The Twelve, after being chosen, were ordained to be with Jesus in order that they might go forth {a) to preach, (b) to have power to heal diseases, and (c) eK^aWeiv to. 5aLix6via (Mk Z^*-^^, Mt 10'). When He did send them forth. He gave them power to cast out all unclean spirits (Mt W, MkG'', Lk 9^). St. John reported to Jesus that he and other disciples saw one casting out demons in His name (Mk Q'^^, Lk 9-'9) ; while, on the other hand, the disciples sometimes failed in their eflbrts at expulsion (Mt 17^9). Our Lord sent out the Seventy (a) to heal, (b) to proclaim thenearness of the Kingdom (Lk 10"). When they returned, they reported that the spirits were subject to them in His name J (Lk lO^'). Finally, Jesus bequeathed to those who should believe power in His name+ to cast out daemons (Mk 16^^). After the death of Jesus the apostles continued to cure those troubled (or 'roused,' 6x- \ovuLevovs, Lk 6'*) with unclean spirits (Ac 5'*), and a similar power was exercised by other Christians over spirits which came out ' shouting with a loud cry ' (Ac 8').
When the Christian missionaries penetrated into the Roman Empire, they met the victims of pos- session, and had to deal with them. At Philippi, St. Paul and Silas encountered a young girl, the slave of a group of masters, who was possessed by a spirit — a Python, § which enabled her to utter predictions.il The girl so forced herself upon the missionaries' attention that at last St. Paul, ' in the name J of Jesus Christ,' commanded the spirit to come out of her, which it immediately did (Ac J6I6-18) Again, at Ephesus, a city in which exor- cism flourished, St. Paul seems to have cast out spirits in the name J of Jesus. Further cures of a somewhat uncommon (0^ ras Tvxovaa^) character were eftected, for on certain articles of dress which had been in immediate contact with the body [airb Tov xP'^TisIT) of St. Paul being applied to those afflicted, the evil spirits came out of them (Ac 191").
Such success roused a competitive spirit in the minds of other exorcists and revealed to them the power which lay in the use of the name of Jesus. Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish high priest, who formed a company of strolling exorcists, determined to utilize the new power. Over a man afflicted with an evil spirit they pronounced this formula : opKl^Ci) iifjLcis TOV 'li^crovu dv IlaOXoy K-qpiicrcret.. The effort proved more than futile, for the recitation of the formula, instead of bringing Jesus into such effective touch with the man that the evil spirit had to yield possession to Him, roused the spirit to stir into activity that abnormal muscular strength often possessed by those mentally de- ranged (cf. Lk 8-9), and, leaping on the exorcists, the man assaulted them and drove them out of the house stripped and wounded (Ac 19"*"^*). The men
* Dearmer, op. cit., p. 168.
t N and B omit xal vrjo-rei^ and along with A the whole of Mt 17^1.
I See art. Name.
§ The correct reading, according to .^AB, is nuBuua ; see art. Python.
II navTevofieinj ; see art. S0OTII8AYINO.
51 xp"?, literally ' the skin.' See Nestle in ExpT, voL xiiL [1901-02] p. 282, and art. Apron.
EXPEDIEXCY
EXPEDIEXCY
385
who had become Christians realized the incompati- bility of loyalty to Jesus and the practice of such magical arts, and they publicly burned their copies of the famous 'E^eaia ypd^i/xara (v.^^).
That this did not mean tlie absolute abandonment of exorcism the subsequent history of the Church all too clearh' proves. The reference to ' doctrines of dccmons' (1 Ti 4^) and 'the spirits of daemons performing signs' (Rev 16''*) shows how exorcism still lingered in the Church. The words which shed light on the struggle from the higher Chris- tian standpoint are those in Ja 4'' : ' resist the devU, and he will flee from you ' — words which were an exhortation to the Christians not to resort to exor- cism, but to rely on the successful resistance which sprang from a strong exertion of their sanctified ^\-ills aided by the power of God. The means employed by exorcists differ in different times and countries. Four only are referred to in the Apostolic Age — hands, cloths, the name of Jesus, and shadowing.
When we pass to the literature of the Fathers, we cannot help being struck with the almost total absence of references to exorcism. This is possibly to be accounted for by the fact that the work of these writers forced them to think more of evan- gelism and apologetic than of combating the evils of the heathen world. In the spurious Ignatian Epistle to the Fhilippians (ch. v.) Christ is by way of honour called ' this magician ' {/xdyos o5tos), and in the spurious Epistle to the Antiochians (ch. xii.) we find 'the exorcists ' {iiropKiaras) mentioned among the Church officials.
The practice of exorcism continued in the Church. The ordinary Christian practised it, Gregory Thaumaturgus even casting out devils by sending letters to the person possessed. As a rule, how- ever, the practice was confined to the clergy, and by A.D. 340 the iiropKi(TTri% constituted a special order, some of whom were ordained, others merely recog- nized. The rescripts of the Emperors granted to them, as well as to the other ordersof clergy, exemp- tion from civil offices. Their work was the care of the possessed, the evepryovfievoi., the catechists, here- tics, and schismatics, the exorcism being in each case connected with the rites of exsufflation and insufflation (?,eQ ^ . Bingham, Oriqines Eci-lesiasticce, 1843. vol. i. p. 362 fl'. and vol. iii. p. 277 ti'. ; Smith and Cheetham, DCA, 1875, vol. i. p. 650; ERE, art. ' Abrenuntio,' vol. i. p. 38). The office of ex- orcist continued to be important : we read, e.g., of St. Patrick landing in Ireland with a number of officials among whom were skilled exorcists (A. R. Macewan, History of the Church of Scotland, vol. L, 1913, p. 36).