(a) The ethical standpoint. — People whose strangeness of life or action seemed abnormal were said to have a demon ; this was said ** of our Lord even by His own relatives, and of John the Baptist. In the Apostolic Age there were many people whom the writers of the NT looked upon as wicked. Amid that evil and disloyal generation tt were hypocrites, sinners, adulterers, harlots, thieves, brigands, and open enemies of our Lord and His servants. But none of these are thought of as demoniacs. The boy mentioned in Mk 9-i had been a demoniac from a child, hence the malady could not have arisen from moral causes. Further, the fact that demoniacs were not excluded from the synagogue tt indicates that demonomania was not looked upon as constituting them immoral characters. The demons were maleficent, some of them also malevolent, but their wickedness did not necessarily contaminate the patient morally. It is also to be observed that demoniacs were not constantly or permanently afflicted.
(b) The physical standpoint. — By the time of Jesus, the physician, separated off now from the prophet and the priest, had his distinctive name and practised his art on payment of fees.§§ Indica- tions are not wanting that matters of diet and the use of restoratives were studied, and as liealing appliances the balm of Gilead, the waters of Siloam and Bethesda, the hot springs of Tiberias and Callirhoe were well known and widely used.lljl Luke was a physician, HIT and most probably it was to him that the inhabitants of Melita brought those who were diseased to receive medical treat- ment.*** These developments of medical science more and more differentiated demonomania from more normal diseases. The latter were well known and are often alluded to. Peter's mother-in-law, j^neas, Dorcas, the father of Publius, Epapliro- ditus, Trophimus, besides many others whom our Lord cured, all laboured under ordinary diseases and no hint is given that they were demoniacs, ttt
• Mt 1319 38, 1 Jn 213 312, Mt 41, Mk lis, Lk 41, Jn 13", Lk 223, Mt 1325- 39, He 21'', Jn 13=, Lk 223, jn 1327.
t Eph 612. J Mt 12«.
§ Mk 69, Lk 830, Mt 12«, Lk S^. Sometimes thcv were in parties of seven (Lk 82 1126 ; cf. Rev 1*) ; ERE iv. 670, 699 ; DCG ii. 249.
I! Dt 3210, Lk 829, Mt 12-'3, Mk 62-8-6, Lk 827, Rev 18=; Exp, 7th ser., iii. 328, 628, 629 ; EliE iv. 613 ; DCG i. 439, 441 ; G. A. Deissniann, Bihle Studies, E<linbur(;li, 1901, p. 281. In India the demons of disease live in damp places, latrines, ruined houses, the source of many diseases (Davies, Magic, Divination, and Dcmonoiogy, p. 104).
II Mk 6113, Lk 1124.
•• Mk 322, Mt 1118, Lk 733, Jn 7«> 8«- 62 1020.
tt Lk 1129. tt Mk 123, Lk4S'.
§§ Mt 9i2 = Mk 2i7=Lk 631, Mk 526, Lk 423 8« omitted by BD, etc.
III! Lk 866 10.34, 1 Ti 623, Mk 613, Ja 514, jer 822 46II 618, Ezk 2717, Jn 9iff- 62ff- ; Jos. Ant. xviii. ii. 3; HDB ii. 103; Jos. Ant. XVII. vi. 6; PEFSt xxxvii. [1905] 223.
nil Col 41-1.
••• A. Harnack and W. Rams-ay (Exp. 7th ser., . [1906] 492), J. H. Moullon and O. .Milligan (t6. vii. [1909] 472), 0. T. P. Oricrson (ib. viii. [1909] 614).
ttt Ml 81*=Mk ISO, Ac 933- 87 288, ph 226, £ Ti 4*.
POSSESSION
POSSESSION
In tlie NT the distinction is carefully observed ; sicknesses and diseases are referred to as pre- valent ; * particular diseases are mentioned by name, as lunacy, luemorrhage, paralysis, dumb- ness, deafness, leprosy, fever, blindness, lameness, shrivelled limbs, dropsy, dysentery, maiinednuss ;t disease is dillerentiated from demononiania.J These latter types of disease, difi'ering from the other by suddenness of attack or other abnormal feature, were still, owing to ignorance of their real nature, attributed to the action of super- human beings such as Jahweh,§ one of His messengers, II the Satan, II one of his messengers,** or a demon who was sometimes named from the disease with which he infected the sutterer, as a deaf and dumb spirit,tt an unclean spirit, JJ a spirit of inlirraity,§§ etc. While doubtless the old ])re- ventives against the entrance of demons continued to be employed, the older forms of expulsion {be- sides the direct act of God [Col 1'] and determined effort on the part of the sulterer [Eph 6'-]), such as prayer lill and exorcism, HIT were practised. We nave no reason to suppose that our Lord and His followers thought of these diseases and remedies in any other way than the rest of their country- men.*** Our Lord's method of delivering His message, like His mode of living, was to a large extent conditioned by the times in which He lived. As He condescended to become a man. He humbled Himself to become one of the itinerant healers who abounded throughout the country. This enables us to realize how Jesus commanded the attention of His countrymen not merely by curing diseases but by exorcizing demons. Further, it explains how these wonders, while attracting the crowd, did not impress the majority of the people with the fact that He was a Divine Being, any more than the miracles of Moses led the Egyptians to think of him as a messenger from Jahweh. It is very significant that, after recording the turning of water into wine (Jn 2' 4''*), the cure of the royal official's son {i"), the healing of the invalid at the Pool of Bethesda (5'), the feeding of the five thousand (6'), and the walking on the sea (6"), the writer of the Fourth Gospel says that not only many of His disciples refused to associate with Him any longer {v."*), but even His own brothers did not believe in Him (7°). Of the mass of the people it is said, ' But though he had done so many signs before them, yet they believed not on him ' (12"), but continued to demand a sign not on earth but from the heavens.