Abstract:This essay examines two hagiographical accounts, each features a Christian holy man performing an unusual, though not aberrant, ritual action: casting a daimon onto or into a person. I argue that the priest Innocent in Palladius' Lausiac History and Abba Daniel in John Moschus' Spirituale Pratum acted in accordance with their late antique role as ritual experts and "charismatic ombudsmen" and, thus, they could manipulate power relations between the daimon and human to cleanse, protect and/or punish a human, si… Show more
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