710 ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



We also saw in 198 that the medicine-man, regarded with 

 fear, occasionally becomes a god. 



592. In subsequent stages when social ranks, from head 

 ruler downwards, have been formed, and when there has 

 evolved a mythology having gradations of supernatural 

 beings when, simultaneously, there have grown up priest* 

 hoods ministering to those superior supernatural beings who 

 cannot be coerced but must be propitiated ; a secondary confu 

 sion arises between the functions of medicine-men and priests. 

 Malevolent spirits, instead of being expelled directly by the 

 sorcerer s own power, are expelled by the aid of some superior 

 spirit. The priest comes to play the part of an exorcist by 

 calling on the supernatural being with whom he maintains 

 friendly relations, to drive out some inferior supernatural 

 being who is doing mischief. 



This partial usurpation by the priest of the medicine-man s 

 functions, we trace alike in the earliest civilizations and in 

 existing civilizations. At the one extreme we have the fact 

 that the Egyptians &quot; believed ... in the incessant inter 

 vention of the gods ; and their magical literature is based on 

 the notion of frightening one god by the terrors of a more 

 powerful divinity;&quot; and at the other extreme we have the 

 fact that in old editions of our Boole of Common Prayer, 

 unclean spirits are commanded to depart &quot; in the name of the 

 Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.&quot; 



There may be added the evidence which early records 

 yield, that the superior supernatural beings invoked to expel 

 inferior supernatural beings, had been themselves at one 

 time rnedicine-men. Summarizing a tablet which he trans 

 lates, Smith says 



&quot; It is supposed in it that a man was under a curse, and Merodach, one 

 of the gods, seeing him, went to the god Hea his father and enquired 

 how to cure him. Hea, the god of Wisdom, in answer related the 

 ceremonies and incantations, for effecting his recovery, and these are 

 recorded in the tablet for the benefit of the faithful in after times.&quot; 



593. Thus, after recognizing the fact that in primitive 



