ifice time, money, and even life itself for the
care and nurture of the sick, as the example and precepts of Jesus
Christ.

For eighteen centuries this paradoxical position was held by the
church, and the antithetical attitudes of hindrance and help continued
to exist. As valuable as was the spirit instilled into the hearts of
His followers by the tenderness of the Master, it was never sufficient
to counterbalance the deterrent effects of the religion which they
espoused. The retardation was caused by two related beliefs which
permeated the church: The first was the doctrine of the power of
demons in the lives of men, especially in the production of disease;
and the second was the prevalence of the idea of the possibility and
probability of the performance of miracles, particularly in the
healing of diseases.

A rather complicated science of demonology had come down from
primitive sources through Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek
civilization, although the demons of the Greeks were principally good
spirits. At the time of Christ, however, the Jews were the most ardent
advocates of demonology, and hence the chief exorcists. They expelled
demons partly by adjuration and partly by means of a certain
miraculous root named Baaras. They considered it nothing at all out
of the ordinary to meet men who were possessed by demons, and just as
common an experience to see them healed by having the demon exorcised.
Josephus assures us that in the reign of Vespasian he had himself seen
a Jew named Eleazar perform an exorcism; by means of adjuration and
the Baaras root he drew a demon through the nostrils of a possessed
person, who fell to the ground on the accomplishment of the miracle,
while on the command of the magician the demon, to prove that it had
really left its victim, threw down a cup of water which had been
placed at a distance.

Knowing as we do the close relationship between Judaism and
Christianity, it does not surprise us to discover that the Christians
inherited the doctrine and practice of the Jews in this matter. This
is more readily understood when we remember the connection of Jesus
with cases of demoniacal possession, and Paul's frequent references to
the spirits of the air. Following the example of their Master,
Christians everywhere became exorcists. Through the influence of
Philo's writings, Jewish demonology was propagated among Christian
converts, and the Gnostics quickly absorbed and spread the notion of