Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture

Across this diversity of portrayals, however, demons consistently functioned as personifications of "deviant" bodily practices such as "magical" rituals, immoral sexual acts, gluttony, and pagan religious practices. This demonization served an exclusionary function whereby Christian writers marginalized fringe Christian groups by linking their ritual activities to demonic modes of (dis)embodiment. The tandem construction of demonic and human corporeality demonstrates how Christian authors constructed the bodies that inhabited their cosmos-human, demon, and otherwise-as part of overlapping networks or "ecosystems" of humanity and nonhumanity. Through this approach, Proctor provides not only a more accurate representation of the bodies of ancient Christians, but also new resources for reimagining the enlivened ecosystems that surround and intersect with our modern ideas of "self."