clouds in the lower atmosphere, and are attracted by the
blood and incense which the heathen offer to them as gods." He
thought, though, that Raphael had special care of the sick and the
infirm. Cyprian (186-258) charged that demons caused luxations and
fractures of the limbs, undermined the health, and harassed with
diseases. Up to this time it was the privilege of any Christian to
exorcise demons, but Pope Fabian (236-250) assigned a definite name
and functions to exorcists as a separate order. To-day the priest has
included in his ordination vows those of exorcist. Gregory of
Nazianzus (329-390) declared that bodily pains are provoked by demons,
and that medicines are useless, but that demoniacs are often cured by
laying on of consecrated hands. St. Augustine (354-430) said: "All
diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to these demons; chiefly do
they torment fresh-baptized Christians, yea, even the guiltless
new-born infants."

Baltus[7] says: "De tous les anciens auteurs ecclesiastiques, n'y en
ayant pas un qui n'ait parle de ce pouvoir admirable que les Chretiens
avoient de chasser les demons," and Gregory of Tours (538-594) says
that exorcism was common in his time, having himself seen a monk named
Julian cure by his words a possessed person. This testimony of
Gregory's concerning the prevalence of exorcisms at the end of the
sixth century is interesting in view of the facts that the Council of
Laodicea, in the fourth century, forbade any one to exorcise, except
those duly authorized by the bishop, and that in the very beginning of
the fifth century a physician named Posidonius denied the existence of
possession. The fathers of the church, however, ridiculed the solemn
assertion of physicians that many of these alleged demoniacal
infirmities were attributable to material agencies, and were fully
persuaded in their own minds that demons took possession of the
organism of the human body.

At about this time, such a broad-minded man as Gregory the Great
(540-604) solemnly related that a nun, having eaten some lettuce without
making the sign of the cross, swallowed a devil, and that, when
commanded by a holy man to come forth, the devil replied: "How am I to
blame? I was sitting on the lettuce, and this woman, not having made the
sign of the cross, ate me along with it." This is but an example of the
ideas concerning the entrance of demons into the possessed.[8] Besides
the possibility of being taken into the mou