Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (776 page)
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Authors: George Eliot
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~xv\j interpreting it figuratively, or even as a parable,* in every explanation of which (if we set aside ‘such as that given l>y Olshausenf after Galmct,) the essential idea is, that superficial conversion to the cause of .Jesus is followed by a relapse into aggravated sin. JBut, I would fain know, what justifies us in abandoning the literal interpretation of this discourse V In the propositions themselves there is no indication of a figurative meaning, nor is it rendered probable by the general style of teaching used by Jesus, for he nowhere else presents moral relations in the garb of demoniacal conditions: on the contrary, whenever he speaks, as here, of the departure of evil spirits, (;. g. in Matt. xvii. 21, he evidently intends to be understood literally. But
does the context favour a figurative interpretation ? Luke (xi. 24 ft.) places the discourse in question after the defence of Jesus against the Pharisaic accusation, that he cast out devils by Beelzebub:
a position which is undoubtedly erroneous, as we have seen, but which is a proof that he at least understood Jesus to speak literally-of real demons. Matthew also places the discourse near to the above accusation and defence, but he inserts between them the demand of a sign, together with its refusal, and he makes Jesus conclude with the application, Even so sfirdl.it lie also unto this wicked generation. This addition, it is true, gives the discourse a figurative application to the moral and religions condition of his co-temporaries, but only thus: Jesus intended the foregoing description of the expelled and returning demon literally, though he made a secondary use of this event as an image of the moral condition of his cotemporaries. At any rate Luke, who has not the same addition, gives the discourse of Jesus, to use the expression of Paulus, as a warning against demoniacal relapses. That the majority of theologians in the present day, without decided support on the part of Matthew, and in decided contradiction to Luke, advocate the merely figurative interpretation of this passage, appears to be founded in an aversion to ascribe to Jesus so strongly developed a demonology, as lies in his words literally understood.But this is not to be avoided, even leaving the above passage out of consideration. In Matt. xii. 25 f. 29, Jesus speaks of a kingdom and household of the devil, in a manner which obviously outsteps the domain of the merely figurative; but above all, the passage already quoted, Luke x. 18--20, is of such a nature as to compel even Paulus, who is generally so fond of lending to the hallowed personages of primitive Christian history the views of the present age, to admit that the kingdom of Satan was not merely a symbol of evil to Jesus, and that he believed in actual demoniacal possession. For he says very justly, that as Jesus here speaks, not to the patient or to the people, but to those who themselves, according to his instructions, cured demoniacs, his * Gratz, Comm. z. Matth. S. Gli>. f B. Comm. 1, S. 42-1. According to this, tha -1-*~” trt tin* .lavish tjeonle, who before the exile were possessed by the devil in ‘•’•-+ Tlma Fritzsche, MIEACLES OF JESUS----DEMONIACS.words are not to be explained - as a mere accommodation, when he confirms their belief that the spirits are subject unto them, and describes their capability of curing the malady in question, as a power over the power of the cnsmjjj^ In answer also to the repugnance of those with whose enlightenment a belief in demoniacal possession is inconsistent, to admit that Jesus held that belief, the same theologian justly observes that the most distinguished mind may retain a false idea, prevalent among his cotemporaries, if it happen to lie out of his peculiar sphere of thought, f Some light is thrown on the evangelical conception of the demoniacs, by the opinions on this subject which we find in writers more or less cotemporary. The general, idea that evil spirits had influence on men, producing melancholy, insanity, and epilepsy, was early prevalent among the GreelcsJ as well as the Hebrews : § but the more distinct idea that evil spirits entered into the human body and took possession of its members was not developed until a considerably later period, and was a consequence of the dissemination of the oriental, particularly the Persian pncuinatology among both Hebrews and Greeks. j| Hence we find in Joscplms the expressions Saifibvia rot? $&aiv eiadvofieva^ eyKaOe&neva** (demons entering into the living, settling themselves there), and the same ideas in Lucianff and Pliilostratus.JJ
