When, therefore, I use the expression that they must have shared in the ignorance of the age respecting the causes of this disease, I must guard against the danger of ascribing to them a greater degree of ignorance than that which they have actually shown. The expression, “ignorance of the age,” denotes no uniform quantity of ignorance shared in by every individual alike. In an ignorant or superstitious age, one person may be far more so than another. It is quite conceivable that two thousand years hence human improvement may have become so great, that those who live in the present century may be designated as ignorant. It may be hereafter asserted that such writers as Huxley, Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, and Mill shared in the ignorance of the age in which they lived on some important physical facts. But from this it would be absurd to draw the conclusion that they were believers in the alleged facts of spiritualism because large numbers of their contemporaries were known to have believed in them, and spiritualistic publications enjoy a large circulation both in Europe and America in this nineteenth century.
As far as the Evangelists are concerned, the supposition that I am now considering involves nothing more than that they held a false theory as to the cause [pg 244] of a particular form of disease, and that they have used language respecting it that embodies this theory. In this point of view they would not differ from writers of every age who have entertained false theories as to the causes of physical phenomena. In such cases it is easy to separate the fact from the incorrect view as to what were the causes of that fact. Ancient philosophical writers held many false theories as to the place of the local habitation in our bodies of certain affections of our moral nature. These can be traced very distinctly in the language of the present day. Thus we say that a man is devoid of heart, and talk of making appeals to the heart. These, and multitudes of similar expressions which occur both in ancient and modern writings, involve false philosophical theories; but it is easy to separate the facts intended from the theories. Thus, if the authors of the Gospels inform us that our Lord cured a demoniac, and give an account of the demoniac's outcries, as though they were the utterances of a demon, we have only to substitute madman for demoniac, and the correct state of the case is easily discovered.
The real difficulty which is felt on this subject, arises not from the narratives as ordinary histories, but on the supposition that the writers possessed an inspiration which ought to have guarded them from such errors. Popular theories of inspiration unquestionably render such an assumption necessary, but I can see no ground for it, either in the statements of the Gospels, or any other portion of the New Testament. Nowhere is it affirmed that its writers were to be guided into all truth, scientific, philosophical, or even historical. All that is affirmed is that they possessed a degree of supernatural enlightenment adequate to communicate the Christian revelation to mankind. Neither is there [pg 245] a hint given, nor can a fact be adduced, to show that their supernatural illumination extended beyond this. The spiritual gifts bestowed no enlightenment beyond the special function of those gifts. This the affirmation of St. Paul in the Epistles to the Corinthians makes clear. A person having the gift of tongues, if he had not also that of interpretation was unable to interpret his own utterances, and the possession of the high gift of prophecy by no means exempted the possessor from the danger of using it in a manner to create confusion in the Church. Even the highest apostolic gifts conferred no infallibility, but were strictly limited to their proper functions of communicating the great truths of the Christian revelation. The idea that they conferred a general infallibility is no statement of the New Testament, but a pure figment of the imagination.
It therefore by no means follows because the writers of the New Testament had an illumination sufficient for their functions that they had any other than their ordinary enlightenment beyond that limit. They might have been good teachers of religious truth, and yet utterly ignorant of physical science. The assertion may be correct that St. Luke possessed a supernatural guidance sufficient to enable him to compose the third Gospel, and yet it may be no less true, that as a physician he had no medical knowledge beyond that of his time, and that he shared in all its errors as to the causes and cure of physical disease. A man may be a good physician of the soul, and at the same time a very ignorant physician of the body. It is quite conceivable, therefore, even if the Evangelists or those followers of Christ from whom they derived their accounts possessed various degrees of supernatural enlightenment on matters directly affecting Christianity, [pg 246] that they possessed none whatever as to the causes of disease, and that they may have viewed madness as a result of demoniacal action, and described it accordingly. The facts would remain the same; the symptoms might have been exhibited, and the cure actually effected.
But the New Testament likewise affirms that our Lord imparted to His followers the power of expelling demons, as well as that of healing diseases. Now, on the supposition that these demoniacs were simple maniacs, how does this affect the credibility of the narrative?
