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Bible Dictionaries
Possession
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or POSSESSION
1. Meaning of the term . The central idea in the word is the coercive seizing of the spirit of a man by another spirit, viewed as superhuman, with the result that the man’s will is no longer free but is controlled, often against his wish, by this indwelling person or power. In Scripture the idea is associated with both phases of moral character; and a man may be possessed by Christ or the Holy Spirit, or by a or the devil. Later usage has confined the word mainly, though not exclusively, to possession by an evil spirit. Of the better possession there are several kinds of instances in both Testaments. It is sometimes represented, according to the more material psychology of early times, as the seizure of a man by an external power, though the internal occupation is implied, and the control is none the less complete ( 1 Samuel 10:10 , Isaiah 61:1; cf. the frequent ‘the hand of the Lord was upon’ him, 1 Kings 18:46 : so of an evil spirit, 1 Samuel 18:10 ). The inspiration of the prophets is in some places described as effected by a supernatural agency occupying the seat of personality within the prophet, and controlling or moving him ( Luke 1:70 , 1Pe 1:11 , 2 Peter 1:21 , 2Es 14:22 ). In personal religion not only is the transference of authority within to the indwelling Christ spoken of ( John 17:23 , Galatians 2:20 ), but the Holy Spirit also may seize and possess a man ( Acts 2:1 , Luke 1:15 , Romans 8:9 , Ephesians 5:18 ), and should rule in him ( Ephesians 4:30 ). But this involves a welcome and glad submission to the sway of a spirit within, though personal wishes may be thwarted or crossed ( Acts 16:7 ). Demoniacal possession, on the other hand, is characterized by the reluctance of the sufferer, who is often conscious of the hateful tyranny under which he is held and against which his will rebels in vain.
2. Features of demoniacal possession . In such possession two features may generally be traced. It is allied with and yet distinct from physical disease, and there is almost always something abnormal with respect to the psychical development or defect of the sufferer. It is given as the explanation in cases of dumbness ( Matthew 9:32 , Luke 11:14 ), of deafness and dumbness ( Mark 9:25 ), of dumbness and blindness ( Matthew 12:22 ), of curvature of the spine ( Luke 13:11 ), and of epilepsy ( Mark 1:25 ). Elsewhere such complaints are referred to as merely disease, and no suggestion is made that they were caused or complicated by the action of an evil spirit ( Matthew 15:30 , Mark 7:32 , Luke 18:25 ). Sometimes possession and disease are even distinguished by different enumeration ( Matthew 10:8 , Mark 1:32 , Luke 6:17 f., Luke 7:21; Luke 13:32 ); and once at least epileptics (or lunatics) and palsied occupy a different category from demoniacs ( Matthew 4:24 ). The right conclusion seems to be that the same disease was in some cases ascribed to ordinary causes and in others to possession, the distinguishing feature being possibly intractability due to the violence of permanence of the symptoms. Evidence that the disorder was at the same time of a psychical or nervous character is plentiful. According to Arab belief, something abnormal in the appearance, such as a strange look in the eyes or an unusual catching in the throat, was an invariable symptom, and both are indications of nervous excitement or alarm. The will was paralyzed ( Mark 9:18 ), and the sufferer was under the influence of illusions ( John 7:20 ). He identified himself with the demons, and was averse to deliverance ( Mark 1:24; Mark 5:7 ). In such cases Jesus does not follow His usual course of exciting faith before he heals, but acts as though the sufferer were not in a fit state to believe or to trust, and must be dealt with forcibly first of all. Some confident and majestic word is spoken, of which the authority is immediately recognized; and only then, when the proper balance of the mind has been restored, is an attempt made to communicate religious blessing.
