In the opinion of some writers the persons spoken of in the New Testament as possessed of devils were really sufferers from common diseases, being the unhappy victims of madness, monomania, hypochondria, hysteria, epilepsy and kindred ailments, and that Christ in dealing with them merely accommodated his language to the prevalent opinions of the time.
However much the first teachers of Chris tianity participated in the beliefs of their fellow countrymen respecting the doctrine of spirits, there can be no doubt that their successors, the fathers and teachers of the Church, were con siderably influenced by the popular ideas on this subject. In the early Church the genergumens° or persons possessed were recognized as a dis tinct class, and the Church originated a regular discipline in regard to them. The lives of the saints and holy men and women contain many a story in which demons figure, and the office of exorcist was long one of importance. It did not readily occur to the Jew or early Christian to deny even the existence of the gods of the heathen nations; they were simply regarded as demons or devils. We thus find in literature up till the Middle Ages, and even on this side of them, the divinities of Oriental, classical, and Scandinavian mythology figuring as princes of hell. Consult such works as Sir Walter
Scott, 'Demonology and Witchcraft' ; Conway, Wemonolgy and Devil-Lore); and for the de mons of Scripture the dictionaries of the Bible, as Smith, Hastings and the 'Encyclopaedia Biblica' (Vol. I, 1899); also Horst, (Daemono magic' (2 vols., 1818) ; and (6 vols., 1821-26) ; Ukert, Weber Daimonen, Heroen, und Genie& (1850) ; Bastian, 'Der Mensch in der Geschichte (3 vols., 1860) ; Taylor, 'Primitive Culture' (2 vols., 1871) ; Roskoff's admirably learned (Geschichte des Teufels> (2 vols., 1869) . • Maspero, 'Dawn of Civilization) (New York 1894) ; Nevins, 'De mon Possession> (Chicago 1895) ; Alexander, 'Demoniac Possession in the New Testament> (Edinburgh 1901) ; Townsend, 'Satan and De mons> (Cincinnati 1902) ; Carus, 'History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil from the Earliest Times to the Present Time> (Chicago 1900) ; Tambornino, antiquorum dannon ism& (1909) ; und Dualis mus> (1909) ; also some of the older books, as Bodin, 'De Magorum Demonomania> (1581) ; and the like. See ANGELS; ANIMISM; EVIL; EXORCISM; HELL; SERPENT-WORSHIP; WEREWOLF WITCHCRAFT; ZOROASTER.