Was Jesus an Exorcist?

Why historians are convinced that he was

‘Celsus, moreover, unable to resist the miracles which Jesus is recorded to have performed, has already on several occasions spoken of them slanderously as works of sorcery.’ – Origen, Against Celsus 2.48¹

In the second century, the pagan philosopher Celsus launched a full-blown critique on a burgeoning Jewish sect known as Christianity. Clearly, his critique hit enough of a nerve that Origen, a theologian of the following century, felt it was overdue a response.

In the passage quoted above, we find the accusation that Jesus was a “sorcerer.” For Celsus, it was by the dark arts that Jesus learnt in Egypt as a child that he was able to work wonders and lead people astray.² There was no denying that Jesus was an exorcist. What was debatable was the power by which Jesus performed his deeds.

The notion that Jesus was a sorcerer was one with enduring appeal to Christianity’s critics. In a later rabbinic commentary on Jesus’ death, we find the same motif:

‘On the eve of Passover they hanged Jesus the Nazarene. And a herald went out before him for forty days, saying: ‘He is going to be stoned, because he practiced sorcery and enticed and led Israel astray. Anyone who knows anything in his favor, let him come and plead in his behalf.’ But, not having found anything in his favor, they hanged him on the eve of Passover.’ – B. Sanhedrin 43a³

Like the critique from Celsus, there was no denying that Jesus was a worker of miraculous deeds. The only question was the motive and power of those same actions.

Today, in mainstream scholarship, I would argue that the situation is not so different from our ancient texts. Many scholars of differing worldviews would question whether Jesus was actually casting out demons by the power of Israel’s God. Yet the idea that Jesus was in his lifetime considered an exorcist is not in serious doubt.

Consider the following statements from a sample of Jesus historians:

• Bart Ehrman: “So abundantly attested are Jesus’ miracle-working abilities that even scholars who are otherwise skeptical of the supernatural biases of our sources sometimes claim that whatever else one can say about him, Jesus was almost certainly a healer and an exorcist.”⁴

• Gerd Theissen & Annette Merz: “… we must assume not only that the historical Jesus was active as an exorcist but also that exorcism was of great importance for his understanding of himself.”⁵

• Graham Twelftree: “… exorcism was one of the most obvious and important aspects of his ministry, both from the perspective of Jesus and the later Gospel writers. Therefore, to sketch a picture of the historical Jesus without significant reference to his ministry of exorcism is to produce a distortion of the evidence.”⁶

Why Jesus was an Exorcist

The question I want to address in this piece is: why? Why is it that virtually all historians today – whether or not they think that demons were actually cast out by Jesus – believe that Jesus was perceived as an exorcist during his lifetime?

1. Messianic expectations

One very good reason to think Jesus was an exorcist is there was no expectation that a coming messianic figure would perform exorcisms. This means that if the early Jesus followers were inventing stories to fit a messianic profile, they would not naturally come up with the idea that Jesus was an exorcist.

At one point in his ministry, John the Baptist harbours doubts as to whether Jesus really was a messianic figure. And Jesus offers him this reply:

‘Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.’ (Luke 7:22)

Notice that the miracles here corresponding to a list of signs from Isaiah which were perceived in Jesus’ time in relation to the messiah. One text from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the so-called ‘Messianic Apocalypse,’ explicitly brings these signs into connection with mashiach. Yet exorcisms are not among them.

This may be why John completely guts his gospel of exorcisms, despite being aware of Jesus’ exorcist activities.⁷ John says that he narrates the signs he does so ‘that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.’ Yet exorcisms were not seen as a trait of the messiah. Exorcisms did not fit John’s purpose in writing his gospel.

2. An Abundance of Sources

Another strong piece of evidence that Jesus was an exorcist is the sheer volume of exorcism stories in the gospels. Familiarity with these stories can mask the fact that there was no figure in antiquity who is known to have attracted as many exorcism stories as Jesus.

The sources for Jesus’ exorcism are varied. Exorcisms first appear in Mark, which alone contains more exorcisms than any other biographical narrative.⁸ Several of these stories are taken up in Matthew and Luke, but exorcism is also independently attested in ‘Q’, a source which many scholars believe lies behind Matthew and Luke.⁹ Exorcisms are also assumed in the disciples’ mission and a series of brief reports.¹⁰

Note then that Jesus’ exorcistic activity does not depend upon the reliability of any single story. Even if the gospel stories represent an expansion of episodes in Jesus’ life or an invention of the early Church, one is hard-pressed to credit all of the exorcism traditions to the ecclesiastical period. If even or two of the many sources in the gospels reflect Jesus, the historical figure, we can view him as an exorcist.

3. His Enemies Thought So

One fascinating aspect of this evidence is that even Jesus’ enemies thought he was an exorcist. Here I am not referring to Celsus and later rabbinic literature, which are secondary to the Gospels. Rather, I am referring to the early claim of Jesus’ opposition that he had ‘cast out demons by the ruler of demons’ (Mt. 9:34).

Note that at this stage, Jesus’ opponents do not deny that he was exorcising – an obvious point to make if Jesus’ exorcistic activity was merely hearsay. Rather, they simply question the power by which he performed exorcisms. This is some evidence that Jesus was not only an exorcist, but that he was also perceived as successful.

4. Exorcism was not uncommon

A further reason to suppose that Jesus was an exorcist is that it fits the beliefs and practices of his time. One ‘patron’ of the Jewish exorcism tradition was Solomon, who was alleged as having expelled demons and left behind his modus operandi.

Consider this story, narrated by the first-century Jewish historian, Josephus:

‘And this kind of cure [of Solomon] is of very great power among us to this day, for I have seen a certain Eleazar, a countryman of mine, in the presence of Vespasian, his sons, tribunes and a number of other soldiers, free men possessed by demons, and this was the manner of the cure: he put to the nose of the possessed man a ring which had under its seal one of the roots prescribed by Solomon, and then, as the man smelled it, drew out the demon through his nostrils, and, when the man at once fell down, adjured the demon never to come back into him, speaking Solomon’s name and reciting the incantations which he had composed.’¹¹

Josephus goes on to describe how Eleazar placed a ‘cup or foot-basin full of water a little way off and commanded the demon, as it went out of the man, to overturn it and make known to the spectators that he had left the man.’ This is redolent of Jesus’ exorcism of ‘Legion’ from a person into some particular location – a herd of pigs.

Even during his lifetime, Jesus was not alone in exorcising demons. His disciples also embarked on a ministry of exorcism, as well as people who were not connected directly to Jesus. As Luke says, ‘John answered, ‘Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.’