In dealing with this question it is evident that I must proceed on the supposition that I am reasoning with theists only. The whole question is irrelevant on the principles of Pantheism or Atheism, or, to put the case more distinctly, on such principles there is no greater difficulty in supposing that nature has evolved evil beings superior to men in their faculties and powers in some other part of the universe, than that it has evolved evil men, who are gifted with high forms of intelligence in this; or even that such beings should be capable of interfering in human affairs. If Pantheism or Atheism is a correct account of the facts of the universe, it is impossible to say what kind of beings nature may have evolved in the past, or may evolve in the future from her prolific womb.

But if it is once conceded that a personal God exists, who is the moral Governor of the Universe, the affirmation that the existence of such beings is inconsistent with his attributes, is only another form of asserting that the existence of moral evil is incompatible with them. The ground of its existence has been a problem, into which the human mind has striven to penetrate from the earliest dawn of thought, without ever approaching to its solution; but into this question it is useless to enter. In the present argument we are dealing with facts, and the existence of aggravated forms of moral evil in the universe is a fact. If there be a God, it must be consistent with his attributes. The real difficulty lies in its existence at all in the universe of a God who is all-powerful and good.

But not only does moral, but physical evil exist. This is another unquestionable fact, and its existence bears directly on my argument. Many and vain have been the attempts to explain it away. It has been affirmed that pain after all is no such great matter. I strongly suspect that those who have asserted this, have experienced but little of it. It is true that it may ultimately result in good under God's government, but taken by itself, it is undeniably an evil. Do not frightful sufferings abound? Do not most painful diseases afflict our frames? Is it not possible to suffer terribly from causes quite independent of our own conduct? Is not a great earthquake a terrible calamity to those who suffer from its effects, although it may be attended with beneficial results to those who do not? Pains may be said to be useful warnings; but surely the warning might have been given without the extremity of the suffering. They are also affirmed to be the penalties of ignorance, and this may be partially true: but the ignorance is in a vast majority of cases unavoidable. It is a simple fact, that a great amount of physical suffering exists, the reason of which we are wholly unable to explain.

But further: moral evil propagates itself, and inflicts calamities on those who are not implicated in its guilt. Is it not true that men have existed both in the ancient and modern world, whose actions have inflicted the greatest evils on mankind for generation after generation? Can any one doubt that descendants suffer for the sins of remote ancestors, and children for those of their parents? Facts are facts, and they will not become less so by our refusing to look at them. The evil wrought by such a man as Philip II. of Spain, is a fact, and it has extended its baneful influence to our own times. Is not a large portion of the evils under which France has groaned, traceable to the misdeeds of two of her sovereigns? These were quietly sleeping in their graves, when the evils they had occasioned burst on the head of their guiltless successor. But it is needless to quote examples. History is one long succession of them. Whether we like it or not, the old saying is an accurate account of the moral order of the universe as it exists, “Visiting the sins of the fathers on the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” These are facts which the theist equally with the Christian must face, for they exist in the universe of that God, in whose moral perfections both believe. I repeat, therefore, that the only way of escaping from them is by rushing into the far greater difficulties of pantheism or atheism.

Nor is there any greater force in the objection, that if such beings exist at all, it is inconsistent with our conceptions of the divine government, that they should be allowed to interfere in the affairs of men. I reply, that it is equally inconceivable, that God should have allowed a man, to whom he has imparted the greatest mental endowments, and whom he has placed in an elevated position in society, who lived centuries ago, to exert an evil influence on the present generation. The difficulty that a powerful influence for evil can be exerted by men on those who have never seen them, and of whose existence they have never heard, is just as great as the one under consideration. Yet it is one of the most undeniable of facts, that men do exert the most powerful influence on one another, and that such influence can be exerted by generations long since passed away on those who live ages afterwards; and that it can be exerted unconsciously.

I am far from wishing to deny, that the difficulty is a real one. On the contrary, I fully admit it; and that it is one which our present faculties are unable to explain. But it is one which is not peculiar to Christianity, nor has it originated in it. The interference of superhuman beings in human affairs for the purposes of evil, would be only another form of the same difficulty.

