Among the hearers in the Synagogue that Sabbath morning was one of a class, concerning whose condition, whatever difficulties may attach to our proper understanding of it, the reader of the New Testament must form some definite idea. The term demoniacal possession' occurs not in the New Testament. We owe it to Josephus, [2272] from whom it has passed into ecclesiastical language. We dismiss it the more readily, that, in our view, it conveys a wrong impression. The New Testament speaks of those who had a spirit, or a demon, or demons, or an unclean spirit, or the spirit of an unclean demon, but chiefly of persons who were demonised.' [2273] Similarly, it seems a strange inaccuracy on the part of commentators to exclude from the Gospel, of St. John all notice of the demonised.' That the Fourth Gospel, although not reporting any healing of the demonised, shares the fundamental view of the Synoptists, appears not only from St. John vii. 20, viii. 48, 52, but especially from viii. 49 and x. 20, 21. [2274] We cannot believe that the writer of the Fourth Gospel would have put into the mouth of Jesus the answer I am not a demon,' or have allowed Him to be described by His friends as not one demonised,' without a single word to show dissent from the popular view, if he had not shared the ideas of the Synoptists. In discussing a question of such very serious import in the study and criticism of the Gospels, the precise facts of the case should in the first place be clearly ascertained.
The first question here is, whether Christ Himself shared the views, not indeed of His contemporaries (for these, as we shall see, were very different), but of the Evangelists in regard to what they call the demonised?' This has been extensively denied, and Christ represented as only unwilling needlessly to disturb a popular prejudice, which He could not at the time effectually combat. But the theory requires more than this; and, since Christ not only tolerated, but in addressing the demonised actually adopted, or seemed to adopt, the prevailing view, it has been argued, that, for the sake of these poor afflicted persons, He acted like a physician who appears to enter into the fancy of his patient, in order the more effectually to heal him of it. This view seems, however, scarcely worth refuting, since it imputes to Jesus, on a point so important, a conduct not only unworthy of Him, or indeed of any truly great man, but implies a canon of accommodation' which might equally be applied to His Miracles, or to anything else that contravened the notions of an interpreter, and so might transform the whole Gospel-narratives into a series of historically untrustworthy legends. But we will not rest the case on what might be represented as an appeal to prejudice. For, we find that Jesus not only tolerated the popular prejudice,' or that He adopted it for the sake of more readily healing those thus afflicted' - but that He even made it part of His disciples' commission to cast out demons,' [2275] and that, when the disciples afterwards reported their success in this, Christ actually made it a matter of thanksgiving to God. [2276] The same view underlies His reproof to the disciples, when failing in this part of their work; [2277] while in St. Luke xi. 19, 24, He adopts, and argues on this view as against the Pharisees. Regarded therefore in the light of history, impartial criticism can arrive at no other conclusion, than that Jesus of Nazareth shared the views of the Evangelists as regards the demonised.' [2278]
Our next inquiry must be as to the character of the phenomenon thus designated. In view of the fact that in St. Mark ix. 21, the demonised had been such of a child,' it is scarcely possible to ascribe it simply to moral causes. Similarly, personal faith does not seem to have been a requisite condition of healing. Again, as other diseases are mentioned without being attributed to demoniacal influence, and as all who were dumb, deaf, or paralysed would not have been described as demonised,' it is evident that all physical, or even mental distempers of the same class were not ascribed to the same cause: some might be natural, while others were demoniacal. On the other hand, there were more or less violent symptoms of disease in every demonised person, and these were greatly aggravated in the last paroxysm, when the demon quitted his habitation. We have, therefore, to regard the phenomena described as caused by the influence of such spirits,' primarily, upon that which forms the nexus between body and mind, the nervous system, and as producing different physical effects, according to the part of the nervous system affected. To this must be added a certain impersonality of consciousness, so that for the time the consciousness was not that of the demonised, but the demoniser, just as in certain mesmeric states the consciousness of the mesmerised is really that of the mesmeriser. We might carry the analogy farther, and say, that the two states are exactly parallel - the demon or demons taking the place of the mesmeriser, only that the effects were more powerful and extensive, perhaps more enduring. But one point seems to have been assumed, for which there is, to say the least, no evidence, viz., that because, at least in many cases, the disease caused by the demon was permanent, therefore those who were so affected were permanently or constantly under the power of the demon. Neither the New Testament, nor even Rabbinic literature, conveys the idea of permanent demoniac indwelling, to which the later term possession' owes its origin. [2279] On the contrary, such accounts, as that of the scene in the Synagogue of Capernaum, convey the impression of a sudden influence, which in most cases seems occasioned by the spiritual effect of the Person or of the Words of the Christ. To this historical sketch we have only to add, that the phenomenon is not referred to either in the Old Testament. [2280] or in the Apocrypha, [2281] nor, for that matter in the Mishnah, [2282] where, indeed, from the character of its contents, one would scarcely expect to find it. But we find it mentioned not only in the New Testament, but in the writings of Josephus. [2283] The references in heathen or in Christian writings posterior to those of the New Testament lie beyond our present inquiry. [2284]