[99] Vid. Ortelii Theatrum orbis terrarum.
[100] Vid. Geo. Wernher. de admirandis Hungariæ aquis.
[101] Palæstina ex monument. vet. illustr. p. 300, &c.
[102] Loco citato.
[103] Αλεξικακον.
CHAPTER IX.
Of Demoniacs.
That the Dæmoniacs, δαιμονιζομένοι, mentioned in the gospels, laboured under a disease really natural, tho’ of an obstinate and difficult kind, appears to me very probable from the accounts given of them. They were indeed affected various ways. For sometimes, they rent their garments, and ran about naked; striking terror into all those whom they met, and even wounding their own bodies; so very furious, that tho’ bound with chains and fetters, they broke their bonds, and rambled in the most lonely places, and among the sepulchres of the dead. Sometimes also they cried out, that they were possessed by many devils, which they imagined could pass out of themselves into other bodies.[104] At other times, either they were worried, and made a hideous noise;[105] or were thrown on the ground, without being hurt, and the devil went out of them.[106]
These are all actions of madmen; but the dispute is, whether they were wrought by devils, or by the violence of the disease. Thus much is certain, that in those times it was a common opinion among the jews, that evil spirits frequently took possession of people, and tortured them in so surprizing a manner, as if they were agitated by furies. For in the whole catalogue of diseases, which afflict mankind, there is no other, that seems so much to surpass the force of nature, as this, in wretchedly tormenting the patient by fierce distractions of the mind, and excessively strong, tho’ involuntary, motions of the body. But most certainly we find nothing sacred in all this, nothing but what may arise from a natural indisposition of body. And in order to place this my opinion in the stronger light, it may not be improper to give a short discourse on madness; not indeed on that species, which comes on in an acute fever, and goes off with it, which is called a phrenzy, and is always of short duration; but that other sort, which is rivetted in the body, and constitutes a chronical disease.