I now proceed to consider the real difficulty connected with this subject, and which has been very strongly urged by the author of “Supernatural Religion.” It is this. “If it is conceivable that beings exist who possess superhuman knowledge and power; and that they are capable of interfering as the New Testament affirms, in the affairs of men, how can the performance of a miracle be the guarantee of a divine commission? May not inferior agents, who possess superhuman knowledge and power, be able to produce results which would to all outward appearance be miraculous? Might not an evil being, who was possessed of the highest intelligence like Satan, perform such actions as would be equivalent to miracles, for the purpose of authenticating falsehoods? All that such actions prove is the presence of superhuman knowledge and power; but they would leave it quite uncertain whether the power was divine or Satanic.” Such is the objection, and it demands an adequate solution.

But assuming, as I cannot help doing in an argument like the present, the existence of a God, who is the Creator and Governor of the universe, the question is not a mere abstract one, what a Being like Satan, if he is supposed to exist, might be capable of doing; but it becomes entirely one of permitted agency. It is plain, that if there is a God, every being in the universe, however powerful or intelligent, can only act within a certain definite sphere of operation, which the Governor of the universe has assigned to him. Within what limits then is he allowed act? Are subordinate agents permitted to interfere with the material forces of external nature? and if so, within what bounds? Can they wander over the universe at their mere will and pleasure, and interfere with its operations? How far is their interference permitted in the moral and spiritual worlds? The question before as is even reduced to one of far narrower limits. Our only direct knowledge of the existence of such an agency is derived from Revelation. The real point therefore which concerns us is, to what extent is such permitted agency affirmed in the New Testament. Do the Satanic interventions there described interfere with divine miracles as attestations of a divine commission? We have nothing whatever to do with abstract propositions or with what Rabbinical writers may have affirmed on this subject, but with the assertions of the New Testament alone.

It is certain that the extent to which one human mind can act on another is bounded by no narrow limits; what is more, it is one which is frequently exerted for evil. It is evidently within the purposes of the Creator to permit this. Why it is allowed to the extent to which it is, is beyond our powers to discover. But the wide extent to which it not only can be, but actually is exerted, is a fact that cannot be denied. It is also an influence that can be exerted secretly. The difference between this power and that which is supposed to be attributed to Satan in the New Testament is far more one of degree than of kind; and the latter is one which is bounded by clear and definite limits. Between a Satanic possession and a miracle performed by Jesus the distinction is unmistakable.

It follows from the foregoing considerations, that the Satanic supernaturalism, which we have to consider, as far as if stands in opposition to the miracles of God, is reduced to very narrow limits. It consists almost exclusively of possession and its phenomena. No other kind of action bearing even a remote analogy to a miracle, with the single exception of the history of the temptation, is anywhere attributed to Satan in the New Testament.

Such an idea receives no countenance from anything which is affirmed by St. Paul. The passage in which allusion is made to Satan transforming himself into an angel of light is as follows: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers should be transformed as the ministers of righteousness.” It is quite clear that nothing was further from the Apostle's mind than the idea of Satanic miracles bearing the impress of holiness as wrought in support of the kingdom of falsehood. He is simply speaking of Judaizing teachers, who claimed the support of apostolical authority, for the purpose of disseminating their unchristian views.

This precisely represents the case as it stands in the New Testament. All the miracles alleged to have been wrought by God, bear a definite impress of character and purpose. The supernaturalism ascribed to Satan is no less definitely marked. The one clearly comes from above. The indications that the other, if real, must have come from below, are equally distinct. The moral impress which the two series of events bear, is fully sufficient to discriminate the one from the other.

