Note 13 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

Some light is thrown on the evangelical conception of the demoniacs, by the opinions on this subject which we find in writers more or less cotemporary. The general idea that evil spirits had influence on men, producing melancholy, insanity, and epilepsy, was early prevalent among the Greeks13 as well as the Hebrews;14 but the more distinct idea that evil spirits entered into the human body and took possession of its members was not developed until a considerably later period, and was a consequence of the dissemination of the Oriental, particularly the Persian pneumatology among both Hebrews and Greeks.15 Hence we find in Josephus the expressions δαιμόνια τοῖς ζῶσιν εἰσδυόμενα,16 ἐνκαθεζόμενα17 (demons entering into the living, settling themselves there), and the same ideas in Lucian18 and Philostratus.19