which the Author of our religion refers to prove his Messiahship. The whole subject is to us unfathomable. We cannot even define the word miracle. We do not understand the forces of nature. We are ignorant of the exact relationship which Deity sustains to the material world, or the human soul. We are ignorant of the full power which mind can exert over matter. With the aid of science, and science is only exact knowledge, we soon find ourselves confronted by the unknown, but not unknowable. Here we pause. Yet we know that the human intellect in unfolding, not creating, the secrets of nature, renders that common place to-day which, but a few years ago, had all the characteristics of the miraculous. The supernatural disappears as knowledge increases. There is not a greater miracle recorded in the New Testament, and not many in the legends of the saints, than is the steam engine when rushing across the Plains, to the Indian. Yet it is no miracle to the civilized man. He understands the cause of its movements and does not wonder at its rapid flight. So, in the whole history of the world, we know not of a greater miracle than the deep-felt and long continued power of Christ over the human mind and heart. Men have endeavored to explain this by calling Christianitv a revelation God's message; true. but in us it is also a growth. We believe in the union of Christ and God. We farther believe that the human soul, under the guidance of Christ, is continually approaching Him who breathed into man the breath of life and made him a living spirit. We believe that the soul, in thus approaching the Father, will continually see "greater works" than were witnessed by the disciples nearly nineteen centuries ago. We agree with Geikie that "miracles are only the momentary intercalations of unsuspected laws which startle by their novelty, but are no more miraculous than the most common incident of the great mystery of nature." We do not seriously object to the language of that learned Hebrew, Spinoza, who said, two centuries ago:

"A miracle signifies any work the natural cause of which Life of Christ, Vol. 1, page 480.

opinions, the fearful crimes committed in the name of Christ, and the blasphemous doctrines taught as Christianity, we cease to wonder at the infidelity of Voltaire.12 We wonder that the Church of Christ exists, but as it does exist, and never was more prosperons than now, we have confidence in its permanency and ultimate success. And our confidence is increased when we recognize the important fact that infidels are almost unanimous in admitting the superiority of Christ and his religion, even while attacking the many superstitions and caricatures of it, which pass under its name. G. Collins, U. S. A.

Demons and Demoniacs among the Jews in the Time of Christ— Whence the Doctrine was derived.

IN regard to the doctrine of Demons, their origin, character, actions, and their power to possess and torment the bodies of the living, and the method of their expulsion, we find the Jews, in the time of the Savior, in perfect agreement with the Orientals, the Greeks and the Romans. Of course this acknowledged fact provokes the question, Whence did they obtain these notions respecting demonology? We have no accounts of persons possessed with devils or demons, no allusions to casting out unclean spirits from the bodies of the living, in any of the historical, prophetic or poetic books of the Mosaic or the Law dispensation.

But when we come to the New Testament we discover a new order of things. The Jews of that period are of the same faith with the surrounding Pagan nations. The popular creed in regard to demons and possessed persons is the same with that of their heathen neighbors, agreeing in all the leading particulars. There was no revelation nor prophet from Malachi to Jesus, an interval of four hundred years. It is plain then that the Jews did not derive their doctrines of demons, or their faith in them, from any divine source, since none was open to them during the period named. Of course, therefore, they must have obtained them from some other source; in fact, must have bor

12See Dr. Sawyer's last book, called "Endless Misery, &c." The last words of Voltaire were: "I die worshipping God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, but detesting superstition." We quote him as a representative infidel.

rowed them from the heathen, with whom they were in constant in

tercourse.

The first positive appearance of demons or evil spirits in the popular faith of the Jews is recorded in the apocryphal book of Tobit, written about 150 or 200 years before Christ, or 200 years after Malachi, the last prophet of the Old Testament. The story is too long to be quoted. The substance of it is that the young man Tobias journeys into Media, and engages as a guide one who proves to be the angel Raphael. On reaching the Tigris Tobias went down into the river to bathe, when a huge fish would have devoured him but for the saving help of the angel; who then directs him to open the fish, "and take the heart, and the liver, and the gall and put them up safely." The reason assigned for this is that, "Touching the heart to the liver, if a devil or an evil spirit trouble any, we must make a smoke thereof before the man or the woman, and the party shall be no more vexed."

Tobias seeks Sara to wife, but fears lest he shall be slain, as seven others had been on the marriage night, by "a wicked spirit who loveth her, but hurteth nobody but those which come unto her." "Then the angel said unto him, when thou shalt come into the marriagechamber, thou shalt take the ashes of perfume, and shalt lay upon them some of the heart and liver of the fish, and make a smoke with them; and the devil shall smell it, and flee away, and never come again any more."

