Emanuel GROSU (Institutul de Cercetări Interdisciplinare – DSU, Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași)
DO UT DES: LA CRISI DELLA FEDE. IL PATTO COL DIA¬VOLO O L’ESTREMO PRAGMATISMO DI UN PRINCIPIO GIURIDICO NEL POEMA LAPSUS ET CONVERSIO THEOPHILI VICEDOMINI (ROSWITHA DI GANDERSHEIM, SECOLO X)
Keywords: pact, devil, faith, Legend of Theophilus, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim.
Abstract: Do ut des: the crisis of faith. The pact with the devil, or the extreme pragmatism of a legal principle in the poem Lapsus et conversio Theophili vicedomini (Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, 10th century). The theme of the pact with the devil has its origins in the Greek Middle Ages, in texts that were believed to recount events which had truly taken place. Through a series of translations, this motif entered Latin-language culture and was eventually integrated into the literary repertoire – apparently beginning with the work of Hrotsvitha, the author of two poems that explore the theme in two distinct versions, differing primarily in their motivational frameworks. Although in both versions the pact with the devil involves a nearly identical crisis of faith, it was the Legend of Theophilus that resonated more closely with the sensibilities of Latin audiences. In the following pages, we propose a concise analysis of this crisis as portrayed in Lapsus et conversio Theophili vicedomini, and aim to position the poem – within this interpretive framework—among the broader corpus of texts that contributed to the emergence and evolution of the theme.