Published in The rise and fall of Western tradition

Language:

Portuguese, Brazil

This article analyses the narrative dramatization of evil in Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus miraculorum, considering the exemplum as a form of practical intelligibility for the faithful. Starting from the Latin Christian understanding of evil as privatio boni, the study examines how doctrinal formulation becomes recognizable in concrete scenes of temptation, deception, and moral correction. The argument focuses on the pedagogical function of demonic apparitions, which disclose interior dispositions, test the will, and reveal the insufficiency of external signs of religious virtue. Three episodes are examined: John, the scholar of Prüm; Godfrey and Sistappus; and the monks of Porceto. Their sequence displays different degrees of spiritual vulnerability, from consented levity and irascible disturbance to vice hardened into habit. The article argues that Caesarius transforms theological doctrine into moral perception, making evil visible as disorder of the will and an object of spiritual discernment.