or common hysteria. The pathological factors can neither be minimised nor dismissed. It remains, therefore, for the negative critics, either to acknowledge outright the supernatural success of Jesus or to renew their Sisyphean labours.1

PROOFS OF THE EXPULSIONS OF DEMONS

Josephus relates that when Eleazar wished to demonstrate to the Emperor Vespasian and his army the ejection of a demon from his demoniac, he placed a cup or foot-bath, filled with water, a little in front of the spectators. The demon was charged to upset the vessel on his exit; to furnish ocular demonstration of his departure. The evil spirit, from fear or courtesy, complied with the injunction, to the satisfaction of all. Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius, tells how the sage discovered a demon in a young man, who laughed and cried, without apparent reason. The evil spirit, when disclosed, broke out into all the foul language used by people on the rack, and swore to depart for good. Apollonius rebuked the demon as a master does a saucy, cunning slave; bidding him depart. At once the spirit cried out and promised to go; the proof of departure being the overturning of a certain statue. That was done accordingly, amid great uproar. The young man then woke up, as out of sleep, and thereafter amended his ways according to the precepts of Apollonius. A modern instance

of a similar sort is that recorded by Nevius, in his Demon Possession. It occurred in the house of one Chang, a Chinaman, in 1883. Different women of the family were demonised. Worship was demanded for the demons in their name; but refused by Chang. Thereupon, food, clothing, and valuables were stolen in the most mysterious way. Furniture and dishes shook and rattled without perceptible cause; fires also broke out without apparent reason and destroyed several buildings. On one occasion, two women were possessed. One of them set herself to the drinking of wine; tossing her arms about, using strange language, and giving way to tears. A religious service was held by some Christians, at the conclusion of which the woman was lying unconscious or asleep.1 After a time she woke up, and sought out her visitors who were still in the house. She said she had had a long sleep and was her old self again; having had no idea of what had happened during her abnormal state. "About this time, just before dark," there was a great commotion among the fowls and swine of the house, which continued for some time, and was believed to be due to the entrance of the demons into them. We need not tarry over the credibility of these events; but note that ethnic custom required tangible proof of the departure of possessing demons. The onlookers had to be convinced of the reality of success by spectacular results. How different the practice of our Lord! He offered no ocular demon1 Tipsy?

stration of the ejection of spirits. The stampede of the swine is no exception to that rule. Such a sign would have been useless to the man under any circumstances. If really cured, he had the witness in himself in the sense of restoration. If still uncured, no hecatombs of swine would have convinced him that he was sane. The old hallucinations and delusions would have remained. In these cases, Jew and Greek and Chinaman trust to lying vanities; but Christ is wholly superior to such devices. He effected the cure and left it to bear its own testimony.

CHAPTER V

THE EXISTENCE OF GENUINE DEMONIC POSSESSION

BY placing the symptoms of the possessed alongside

of their modern parallels, it has been shown that all cases designated "demoniac" belong to the category of "LUNACY OR IDIOCY." But was there aught in these cases which went beyond the mere pathological phenomena ? Were there forms of possession with which real demons were directly concerned? Two simple rules must guide this inquiry. (a) Whatever is explicable on the principles of modern science is to be regarded as natural. (b) Whatever is inexplicable on the principles of modern science is to be regarded as supernatural.

Corresponding to those axioms, two classes of the possessed emerge potentially.

(a) Cases simply natural and not genuinely demonic. (b) Cases truly supernatural and genuinely demonic. The latter appear as a residual phenomenon; transcending the former. As the issue may seem to turn here upon a single point, the real strength of the position is to be recognised. That introduces a new element.

THE HISTORICITY OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES

There is no need to travel far afield, as the facts to hand have a cogency of their own. The narratives of the three typical cases are varied; but at the same time, congruous and complementary. They afford clear testimony to the veracity of the different authors.

1. The Capernaum demoniac.-Keim says, "This incident did not happen." That dictum only proves that he has no eye for the luminous background which is patent to the expert alienist. The significance of the symptoms here described was not open to the spectators and reporters of this miracle. They merely narrated what they saw and heard; interweaving the same with collateral events in the synagogue. But the product is the correct representation of a set of complex morbid phenomena with a complex local environment. Invention is entirely out of the question; because it is so manifestly beyond the capacities of the writers or their informants. They are saved from inevitable blunders, only by faithful delineation of an actual case of epileptic insanity.

2. The Gerasene demoniac.-This example is equally instructive and reveals the same fidelity to fact. Here the symptoms are manifold and the details of time and place plentiful. The stampede of the swine is an integral part of the narrative which greatly complicates the whole situation. Yet it is in a precise