Magic Library

disturbed public safety in every conceivable way. One cannot imagine a more miserable condition than the state of the Jewish land at that time. To illustrate all of this, one need only consider the immense number of cases of devil-possession and exorcisms of demons that occur in the New Testament alone, and that Christ, wherever he turned, encountered a countless number of people who implored his mercy because, as the Gospel says, the spirits obeyed him. There can be no question here of so-called natural explanations, as they contradict the general human and world-belief of that time.

Then Christ came, and with him a new and better life for the unfortunate world, for he came to destroy the works of Satan and to banish hell with its tormenting spirits from the earth. It is hard to express, and we can no longer judge, what an infinitely blessed influence Christianity exerted in this regard during the first years of its inception. Or can anything more horrifying be imagined than living in a whirlwind of millions of malevolent invisible beings who interfere in all affairs of existence, possess people physically, induce illnesses, seduce women and virgins, and subject them to their power, etc.?

Indeed, one cannot imagine a superstition more terrible in its effects on real life than the belief in devils, demons, and sorcery of that time.