Accordingly the young man did as the angel directed, and "when the evil spirit had smelled the smell of the smoke, he fled into the utmost parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him." After this the angel, who all this while appeared as a man, discovers to Tobias who he is, saying, "I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels, which present the prayers of the saints, and which go in and out before the glory of the Holy One."

Now all this is manifestly heathenish, and not of the patriarchs or prophets. Nowhere in the Old Testament do we find such stupid nonsense, such superstitions respecting evil spirits, their power to injure and kill mortals, and the methods of expelling them or driving them away. Not even in the books written after the Captivity, as Ezra and Nehemiah; not in the latest of the prophets, do we find the least allusion to such fabulous stories, such absurd notions in regard to demons and wicked spirits. But after the death of the last 1Apochrypha, Book of Tobit, chapter iii-xii.

of the prophets, the people went after strange spirits and superstitions, and to what extent, in the course of 200 years, they had borrowed from their pagan neighbors, and corrupted their own religion, the story just cited will abundantly show.

Let us come now to a later period, and introduce the testimony of one well known to the reader, and who brings us into the New Testament times; and shows us the opinions and gross superstitions of the very people, almost the very individuals, to whom the Savior and his disciples and apostles preached.

Josephus, in giving account of a wonderful plant, and the difficulties and dangers of gathering it, says:

"After all this pains in getting, it is only valuable on account of one virtue it hath-that if it only be brought to sick persons, it quickly drives away those called demons, which are no other than the spirits of the wicked, which enter into men that are alive, and kill them unless they can obtain some help against them." 2

Here we have several essential points of agreement between the Jewish and Heathen demonology. Demons are the spirits of dead persons; wicked demons, of wicked persons. They can and do enter into persons alive; and by the use of suitable means, such as incantations and exorcisms, they may be expelled or driven out of the bodies of which they have taken possession. But on this point let us hear Josephus again.

He tells us that God instructed Solomon in the anti-demoniac art, and gives a long account of a Jewish exorcist, who following the directions of Solomon successfully expelled a demon in the presence of Vespasian, the emperor; the same who began the war which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem, thereby fulfiling the prophecies of the Savior. The reader may be pleased and informed by the story, which we shall therefore quote in full:

which expels demons, He composed incantAnd he left behind

"God also enabled him to learn that skill which is a science useful and sanative to men. ations also by which distempers are alleviated. him the manner of using exorcisms by which they drive away demons, so that they never return. And this method of cure is of great force unto this day; for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazer, releasing people, who were demoniacal, in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was this:-He put a ring of one of those sorts mentioned by Solo2Jewish War, B. vii. 6, §3.

mon to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils; and when the man fell down immediately, he abjured him to return into him no more, still making mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed. And when Eleazer would persuade and demonstrate to the spectators, that he had such a power, he 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 thereby to let the spectators know that he had left the man. And when this was done, the skill and wisdom of Solomon were shown very manifestly; for which reason it is, that all men may know the vastness of Solomon's abilities, and the extraordinary virtues with which he was endowed, that we have proceeded to speak so largely of these matters."

"8

Here we have all the pretensions, tricks and deceptions of the Eastern and Greek exorcists. The Jewish impostors travelled through the land with their subjects all trained and schooled to the business, giving public exhibitions of their power to expel demons from the possessed. But sometimes these mountebanks, or, as Luke calls them, "vagabond Jews, exorcists," went beyond their depth, and thus exposed the imposture. Encouraged by the success of their fraud in such cases as Josephus describes, they ventured upon experimenting occasionally with new subjects; and sometimes, as in the case mentioned by Luke, they "caught a Tartar" in the person of a raving maniac: "The man in whom the evil spirit was, leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded." Acts xix. 13-20.

But it is plain that these Jewish exorcists were of the same family with the exorcists and priests of the Pagan nations; and that the whole matter of demons and their possession and expulsion, of demoniacs and their cure, among the Jews in the time of the Savior, was stamped with the mark of its heathen origin. There is not an instance of the kind in all the Old Testament; not a narrative of any sort, not an allusion, direct or indirect, to any facts or belief respecting demons possessing human bodies.

This tact is of the utmost importance to our inquiry, and seems conclusive touching the faith we ought to have in demoniacal possessions. If we compare the Jewish doctrines on the subject in the time of Christ with their Scriptures, we find not the slightest trace of them there; but if we compare them with contemporary Pagan institutions, we find a perfect resemblance, an exact likeness in every feature there they stand, side by side, the original and the copy!

3Jewish Antiquities, B. viii. chap. ii. §5.