Unclean spirit

:This article deals with Biblical and patristic terminology pertaining to the Greek pneuma akatharton and related phrases. See Pneuma for other uses of the word. For related beliefs and practices, see Demonic possession and Exorcism.
In English translations of the Bible, unclean spirit is a common renditionFor instance, in the King James Version, Wyclif's Bible, Tyndale Bible, New Revised Standard Version, American Standard Version, International Standard Version, World English Bible, New English Translation; "foule sprete" in the Coverdale Bible. of Greek pneuma akatharton (plural pneumata akatharta) and Hebrew , the latter itself rendered by the Greek term in the Septuagint.
The Greek term appears 21 times in the New Testament the context of demonic possession.The term appears 21 times counting both singular and plural. J. Reiling, "Unclean spirits," in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, henceforth abbreviated DDD (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999), p. 882 online. It is also translated into English as spirit of impurityAs in the New International Version. See Karen Hartnup, On the Beliefs of the Greeks: Leo Allatios and Popular Orthodoxy (Brill, 2004), p. 88, especially note 16 online. or more loosely as "evil spirit." The Latin equivalent is spiritus immundus.Pierre Maréchaux, "Les noces de Panurge et de Mercure: Rabelais et la leçon de Martianus Capella," in Études Rabelaisiennes 33 (1998), p. 167 online. 
The association of physical and spiritual cleanliness is, if not universal, widespread and continues into the 21st century: "To be virtuous is to be physically clean and free from the impurity that is sin," notes an article in Scientific American published 10 March 2009.Gary Sherman and Gerald Clore, "Clean and Virtuous: When Physical Purity Becomes Moral Purity," Scientific American 10 March 2009, accessed online 20 April 2009; also WebCite archive. Some scholarshipClinton Wahlen presents an overview of this scholarship in Jesus and the Impurity of Spirits in the Synoptic Gospels (Mohr Siebeck, 2004). For a table of terms used for evil powers in the New Testament, see p. 177 online. seeks to differentiate between "unclean spirit" and "evil spirit" (pneuma ponêron) or "demon" (daimonion).DDD, p. 882. For daimon, not considered a synonym, see The concept of pneuma following.
==The concept of pneuma==
In the Christian scriptures, the word pneuma (plural pneumata) is used variously for the human soul, angelic or demonic spirits, and the Holy Spirit, depending on context or with a grammatical modifier.Wayne A. Grudem, The First Epistle of Peter: An Introduction and Commentary (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1988) pp. 208–209 online; Eric Sorensen, Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament and Early Christianity (Mohr Siebeck, 2002), p. 121 online. New Testament usage of the words pneuma and daimonion in relation to demons follows that of later Judaism; the two words are to be distinguished from daimon, which appears only once (at )A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature, edited by David Lyle Jeffrey (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1992), p. 195; DDD, p. 239. and in classical antiquity has a neutral meaning of "spirit" or "god, demigod."Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited by Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, translated and abridged by Geoffrey W. Bromley (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1985), p. 139 online; Dan Burton and David Grandy Magic, Mystery, and Science: The Occult in Western Civilization (Indiana University Press, 2003), p. 123 online. A spell from the Greek Magical Papyri indicates that possession by a pneuma could be a desired state of visionary trance for those who practiced the traditional religions of antiquity.Greek Magical Papyri IV.1121–24, discussed under Pneuma pythona below. See also David Edward Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1983), p. 47 online.
In the New Testament, the Greek modifier akatharton, although sometimes translated in context as "evil,"At Mark 1:23, for instance, the New Living Translation has "evil spirit," but glosses "Greek 'unclean'." means more precisely "impure, not purified," and reflects a concern for ritual purification shared with or derived from Judaism, though reinterpreted.DDD, p. 882, with additional citations. See also Ritual washing in Judaism, Tumah, and Mikvah. Connections and differences between Judaic impurity and Christian are explored extensively by Wahlen, Jesus and the Impurity of Spirits, introduction, pp. 1–22. In early Christianity, the catechumen was routinely prepared for baptism by exorcism even when demonic possession was not suspected; in the case of adult converts, the "unclean spirits" to be driven away might be identified with the gods of other religions.Indicated, for instance, by Tertullian, Apologeticus 23.15-16. See Peter Cramer, Baptism and Change in the Early Middle Ages, c. 200–c. 1150 (Cambridge University Press, 2003), passim, especially the process as described by Hippolytus of Rome, pp. 11ff online; Jeffrey Burton Russell, Satan: The Early Christian Tradition (Cornell University Press, 1987), p. 101 online; G.J. Riley, "Demon," in DDD, pp. 235–240, especially p. 238 online. See also Pneuma pythona below.
