It seems, indeed, that this was not a matter of mere personal conviction, but was really the case; the Christian exorcists were able to record the greatest successes, because they answered best to those requirements which we have learnt to recognize as necessary to the success of exorcism. The Christians possessed absolute certainty of victory, founded on their faith in Christ. To this was added the high moral value of their doctrine, which opened to them the hearts of the sick and the oppressed. That deliverance from all the burdens of the soul which the modern man experiences when he enters a circle of true believers in Jesus must have occurred in a far higher degree amongst the Christians of the two first generations to whom the memory of Christ was still a living thing. Men were alive who had known Him, or their sayings had been heard by the ears of those present, and to this must be added the belief in His imminent second coming. It is difficult for us to conceive any idea of the conviction and exaltation of these early Christians. How strong their influence must have been, when their religion was still young, their faith still fresh and vivid, not yet overlaid with the grey dust of two hundred years of dogmatics! The great success of the Christian exorcists is therefore readily understood, and its reality is attested by the fact that other exorcists who were not true Christians, and even certain Jews, likewise uttered conjurations in the name of Jesus2 (as already happened in Palestine in Jesus’ lifetime: Mark ix 38).
Origen declares that the Christian exorcists were generally uneducated people.3 Were the possessed also?
Whereas in Justin’s day (100–150) there was no distinct body of exorcists, one already existed in the time of Origen (182–252). Exorcisms took place free of charge, and nothing was used except prayer and “forms of conjuration so simple that the simplest man was able to apply them” (Origen). The demon was also threatened with punishments.1 It therefore appears that exorcisms were conducted in a manner essentially the same as was later prescribed in the Rituale Romanum, only the formulæ were obviously much simpler and very flexible; no rigid schematization had as yet taken place, nor must it be forgotten that the exorcists were simple and uncultured people. The beginning was devoted to the recitation of the liturgy, then followed prayers, and the exorcism proper came last. It was accompanied by the laying on of hands, the breath of the Spirit was breathed on the possessed, and signs of the cross made. There were also written formularies of exorcism. Probst even declares that in the Rituale Romanum one such has been preserved to us as the essential basis.2
Cures from a distance are also found, although exceptionally. Sulpicius Severus relates of a monk: “He not only cured the possessed when he was present or by his word, but also when he was absent by the fringes of his hair-shirt or by letter.”3
Exorcism seems in many cases to have been accompanied by certain requirements as to the conduct of the possessed. A true belief in God is indicated by Origen as the surest remedy against demons; then followed fasting and prayer—all stipulations which increased the sick man’s faith in the termination of his sufferings.
According to Origen, it was a rule never to question the demons nor to speak to them, for God did not desire that Christians should become the listeners and disciples of demons.4 The claims of certain Christians (e.g., Justin Martyr) to command unconditional success in their exorcisms and their categorical denial of it to other persons are naturally quite false and in contradiction to evidence from other sources. Tertullian even goes so far as this monstrous exaggeration: “The wicked spirit, bidden speak by a follower of Christ, will as readily make the truthful confession that he is a demon, as elsewhere he has falsely asserted that he is a god.”1
Not all had the same success, and this depended on their possession or lack of the . Unfailing success would be contrary to the theory. “The force of the exorcism,” says Origen expressly, “lies in the name of Jesus which is spoken and in which his Gospels are proclaimed.” There is involved, moreover, a very primitive magic spell, the “name-spell.” All the attempts of Christian theologians to endow Christianity with a sublimity beyond the accumulated primitive beliefs of the period are useless. Let us listen to Origen explaining the magic charm of the name of Jesus:
Then we say that the name Sabaoth, and Adonai and the other names treated with so much reverence among the Hebrews, are not applicable to any ordinary created thing, but belong to a secret theology which refers to the Framer of all things. These names accordingly when pronounced with that attendant train of circumstances which is appropriate to their nature, are possessed of great power; and other names, again, current in the Egyptian tongue, are efficacious against certain demons who can only do certain things; and other names in the Persian language have corresponding power over certain spirits; and so on in every individual nation, for different purposes. And thus it will be found that, if the various demons upon the earth, to whom different localities have been assigned, each one bears a name appropriate to the several dialects of place and country. He, therefore, who has a nobler idea, however small, of these matters, will be careful not to apply differing names to different things….2
And I do not dwell on this, that when the name of Zeus is uttered there is heard at the same time that of the son of Kronos and Rhea, and the husband of Hera and brother of Poseidon, and father of Athene and Artemis…. And when one is able to philosophize about the mystery of names, he will find much to say respecting the titles of the angels of God, of whom one is called Michael and another Gabriel, and another Raphael, appropriately to the duties which they discharge in the world, according to the will of the God of all things. And a similar philosophy of names applies also to our Jesus, whose name has already been seen, in an unmistakable manner, to have expelled myriads of evil spirits from the souls and bodies (of men), so great was the power which it exerted upon those from whom the spirits were driven out. And while still upon the subject of names, we have to mention that those who are skilled in the use of incantations, relate that the utterance of the same incantation in its proper language can accomplish what the spell professes to do; but when translated into any other tongue it is observed to become inefficacious and feeble. And thus it is not the things signified, but the qualities and peculiarities of words, which possess a certain power for this or that purpose. And so on such grounds as these we defend the conduct of the Christians, when they struggle even to death to avoid calling God by the name of Zeus, or to give him a name from any other language.1
According to the belief of these first Christians the efficaciousness of the exorcism pronounced in the name of Jesus had nothing to do with Jesus himself; it was from the five letters J-E-S-U-S arranged in that particular order that the curative action proceeded! The reproaches levelled by Harnack against Reitzenstein and modern classical philology in general, of having represented Christianity in its early days as too near to primitive conceptions and misconstrued figurative expressions literally, proves unfounded on this point. Naturally this does not in any way detract from the lofty character of Christianity’s world-wide message.
