III. Jn the early Church. — 1. As Christians were sup- posed to be in constant conflict with the devil, they used not only prayer, but also exorcism, which was held to be a power given to the Church. Thuo TertuUian (A.D.
220), speaking of the warfare of the Christian soldier (Z)e Corona J\/ilit. c. 11) with demons, says exorcismis fu/javil (he routs them with exorcisms). So in his Apologeticus (c. 23) he says that the " evil spirit will confess himself to be a demon when commanded to speak by any Christian" (Jussus a qnolibet Chrtstiano). So also Origen, cant. Cdsum, lib. vii, iciojrai to toiov- Tov TrpuTTovmv (the common unlettered people do the same). " ' Oh, could jou but hear,' says Cyprian (Ep. 76), ' and see those demons when they are tortured by us, and afflicted with spiritual chastisement and verbal anguish, and thus ejected from the bodies of the pos- sessed (obsessorum), moaning and lamenting with hu- man voice, thi-ough the power divine, as they feel the rods and stripes they confess the judgment to come. The exorcists rule with commanding right over the whole army of the insolent adversary. Oftentimes the devil promises to depart, but departs not ; but when we come to baptism, then indeed we ought to be assured and confident, because the demon is then op- pressed, and the man is consecrated to God and liber- ated.' The invocation of Christ, attended by the sign of the cross, and pronounced by persons formally ap- pointed to the office, was the method by which those stupendous effects were usually produced ; and one among the man}' evils which proceeded from this ab- surd practice was an opinion, which gained some prev- alence among the less enlightened converts, that the object of Christ's mission was to emancipate mankind from the yoke of their invisible enemy, and that the promised 7'edemption was nothing more than a sensible liberation from the manifest influence of evil spirits" (Waddington, Church History, ch. xlii). The Apostol- ical Constitutions, viii, 26, saj's : " An exorcist is not appointed, for the prize pertaineth to voluntar}' good- ness and the grace of God, through Christ, bj' the in- fluence of the H0I3' Spirit ; for he who hath received the gift of healing is declared by revelation from God, the grace that is in him being manifest unto all. But if there be need of him for a bishop, or presbj'ter, or deacon, he is appointed accordingly." Thus it ap- pears (1) that the power of casting out devils was held to exist in the Church ; (2) that as late as the third century it was not held to belong exclusivelj' to the clergj", but to the whole Church, or at least to some among the laity. The use of exorcism seems to have been at first confined to the case of persons " possessed with devils," tvtpyovi.uvoL, who were given into the care of persons set apart for the purpose (Cyprian, Epist. 75, 76). See Energumexs. But Cj'prian also speaks here of baptismal exorcism (see below).
2. Exorcists. — A special order of exorcists arose as earlj"^ as the third century. Before that time, al- though, as has been seen, the power of exorcising was held to be a spiritual gift common to all classes in the Church, it jet appears to have been chiefly exercised bj' the clergy. On the date of the rise of the order of exorcists, and of their ordination and office, Bingham {Orig. Eccles. bk. iii, ch. iv) speaks as follows : " I take Bona's opinion to be the truest, that it came in upon the withdrawing (Rerum Liturg. lib. i, c. xxv, note. 17) of that extraordinar}' and miraculous power, which probably was by degrees, and not at the same time in all places. Cornelius (jtp. Euseb. lib. vi, c. xliii), who lived in the third century, reckons exorcists among the inferior orders of the Church of Eome ; j'et the au- thor of the Constitutions, who lived after him, saj's it was no certain order {Constit. Apost. lib. viii, c. xxvi), but God bestowed the gift of exorcising as a free grace upon whom he pleased ; and therefore, consonant to that hypothesis, there is no rule among those Consti- tutions for giving any ordination to exorcists, as being appointed by God only, and not bj' the Church. But the credit of the Constitutions is not to be relied upon in this matter; for it is certain by this time exorcists were settled as an order in most parts of the Greek Church, as well as the Latin ; which is evident from
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the Council of Antioch, A.D. 341, in one of wliose can- ons {Cone. Antioch. c. x) leave is given to tlie chor- episcopi to promote subdeacon.s, readers, and exorcists, Avliicli argues that those were then all standing orders of the Church. After this exorcists are frequentty mentioned among the inferior orders by the writers of the fourth centurj^ as in the Council of Laodicea {Cone. Laodlc. c. xxiv and xxvi), Epiphanius {Expos. Fid. note 21), Paiilinus {Natal, iv, S.Fdicis.), Sulpicius Severus ( Vit. S. Martin, c. v), and the Rescripts of The- odosius {Cod. Theodos. lib. xii, tit. i, De Decurione Leg. 121), and Gratian (/</. ib. lib. xvi, tit. ii, De Episc. Leg. 2i) in the Theodosian Code, where those emperors grant them the same immunities from civil offices as the}' do to the other orders of the clergy. Their or- dination and office is thus described bj' the fourth Council of Carthage {Cone. Cartli. iv, c. vii : Exorcista quum ordinatur, accipiat de manu episcopi libellum, in quo scripti sunt exorcism!, dicente sibi episcopo : Accipe et commenda memoriae, et habeto potestatem imponendi manus super energumenum, sive baptiza- tum, sive catechumenum) : "When an exorcist is or- dained, he shall receive at the hands of the bishop a book, wherein the forms of exorcising are written, the bishop saying. Receive thou tliese and commit them to memory, and have thou power to lay hands upon the energumens, whether they be baptized or onl}' cate- chumens." These forms were certain prayers, togeth- er with adjurations in the name of Christ, commanding the uncle:in spirit to depart out of the possessed per- son, which may be collected from the words of Pauli- nus concerning the promotion of St. Felix to this of- fice, where he says {Natal, iv, S. Felicis. : Primis lector servivit in annis, inde gradum cepit, cui munus voce fideli adjurare nialos, et sacris pellere verbis), from a reader lie arose to that degree whose office was to ad- jure evil spirits, and to drive them out by certain holy words. It doss not appear that they were ordained to tills office by any imposition of hands either in the Greek or Latin Church ; but yet no one might pretend to exercise it either publieh' or privately, in the church or in any house, without the appointment of the bish- op, as the Council of Laodicea directs {Cone. Laod. c. xxvi) ; or at least the license of a chorejmcojnis, who in that case was authorized {Concil. Antiochen. cap. x) by the bishop's deputation."