The attempt to distinguish between the miraculous act and its moral environment, is absurd. It has been affirmed that one miraculous act is as good as another, quite apart from the circumstances with which they are attended. Such a principle would destroy the distinction between a highly meritorious act and the foulest crime. A, for example, has killed B. The outward act may be the same; but the accompanying circumstances make all the distinction between a justifiable homicide, and a most atrocious murder. It is ridiculous to affirm that principles which are legitimate in common life become invalid only when they are applied to the evidences of Christianity. Why, in the name of common sense, may not one miracle be as clearly distinguishable from another by its moral environment, as an event in ordinary life is similarly distinguished? The affirmation, therefore, that the supposition of the possibility of Satanic miracles must invalidate the miracles of God is absurd.

This is conclusive reasoning. It is only possible to darken the question by treating it as one of bare possibilities, as to what kind of actions a being like Satan might be capable of performing, if he is allowed to interfere with the arrangements of the universe at his pleasure. Such a supposition is foreign to the question at issue, which is whether the supernaturalism which the New Testament is supposed to attribute to him can interfere with the evidential value of the miracles wrought by Jesus. My reply is, Examine and compare the two. When this has been done, no doubt can remain on any reasonable mind that the latter, if real, are from above; and the former from below. The affirmation therefore that if Satanic miracles, such as possession, are possible, it invalidates the evidence of those wrought by God in attestation of the truth of a divine commission is disproved.

Equally invalid is the objection against a miraculous attestation to a divine commission, on the ground that such testimony can be easily imitated. I reply, that the great mass of the miracles recorded in the New Testament do not easily admit of a fraudulent imitation. I by no means deny that the art of legerdemain is capable of producing results which to an ignorant observer have the appearance of being supernatural. But this class of actions bears not the smallest analogy to the miracles recorded in the New Testament. No art of legerdemain can persuade a man who has been for many years blind to believe that he has recovered his sight, and enable him to act accordingly.

But it has been argued; if God is the moral Governor of the universe, is He not bound to prevent a being like Satan from acting for the purposes of evil in the affairs of men? This question may be best answered by asking another. Is He not equally bound to hinder evil men from exerting such terrible influences on others, even long after they are dead? Is He not bound to hinder the possibility of the bringing up of children by their parents in various forms of vice, so as to render them in after life, more wicked than themselves? Yet it is an indubitable fact that such an influence is exerted under the moral government of God. Human life abounds with such cases, which bear a close analogy to Satanic action exerted in the affairs of men. When we can fully fathom the reason for the permission of the one, we shall have made considerable progress in understanding those of the other. The case may be simply stated. There are difficulties in the moral government of the universe, into the grounds of which we cannot penetrate. These press equally on every form of theism. The Satanic supernaturalism described in the New Testament presents a precisely analogous difficulty. This therefore can form no reason why one who believes that God is the moral Governor of the universe, as it now exists, should reject Christianity because the difficulties are of a similar order, and press equally on both. The only escape from them, as I have already said, is the inevitable position assumed by atheism, or pantheism, and the dreary prospect which they afford to the aspirations of the human mind.

In approaching this question, let me at once observe that while I entertain a definite opinion as to the nature of the inspiration of the New Testament derived not from à priori assumptions, but from a careful study of its facts and phenomena, yet the question at issue is not what is the nature or the extent of the inspiration, but the reality of the supernatural events recorded in the Gospels. This issue is one which is purely historical, and therefore I have simply to examine it on historical grounds, and not to defend any particular theory of inspiration. Our business is first to ascertain what are the facts of the New Testament which are supported by historical evidence; when we have ascertained these, we shall be in a position to propound a theory of inspiration in accordance with the facts and assertions; still, however, it will be necessary to find out how a certain state of the facts will affect the character which the Gospels attribute to our Lord.

The following facts are plain on the surface of the Gospels. First, that the followers of our Lord believed that the demoniacal possessions there recorded were objective facts, and not mere forms of disease.

Secondly, that our Lord himself, if the words attributed to Him are correctly reported, used language which seems to imply that He shared in this belief.

The question is a far more serious one, as it affects our Lord, than those on whose reports the statements of the Gospels are founded. He is represented as being a divine person, and as possessed in His human nature, not of infinite but of superhuman knowledge. His apparent sanction of an erroneous view is therefore a very different thing from the apparent sanction of it by an author of a Gospel, or from the mistaken views which his followers might have entertained as to the causes of a bodily disease.