The practice of insufflation and exsufflation, or the use of released breath in ritual, depends on conceptualizing a spiritual entity as air in motion, "invisible yet active":DDD, p. 882. both Greek pneuma and Latin spiritus had an original meaning of "breath, mobile air."
==In Judaism==
:See also Demon: Hebrew Bible and Jewish demonology; for more on Jewish exorcism, see entry from the Jewish Encyclopedia.com.
References to a "spirit of impurity" or an "evil spirit" (ruaḥ tum'ah) are found in the Hebrew Bible, in Rabbinic literature, and in Psuedepigrapha.Howard Jacobson, A Commentary on Pseudo-Philo's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, with Latin Text and English Translation (Brill, 1996), vol. 2, p. 1118 online (equivalent Hebrew) phrases provided); postbiblical sources cited by Barry D. Smith, "Spirit, Evil/Unclean," in Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, p. 1248 online. It can be difficult to distinguish between a demon and an unclean or evil spirit in Judaic theology or contemporary scholarship; both entities like to inhabit wild or desolate places, and both are often identified with gods of other religions. One of the Hebrew synonyms for "demon" is shedim, which appears only twice in the Tanakh; originally a loan-word from Akkadian for a protective, benevolent spirit (sedu), it was used pejoratively because the gods worshipped by others were viewed as false and thus evil.Shedim at and . See W. Gunther Plaut, The Torah: A Modern Commentary (Union for Reform Judaism, 2005), p. 1403 online; Dan Burton and David Grandy, Magic, Mystery, and Science: The Occult in Western Civilization (Indiana University Press, 2003), p. 120 online. The se’irim or śa‘ir are goat-demons or "hairy demons" (sometimes translated by "satyrs") associated with other harmful supernatural beings and with ruins, i.e., human structures that threaten to revert to the wild.Se’irim in and . See Dan Ben-Amos, Folktales of the Jews: Tales from Eastern Europe (Jewish Publication Society, 2007), vol. 2, p. 37 online, and "On Demons," in Creation and Re-creation in Jewish Thought: Festschrift in Honor of Joseph Dan on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (Mohr Siebeck, 2005), p. 29ff. online. Also A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature, pp. 194–195. The demonic figure Azazel, depicted with goat-like features and in one instance as an unclean bird, is consigned to desert places as impure.Walter J. Houston, "Leviticus," in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003), p. 114 online; Daniel C. Harlow, The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch) in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity (Brill, 1996), p. 66 online; Bernard Jacob Bamberger, Fallen Angels: Soldiers of Satan's Realm
(Jewish Publication Society, 1952, repub. 2006), p. 46 online. The Babylonian TalmudSanhedrin 65b. says that a person who wanted to attract an impure spirit might fast and spend the night in a cemetery;Jonathan Seidel, "Magical Texts of the Cairo Geniza," in Spirit Possession in Judaism (Wayne State University Press, 2003), p. 88, note 14. in the traditional religions of the Near East and Europe, one ritual mode for seeking a divinely inspired revelation or prophecy required incubation at the tomb of an ancestor or hero.Daniel Ogden, Greek and Roman Necromancy (Princeton University Press, 2001), passim, part 1, chapters 1–6. A cemetery, already a locus of "unclean" spirits or a multiplicity of gods, was considered an appropriate dump when biblical leaders destroy sacred objects of other religions or statues representing the gods. and , the latter specifying the Kidron Valley, where there were many tombs; see Joe M. Sprinkle, "Grave," in Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, p. 527. To pneuma to akatharton appears in the Septuagint at ,A Greek text with French translation may be viewed online. where pseudoprophetai ("false prophets") speak in the name of Yahweh but are possessed by an unclean spirit.Cristiano Grottanelli, "Possessed Transsexuals in Antiquity: A Double Transformation," in Self and Self-Transformation in the History of Religions (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 101 online. This occurrence of "unclean spirit" is unique in the Tanakh; the Hebrew is rûah hattum’â.DDD, p. 882.