The most detailed exposition of possession and its treatment in the Church of the past centuries, as well as of exorcism, is to be found in the Memoirs of Anton Josef Binterim,2 which also contain an unequalled collection of descriptions from that period.
As regards the diffusion of possession in ancient Jewry, only one case is to be found in the Old Testament: it is the history of the evil spirit which at times descended upon Saul.
Now the spirit of the Eternal departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Eternal scared him. So Saul’s courtiers said to him: “Here is an evil spirit from God scaring you! Let your servants now before you offer a suggestion; let them discover some skilful player on the lyre; then whenever the evil spirit overpowers you, he shall play music, and you will get better.” Saul answered his courtiers: “Look me out a man who plays well, and bring him to me.”
(David was then brought). And whenever the evil spirit from God overpowered Saul, David would take the lyre and play music,
till Saul breathed freely; then all would be well and the evil spirit would depart from him.3
… Next day an evil spirit from God overpowered Saul, and he raved within his house. David was playing music for him as usual, and Saul had a spear in his hand; he raised the spear, saying to himself: “I will pin David to the wall.” But David evaded him twice over.1
… an evil spirit from the Eternal overpowered Saul as he sat in his house, spear in hand. David was playing music, and Saul tried to pin David to the wall with his spear. But David slipped aside from Saul, and he drove the spear into the wall.2
It follows with certitude from this narrative that Saul suffered from extremely painful psychic compulsions. His case was therefore one of lucid possession.
As mentioned above, this is the sole case of possession recorded in the Old Testament—we shall deal in the next chapter with possession amongst the prophets and pseudoprophets. According to H. Duhm3 the importance of belief in evil spirits amongst the Jews in Old Testament times was very slight. Their national separatism from the outer world was in this respect very advantageous, keeping them free from the more serious forms of infection by Babylonian and Egyptian demonology.
Many an obscure form, amorphous survival and usage transformed in meaning, clearly shows that the Israelites had also had their early demonic period and had several times come under the influence of their neighbours; but these traces demonstrate equally that belief in demons had no longer any individual and independent life, and that its effects lingered with the same tenacity that we observe amongst our own Protestants.4
On the other hand, since the destruction of the Israelitish and then the Jewish state, the number of demons grew incessantly and continued to augment right on into New Testament times (under the influence of the Babylonian conception of the world).5
According to H. Loewe, belief in possession reigned particularly in Galilee, whereas Palestine was immune from it.6
In the New Testament accounts of possession, the consequences of the influx of Babylonian demonology are extremely obvious. Parallel with them are certain passages from Flavius Josephus which also throw light on Jewish therapeutics. Of Solomon he relates:
God also enabled him to learn the art which expels demons, which is useful and works cures for men. He composed charms also by which diseases are alleviated. And he left behind him forms of exorcisms, by which people drive away demons so that they never return; and this method of cure is of very great value unto this day: for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, curing people possessed by demons in the presence of Vespasian and his sons and captains and the whole of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was as follows: he put a ring that had under its seal one of those sorts of roots mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac, and then drew the demon out through his nostrils as he smelt it: and when the man fell down immediately, he adjured the demon to return into him no more, still making mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he had composed. And Eleazar, wishing to persuade and show to the spectators that he had such a power, used to set a little way off a cup or basin full of water, and commanded the demon, as he went out of the man, to overturn it, and so let the spectators know that he had left the man.1
In his Jewish War Flavius Josephus speaks of a certain root (bara) which was sought after as a remedy against possession.
For the so-called demons—in other words, the spirits of wicked men which enter the living and kill them unless aid is forthcoming—are promptly expelled by this root, if merely applied to the patients.2
It seems that in ancient times, in the Semitic cilivizations of Palestine, possession as a whole had reached its most complete development. Bousset finds that “at all events belief in the devil together with an awakening dualism permeates late Jewish religion to a very high degree.”3 He sees in the possession-beliefs of that time the result of a general established religious life—namely, that in all periods of transition when a people’s highest faith weakens and is threatened with destruction, and before the somewhat higher new forms have as yet definitely developed, the more primitive old beliefs emerge from the lower depths of the popular mind.