I should find no difficulty in adopting the theory of the eminent writers above named, that the demoniacal possessions mentioned in the New Testament, were nothing but forms of insanity, if it were not that our Lord has apparently recognised their reality. It has been urged that if possession was nothing but insanity, there is an end of the miracle. But this is not the case, for the cure of a madman is quite as much a supernatural act as the expulsion of a demon.

Let me now assume for argument's sake, that possession was simple madness. How does such a supposition affect the veracity of the authors of the Gospels, and their judgment as credible historians of the events of our Lord's life?

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.

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?

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.

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.

These facts and considerations are sufficient to vindicate the credibility of the writers of the New Testament in their statement, that a power of exorcism was known and exercised in their time, and that its exercise was at times attended with favourable results. The statement on this subject attributed to our Lord, “If I by Satan cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore shall they be your judges,” is plainly an ad hominem argument. It amounts to no more than this; You Pharisees accuse me of casting out demons through Beelzebub. You assert that your disciples exercise a power of exorcism; and that they do this in virtue of a divine power communicated to them. On what principle of common sense can you affirm that the power which I exercise is demoniacal, and that which your disciples exercise is divine?—There is no assertion made one way or the other as to the reality of the acts in question; nor is there any difficulty in supposing that our Lord recognised that some of the influences thus exerted were genuine.

I have hitherto, in treating this part of the subject, been dealing with the supposition that our Lord's disciples mistook maniacs for demoniacs, and the consequences of such a mistake on the authenticity of the Gospel narratives. I must now address myself to the far more important question as to the consequences which follow from our Lord's apparent recognition of the existence of demoniacal possession on the supposition that it was simple mania.

I am not concerned in the present argument with the words and actions which they have attributed to the demoniacs; but with the words and actions attributed to Jesus. We know that some madmen labour under the delusion, not only that they are emperors and kings, but even in a few instances that they are God himself. This being so, it is quite possible that a maniac may confuse his personality with one or more demons; and speak and act consistently with the delusion. The maniacs may have given utterance to exclamations resulting from mere delusions; but the Evangelists in recording these utterances gave simple statements of facts. It is quite possible, that the demoniac of Gadara may have imagined himself possessed by a legion of demons, and have spoken and acted accordingly, whilst he was at the same time labouring under simple mania.

First, that our Lord really distinguished between mania and possession; but that the Evangelists have inaccurately reported his words and actions, through the media of their own subjective impressions, or, in short, have attributed to Him language that He did not really utter.

Second, that our Lord knew that possession was a form of mania, and adopted the current notions of the time in speaking of it, and that the words were really uttered by Him.

Third, that with similar knowledge, He adopted the language in question as part of the curative process.

Fourth, that He accepted the validity of the distinction, and that it was a real one during those times.

These alternatives demand our careful consideration, not for the purpose of determining which is the correct one, but of estimating the results which flow from either of them on the central character of the Gospels. The position which I take must be clearly stated. It is this: If possession be mania, there is nothing in the language which the Evangelists have attributed to our Lord which compromises the truthfulness of his character. If, on the other hand, we assume that possession was an objective fact, there is nothing in our existing scientific knowledge of the human mind which proves that the possessions of the New Testament were impossible.

Let us consider the first alternative.

The phenomena which distinguish St. Mark's Gospel strongly display the marks of autoptic testimony. This greatly increases the difficulty of the supposition in question, for these expressions are found in that Gospel, and in it we also find the remarkable saying, “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” It seems therefore impossible to doubt the Evangelist's assertion that such words were uttered by our Lord.

But I must now inquire whether Dr. Farrar's supposition is tenable, that some misapprehension has crept into the narrative when it affirms that the demons in objective reality left the body of the man and entered into the swine.

I answer that there is nothing in the Evangelists which requires us to consider their words as an accurately scientific statement of the mode in which the demon acted on the mind of the possessed.