I reply that during the mission of the Apostles and the Seventy (for these are the cases alluded to) there is no promise made them of supernatural enlightenment. They were simply sent out to announce a specific fact, the near approach and setting up of the kingdom of heaven, and to work miracles in confirmation of it. It is true that in His address to them, our Lord told them that a time was coming when they would have to testify to Him before princes and kings, and that He promises them, that they should receive supernatural assistance, suitable to the emergency. But this never arose during the mission in question. They were commanded to cure the reputed demoniac in confirmation of their mission. This would be an equally miraculous sign whether he was one possessed or a simple maniac. In this case, therefore, there was no reason why they should be supernaturally enlightened as to the causes of this disease, more than of any other. No doubt the theories then prevalent as to the causes of disease generally were very faulty. It could not be otherwise in the state of medical science at that period. So they must always have been while such a truth as the circulation of the blood was unknown. [pg 247] But the object of Christianity was not to communicate scientific knowledge, or to teach the true causes of disease, but to discover truths mightily operative in the moral and spiritual worlds. It follows, therefore, that the ignorance of the disciples as to the actual causes of mania no more affects the credibility of the narrative than their ignorance of the causes of paralysis or leprosy.
It is also evident from the statements of the Gospels, that there were a considerable number of persons who practised exorcisms of various kinds, and who fully believed that the persons on whom they operated were possessed by demons. It seems also probable from the allusions made to them, that these exorcisms were occasionally successful in effecting a cure; and it may be, more frequently, in mitigating the symptoms. This, however, was not always the case; for the Evangelists describe the disciples as entirely unsuccessful in the case of the child, out of whom they invoked the demon to depart in the name of Jesus. It is worthy of observation, that in this instance, the father of the demoniac describes his son's case as a combination of lunacy and possession, “He is lunatic and sore vexed.” Their failure is directly attributed to want of faith, i.e. that there was something wanting in their mental state which prevented them from exerting the requisite influence over the lunatic youth. The want of success with which exorcists were not unfrequently attended is strikingly set before us in the account given in the Acts of the Apostles, of the attempt made by certain Jewish exorcists to cure the demoniac at Ephesus. In this case it not only ended in a complete failure, but in an aggravation of the malady.
Now when we consider the various forms which [pg 248] mania assumes, it is quite credible that exorcisms may have exerted a favourable influence on it, altogether apart from any supernatural power possessed by the operator. It is clear that the supposed maniacs imagined themselves under the influence of demoniacal possession. When we consider the powerful influence that one mind is capable of exerting over another under these circumstances we can see that the presence of superior mental power was an influence exactly suited to produce a favourable result. In our modern treatment of mania (whatever may be the opinions as to its physical origin) it is now universally admitted that moral means are the most efficacious. Some obvious physical causes can be dealt with and removed, while others cannot. But the most successful operator on these forms of lunacy is he who applies to them the most effective moral treatment, under which in many cases its symptoms have gradually disappeared. One of these modes of treatment is never to cross the patient on the subject of his delusions. Nothing is more remarkable than the influence which the efficient practitioner can exert over persons suffering from these forms of madness, by the mere energy of his will; a display of mental power analogous to that of strong faith. This will often produce a calm among maniacs which persons of inferior endowments utterly fail to excite. It is an unquestionable fact that high mental and moral power is capable of producing striking results on different forms of maniacal disease.
This being so, it follows that exorcists might be capable of exerting upon maniacs a powerful influence favourable to cure. In the ancient world the usual treatment was that of extreme harshness. The demoniac of Gadara had been bound with chains and fetters. This is now known to have a direct tendency [pg 249] to aggravate the disease, rather than to cure it. It is no wonder, therefore, if the exorcist, by adopting an opposite mode of treatment, and even by sympathizing with the sufferer's delusions, was capable of alleviating the symptoms of the complaint, if not of effecting a cure. The whole result may have been due to moral influence and spiritual power, which may have been taken for the expulsion of a demon. In whatever way it was effected, the cure or the alleviation was no less real.
It follows, therefore, that the exorcists of the ancient world were far from necessarily being a set of impostors, even on the supposition that possession was simple mania. They may have been able to effect real alleviations or even cures of the complaint, although they were ignorant as to its cause, or how their exertions produced a successful result. There is nothing inconsistent with their general honesty, if they themselves were under the belief that they were expelling demons, while they were really curing ordinary mania. It should also be observed, that a real power of exerting an influence on madmen was one which in those times of ignorance, both of mental and physical science, admitted of fearful abuse, and if exercised for evil purposes, was capable of producing many of the worst results with which the practice of witchcraft and sorcery have been attended. A large portion of these latter operations no doubt resulted from the successful practice of ocular deception, but another portion of them unquestionably resulted from the mighty influences that a powerful mind can exert over a weak, imaginative, and superstitious one. There are many depths of human nature into which science has as yet failed to penetrate; and among these are the entire phenomena of mania and religious frenzy.