obtaining
from Rome an excommunication against the insects, and that it will
contribute _pro rata_ to the expense of the same.'"

Scripture was cited to prove the diabolical character of some animals
during the Middle Ages. Says White: "Did anyone venture to deny that
animals could be possessed by Satan, he was at once silenced by
reference to the entrance of Satan into the serpent in the Garden of
Eden, and to the casting of devils into swine by the Founder of
Christianity himself."[3]

Notwithstanding the pleasing theory adopted by the earlier Christian
writers that the powers of darkness were unable to harm the faithful
without the permission of divinity, to whom demoniacal spirits were
ultimately subjected, unlimited power was conceded to those beings who
existed under divine sanction. Demoniacal aeons or emanations were
acknowledged to be the primitive source of earthly sufferings,
pestilence among men, sickness and other bodily afflictions, but
inflicted with the consent of God, whose messengers they were.

Early Christian writers boldly asserted that all the disorders of the
world originated with the devil and his sinister companions, because
they were stirred with the unholy desire to obtain associates in their
miseries. It was impossible to fix a limit to the number of these
malevolent spirits constantly provoking diseases and infirmities upon
men. They were alleged to surround mankind so densely that each person
had a thousand to his right and ten thousand to the left of him.
Endowed with the subtlest activity, they were able to reach the
remotest points of earth in the twinkling of an eye.

According to Salverte, Tatian, a sincere defender of Christianity, who
lived in the second century, "does not deny the wonderful cures
effected by the priests of the temples of the Polytheists; he only
attempts to explain them by supposing that the pagan gods were actual
demons, and that they introduced disease into the body of a healthy
man, announcing to him, in a dream, that he should be cured if he
implored their assistance; and then, by terminating the evil which
they themselves had produced, they obtained the glory of having worked
the miracle."[4]

So firm was the belief that Christians could exorcise these demons
that from the time of Justin Martyr (100-163), for about two
centuries, there is not a single Christian writer who does not
solemnly and explicitly assert the reality and frequent employment of
thi