Ethiopian Demons: Male Sexuality, the Black-Skinned Other, and the Monastic Self

Abstract

ACCORDING TO ATHANASIUS of Alexandria, when the devil had failed to tempt the young monk Antony with thoughts of home and family or by coming to him as a woman, he desperately tried to seduce the ascetic by appearing as a black boy. Unimpressed, Antony told the devil, "You are black in your mind and as weak as a boy." 1 It was not the last time the devil or one of his demons would appear with black skin to an Egyptian monk, according to tales preserved in the monastic literature from the fourth and fifth centuries. A young monk beset by thoughts of sex encountered an Ethiopian woman with a foul smell. An older monk found an Ethiopian girl he remembered seeing in his youth sitting on his knees; driven mad, he struck her, and a foul odor adhered to his hand. Afflicted by pride, another monk was divinely instructed to reach for his neck, where [End Page 501] he found a small Ethiopian, which he cast into the sand. A monk who disobeyed his elder discovered an Ethiopian lying on a sleeping mat and gnashing his teeth. Ethiopian or black demons continued to tempt or frighten Christian ascetics into the medieval period. 2

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