力的证据。它将研究恶魔的存在是如何暗示和要求的，如果没有描绘和体现，在驱魔和诱惑的圣经场景，以及它是如何在类型学上建议，在特定的动物和野兽，要么明确地联系到魔鬼在旧约，或已与魔鬼的早期基督教注释。它将包含关于以下主题的章节：早期基督教神学和哲学对恶魔和魔鬼生物存在和出现的原因的介绍;早期基督教对魔鬼，恶魔和异教神，daimones和偶像之间关系的看法;基督徒想象魔鬼的方式（动物）和怪物（非自然的，混合）形式;魔鬼的出现在地狱的痛苦帐户;和早期基督教文学和视觉复述圣经和当代驱魔。

Historians of the Devil have repeatedly stated that there is no Devil in early Christian art. This book will demonstrate firstly that the premises on which this statement has been made are flawed, involving the anachronistic search for, and failure to find medieval anthropomorphic diabolical images in late antiquity. Secondly, it will explore how Christians imagined the Devil in their own terms, considering art and literature alongside each other as evidence for a complex and subtle early Christian diabolical imagination. It will examine how diabolical presence is implied and required, if not depicted and embodied, in scriptural scenes of exorcism and temptation, and how it is typologically suggested in depictions of particular animals and beasts which were either explicitly linked to the Devil in the Old Testament, or had been linked to the Devil by early Christian exegesis. It will contain chapters on the following themes: early Christian theological and philosophical presentations of the reason for the existence of and appearances of diabolical and demonic beings; early Christian views on the relationship between the Devil, demons and the pagan gods, daimones and idols; the ways in which Christians imagined the Devil in bestial (animal) and monstrous (unnatural, hybrid) forms; the appearance of the Devil in accounts of the harrowing of hell; and early Christian literary and visual re-tellings of scriptural and contemporary exorcisms.