3. Our Lord’s belief . Two opinions have been held as to whether Christ actually shared the current views of His day as to demoniacal possession. That He seemed to do so is attested on almost every page of the Synoptics, ( a ) According to one opinion, this was nothing more than a seeming, and His attitude towards the phenomena must be explained as a gracious accommodation to the views of the age . In addition to the serious objection that such a theory introduces an unwelcome element of unreality into Christ’s teaching, and implies a lack of candour on His part, the arguments in its favour are singularly ineffective. To assert that Christ never entangled His teaching with contemporary ideas is to prejudge the very question at issue. That He adopted different methods from those followed by professional exorcists, whose success He expressly attests ( Matthew 12:27 ), is exactly what His difference in person from them would cause to be expected, but does not necessarily involve a difference in theory. To humour a patient by falling in with his hallucination is not a correct description of Christ’s procedure; for in many of the instances the treatment is peremptory and stern (cf. Mark 9:25 , where the sufferer was not consulted, and any humouring followed the cure; so elsewhere), and the evil spirits are represented after expulsion as actual and still capable of mischief ( Mark 5:13 ). Christ’s own language is itself significant. He makes the current belief the basis of argument ( Luke 11:16 ff.), attributes the power to cast out devils to the disciples of the Pharisees, and implicitly asserts it for Himself ( Mark 12:27 f., Luke 11:19 f.), and recognizes the power as resident in others ( Mark 9:38 f., Matthew 7:22 ), without a single intimation that He was speaking in metaphor, and that His hearers were blundering in assuming that He meant what He said.
( b ) The real explanation is to be found in quite another direction. His humanity was true and complete, the humanity of the age into which He was born; and of His Divine attributes He’ emptied himself’ ( Php 2:7 , 2 Corinthians 8:9; 2 Corinthians 13:4 ), except to the extent to which His perfect human nature might be the organ of their manifestation (Bruce, Humiliation of Christ , 136 ff.; Ottley, Doct. of Incarnation , 610 ff.). In virtue of this voluntary self-limitation, His humanity was not lifted clear of the intellectual atmosphere of His time; but He shared the conceptions and views of the people amongst whom He became incarnate, though His sinlessness and the welcomed guidance of the Holy Spirit aided His human intelligence, removing some of the worst hindrances to correct thinking, but not making Him in any sense a prodigy in advance of His age in regard to human knowledge. Accordingly, He avoids the extreme and exaggerated demonology into which an unduly extended animistic interpretation of the universe was leading His contemporaries, but does not reject or question the interpretation itself. At a later date there was a disposition to ascribe all diseases to possession, to multiply evil spirits beyond calculation, and to invest them with functions and activities of the most grotesque kind. Christ’s attitude was altogether different, though He consistently talks and acts upon the assumption that evil spirits were no creatures of the fancy, and that possession was a real phenomenon.
That such an assumption was wrong it is outside the province of the real sciences to assert or to deny; and there are some considerations that make the conclusion at least probable, that personal spirits of evil exist, and cause by their activity some woeful sufferings amongst men. Metaphysics postulates transcendent personal power as the original cause of material phenomena, and is sustained in so doing by all that a man knows concerning the roots of his own moral procedure. Immanent in man and outside, there is generally recognized a great spiritual existence, affecting human life in a thousand invisible ways; and the belief in One Supreme Spirit removes most of the difficulties from the belief in others, subordinate yet superhuman. In the asylums and hospitals, moreover, are cases of mental or nervous disease, not entirely explicable by physical law, but looking exceedingly like what cases of possession may be supposed to be; just as in social and civil life men are sometimes met with whose viciousness defies any other interpretation than that an, or the, evil spirit has secured the mastery over them. Psychical research, too, points to a large spiritual population of the world, and all the naturalistic explanations so far suggested have failed to solve the mystery. The conclusion seems probable that demoniacal possession was accepted by Christ as an actual fact, with modifications of the views of His contemporaries in the direction of economy in the bringing in of superhuman agencies, and of their due distinction from processes of physical law.
Possession may further be classed as one of the fundamental and universal beliefs of mankind, with a solid element of truth in it, though running at times of excitement into extravagance. Homer held that a wasting sickness was caused by a demon, and the Greek dramatists generally attribute madness and quasi -religious frenzy to demonic or Divine possession. The Egyptians located a demon in each of the thirty-six members of the body; their presence was the cause of disease, which was healed by their expulsion. Seven evil spirits are grouped in Babylonian mythology ( Matthew 12:45 , Mark 16:9 , Luke 8:2; Luke 11:26 ), and these with their subordinate genii kept men in continual fear, and were thought able to occupy the body and produce any kind of sickness. In almost every civilization, ancient as those of the East or rude as those of Central Africa, a similar conception has prevailed; and the prevalence points to a certain rudimentary truth that need not De renounced along with the elaborations by which in the course of ages the actual fact has been overlaid.
R. W. Moss.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Possession'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/p/possession.html. 1909.
