DAEMONIAC (from daemon), a human being whose volition and other mental faculties are overpowered and restrained, and his body possessed and actuated by some created spiritual being of superior power.

Such seems to be the determinate sense of the word; but it is disputed whether any of mankind ever were in this unfortunate condition. It is generally agreed, that neither good nor evil spirits are known at present to exert such authority over the human race; but in the ancient heathen world, and amongst the Jews, particularly in the days of our Saviour, evil spirits are thought by many to have been much more troublesome.

The Greeks and Romans imagined that their deities, in order to reveal future events, frequently entered into the prophet or prophetess who was consulted, overpowered their faculties, and uttered responses by their organs of speech. Apollo was believed to enter into the Pythoness, and to dictate the prophetic answers received by those who consulted her. Other oracles besides that of Delphi were supposed to unfold futurity by the same machinery. And in various cases either malignant daemons or benevolent deities were thought to enter into and to actuate human affairs. The Lymphatici, the Cerriti, and the Larυαtι of the Romans, were all of this description; and the Greeks, by the use of the word ba ∣ μονι( 3 ομiνοι, show that they referred to this cause the origin of madness. Among the ancient heathens, therefore, it appears to have been a generally received opinion, that superior beings entered occasionally into men, overpowered the faculties of their minds, and actuated their bodily organs. They might imagine that this happened in instances in which the effects were owing to the operation of different causes; but an opinion so generally prevalent had surely some plausible foundation.

The Jews, too, if we may trust the sacred writings and Josephus, appear to have believed in daemoniacal possession[7:7:585]. The case of Saul may be recollected as one among many in which superior created beings were believed by the Jews to exert in this manner their influence over human life. The general tenor of their history and language, and their doctrines concerning good and evil spirits, prove that the opinion of daemoniacal possession had been well known and generally received among them.

In the days of our Saviour, it would appear that daemoniacal possession was very frequent amongst the Jews and the neighbouring nations. Many were the evil spirits whom Jesus is related in the gospels to have ejected from patients who were brought unto him as possessed and tormented by these malevolent daemons. His apostle^ too, and the first Christians, who were most active and successful in the propagation of Christianity, appear to have frequently exerted the miraculous powers with which they were endowed on similar occasions. The daemons displayed a degree of knowledge and malevolence which sufficiently distinguished them from human beings; whilst the language in which the daemoniacs are mentioned, and the actions and sentiments ascribed to them in the New Testament, show that our Saviour and his apostles did not consider the idea of daemoniacal possession as being merely a vulgar error concerning the origin of a disease or of diseases produced by natural causes.

The more enlightened cannot always avoid the use of metaphorical modes of expression; which, though founded upon error, have yet been so established in language by the influence of custom, that they cannot be suddenly dismissed. When we read in the book of Joshua that the sun on a certain occasion stood still, in order to allow that hero time to complete a victory, we easily find an excuse for the conduct of the sacred historian, in accommodating his narrative to the popular ideas of the Jews concerning the relative motions of the heavenly bodies. In all similar instances we do not complain much of the use of a single phrase, originally introduced by the prevalence of some groundless opinion, the falsity of which is well known to the writer.

But in descriptions of characters, in the narration of facts, and in laying down systems of doctrine, we require very different rules to be observed. Should any person, in compliance with popular opinions, talk in serious language of the existence, dispositions, declarations, and actions of a race of beings whom he knew to be absolutely fabulous, we surely could not praise him for candour or integrity, but must suppose him to be either exulting in irony over the credulity of those around him, or taking advantage of their weakness, with the dishonest and the selfish views of an impostor. And if he himself should pretend to any connection with this imaginary system of beings, and should claim, in consequence of his connection with them, particular honours from his contemporaries, whatever might be the dignity of his character in all other respects, nobody could hesitate for a moment to brand him as an impostor of the basest character.

Precisely in this light must we regard the conduct of our Saviour and his apostles, if the ideas of daemoniacal possession were to be considered merely as a vulgar error. They talked and acted as if they believed that evil spirits had actually entered into those who were brought to them as possessed with devils, and as if those spirits were actually expelled by their authority out of the unhappy persons whom they had possessed. They expected, they demanded too, to have their profession and declarations believed, in consequence of their performing such mighty works, and to be honoured as having thus triumphed over the powers of hell. The reality of daemoniacal possession stands upon the same evidence with the gospel system in general.

Neither is there any thing absurd or unreasonable in. this doctrine. It does not appear to contradict those ideas which the general appearance of nature and the series of events suggest concerning the benevolence andwisdom of the Deity, and the councils by which he regulates the affairs of the universe. We often fancy ourselves able to comprehend things to which our understanding is wholly inadequate; and we persuade ourselves, at times, that the whole extent of the works of the Deity must be well known to us, and that his designs must always be such as we can fathom. We are then ready, whenever any difficulty arises, in considering the conduct of Providence, to model things according to our own ideas; to deny that the Deity can possibly be the author of things which we cannot reconcile; and to assert that he must act on every occasion in a manner consistent with our narrow views. This is the pride of reason; and it seems to have suggested the strongest objections that have been at any time urged against the reality of daemoniacal possession. But the Deity may surely connect one order of his creatures with another. We perceive mutual relations and a beautiful connection prevalent throughout all that part of nature which falls within the sphere of our observation. The inferior animals are connected with mankind, and subjected to their authority, not only in instances in which it is exerted for their advantage, but even where it is tyrannically abused to their destruction. Amongst the evils to which mankind have been subjected, why might not their being liable to daemoniacal possession be one? Whilst the Supreme Being retains the sovereignty of the universe, he may employ whatever agents he thinks proper in the execution of his purposes; he may either commission an angel or let loose a devil, as well as bend the human will, or communicate any particular impulse to matter.