The syncretic magical practice of late antiquity drew on Hebraic elements, and spells from the Greek Magical Papyri evoke and attempt to command Jewish angels, demons, and other beings regarded as spiritually powerful. At one point, a compiler of the magical text emphasizes the Jewish aspect of purity, insisting that "this spell is Hebraic and is preserved among pure men", advising that the practitioner should keep himself pure and refrain from eating pork.Pieter Willem van der Horst, "The Great Magical Papyrus of Paris (PGM IV) and the Bible," in Jews and Christians in Their Graeco-Roman Context (Mohr Siebeck, 2006), pp. 269–279, especially p. 277, limited preview online. An English translation of the complete exorcism may be viewed in Daniel Odgen, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford University Press US, 2002), pp. 169–170 online. The spell concludes with a protracted insufflation. A tradition of Solomonic exorcism continued into medieval Europe; an example is recorded by Gregory the Thaumaturge: "I adjure you all unclean spirits by Elohim, Adonai, Sabaoth, to come out and depart from the servant of God."Gregory the Thaumaturge, Precatio et exorcismus (Patrologia Graeca 36.734), cited by Jonathan Seidel, "Magical Texts of the Cairo Geniza," in Spirit Possession in Judaism, p. 92, note 39 online. Full discussion by David R. Jordan and Roy D. Kotansky, "A Solomonic Exorcism," in Kölner Papyri (P. Köln), vol. 8 (Abhandlungen der Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Sonderreihe, Papyrologia Coloniensia), Sonderreihe vol. VII/8 (Opladen: Westdeutscher, 1997), no. 338, pp. 53–69.
Exorcism is the most thoroughly attested Jewish magical practice of the Second Temple period. The exorcistic technique of fumigation by incense depends on the aerial conception of the unclean spirit: the occupation of air by odor or smoke (i.e., airborne particulate matter) was supposed to drive off or displace an unclean spirit.Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2008) p. 88 online; for an extensive discussion of Jewish exorcism, see pp. 88–118 (limited preview). On Jewish exorcism in relation to the New Testament, see Eric Eve, The Jewish Context of Jesus' Miracles (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002) pp. 326–333, limited preview online. Since either body or soul could be unclean, it can be difficult to distinguish exorcism from traditional magico-medical practice in which a personified illness is adjured to depart from the patient's body (for instance, "Flee, Fever!") by means of a charm, spoken or inscribed on an amulet or other ritual object.Roy Kotansky, “Incantations and Prayers on Inscribed Greek Amulets,” in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, edited by Christopher A. Faraone and Dirk Obbink (Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 113–114 and 119. For an example from the Solomonic tradition, see Medicina Plinii: Sample remedies. In some rabbinic literature, demons are viewed as inflicting evil on human beings in part through illness and disease, though Mishnah and Tannaitic scholars in Palestine did not view demons as the cause of illness.Distinctions discussed in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995), vol. 1, pp. 921–922 online.
==In Christianity==
:See also Christian demonology and Miracles attributed to Jesus: Exorcisms.
The exorcism of demons or unclean spirits is one of the major categories of miracles attributed to Jesus. In the Greek New Testament, 20 occurrences of pneuma akatharton (singular and plural) are found in the Synoptic Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and the Book of Revelation.DDD, p. 882. The phrase may be used instead of daimonion (50 occurrences)DDD, p. 239. or a verbal form of daimonizesthai, "to be possessed by a demon" or "to be or act as a demoniac,"Verbal form at Matthew 4:24; 8:16, 28, 33; 9:32; 12:22; 15:22; Mark 1:32; 5:15ff; A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition, p. 195. as indicated by usage in parallel versions of the same story.Compare and , where Jesus gives his disciples power to cast out "unclean spirits" (pneuma akatharta) with the parallel passage at , where the word daimonia is used; also , "unclean spirit," and , daimonizetai; see DDD, p. 882. Throughout The Gospel of Mark, the terms pneuma (with a pejorative modifier) and daimonion seem to be equivalent.John R. Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark (The Liturgical Press, 2002), p. 80 online. For a table on Mark's demonological terminology, see Clinton Wahlen, Jesus and the Impurity of Spirits in the Synoptic Gospels (Mohr Siebeck, 2004), p. 120 online. Throughout his book, Wahlen seeks to refine scholarly perception of the term pneuma akatharton and to distinguish its usage in the synoptic gospels.
In the narratives pertaining to the ministry of Jesus, temptation to sin is not the primary role played by demons, but rather the causing of disease, disability, mental illness, and antisocial behavior; they defile and compel their human hosts to suffer both physically and spiritually. Although healing and exorcism are distinguished,See and . they often appear in close association, and some afflictions are caused by demonic possession: the inability to speak at , blindess at , deafness at , epilepsy at , and fever and other diseases at and . Mental illness, however, was the most common result.DDD, pp. 237, 239.
