Little Girls?

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.105 105 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.…