asily explained by supposing that he
was naturally an atrabilarian, and that in his fits of melancholy he
appeared mad, or furious; therefore they sought no other remedy for
his illness than music, and the sound of instruments proper to enliven
or calm him. Several of the obsessions and possessions noted in the
New Testament were simple maladies, or fantastic fancies, which made
it believed that such persons were possessed by the devil. The
ignorance of the people maintained this prejudice, and their being
totally unacquainted with physics and medicine served to strengthen
such ideas.

In one it was a sombre and melancholy temper, in another the blood was
too fevered and heated; here the bowels were burnt up with heat, there
a concentration of diseased humor, which suffocated the patient, as it
happens with those subject to epilepsy and hypochondria, who fancy
themselves gods, kings, cats, dogs, and oxen. There were others, who,
disturbed at the remembrance of their crimes, fell into a kind of
despair, and into fits of remorse, which irritated their mind and
constitution, and made them believe that the devil pursued and beset
them. Such, apparently, were those women who followed Jesus Christ,
and who had been delivered by him from the unclean spirits that
possessed them, and partly so Mary Magdalen, from whom he expelled
seven devils. The Scripture often speaks of the spirit of impurity, of
the spirit of falsehood, of the spirit of jealousy; it is not
necessary to have recourse to a particular demon to excite these
passions in us; St. James[246] tells us that we are enough tempted by
our own concupiscence, which leads us to evil, without seeking after
external causes.

The Jews attributed the greater part of their maladies to the demon:
they were persuaded that they were a punishment for some crime either
known or unrevealed. Jesus Christ and his apostles wisely supposed
these prejudices, without wishing to attack them openly and reform the
old opinions of the Jews; they cured the diseases, and chased away the
evil spirits who caused them, or who were said to cause them. The real
and essential effect was the cure of the patient; no other thing was
required to confirm the mission of Jesus Christ, his divinity, and the
truth of the doctrine which he preached. Whether he expelled the
demon, or not, is not essentially necessary to his first design; it is
certain that he cured the patient either by expelling the devil, if