The exorcism of an unclean spirit was the first act of Jesus's public ministry:Geoffrey W. Bromley, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (William B. Eerdmans, 1994), p. 789 online.
Although "clean" and "unclean" were categories that served as markers of identity for Jews, distinguishing them from other nations and expressing Israel's special "vocation to holiness," Jesus dismissed Jewish purity laws and in told his disciples they could violate them. He touched those who were in ritual terms "unclean," including lepers, and healed them.Timothy A. Lenghar, "Clean and Unclean," Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible," pp. 262–263. 
Jesus is said to have directly granted his 12 disciples the power to cast out unclean spirits and to heal., , . At , John the Apostle reports that he and his fellow disciples have asked a man to stop casting out demons in the name of Jesus "because he isn't one of us," but Jesus replies that the man should be allowed to continue, since "anyone who is not against you is for you."Translation from the Contemporary English Version. Elsewhere, Jesus appoints 72Or 70 missionaries in some manuscripts. missionaries who also have the power to cast out demons.; daimonia in the missionaries' terminology (10.17), pneumata in the words of Jesus (10.20). At , the newly resurrected Christ says that the ability to drive out demons (daimonia) in his name is a sign of the true believer.
===Animals and liminality===
The attribution of animal-like qualities to demons continues from the Jewish tradition; like demons, animals may be classified as "unclean." describes "three unclean spirits like frogs" (pneumata tria akatharta hôs batrachoi); frogs are unclean as animals for food in the Jewish dietary code.This and more on frogs in the Bible from Victoria Andrews, "Frogs," in Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible p. 472 online; also "Clean and Unclean," pp. 262–262. It has sometimes been argued that frogs are clean; see discussion by Seth Daniel Kunin, We Think What We Eat: Neo-structuralist Analysis of Israelite Food Rules and Other Cultural and Textual Practices (Continuum International, 2004), pp. 47–48 online. See also articles on Frogs in popular culture and the Egyptian goddess Heqet. The association of unclean spirits with liminal areas such as ruins, cemeteries, and deserts also continues from Judaic belief; speaks of the future ruin of Babylon as "a dwelling place of every unclean spirit and a haunt of every unclean and hateful bird."
Both animalism and transitional, liminal sites (marked in bold following) are involved in perhaps the most famous manifestation of an unclean spirit in the New Testament, the Gerasene demon whose name is Legion:
The pig is a suitable recipient because it is an unclean animal. "It was certainly not very kind to the pigs," the philosopher Bertrand Russell remarked, "to put the devils into them and make them rush down the hill to the sea."Bertrand Russell, "Why I Am Not a Christian," republished in The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell (Routledge, 1996), vol. 10, p. 190 online. The need for the demonic pneuma to transmigrate into another body is expressed also at , where desert is a haunt for the restless spirit:
===Pneuma poneron===
The phrase pneuma poneron (πνεῦμα πονηρόν, "evil spirit") is used several times in the Septuagint, the New Testament; , and ; and . and also in patristic texts as an alternative to pneuma akatharton.Edward John Hamilton, Rational Orthodoxy (New York, 1917), p. 445.
