200 HUXLEY 



believed in that of God and the angels ; and that they 

 had an unhesitating faith in possession and in exor- 

 cism. No reader of the first three Gospels can hesi- 

 tate to admit that, in the opinion of those persons 

 among whom the traditions out of which they are 

 compiled arose, Jesus held, and constantly acted upon, 

 the same theory of the spiritual world. Nowhere do 

 we find the slightest hint that he doubted the theory, 

 or questioned the efficacy of the curative operations 

 based upon it. 1 



The writer of the article " Demons " in the Ency- 

 clopedia Biblica says : " there is no sign on the part 

 of Jesus, any more than on the part of the evangelists, 

 of mere accommodation to the current belief. It is 

 true that ' Satan ' is used metaphorically in the rebuke 

 of Peter (Matt. xvi. 23) and that c unclean spirit ' is 

 figurative in Matt. xii. 43. Acceptance of the cur- 

 rent belief is clearly at the basis of the argument of 

 Jesus with the Pharisees (Luke xi. 16-26); . . 

 and that He believed in the power of others besides 

 Himself and His disciples to expel demons, in some 

 sense at any rate, seems clear in the presence of such 

 passages as Matt. xii. 27 and Luke xi. 19, where He 

 attributes the power to the disciples of the Pharisees. 

 He recognises also the fact that similar success was 

 attained by some who used His name without actually 

 following Him (Mark ix. 38) or without being more 



1 Coll. Essays, v. p. 193. 