All that revelation makes known, all that human reason can conjecture, concerning the existence of various orders of spiritual beings, good and bad, is perfectly consistent with, and even favourable to, the doctrine of daemoniacal possession. It was generally believed throughout the ancient heathen world; it was equally well known to the Jews, and equally respected by them; it is mentioned in the New Testament in such language, and such narratives are related concerning it, that the gospels cannot well be regarded in any other light than as pieces of imposture, and Jesus Christ must be considered as a man who dishonestly took advantage of the weakness and ignorance of his contemporaries, if this doctrine be nothing but a vulgar error. But it teaches nothing inconsistent with the general conduct of Providence; it is not the caution of philosophy, but the pride of reason, which suggests objections against this doctrine.

Those, again, who are unwilling to allow that angels or devils have ever intermeddled so much with the concerns of human life, urge a number of specious arguments in opposition to such a supposition. The Greeks and Romans of old, say they, did believe in the reality of daemoniacal possession. They supposed that spiritual beings did at times enter into the sons or daughters of men, and distinguish themselves in that situation by capricious freaks, deeds of wanton mischief, or prophetic enunciations. But in the instances in which they supposed this to happen, it is evident that no such thing took place. Their accounts of the state and conduct of those persons whom they believed to be possessed in this supernatural manner, show plainly that what they ascribed to the influence of daemons were merely the effects of natural diseases. Whatever they relate concerning the larvafĩ, the cerriti, and the lymphatici, shows that these were merely people disordered in mind, or in the same unfortunate situation with those madmen and idiots and melancholy persons whom we have [7:7:586]among ourselves. Festus describes the larvati as being furiosi et mente moti. Horace says,

Hellade percussa, Marius cum praecipitat se, Cerritus fuit.

And Lucian describes daemoniacs as lunatic, and as staring with their eyes, foaming at the mouth, and speechless.

It appears still more evidently, that all the persons spoken of as possessed with devils in the New Testament, were either mad or epileptic, and precisely in the same condition with the madmen and epileptics of modern times. The Jews, amongst other reproaches which they threw out against our Saviour, said, “He hath a devil, and is mad: why hear ye him ?” The expressions, he hath a devil, and is mad, were certainly used on this occasion as synonymous. With all their virulence, they would not surely ascribe to him at once two things which were inconsistent and contradictory. Those who thought more favourably of the character of Jesus, asserted concerning his discourses, and in reply to his adversaries, “that these are not the words of him that hath a daemon,” meaning, no doubt, that he spoke in a more rational manner than a madman could be expected to speak. The Jews appear to have ascribed to the influence of daemons, not only that species of madness in which the patient is raving andfurious, but also melancholy madness. Of John, who secluded himself from intercourse with the world, and was distinguished for abstinence and acts of mortification, they said, “He hath a daemon.” The youth whose father applied to Jesus to free him from an evil spirit, describing his unhappy condition in these words, “Have mercy on my son, for he is lunatic and sore vexed with a daemon; for oft times he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water,” was plainly epileptic. Every thing indeed that is related in the New Testament concerning daemoniacs, proves that they were people affected with such natural diseases as are far from being uncommon amongst mankind in the present age. When the symptoms of the disorders cured by our Saviour and his apostles as cases of daemoniacal possession, -correspond so exactly with those of diseases well known as natural in the present age, it would be absurd to impute them to a supernatural cause. It is much more consistent with common sense and sound philosophy to suppose, that our Saviour and his apostles wisely, and with that condescension to the weakness and prejudices of those with whom they conversed, which so eminently distinguished the character of the author of our holy religion, and must always be a prominent feature in the character of the true Christian, adopted the vulgar language in speaking of those unfortunate persons who were groundlessly imagined to be possessed with daemons, though they well knew the notions which had given rise to such modes of expression to be ill founded; than to imagine that diseases, which arise at present from natural causes, were produced in days of old by the intervention of daemons, or that evil spirits still continue to enter into mankind in all cases of madness, melancholy, or epilepsy.

Besides, it is by no means a sufficient reason for receiving any doctrine as true, that it has been generally received throughout the world. Error, like an epidemical disease, is communicated from one to another. In certain circumstances, too, the influence of imagination predominates, and restrains the exertions of reason. Many false opinions have extended their influence throughout a very wide circle, and maintained it long. On every such occasion as the present, therefore, it becomes us to inquire, not so much how generally any opinion has been received, or how long it has prevailed, as from what causes it has originated, and on what evidence it rests.

When we contemplate the frame of nature, we behold a grand and beautiful simplicity prevailing throughout the whole. Notwithstanding its immense extent, and although it contains such numberless diversities of being, yet the simplest machine constructed by human art does not display greater simplicity, or a happier connection of parts. We may therefore venture to draw an inference, by ana-Iogy, f rom what is observable of the order of nature in general to the present case. To permit evil spirits to intermeddle with the concerns of human life, would be to break through that order which the Deity appears to have established throughout his works; it would be to introduce a degree of confusion unworthy of the wisdom of Divine Providence.

Such are the most rational arguments which have been urged on both sides in this controversy. Perhaps the daemonists have the stronger probabilities on their side; but we will not presume to take upon ourselves the office of arbitrators in the dispute.

Daemoniacs, in Ecclesiastical History, a branch of the Anabaptists, whose distinguishing tenet it is that the devils will be all saved at the end of the world.