The divinatory trance of the Pythia — the female oracle of Apollo at Delphi — is attributed by the 4th-century patristic authority John Chrysostom to a pneuma poneron:
Chrysostom uses the phrase pneuma poneron frequently in his writings; it is typically translated "evil spirit." The nature of the vapors that inspired the Pythia has been the subject of much debate; see Science and the Pythia. For the Greeks, the Pythia was characterized by sexual purity; her virginity is asserted in some sources, but in others she is said only to have dressed as a virgin and to have lived chastely, and was either an old woman or a married woman who gave up her family and carnal relations to serve the god.Barbara E. Goff, Citizen Bacchae: Women's Ritual Practice in Ancient Greece (University of California Press, 2004), pp. 222–223 online; Matthew Dillon, Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion (Routledge, 2003), p. 77 online; Paul Ciholas, The Omphalos and the Cross: Pagans and Christians in Search of a Divine Center (Mercer University Press, 2003), pp. 80–83 online; Mary F. Foskett, A Virgin Conceived: Mary and Classical Representations of Virginity (Indiana University Press, 2002), p. 38 online. A spell invoking Apollo in the Greek Magical Papyri requires ritual purification in the form of dietary restrictions and sexual abstinence; the spell implies that a sexual union with the god will result.PGM I.290–292, in Hanz Dieter Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, p. 10 online. The vapors said to arise from the grotto at Delphi were a pneuma enthousiastikon, "inspiring exhalation," according to Plutarch.Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity, p. 34. For more on Plutarch's views of the pneuma, see p. 355, note 135 online. Although the vaginal reception of the pneuma may strike the 21st-century reader as strange, fumigation was a not uncommon gynecological regimen throughout the Hippocratic Corpus and was employed as early as 1900–1500 BC in ancient Egyptian medicine.Vivian Nutton, Ancient Medicine (Routledge, 2004), p. 41 online; Cristina Mazzoni, Saint Hysteria: Neurosis, Mysticism and Gender in European Culture (Cornell University Press, 1996), p. 7 online. Overview of fumigation in ancient Greek gynecology in W.J. Steward McKay, The History of Ancient Gynaecology (London, 1901), pp. 270–271 online. Additional passages, including Anglo-Saxon examples, from Carol Falvo Heffernan, The Phoenix at the Fountain: Images of Woman and Eternity in Lactantius's Carmen de Ave Phoenice and the Old English Phoenix (University of Delaware Press, 1988), pp. 84–86 online. Gynecological fumigation was also a technique of traditional Jewish medicine.Ron Barkai, A History of Jewish Gynaecological Texts in the Middle Ages (Brill, 1998), presents English translations of several texts with examples of fumigation. A Record of the Diseases in the Genital Members: therapies for the uterus, p. 132 online; menstrual difficulty, p. 139 online, pp. 141 and 143 online. Galen's Book on the Womb, Which Is Called Genicias: distress of the uterus, requiring dual fumigation along with the nose, p. 162 online. Liber de Sinthomatibus Mulierum: for an unexpelled placenta, p. 189 online. Medicament for Pregnancy Called the Head Shield: tablets for use in fumigation and as suppositories, pp. 201–202 online; fumigation (through a tube) for delivery, involving arsenic sulfur, donkey dung, and pitch, p. 204 online. The intertwining of the medical and divinatory arts in Apollonian religionExpressed in rational medicine as prognosis. was characterized as demonic by Christian writers.Adelina Angusheva, "Late Medieval Witch Mythologies in the Balkans," in Witchcraft Mythologies and Persecutions (Central European University Press, 2008), p. 91 online. As a form of ritual purification, fumigation was intended to enhance the Pythia's receptivity to divine communication; to the men of the Church, the open vagina that served no reproductive purpose was an uncontrolled form of sexuality that invited demonic influence, necessarily rendering the Pythia's prophecies false.Alain Boureau, The Myth of Pope Joan, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane (University of Chicago Press, 2001; originally published 1988), p. 188 online; Paul Ciholas, The Omphalos and the Cross, chapter 3, "The Prophet and the Pythia," especially pp. 82–83 online. See also Sexuality in Christian demonology.
====Pneuma pythona====
The phrase pneuma pythona (or puthona) means "Pythonian spirit" or "divinatory spirit," and occurs only once in the New Testament. In , after Paul and Silas visit a woman of Thyatira, they are greeted on their way to synagogue by a "working girl" (paidiskê), a slave who has earned a reputation as a gifted diviner; she is said to have a pneuma pythona, not akatharton or poneron, though the spirit is presumed to be evil. Through her employment she earns significant income for her masters; although the Christian text omits the fact, slaves in the Imperial Roman era were also permitted to keep and amass earnings for themselves, and in some cases could buy their freedom. The adjective pythona indicates a connection to the cult of Apollo, regarded as the greatest of the Greek oracular gods; she is nevertheless inspired to acknowledge out loud that the two missionaries of the "most high god" (theos hypsistos) know the way to salvation. For several days, she repeatedly voices this praise of Christianity. Although it is unclear why a Christian would dispute the truth of the paidiskê 's message, and although Jesus himself had said "anyone who is not against you is for you" (see above and ), Paul eventually grows annoyed and commands the pneuma to leave her.Shelly Matthews, First Converts: Rich Pagan Women and the Rhetoric of Mission in Early Judaism and Christianity (Stanford University Press, 2001), pp. 89–92 online, with additional citations of scholarship on the cultic identification of the paidiskê. It has also been argued that since Hypsistos was a cult title for gods other than the one god of Abrahamic religions, Paul struck back at the girl as a rival; see Paul Tribilco, "Paul and Silas, Servants of the Most High God - Acts 16:16-18," Journal for the Study of the New Testament 36 (1989) 51-73. This point of view is discussed and rejected by Irina Levinskaya, "God-fearers and the Cult of the Most High God," in The Book of Acts in Its Diaspora Setting (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1996), pp. 98–100 online: "The demon was exorcised by Paul, not because of the content of his proclamation, but because the Christian mission did not need allies such as these" (p. 100).
