EXORCIST (4Eopracrrzjs, Acts xix. 13). The belief in demoniacal possessions, which may be traced in almost every nation, has always been attended by the professed ability, on the part of some individuals, to release the unhappy victims from their calamity. In Greece men of no less dis tinction than both Epicurus (Diog. Laer. x. 4) and A.A]schines, were sons of women who lived by this art ; and both were bitterly reproached, the one by the Stoics, and the other by his great rival orator Demosthenes (De Cor., sec. 79), for having assisted their parents in these practices. The allusions to the practice of exorcism among the Jews, con tained both in their own authors and in the N. T., are too well known to render quotations necessary. In some instances this power was considered as a divine gift ; in others it was thought to be acquired by investigations into the nature of demons and the qualities of natural productions, as herbs, stones, etc., and of drugs compounded of them ; by the use of certain forms of adjurations, invo cations, ceremonies, and other observances. In deed, the various forms of exorcism, alluded to in authors of all nations, are innumerable, varying from the bloody human sacrifice down to the fumes of brimstone, etc. etc. The power of expelling demons Josephus places among the endowments of Solomon, and relates that he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms by which they drive away demons (for the pretended fragments .of these books see Fabric. Cod. Pseud. Vet. Test. p. 1054). He declares that he had seen a man, named Elea zar, releasing people that were demoniacal, in the presence of Vespasian, his sons, captains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers. He describes the manner of cure thus : ' He put a ring that had a root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon to the nostrils of the demoniac ; after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils, and when the man fell down he adjured him to return no more, making still mention of Solomon and recit ing the incantations he composed.' He further adds, that when Eleazar would persuade and de monstrate to the spectators that he had such a power, he set a cup or basin full of water a little way off, and commanded the demon as he went out of the man to overturn it, and thereby to let the spectators know he had left the man (Autiq. viii. 2. 5). He also describes the mode of obtaining the root Baaras, which, he says, ' if it be only brought to sick persons, it quickly drives away the demons,' under circumstances which, for their strangeness, may vie with any prescription in the whole science of exorcism (De Bell. Yud. vii. 6. 3). Among all the references
to exorcism, as practised by the Jews, in the N. T. (Matt. xii. 27 ; Mark ix. 33 ; Luke ix. 49, 50), we find only one instance which affords any clue to the means employed (Acts xix. 13) ; from which passage it appears that certain pro fessed exorcists took upon them to call over a demoniac the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, `We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.' Their proceeding seems to have been in conformity with the well-known opinions of the Jews in those days, that miracles might be wrought by invoking the names of the Deity, or angels, or patriarchs, etc., as we learn from Justin Martyr, Irenmus, Ori gen, etc., and Lucian (Frog. p. 141). The epithet applied to these exorcists (reptcpxoglmov, Vulg. de circumeuntibus yudals) indicates that they were travelling mountebanks, who, beside skill in medi cine, pretended to the knowledge of magic. It is evident that the opinion we form of exorcism will be materially affected by our views of de moniacal possessions [DEmoN]. The neutral course we have pursued in regard to both these sub jects will be completed upon observing, that the office of the exorcist is not mentioned by Paul in his enumeration of the miraculous gifts (i Cor. xii. 9), though it was a power which he possessed himself, and which the Saviour had promised (Mark xvi. 17 ; Matt. x. S). Mosheim says that the particular order of exorcists did not exist till the close of the third century, and he ascribes its introduction to the prevalent fancies of the Gnos tics (Cm. iii. c. 4). Fairness also induces us to notice Jahn's remark upon the silence of St. ,ohn himself, in his Gospel, on the subject of posses sions, although he introduces the Yews as speaking in the customary way respecting demons and demoniacal possessions, and although he often speaks of the sick who were healed by the Saviour ; coupled with the fact that John wrote his Gospel in Asia Minor, where medical science was very flourishing, and where it was generally known that the diseases attributed to demons were merely natural diseases (Jahn, Arcldiol., large German ed. pt. i. vol. ii. 232, pp. 477-48o ; see also Lomeierus, De Vet. Gent. Lush. ; Bekker, Le Monde en chante ; Whitby's note on Matt. xii. 27).— J. F. D.