“ THE SEVEN ”—DEMONS 437 
The N.T. confines the instances of evil spirits possessing 
mankind—more frequently in the psychical rather than in 
the physical sense—to the Gospels and the Acts, which illus- 
trate demonic possession of women by (inter alias) the Canaan- 
itish woman (Matt. xvi. 22) and Mary Magdalene, “ from 
whom seven devils had gone out ”’ (Luke viii. 2).1 
1 It would seem that the Babylonians intelligently, if unconsciously, 
anticipated our law of germs, for “‘ the doctrine of disease was that the swarming 
demons could enter a man’s body and cause sickness.” On a fragment of a 
tablet, Budge has found six evil spirits mentioned by name, each of which 
specialised in attack, the first going for the head, and so on. See Encyc. 
Bibl., 1073. 