This encounter differs from other exorcisms in the New Testament. Unlike Jesus, who usually heals at first contact, Paul drives away the spirit only after several days. The girl is depicted as neither physically tormented nor insane. A spell from the Greek Magical Papyri shows that the possessing pneuma could be welcomed as a giver of vision:
Paul saw the competing gods of the Greeks as demons.DDD, p. 240; see and . There is no crowd to witness Paul's miracle and proclaim the deed, but later the masters of the paidiskê haul Paul and Silas into court for depriving them of a profitable business. Matthews, First Converts, pp. 89–90. 
The message itself is composed of two patterns characteristic of Hellenistic oracle: a recognition ("These men are … "), and a commendation of their trustworthiness.Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity, pp. 268–269 online. The only divinely inspired speech by a woman recorded in the Acts is that of the paidiskê, but she is characterized as mantic rather than prophetic.Matthews, First Converts, p. 89. Although both are forms of divination, Plato had distinguished the two: the mantis became the mouthpiece of the god through possession, but the "prophecy of interpretation" required specialized knowledge of how to read signs and omens and was considered a rational process. The '"prophet" (προφήτης), usually male, could interpret the divinely inspired speech of a mantic.Plato, Timaeus 71e–72b and Phaedrus 244a–d, discussed by Gerald Hovenden, Speaking in Tongues: The New Testament Evidence in Context (Continuum International, 2002), pp. 22–23 online. "Mantic wisdom takes in a variety of means of finding the divine will, whereas prophecy is a form of 'spirit divination,' whether it comes spontaneously or is sought by inquiry," notes Lester L. Grabbe, introduction and overview, Knowing the End from the Beginning: The Prophetic, the Apocalyptic and Their Relationships (Continuum International, 2003), p. 24 online.
Plutarch gives Pythones as a synonym for engastrimythoi ("belly-talkers" or "ventriloquists"), a suspect type of mantic who employed trickery in projecting a voice, sometimes through a device such as a mechanical snake. The snake was probably the chosen medium because of its association in myth with Delphi, where Apollo killed the serpent (the Python) to establish his own oracle there. Plutarch and other ancient authors scoff at the notion that the god himself enters the body of a paid mantic for use as a mouthpiece. The early Church fathers, however, attributed the behavior of engastrimythoi to demonic possession.Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity, pp. 40–42. Like Chrysostom, the early Christian theologian Origen finds the Pythia's receptive vagina disturbing"The prophetic spirit of Apollo, pure from any body of earth, secretly enters through the private parts the person who is called the priestess"; Origen, Contra Celsum 3.25 and 7.3–7. and uses the gender of Apollo's oracle as a way to disparage the Delphic religion, saying that if Apollo were a true god, he would have chosen a male prophet:Matthews, First Converts, p. 91.
The sexual purity of a male prophet is not at issue, but sexual activity renders a woman unfit. The implication of sexual union between the god and a mortal woman is again viewed as a dangerous deception. 
===Pneumata plana===
right|125px|thumb|Demonic porneia in a 13th-century allegorization of lust
In one of his epistles to Timothy,. Paul defines apostates as those who are drawn to "deceiving" or "seductive" spirits (pneumasin planois) and demonic teachings (didaskaliais daimoniôn). refers to to pneuma tês planês, "the spirit of error."
These pneumata plana are also found frequently in the apocryphal Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, where they threaten to lead astray the Israelites into varieties of immorality. The "seven spirits of deceit"Testament of Reuben 2.1 and 3.2–7. are porneia (sexual sins),For the term porneia, see definitions under Expounding of the Law and Religion and sexuality. gluttony, anger, hypocrisy, arrogance, lying, and injustice; "besides all these, the spirit of sleep, the eighth spirit, is conjoined with error and fantasy."Jerome D. Quinn and William C. Wacker, The First and Second Letters to Timothy: A New Translation with Notes and Commentary (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000), pp. 353–355 online; online. English translation available from New Advent. Compare Seven deadly sins.