It follows therefore that the expressions “going out from the man,” and “entering into the swine,” may only denote the cessation of the influence of the demons over the man, and its exertion on the swine, without determining the mode in which that influence was exerted. Surely when our Lord promised that He would come to the man who loved him and make his abode with him, that did not imply a local indwelling of his person but an indwelling of influence.

This conclusion at which we have arrived, that our Lord's meaning is accurately reported by the Evangelists, disposes of the first alternative. We will now proceed to examine the second, viz., that our Lord knew that possession was mania, and that He adopted the current notions of the times in speaking of it. The all important question is, how far does this affect his veracity?

On this point Archbishop Trench has laid down the following position broadly: “If Jesus knew that the Jewish belief in demoniacal possession was baseless and that Satan did not exercise such power over the bodies or spirits of men there would be in such language that absence of agreement between thoughts and words in which the essence of a lie consists.”

The same principle must also have been applicable to many other erroneous opinions which the Jews entertained respecting the interpretation of the Old Testament. In fact it would be difficult to assign any limits to our Lord's duty of correcting popular errors which had any kind of bearing on religious truth.

I observe first, that if possession was mania, the real ground of the popular error was an erroneous opinion as to the cause of a natural disorder. The popular belief in fact ascribed it to supernatural instead of natural causes. So far, but no farther, it touched religious questions. To correct the error involved not merely the teaching of religious truth, but in this particular case the enunciation of sounder principles of mental philosophy. I think that I may fearlessly affirm that the teaching of scientific truth, either mental or material, did not come within the scope of our Lord's divine mission. Political truth is a part of moral truth, and moral truth is closely allied to religious truth. Now although Christianity is a power which will ultimately reform the political world, our Lord expressly affirmed that it was no part of his mission to enunciate political truth.

In the same manner it may have formed no direct portion of his mission to teach correct views respecting the origin of mania, or to counteract the opinions which ascribed it to supernatural causes.

On these principles it is quite consistent with our Lord's truthfulness to suppose that the dialogue with the demoniac of Gadara actually occurred, while He himself knew that possession was nothing but mania. Let us suppose that the man was a raving madman. He had been treated cruelly. He rushed towards Jesus and was awed by the greatness of his character. The dialogue takes place, as it is described by the Evangelist. I see no want of truthfulness on our Lord's part, nor can I conceive any necessity for explaining to the man that he was not possessed by a multitude of demons; or if the madman requested that the demons by whom he imagined himself possessed might be allowed to go into the swine, that our Lord should explain to him that it was impossible that they should do so because the idea of the demoniac was a delusion. The case would be one of confused or double personality, and accordingly the narrator has described the demons and the man as alternately speaking, and our Lord as addressing them. In such a case the form of the narrative would be modified by the subjective impressions of the narrator.

One or two remarks will be all that is necessary for illustrating the position which some have adopted that our Lord's mode of dealing with demoniacs was intended by Him as part of the process of cure. I should not have alluded to this subject at all unless the view in question had been propounded by a very eminent writer. I have already considered its main principles under the previous head.

The following is the bearing of this fact on the question before us. If the cure of a demoniac was the expulsion of a demon, it involved the liberation of a moral nature from its thraldom, and at the same time the cure of the bodily organisation as far as its disordered condition enabled the demon to exert his power. If, on the other hand, it was the cure of simple mania, still the act had a direct bearing on the moral nature of the sufferer. In either case the use of moral means as well as supernatural agency would be especially appropriate. If demoniacs were madmen, our Lord was fully justified in displaying towards them the highest degree of sympathy, and in bringing to bear on them the mighty moral and spiritual forces which abode in his lofty personality. The same remark would be equally true if the sufferer was held in thrall by demoniacal power. Each class of miracles in the mode of their performance is exactly suited to the condition of those on whom our Lord was operating. On either supposition He was dealing not merely with physical forces, but with moral agency, and He dealt with it accordingly.

I will examine in the next chapter the supposition that possession was not mania, but an actual objective fact.