Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/146

* DEMONIAC. 116 DEMONIAC. the mass of the people in India and China, and is found among numerous savage liil)es. This eonception has offered itself as the natu- ral eNphuuition of certain extraordinary and startlinL' phenomena. The frenzy of the prophet and the dervish, the Pythoness and the Baeehaiit, the nceromaneer and the witch, could only be understood in the earlier time as the obsession of a spirit, the temporary possession ot a liunian bein" bv a ghost. A frequent occurrence of such an unusual phenomenon would naturally give rise to the belief in a permanent possession, an incarnation of a god, a transmigration of an eminent ancestral spirit into the body of a de- scendant. As the divine frenzy was frequently connected with hvslcria and epilepsy and seemed akin to insanitv, these pathological conditions were naturallv "ascribed to the same agencies. Phvsical disabilities of long duration and ap- parentlv incurable, such as deafness, dumbness, and blindness, would also be accountc<l for in thK same wav, and ultimately all bodily diseases. As in course of time the demons were dif- ferentiated as evil spirits in distinction from the eood spirits, gods, angels, saints (see Demon ), persons possessed by them were thought to secure from such impure sources forbidden knowledge, heretical doctrines, unholy enthusiasm, suffer- ing and misfortune, or a singular immunity from want and disease in exchange for everlasting perdition. Although a belief in demoniacal possession must have gro«Ti up spontaneously among differ- ent peoples from the need of explaining such ab- normal and striking phenomena found every- where, historic contact no doubt hastened the process of development and gave shape to latent tendencies. The highly specialized demonology providing a spirit for each important organ of the bodv and for every familiar disease, which meets us at the very dawn of history in hgypt and Babvlonia. has, directly or indirectly, in- fluenced "all nations of western Asia and Europe. ThiLs in Iran.Zarathushtra, by reciting the prayer called Ahuiiavairya, ■■caused all demons to van- ish in the ground who aforetime tlew about the earth in human shape" (Yasna ix. 15). Already in Homer {Od. v. 390) a demon causes wasting sickness; insanity and epilepsy, as well as the divine frenzv of the Bacchantes, are ascribed to demons bv "later writers. But there is cverj- reason to" believe that the increasing emphasis on the wickedness of the demons was occasioned bv conllict with Persia on the one hand and R"^'pt on the other. How strong the native con- ception was is seen from the fact that eveii the Nco-Pvthagoreans and Xeo-Platotiists did not limit "the term to an evil spirit, as was done in Persia and .Tudea. Possession by a spirit must have been a verv familiar conception among the ancient Hebrews. Without it, necromancy and witchcraft could not have flourished, and prophethood would have been impossible. The high moral ideals of the prophets whose words have come ilown to us cannot obscure the fact that they both considered themselves possessed bv a spirit, whose spokesman they became by v'irtuc of this possession, and also reganle.l other iirophcts as possessed in a similar manner by other spirits. The immunity with which they could make personal attacks upon kings, magis- trates, and priests was undoubtedly due. in no small m-a -ore. t.. the !;rn.ral fear of the spirit that possessed them. The capacity for prophetic visions or conditions seems to have been con- nected with a certain epileptic or cataleptic tendencv. The prophet was looked upon as a madman ; the iii-ane man was po~>essed by a spirit. David was perfectly safe when feigning madness (1. Sam. xxi. Ki): his lament over Saul shows thai lie did not associate with the King his deeds in moments of insanity (II. Sam. i. 17-^27). In the same way the frenzy exhibited i | in battle was looked upon as possession. The | | spirit was said to clothe himself with a man. While we have no jiositive evidence that disease was explained bv spirit possession, the prophetic character of the literary remains in part ac- counts for the silence. As leprosy and pestilence were considered as the resuk of blows iiillicted bv .Jehovah or some other god. coming unawares a"nd smiting, so other sicknessi^s may have lx»en traced to piirclv external attacks of such spirits as the Seirim "or the Shedim. The growth of I monolatry and transcendental thei:^m forced the transfer of certain functions of deity to inter- mediaries. Then it was that contact with Per- sian Eco-Macedonian thought helped to develop the idea of demoniac po,sses- sion so manifest in the Synoptic tiospels and the Talmudic lilerature. It has been observed that in no Gospel are all diseases referred to demoniac possession, and that Jlark confines possession to psychical maladies such as insanity and epi- lepsy" while Matthew and Luke add instances of purely bodily diseases. The selection of Mark inav be connected with the great importance that his" Gospel attaches to the sui)erhuman insight possessed bv the demons, and it can scarcely be iisscrted wi'lh safety that he drew a sharp dis- tinction between psychical and physical disease, or that he differed from the other Synopists m rcard to the cause of ordinary mala.lies. Some scholars have maintained that .Jesus did not really believe in demoniac possession, but only accommodated himself to the cuneiit behet. This is a highly improbable view: and the dis- cussion recorded in Matt. xii. il et seq.. seems to be decisive against it. Here Jesus assumes that members of the Pharisaic party are able to cast out demons, but i>oints to his own extraordinary success as a sign that the kingdom of heaven is coming, and attributes his own work to a spirit working through him that must not be bla- phenied. That exorcists formed a recognized pro- fession among the -Jews of the period may also be inferred from Talmudic literature, in w-hicli demoniacal iiossi.ssion and the possibility of ex pelling the demons arc in numerous places ac cepted as facts. Among the Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic na tions there were many higher or lower nature spirits to whose influence various distempei- "were attributed, and, though it cannot be den nitely proved, there is reason to sui)pose that po.ssession was not unfamiliar to them. But their conversion to Christianity made them at once ac(piaiiited with New Testament demonology and with an ecclesiastical organization that recognized exorcists as a clerical order. (Sc K.xoiKisT.) Persons who contrived to worshij' ,iii secret the ancestral gods, even after they liai been olliciallv declared to be demons by tlif Church, were regarded as possessed. This woiiH be espe<-iallv the case with old women who ad hered most' persistently to the ancient cult-