st physician was the holy man who
had power in the supernatural world. Healing was considered a moral
act; Jesus, who felt his moral power, would believe himself specially
gifted to heal. Convinced that the touching of his robe,[3] the
imposition of his hands,[4] did good to the sick, he would have been
unfeeling, if he had refused to those who suffered, a solace which it
was in his power to bestow. The healing of the sick was considered as
one of the signs of the kingdom of God, and was always associated with
the emancipation of the poor.[5] Both were the signs of the great
revolution which was to end in the redress of all infirmities.

[Footnote 1: John v. 14, ix. 1, and following, 34.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 32, 33, xii. 22; Luke xiii. 11, 16.]

[Footnote 3: Luke viii. 45, 46.]

[Footnote 4: Luke iv. 40.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 5, xv. 30, 31; Luke ix. 1, 2, 6.]

One of the species of cure which Jesus most frequently performed, was
exorcism, or the expulsion of demons. A strange disposition to believe
in demons pervaded all minds. It was a universal opinion, not only in
Judea, but in the whole world, that demons seized hold of the bodies
of certain persons and made them act contrary to their will. A Persian
_div_, often named in the Avesta,[1] _Aeschma-daeva_, the "div of
concupiscence," adopted by the Jews under the name of Asmodeus,[2]
became the cause of all the hysterical afflictions of women.[3]
Epilepsy, mental and nervous maladies,[4] in which the patient seems
no longer to belong to himself, and infirmities, the cause of which is
not apparent, as deafness, dumbness,[5] were explained in the same
manner. The admirable treatise, "On Sacred Disease," by Hippocrates,
which set forth the true principles of medicine on this subject, four
centuries and a half before Jesus, had not banished from the world so
great an error. It was supposed that there were processes more or less
efficacious for driving away the demons; and the occupation of
exorcist was a regular profession like that of physician.[6] There is
no doubt that Jesus had in his lifetime the reputation of possessing
the greatest secrets of this art.[7] There were at that time many
lunatics in Judea, doubtless in consequence of the great mental
excitement. These mad persons, who were permitted to go at large, as
they still are in the same districts, inhabited the abandoned
sepulchral caves, which were the ordinary retreat of vagrants. Jesus
had great