does the context favour a figurative interpretation ? Luke (xi. 24 ft.) places the discourse in question after the defence of Jesus against the Pharisaic accusation, that he cast out devils by Beelzebub:
a position which is undoubtedly erroneous, as we have seen, but which is a proof that he at least understood Jesus to speak literally-of real demons. Matthew also places the discourse near to the above accusation and defence, but he inserts between them the demand of a sign, together with its refusal, and he makes Jesus conclude with the application, Even so sfirdl.it lie also unto this wicked generation. This addition, it is true, gives the discourse a figurative application to the moral and religions condition of his co-temporaries, but only thus: Jesus intended the foregoing description of the expelled and returning demon literally, though he made a secondary use of this event as an image of the moral condition of his cotemporaries. At any rate Luke, who has not the same addition, gives the discourse of Jesus, to use the expression of Paulus, as a warning against demoniacal relapses. That the majority of theologians in the present day, without decided support on the part of Matthew, and in decided contradiction to Luke, advocate the merely figurative interpretation of this passage, appears to be founded in an aversion to ascribe to Jesus so strongly developed a demonology, as lies in his words literally understood.But this is not to be avoided, even leaving the above passage out of consideration. In Matt. xii. 25 f. 29, Jesus speaks of a kingdom and household of the devil, in a manner which obviously outsteps the domain of the merely figurative; but above all, the passage already quoted, Luke x. 18--20, is of such a nature as to compel even Paulus, who is generally so fond of lending to the hallowed personages of primitive Christian history the views of the present age, to admit that the kingdom of Satan was not merely a symbol of evil to Jesus, and that he believed in actual demoniacal possession. For he says very justly, that as Jesus here speaks, not to the patient or to the people, but to those who themselves, according to his instructions, cured demoniacs, his * Gratz, Comm. z. Matth. S. Gli>. f B. Comm. 1, S. 42-1. According to this, tha -1-*~” trt tin* .lavish tjeonle, who before the exile were possessed by the devil in ‘•’•-+ Tlma Fritzsche, MIEACLES OF JESUS----DEMONIACS.words are not to be explained - as a mere accommodation, when he confirms their belief that the spirits are subject unto them, and describes their capability of curing the malady in question, as a power over the power of the cnsmjjj^ In answer also to the repugnance of those with whose enlightenment a belief in demoniacal possession is inconsistent, to admit that Jesus held that belief, the same theologian justly observes that the most distinguished mind may retain a false idea, prevalent among his cotemporaries, if it happen to lie out of his peculiar sphere of thought, f Some light is thrown on the evangelical conception of the demoniacs, by the opinions on this subject which we find in writers more or less cotemporary. The general, idea that evil spirits had influence on men, producing melancholy, insanity, and epilepsy, was early prevalent among the GreelcsJ as well as the Hebrews : § but the more distinct idea that evil spirits entered into the human body and took possession of its members was not developed until a considerably later period, and was a consequence of the dissemination of the oriental, particularly the Persian pncuinatology among both Hebrews and Greeks. j| Hence we find in Joscplms the expressions Saifibvia rot? $&aiv eiadvofieva^ eyKaOe&neva** (demons entering into the living, settling themselves there), and the same ideas in Lucianff and Pliilostratus.JJ
