Our Lord gives no sanction to any such thought of disease, and when the disciples betrayed their mode of thought (Jn 9=) He took occasion to com- bat the ancient superstition. Although He did frequently mark sin as the cause of much physical weakness and disease (see art. IMPOTENCE), yet He denies that all sickness was penal in character. Other ends were in the Divine purview besides the punishment of personal sin (Jn 9^). In St. Luke'.s Gospel high fever seems to be attributed by impli- cation to an evil agency, and Jesus is said to have rebuked (eVeri/ijjirei') the fever (Lk 43*- ^) ; but probably this must be explained as a reflexion of the current preconceptions. In Lk 13'" no refer- ence is necessarily made to sin having given power to Satan to aHlict the woman. Demons were associated with disordered conditions of human lilV, :is .li-iMsc and infirmity: with dumbness (Mk 9", l.k '.I'l. w iili deafness and dumbness (Mk 9"), Willi l.liii.lii.-, ,-uul dumbness (Mt 12='), and with epilepsy (.Ml< l='i II™, Lk !|3-'). Tliese physical de- fects aie not neci-^-n :l\ injnni -i.itions of demonic influence, but ai. 111 close alliance
witli them In SI II I I I. also, it is note- wortlij that a ilistin !:■ 11 i 1 ..rded as made by Jesus between the exMrcisin of demons and ordin- ary cures (eKJiiWia Sai/idma Kal i'd<rcis dTroTeXii, Lk I i>") * See further, art. Demon.
• II 1 n\i I ' ir,„„,i.,.„- „f St. Lxike) and other writers
js of the Third Evangelist the
But the argument may be
St. Luke's style and vocabulary
.-^ir.al Greek, and many of the
, cur in the LX.X, and may have
DISEASE
DISEASE
ii. References in the Gospels to sickness
AND DISEASE.—
The terms emiiloycd by the Evangelists to denote bodilj
aihnents are— . ^ ,, v
(1) iir»£»s.«, literally want nf strcnnlh (ot pnv. and <r»E»o!)>
— : — ^piur rlpTinfinir wpnknp^'i. aiid visually 'infirmity' or 'iii-
ises'(svovTs,-' io-»f.i<«.-); in MtS"
■ • ■ •" ■- UJ AV
primarily denoting weakn
and associ:
![Lk
associated with yoircs in Lk 4-*' (2) ««X«»« CcutXio-o-i/, ' soft (a) softness
, Jn 65] ' infirmity '
well as sickness ; (b) periodic and chronic sickness and consequent languor of body. The word is used in Mt 4'-« '■'* fl^' IQi, where it is associ- ated with >sV«.-. The first named passage is one in which the various ailments that our Lord healed are enumerated and apparently discriminated (of. AV and RV).
(3) »«V« (from v»i- ' not,' and o-oo; ' sound ' (?]) is employed to in- dicate more acute and violent seizures than fM-Xxxtx ; found in lit 423. U gn 935 101, Mk 13^ 313, Lk 4-'0 &~ "21 91. In the Markan and Lukan (exc. Lk 440) passages the diseased are distinguished from the demonized.
(4) virvifioi, a disease or sickness, Jn S-i (only).
(5) Tsti! xoLxZ; ixn-rai! is a frequent expression for those that were sick, and in Mk 134 we have the fuller expression ToAAoi-f
xaxSis ix^vTx! ^otxiXai; >off-ols.
Of the presence of specific diseases much fuller indications are more or less distinctly given in tlie OT than in the NT. Instances of these may be understood as included in the miscellaneous cases of sickness and disease wliich our Lord repeatedly dealt with. Among tlii-m :uc vaiicms forms of skin disease, wliich ^ve^• .111.1 :\rr \(ryrnniniim in the East; also of fever .uhI .aUnl ilisonlcis, ex- tending to iilague and jiustileiuc ; di.scaNe.s uf the digestive organs ; infantile and senile diseases ; affections of the brain or other parts of the nervous system ; and disordered conditions of the psychical side of human nature. All of these are referred to in the OT with some amount of deflnite- ness as to symptoms.
The diseases mentioned in the Gospels, and dealt with in direct and Divine fashion by Jesus (see art. Cures), include cases of physical defect; fevers and kindred diseases ; skin diseases, notably that of leprosy ; a solitary case of dropsy ; ailments and inlhiiiilies that wi-ic iirvvou-i in ch.naitcr ; and otlicr^ whirh wen- a coiiiliiii;!! imi "t im-muu-- and psyrliinil .li~..i ,l,.,-. Tli.-..; ^;l^luu-- iilll.rl ,.„,- are not ahvajs to lie mtaiiilv iili'iililicd with )iai- ticular forms of disease with which modern medical .science is familiar. The description of the cases is, for the most part, far removeil from being scientific, but yet enables us to broadly distin- guish them froni one another and to classify them with fair exactitude.
1. Diseases resulting in physical defect, or in- capacity.—(1) Defect in the. orr/nns of speech.— The case of the dumb man recorded in Mt SF---" was associated with features of mental disturbance leading the people to attribute the dumbness to demonic possession. 'When the demon was cast out, the dumb spake,' as though no physical defect existed apart from the psychical disturb- ance. Interesting cases are known in which mental .leianui'iiuMit has been manifested in an inhibition oi ■,,„,. of th,. senses. Kay (Facfn,:-^ of an Ui,.s„,r,i'/ M,p.l\ -iv.s an instance in which the patient ^^as nnaMe (o see the (.'olumn in the I'lace Vendome in Paris, and believed it to have been removed. A similar inhibition, resulting from psychical rather than jihysical causes, might be applied to the organs of speech.
(2) Defect in. the organs o/scresc— Among defects notably ■common in the East is that of blindness (see art. Sk:ht, B). Deafness is usually accom-