original meaning; and that this may be the cafe here. Having a demon, might be, and probably was, used by the Jews in general, as the equivalent phrase, being poffeffed by a demon, certainly was by Jofephus in particular, to exprefs mere madness, without including in it demoniacal poffeffion as the cause. It is certainly not necessary to underftand the phrase in its most extenfive meaning in all, or indeed in any of the paffages which we have cited for what the Jews wanted to infer from the difcourfes of Chrift, and the behaviour of John, was, that they were difordered in their understandings, and therefore not worthy to be attended to. Why hear ye him? was their language concerning Christ. John x. 20. To me it seems evident, that the principal idea affixed to the phrase in queftion was that of infanity. So the Jews themselves explain it, He hath a demon, and is mad. When fome, who thought favourably of Chrift, replied, Thefe are not the words of him who hath a demon, they muft mean, that they obferved in his difcourfes no figns of phrenzy; nor doth it appear, that they meaned more than this, by denying that he had a demon. Indeed, if perfons spoken of as possessed, were not disordered in their understanding, why might they not speak and act as rationally as other men? In who heir fentiments are perfectly conple to thofe of all other perfons in cient world. at reason then is there to fuppofe, hrift and his apoftles entertained a nt idea of demoniacs from what all perfons did? This is a point which not to be admitted without proof. e be no proof of it, (and none ver yet been offered,) the very conught to be admitted. It should be always for granted, (as we obferved on another occafion) that all men rds in their ordinary fignification, there is no reason to believe the y. The New Teftament, howfurnishes us with clear and certain that the facred writers did use the having a demon, in the fame sense rs did. the whole debate turned upon this fingle Is there, or not, any thing in Chrift's s inconfiftent with a found understanding? with (or rather in) an unclean fpirit'; and St. Luke calls him a man that had demons. From this last phrase, if interpreted agreeably to the ufe of it amongst the Jews, we may infer, that he was not in his right mind: and the fame inference may alfo be drawn from the forFor we have fhewn elsewhere, that to be in the Spirit, is an expreffion that implies fome fufpenfion of our own faculties, and our thinking and acting under a foreign impulfe and impreffion. This phrafe,being in a fpirit, is equivalent to mer. • Matthew mentions two demoniacs, ch. viii. 28. But Mark (ch. v. 2.) and Luke (ch. viii. 27.) take notice only of one; as I likewife fhall do in this place, my prefent argument not depending upon their number. • Ἐν πνεύματι ἀκαθάρτω, Mark v. 2. 4 Ος εἶχε δαιμόνια, Luke viii. 27. * Inquiry into the Nature and Defign of Chrift's Temptations in the Wilderness. that hich more frequently occurs, haypirit or demon; as appears not only nparing Mark and Luke together, paffages here referred to, but also Mark himself. For of the very perfon, concerning whom, he that he was in an unclean Spirit, cribes as the man that had the and was poffefed by a demon. former phrase therefore imports tual impulse that controuls the 1 faculties, the latter muft do fo The farther particulars mentioncerning the demoniac at Gadafirm this account of his diforder. are told, that he had been often with chains and fetters, and as roke them', impatient of all rethat he lived amongst the far from the converfe of men, V. 2. + Ver. 15, 16. below, ch. ii. fect. 1. No. 4. melancholy, especially under the par7 this diforder, delight in folitude and make it dangerous for travellers to pass darkness, Maimonides in Sabbat. II. 5. Dr. Lightfoot tells us, (Hor. Heb. on Mat viii. 28.) that lodging among the tombs was reckoned by the Jews as one fign of a madman, (compare Wetten, in loc. p. 355) Dr. Freind likewise (History of Phyfick, part I. p. 18, 21.) fays, that one of the most remarkable symptoms of the madness called lycanthropy was, to wander amongst the fepulchres of the dead. Bellerophon is defcribed by Homer, lib. vi. ver. 202, wáτov avlρúπwv åλeεívwv, veftigia hominum vitans. See Euripidis Bacch. v. 32, 33. A fimilar paffage from Aëtius III. 8, 9. is cited by Wetften. on Mat. viii. 28. p. 354. The fepulchres in the eastern countries are not in towns and cities, but in solitary and unfrequented places; and in this view they fuited the melancholy apprehenfions of demoniacs. But what feems to have disposed them to refort to these manfions of the dead, rather than to other gloomy receffes, was the apprehenfion of their being poffeffed by the fouls of dead men, which were fuppofed, wicked fouls especially, to hover up and down about their burying places. See Plato's Phædon, p. 386, C. ed. Ficini. Macrobius in Somn. Scip. lib. i. cap. 9, 13. Porphyr. de Abftin. lib. ii, $47. Lactant. Div. Inftitut. lib. ii. cap. 2. Tibul near |