Everywhere at the time of Hellenism and of the Roman Empire national religions were going bankrupt, and everywhere with a disquieting strength superstition, belief in spirits and ghosts, in the conjuration of spirits and in magic practices, in the power of names, the formulæ of sorcery, incantatory prayers, binding and loosing and other charms flourished luxuriantly.4
The particularly strong influence exercised on Judaism by belief in demons seems related to the deeply religious temperament of this people: almost the whole of its intellectual creativeness is concentrated on religion. By its religion alone it has become a world-power; in other forms of culture, science, art, philosophy, it is not to be compared with Græco-Latin antiquity. Even its poetry, in spite of certain great creative works, is poor regarded as a whole, and has never broken away from religion. Judaism has, of course, an essential importance from the point of view of social civilization, but this no longer belongs to the domain of the highest culture.1
To the religious impetus must be added the pathological tendencies of the Jewish people. These have long been recognized as indubitable in contemporary Judaism, a fact the more important to our subject as possession must be regarded as more nearly related to hysteria than to anything else, and hysteria is numbered amongst the affections to which the Jewish nation is predisposed.2
Let us pause to consider whether this disposition originates from social relations or from still deeper causes.
It is certain that life during the dispersion, the national conservatism of the Jews, the jealousy and ill-will called forth by the oppression of neighbouring peoples and the feelings of permanent aversion resulting therefrom, contributed in many cases to produce and develop neuroses and thus often to transmit an heredity of corresponding tendencies.3 But it still appears questionable whether these environmental causes suffice to explain pathological tendencies. Quite as unconvincing are the suggestions of repeated degeneracy due to long-continued in-breeding and often betraying itself by external blemishes. All these reasons, not in themselves improbable, nevertheless lose some of their cogency when we consider the long series of Jewish monuments and observe the marked constancy of the racial type.4 Those signs of degeneracy which are supposedly due to the age and inbreeding of the race exist already in the monuments of ancient Egypt, and to this physical constancy corresponds a moral one. All things considered, we are irresistibly driven to the conclusion that this is a people which unites in a quite peculiar manner and from the most remote times, an astonishing will to live with pathological tendencies, strong, as compared with those of other peoples, towards degeneracy.
These tendencies furnish a complete explanation of how it was possible for belief in demons to lead in Judaism to so many sicknesses as appears to have been the case. The history of possession amongst the Jews does not come to an end at the time of Christ, but is prolonged up to the present day.
In the third century A.D. we find evidence of Jewish possession and Jewish exorcisms in the great magic papyrus of Paris, the redaction of which goes back to about the year 300. The text1 is the more interesting since its conclusion shows that it contains an exorcism applied to cases of genuine possession, whereas it is impossible to decide whether the majority of exorcisms handed down to us deal with real possession or a physical malady considered as such.
So far as the civilizations of the Far East in ancient times are concerned, I have so far only been able to obtain access to very scanty documents.
Some few particulars relating to ancient India may be found in a work of Jolly on old Hindu medicine, which can, however, barely be pressed into service. It appears from Jolly’s information that in India also spirits have been imagined as able to enter into the human body, but for the most part we are again confronted by the interpretation of maladies of all sorts as possession.
Children’s ailments in particular were attributed to demoniacal influences, perhaps because this defenceless age was held to be particularly accessible to such influences and because the suddenness with which in children grave sickness succeeds perfect health could not be otherwise explained…. The general signs of a demoniacal attack are also enumerated. The child starts suddenly, he is frightened, he cries, bites himself and his nurse, his eyes are turned backwards, his teeth chatter, he groans, whines, yawns, knits his brows, clenches his teeth, twists his lips, frequently spits foam, grows thin, does not sleep at night, has swollen eyes, suffers from diarrhœa and hoarseness, smells of meat and blood, does not eat as before, does not take the breast; preliminary symptoms (prodromi) are fever and incessant tears.2
There are also prevailing psychic symptoms by which possession is recognized. We have in India a degree of civilization where often the purely physical maladies are no longer considered as demoniacal in nature, but psychic disturbances, or at least many of them, are still so regarded. So far as the maladies of adults are concerned Jolly has established the following facts:
The worst forms of dementia are attributed to a demoniac influence and consequently classed as possession (bhutonmada). Eight, ten, twenty, or “innumerable” demons and gods of madness are distinguished, who seize upon man when he transgresses the laws of religion, when he remains alone in an empty house or stops by night at a burial-place, etc. What spirit has entered into him may be discerned by his mode of behaviour. Thus the man possessed by a Daitya is spiteful, hot-tempered, proud; he calls himself a god, likes spirituous liquors and meat. He who is possessed by a Gandharva sings and dances, bedecks, bathes, and anoints himself. He who is possessed by a demon snake has red eyes, a fixed stare, his walk is tortuous and unsteady, he puts out his tongue, licks the corners of his lips, likes milk, honey and sweet things. He who is possessed by a Yaksa is voluptuous, lascivious, prodigal, talkative, and staggers like a drunkard in his walk. He who is possessed by a Pisaka is uneasy, gluttonous and dirty; he has no memory, runs hither and thither, tears his flesh with his nails and walks naked.1
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