Of the nature and origin of these spirits nothing is expressly stated in the gospels, except that they belong to the household of Satan (Mafr. xii. 26 ft’, parall.), whence the acts of one of them are directly ascribed to Satan (Luke xiii. 16.). But from «Josephtts,§§ Justin MartyrJIJ] and Pliilostratus,T1” with whom rabbinical writings agree,*** we learn that these demons were the disembodied souls of wicked men ; and modern theologians have not scrupled to attribute this opinion on their origin to the New Testament also.ftt Justin *Exeg. Hand!,. 2, S. T.flG. f t’t sup, I. B. S. 483, 2, S. 90. } Hence the words tei/tovav. Ko.noSa.tu.tn.-iiv were used as synonymous with ,«£vlay,toAa)’. fiaivec^ai. Hippocrates had to combat the opinion that epilepsy was the cft’ect of demonical influence. Vid. Wet-ftein, S. 282 If § Let the reader compare the
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1 Sam. xvi. 14. Its influence on Saul is expressed by -iCl^sa || Vid. Creuzer, Sym-lolik. 8. S. CO f.; Baur, Apollonius von Tynna and Christus, S. 144. ^f Bell. jud. vii. vi. S. ** Antiq. vi. xi. 2. On the state of Saul. ft Philopseud. 1C. §§ Vitie S^f;;^
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and;the Rabbins move nearly particularize, as spirits that torment the living, the souls of the giants, the offspring of those angels who -allied themselves to the daughters of men: the rabbins further add the souls of these who perished in the deluge, and of those who participated in building the tower of Babel ;* and with this agree the Clementine Homilies, for according to them also, these souls of the giants having become demons, seek to attach themselves, as the stronger, to human souls, and to inhabit human bodies.tAs, however, in the continuation of the passage first cited, Justin endeavours to convince the heathens of immortality from their own ideas, the opinion which he there expresses, of demons being the souls of the departed in general, can scarcely be regarded as his, especially as his pupil Tatian expressly declares himself against it;+ while Jo-sephus affords no criterion as to the latent idea of the New Testament, since his Greek education renders it very uncertain whether he presents the doctrine of demoniacal possession in its original Jewish, or in a Grecian form. If it must be admitted that the Hebrews owed their doctrine of demons to Persia, we know that the Deves of the Zend mythology were originally and essentially wicked beings, existing prior to the human race; of these two characteristics, Hebraism as such might be induced to expunge the former, which pertained to Dualism, but could have no reason for rejecting the latter. Accordingly, in the Hebrew view, the demons were the fallen angels of Gen. vi., the souls of their offspring the giants, aud of the great criminals before and immediately after the deluge, whom the popular imagination gradually magnified into superhuman beings. But in the ideas of the Hebrews, there lay no motive for descending beyond the circle of these souls, who might be conceived to form the court of Satan. Such a motive was only engendered by the union of the Graico-roman culture with the Hebraic : the former had no Satan, and consequently no retinue of spirits devoted to his service, but it had an abundance of Manes, Lemures, and the like,-all names for disembodied souls that disquieted the living. Now, the combination of these Gratco-roman ideas with the above-mentioned Jewish ones, seems to have been the source of the demonology of Josephus, of Justin, and also of the later rabbins: but it does not follow that the same mixed view belongs to the New Testament. Rather, as this Grgecised form of the doctrine in question is nowhere positively put forth by the evangelical writers, while on the contrary the demons are in some passages represented as the household of Satan: there is nothing to contravene the inference to be drawn from the unu;;vedly Jewish character of thought which reigns in the synopeven were it implied, is totally different from that of demonical possession. Here it would lie a good spirit who had entered into a prophet for the strengthening of his powers, as according to a Inter Jewish idea the soul of Seth. was united to that of Moses, and again the souls of .Moses and Aaron to that of Samuel (Eisenmenger. tit sup.); but from this it n-AiiM w Tin means follow, that it was possible for wieiud spirits to enter into the living.
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tical “-ospels on all otnW subjects (apart from Christian modifications): namely, that we must attribute to them the pure and original Jewish conception of the doctrine of demons.
