Demoniac, demoniacs
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(Matt. 4:24; Mark 1:23; Luke 6:35 [as given]; John 10:20, 21, and others) — this is the name for people possessed by evil spirits. In Holy Scripture evil spirits are depicted as entering into and going out of people. Those who do not acknowledge the existence of evil spirits in the proper sense, and think that by the latter must be understood the sick — lunatics, epileptics, the insane, and others — and that the Lord, in speaking of demons, was merely accommodating Himself to Jewish notions, think in gravest error.
In Holy Scripture demoniacs are plainly distinguished from people afflicted with grave bodily and mental illnesses; to them are ascribed such actions as are not characteristic of ordinary sick people: thus, for example, they know that Christ is the Son of God; Jesus Christ converses with them, and they answer Him. He commands the demons to be silent, or to come out of a man, and they obey; upon going out of people, demons seek rest, and not finding it, return to their former dwelling, taking into their company other, more wicked spirits; upon going out of the Gadarene demoniacs, the demons enter into a herd of swine, and the whole herd perishes in the sea.
Indeed, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and His Apostles received the demon-possessed as truly possessed by evil spirits, and nowhere give the slightest occasion to think that these were only apparently possessed, and that their actions proceeded not from the influence of evil spirits but from bodily or mental illnesses, such as, for example, from disorder of the mental faculties, of imagination, of reason, and the like. Exactly so has this been understood by the whole Christian Church from the very times of the apostles.
The same degree of power that was permitted by God to Satan over the righteous, long-suffering Job can undoubtedly manifest itself in various forms over other persons as well, by God’s permission. Many well-known European physicians, such as, for example, the Spaniard Vskunrol [?], admit that instances of demonic possession, or being under the power of evil spirits, are encountered not infrequently even in the present unbelieving age.