Magic and healing / [C.J.S. Thompson].

  • Thompson, C. J. S. (Charles John Samuel), 1862-1943.
Date:
[1947]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Magic and healing / [C.J.S. Thompson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    188/194 (page 174)
    disease from the body were exorcisms and magic, in one form or another, in order to subject the intruders to command and obedience. This practice naturally lent itself to the impostures and impositions which were carried on by practitioners of magic. In the Acts of the Apostles, xix, 13, we read of certain “vagabond Jews, exorcists, who travelled the country and like the Apostles, took upon them that had evil spirits, to call over them the name of the Lord Jesus”. It would appear from the context that many of these men were “magicians”, or “sorcerers”, as we are told “they used curious arts and brought their books together and burned them”. These were probably the books on magic, which on account of their value “were counted at fifty thousand pieces of silver”. But the failures of such impostors proved their false pretensions and only served to establish the claims of the Apostles to the power bestowed on them by their Divine Master. Josephus, in referring to the exorcisms of demons, states: God enabled Solomon to learn the skill which expels demons. He com¬ posed such incantations also by which distempers are alleviated and he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by which they drive away demons so that they never return. And this method of cure is of great force unto this day. (Ant. viii, 2.) About the close of the third century, a particular ecclesiastical order of exorcists was established in the Christian Church, which has been attributed to the ideas prevalent at that time among the Gnostics. According to the tenth Canon of the Council of Antioch, held in the year 341, exorcists are expressly mentioned in conjunction with sub-deacons and readers, and their ordination is described by the fourth Council of Carthage. In it, it is mentioned that “the bishop delivered a book containing forms of exorcism and the direction that they should exercise the office upon energumens, whether baptised or only catechumens”. The last named were exorcised for twenty days previous to the administra¬ tion of the Sacrament. These exorcisms were prayers collected out of the scriptures to break the power of the devil and expel the spirit of wickedness and were not directed against any supposed demoniacal possession. In the Greek Church it was customary at one time for the priest to blow three times upon the child before baptism, to free it from any evil- spirit that might threaten it, just as in the Anglican Church, the priest makes the sign of the Cross with Holy Water on the face of the infant during the baptismal service, which is symbolic of the power of the Church of Christ over Evil. The exorcists formed one of the minor orders of the Romish Church and at their ordination, the bishop addressing them concluded with the words: “Take now the power of laying hands upon the energumens and by the imposition of your hands, by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the words of exorcism, the unclean spirits are driven from obsessed bodies.”