It is well known that the older theology, moved by a regard for the authority of Jesus and the evangelists, espoused the belief in the reality of demoniacal possession. The new theology, on the contrary, especially since the time of .Sender,* in consideration of the similarity between the condition of the demoniacs in the New Testament and many naturally diseased subjects of our own day, has begun to refer the malady of the former also to natural causes, and to ascribe the evangelical supposition of supernatural causes, to the prejudices of that age. In modern days, on the occurrence of epilepsy, insanity, and even a disturbance of the self-consciousness resembling the condition of the possessed described in the New Testament, it is no longer the custom to account for them by the supposition of demoniacal influence: and the reason of this seems to be, partly that the advancement in the knowledge of nature and of mind has placed at command a wider range of facts and analogies, which may serve to explain the above conditions naturally; partly that the contradiction, involved in the idea of demoniacal possession, is beginning to be at least dimly perceived. For,-apart from the difficulties which the notion of the existence of a devil and demons entails,-whatever theory may be held as to the relation between the self-consciousness and the bodily organs, it remains absolutely inconceivable how the union between the two could be so far dissolved, that a foreign self-consciousness could gain an entrance, thrust out that which belonged to the organism, and usurp its place. Hence for every one who at once regards actual phenomena with enlightened eyes, and the New Testament narratives with orthodox ones, there results the contradiction, that what now proceeds from natural causes, must in the time of Jesus have been caused supcr-naturally.
In order to remove this inconceivable difference between the conditions of one age and another, avoiding at the same time any imputation on the New Testament, Olsliausen, whom we may fairly take as the representative of the mystical theology and philosophy of the present day, denies both that all states of the kind in question ^liavc now a natural cause, and that they had in the time of Jesus invariably a supernatural cause. With respect to our own time he asks, if the apostles were to enter our mad-houses, how would they name many of the inmates? We answer, they would to a certainty name many of them demoniacs, by reason of their participation in the ideas of their people and their age, not by reason of their apostolic illumination; and the official who acted as their conductor feee his Commentfitlo de davnoni’icis quorum in Ar. T.Jit mentio, and his minute consideration of demonical cases. So early as the time of Origen, physicians gave natural explanations of the state of those supposed to be possessed. Orig. in Matlh. xvii. 15.THE LIFK OP JESUS.
aou would very properly endeavour to set them right: whatever names therefore they might give to the inmates of our asylums, our conclusions as to the naturalness of the disorders of those inmates would not bo at all affected.With respect to the time of Jesus, this theologian maintains that the same forms of disease were, even “by the Jews, in one case held demoniacal, in another not so, according to the difference in their origin: for example, one who had become insane through an organic disorder of the brain, or dumb through an injury of the tongue, was not looked on as a demoniac, but only those, the cause of whose condition was more or less psychical. Of such a distinction in the time of Jesus, Olshausen is manifestly bound to give us instances. Whence could the Jews of that age have acquired their knowledge of the latent natural causes of these conditions-whence the criterion by which to distinguish an insanity or imbecility originating in a malformation of the brain, from one purely psychical V Was not their observation limited to outward phenomena, and those of the coarsest character? The nature of their •. i.~ 4.1,•..„ . 4-1,p sts,to Of an epileptic with his sudl’ui^v v~j phenomena, and those of the coarsest ciiaraeici ;jm^ ,„..... .
distinctions scorns to be this: the state of an epileptic with his sudden falls and convulsions, or of a maniac in his delirium, especially if, from the reaction of the popular idea respecting himself he speaks in the person of another, seems to point to an external influence which governs him ; and consequently, so soon as the belief in demoniacal possession existed among the people, all such states were referred to this cause, as we find them to be in the New Testament: whereas in dumbness and gouty contraction or lameness, the influence of an external power is less decidedly indicated, so that these afflictions were at one time ascribed to a possessing demon, at another not so. Of the former case we find an example in the dumb persons already mentioned, Matt. ix. 82; xii. 22, and in the woman who was bowed down, Luke xiii. 11; of the latter, in the man v~ho was deaf and luid an impediment in his speech, Mark vii. 32 ff., and in the many paralytics mentioned in the gospels. The decision for the one opinion or the other was however certainly not founded on an investigation into the origin of the disease, but solely on its external symptoms. If then the Jews, and with them the evangelists, referred the two chief classes of these conditions to demoniacal influence, there remains for him who believes himself bound by their opinion, without choosing to shut out the lights of modem science, the glaring inconsistency of considering the same diseases as in one age natural, in another supernatural.
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