===Pneuma astheneias===
The phrase pneuma astheneias, "spirit of infirmity" or "spirit of weakness," is unique in the New Testament to the Gospel of Luke, as is the story in which it appears:
Luke is the gospel writer who was a physician, and while his profession may have motivated his interest, nothing suggests a medical diagnosis. Asthenia throughout the New Testament means "weakness" or "powerlessness" of any kind, including sickness. Some have seen the affliction as ankylosing spondylitis, but an alternative interpretation is that hard labor over the years had bent the woman's back. The incident has been examined at length from the perspective of feminist theology by Francis Taylor Gench, who views it as both healing and liberating; Jesus goes on to say that the woman has been freed from a kind of bondage to Satan. The breaking of bonds or chains is often associated with freedom from an unclean spirit; in the case of the Gerasene demon (above), the demoniac had the physical power to break chains as a result of possession.Francis Taylor Gench, "A Bent Woman, Daughter of Abraham (Luke 13:10–17)," in Back to the Well: Women's Encounters with Jesus in the Gospels (Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), pp. 84–108, limited preview online.
===Pneuma alalon===
The pneuma alalon is a speechless spirit who renders the possessed mute (Greek alalon, "without speech"). It thus differs from most possessing demons, who are given to taunts and mockery (diabolos, the origin of both "diabolic" and "Devil," means "slanderer" in Greek). relates that a boy is brought to Jesus for healing because he cannot speak; verse 25 adds that he cannot hear. This demonic possession manifests itself through symptoms that resemble epilepsy, as is suggested also by , who uses a form of the colloquial verb seleniazetai ("moonstruck") for the condition.The event is also narrated by Luke 9:37–49. Although traditionally epilepsy was regarded as "the sacred disease," Jews and Christians attributed the affliction to a demon. The Babylonian Talmud specifies that a child's epilepsy was caused by "the demon of the privy," which attached to the father when he had sex too soon after relieving himself; that is, he was impure:
====Unforgivable sin====
:Main article: Unforgivable sin.
Before Jesus, exorcism had been conducted by a trained practitioner who offered a diagnosis and administered a ritual usually employing spoken formularies, amulets or other objects, or compounds of substances resembling pharmacological recipes of the time. Jesus's approach seemed radical because it depended on spiritual authority alone.DDD, p. 237. Jesus casts out the pneuma alalon in front of a crowd who exclaim "Nothing like this has ever happened in Israel!" The Pharisees, also witnesses, counter that "the leader of the demons gives him power to force out demons."Matthew 9:32–34 (Contemporary English Version). This accusation leads to the "Beelzebub controversy." warns that attributing the power of the Holy Spirit to possession by an "unclean spirit" is a sin that cannot be forgiven. The theological concept is difficult and subject to varying interpretations.Mark S. Krause, "Unforgivable Sin," Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, pp. 1345–1346 online.
In , Jesus returns home from performing miracles, but a crowd gathers: "There were so many people that Jesus and his followers could not eat. When his family heard this, they went to get him because they thought he was out of his mind. But the teachers of the law from Jerusalem were saying, 'Beelzebul is living inside him! He uses his power from the ruler of demons to force demons out of people'."New Century Version translation. In his response to this accusation, Jesus says that speaking out against the Holy Spirit is an unforgivable sin: "Jesus said this because the people were saying that he had an evil spirit in him."Mark 3:28–30 (Contemporary English Version). clarifies that "if you speak against the Son of Man, you can be forgiven, but if you speak against the Holy Spirit, you cannot be forgiven."
===Early Christian exorcism===
In the period of post-Apostolic Christianity, baptism and the Eucharist required the prior riddance of both unclean spirits and illness.William Brashear and Roy Kotansky, "A New Magical Prayer Formulary," in Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World, edited by Paul Mirecki and Marvin Meyer (Brill, 2002), p. 13 online. Because the possessing demon was conceptualized as a pneuma or spiritus, each of which derives from a root meaning "breath," one term for its expulsion was exsufflation, or a "blowing out."For liturgical examples, see Bryan D. Spinks, Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent (Ashgate Publishing, 2006), p. 136 online and 138.
Exorcistic texts with Christian content have been found in papyri along with syncretic magic spells; in one Greek example of a fragmentary leaf from a codex, an exorcism that alludes to the birth of Jesus and his miracles appears along with a spell for silencing opponents, an invocation of the Serpent, a spell against a thief, a spell to achieve an erection, a "sacred stele,"In both the Near East and the Greco-Roman world, a stele inscribed with images and text might be a focal point of cult practice. Magic papyri on occasion contain text to be inscribed on a stele; see for instance Georg Luck, Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds. A Collection of Ancient Texts (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985; 2nd edition 2006), p. 139 online; full text in translation with Hebraic elements in Hans Dieter Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells (University of Chicago Press, 1996), vol. 1, p. 174 online. Two types of stele are contained in the papyri: a drawing with or without writing, and an inscribed charm. and a series of magical letters (χαρακτῆρες). The exorcism is distinguished from other early Christian magic charms that quote Bible verses and Psalms by its use of liturgical antiphonies and references to Christian creed.William Brashear and Roy Kotansky, "A New Magical Formulary," in Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World, edited by Paul Mirecki and Marvin Meyer (Brill, 2002), pp. 3–24, especially pp. 10–11 online, English translation p. 9.
The unclean spirit associated with a particular possession, or feared possession, might be identified as an individual and named. Gyllou, a type of reproductive demon that appears on Aramaic amulets in late antiquity, is described in a Greek text as "abominable and unclean" (μιαρὰ καὶ ἀκάθαρτος, miara kai akathartos),Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1985), pp. 112–113; see also Karen Hartnup, On the Beliefs of the Greeks: Leo Allatios and Popular Orthodoxy (Brill, 2004), p. 88 online and p. 144 online. and is the object of a prayer to the Virgin Mary asking for protection.Hartnup, On the Beliefs of the Greeks, p. 97 online, citing Allatios, De opinionibus VII, p. 132.
===Latin liturgy and exorcism===
Spiritus immundus is the term corresponding to pneuma akatharton to address the demon in Latin exorcisms;Frederick Edward Warren, The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881), pp. 210 and 214 online; Alexander Murray, Suicide in the Middle Ages: The Curse on Self-murder (Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 476, note 73 online. see Of Exorcisms and Certain Supplications for text from a modern solemn exorcism adjuring the "unclean spirit" to depart a possessed person. In Celtic Rite, the unclean spirit is evoked and exorcized per deum patrem omnipotentem, "by God, All-powerful Father"; the same phrase is used in both Gallican (exorcidio te, spiritus immunde) and Milanese exorcism. The Milanese rite prescribes exsufflation: Exsufflat in faciem ejus in similitudinem crucis dum dicit ("Breathe out onto [the subject's] face in the likeness of the cross while speaking").Ordo Baptismi, Sacramentarium Gallicanum, edition of Jean Mabillon p. 324; also in an Ambrosian Ritual (Ordo xxi) quoted by Edmond Martène, De Antiquis Ecclesiae Ritibus (1788), vol. 1, p. 80. Frederick Edward Warren, The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881), p. 220 online.
Such exorcisms are performed rarely by the 21st-century Western church; the more common exorcism involves the ritual preparation of holy water (aquae). The 9th-century Stowe Missal preserves an early Celtic formula as procul ergo hinc, iubente te, domine, omnis spiritus immundus abscedat ("Therefore at your bidding, Lord, let every unclean spirit depart far from here").Frederick Edward Warren, The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881), p. 214. In a Latin version of The Blessing of the Waters on the Eve of Epiphany performed in Rome and recorded at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, the unclean spirit is commanded per Deum vivum ("by the Living God").John, Marquess of Bute, with E.A. Wallis Budge, The Blessing of the Waters on the Eve of Epiphany (London, 1901), p. 35 online. The modern Latin rite to exorcize holy water banishes any "pestilent spirit" (spiritus pestilens) or "corrupting atmosphere" (corrumpens aura); see Rituals and uses of holy water.
==Selected bibliography==
*Aune, David Edward. Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World. William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1983. Limited preview online.
*DDD = Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Edited by Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter Willem van der Horst. William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999, 2nd edition. Limited preview online. 
*A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature. David Lyle Jeffrey, general editor. William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1992. Limited preview online.
*Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by David Noel Freedman, Allen C. Myers, Astrid B. Beck. William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. Limited preview online.
* Matthews, Shelly. First Converts: Rich Pagan Women and the Rhetoric of Mission in Early Judaism and Christianity. Stanford University Press, 2001. Limited preview online.
* Wahlen, Clinton. Jesus and the Impurity of Spirits in the Synoptic Gospels. Mohr Siebeck, 2004. Limited preview online.
==References==
Category:Demons in Judaism
Category:Demons in Christianity
Category:Exorcism
Category:Christian terms