Why No Exorcisms in John?

Explaining the famous Johannine lacuna

I sometimes quip that my PhD thesis was a 100,000 word argument from silence. In that study, I asked why the Gospel writers – unlike so many ancient biographers – fail to describe their subject’s physical appearance. Was it something to do with their genre, their Christologies, or even their ‘philosophy’ of appearance?

Yet I quickly follow up by pointing out that I’m not alone in studying things that don’t exist! We might think of those who study the ‘Q’ source (!) or exorcisms in the Gospel of John. Sometimes a silence is deafening, and it is worth exploring not only what the evangelists included in their gospels, but also what they left out.

A lacuna in John which is easy to miss is one that I just mentioned: his silence on Jesus’ exorcisms. In the Synoptic gospels, Jesus is associated with more exorcisms than any other figure in classical antiquity. Yet in John, his ministry has been completely gutted of this mode of healing. With All Hallows’ Eve fast approaching, I want to explore why this is. Why does John get rid of Jesus’ exorcisms?

John’s Independence

When we think about a key difference between John and the Synoptics, our first instinct may be to appeal to the independence of the gospels. Perhaps the omission of Jesus’ miracles was not a conscious one – rather, John composes his gospel with a different stream of tradition, one that was not especially concerned with exorcism.

This explanation may have made some sense in the mid-20th century. At that time, many scholars came to see John as literarily independent from the earlier gospels. Perhaps the traditions which came down to John did not concern themselves with his exorcisms, and John’s decision not to include them was therefore not intentional.

Yet this is not a sound explanation for the lacuna. For a start, it does not explain how John’s sources could be so ignorant of a widespread tradition of Jesus’ exorcisms. It therefore only pushes back the question one step further: why did the sources that John used fail to attend to one of the most widespread aspects of Jesus’ ministry?

Even more importantly, the view that John is independent of the gospels has faced heavy criticism in recent research. I think the emerging consensus is now that John knew Mark, for reasons I deem very strong.¹ Some scholars such as James Barker and Mark Goodacre have even go so far to argue that John knew all three Synoptic gospels, with Goodacre now describing John as the ‘fourth Synoptic gospel.’²

If John knew the earlier Gospels – indeed, even if he knew some synoptic traditions which he incorporates into his own gospel – it would have been impossible for him not to know of Jesus’ exorcisms. Why he does not include them is left unexplained.

Apologetic & Pastoral Concerns

A more plausible set of motives for omitting Jesus’ exorcisms were apologetic and pastoral.³ In the Synoptics, Jesus is accused by his critics of casting out demons ‘by the power of Beelzebul.’ This general accusation seems to have had staying power, recurring in later critiques. Celsus claimed that Jesus was a magician, trained in Egypt, while the Babylonian Talmud casts Jesus as a sorcerer, leading Israel astray.⁴

If Jesus’ exorcisms were seen early on as a form of “magic” performed by evil powers, then it is not difficult to see why John might have omitted this tradition. Preferring not to give his readers any basis on which these objections could be grounded, he removes the exorcism tradition altogether. This may also have assuaged a pastoral concern that Jesus was in league with demons and fears associated with the demonic.

The idea that John could redact his sources with apologetic intent seems generally plausible. I have pointed out that a similar motive is at work in John’s account of the empty tomb. Yet I find it doubtful that apologetic or pastoral concerns to distance Jesus from “magic” are the primary motives behind his omission of exorcisms.

For a start, John does not remove other “embarrassing” claims of Jesus. He repeats the Synoptic claim that ‘Jesus has a demon’ and answers it.⁵ Even more importantly, John maintains and answers the idea that Jesus was leading people astray – a key identifier of ‘magic.’⁶ If John was trying to distance Jesus from magic, we are also hard-pressed to explain why he maintains other his other ‘magic’-like deeds of wonder-working.

The Miracles in John

A better approach is to ask, what is the purpose of narrating the signs that John does include? John offers an explicit answer of this question towards the end of the Gospel:

‘Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.” (20:30-1)

The signs which John includes are signs which reveal Jesus’ messianic identity. This may give us some sense of why John does not include exorcisms: they were not believed by the author to reveal the messianic identity of Jesus – but why?

The most obvious reason is that there was nothing especially messianic about performing exorcisms in antiquity. On the one hand, there were many other figures in the ancient world who performed exorcisms. Yet these were not considered messianic.

Yet another point to consider is that there were no clear expectations that a Messiah figure would perform exorcisms. Interestingly, in a ‘Q’ passage when John doubts that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus replies with the following claim about his ministry:

‘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)

The miracles which Jesus appeals to have a close resonance with the ‘Messianic Apocalpyse’ of 4Q521, found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. This text brings a similar list of signs found in Isaiah – healing the blind, the lame, the lepers – into explicit connection to a figure called the ‘anointed one’ or ‘Messiah’. Jesus is claiming that these miracles of healing show that he is the Messiah promised by Scripture.

Yet it is striking that Jesus leaves out his ministry as an exorcist. The reason for this is simple: there were many figures in antiquity who were exorcists, and exorcism was not widely believed to be associated with a messianic figure. If John wants to claim that Jesus was the Messiah, exorcisms might not have helped his case.⁷

The Kingdom of God

We have argued that onlookers may not have seen exorcism as anything particularly messianic. Yet we might respond by noting that Jesus seems to have imbued his ministry of exorcisms with theological significance. In particular, he seems to have connected his exorcism with Satan’s defeat and the arrival of God’s kingdom.

Consider a saying of Jesus found in ‘Q’: ‘But if it is by the Spirit (Lk: finger) of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.’ Elsewhere, Jesus likens his exorcisms to the ‘binding of a strong man’ (Satan), and the demise of Satan-like powers was associated with some strains of messianic expectation.

Understanding the close link between exorcism and the Kingdom in the Synoptics is crucial, for John consistently downplays the Kingdom of God. Though the word ‘Kingdom’ is present in a couple of episodes, the Johannine Jesus no longer proclaims thee Kingdom of God. Rather, he proclaims himself and the promise of eternal life.

The omission of exorcisms may therefore be connected to another one of John’s omissions. Given that the Kingdom of God was so closely linked to exorcisms in the Synoptics, and John was bent on removing the Kingdom of God, it follows that he would want to remove the exorcist tradition as well. One was wrapped up in the other.

The Defeat of Satan

So far, we have tried to explain why John guts his gospel of exorcisms. Yet some astute readers might question whether there really are no exorcisms in John. After all, John does claim that ‘now the ruler of the world’ – referring to Satan – ‘will be cast out.’⁸ This lone exorcism, if we might call it that, brings us to a final reason why John may have removed exorcisms from Jesus’ ministry: John wants to reframe Satan’s defeat as a result of Jesus’ crucifixion. He links Satan’s demise to Jesus’ exaltation on the cross.

A similar move is made in other early Christian texts. Colossians states that Christ ‘disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in the cross’ (Col. 2:15), while Hebrews claims that ‘through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death… the devil. (2:14-15). Revelation also connects the Devil’s demise with the blood of the lamb (12:11, 20:10).

A Magical Gem: A fascinating attestation to the belief that Jesus’ death held power over evil is a very early depiction of Jesus from the late second or early third century AD. It is a bloodstone intaglio gem which displays a man with long hair and a beard, hanging from a tau shaped cross. Engraved upon it are the words, ‘O Son, Father, O Jesus Christ. Cross of the redeeming son,’ followed by a series of mostly impenetrable syllables (voces magicae), among which are the words ‘lamb’ and ‘Emmanuel’, indicating a magical use. This seems to be a concrete illustration of the Christian belief that demons could be exercised ‘in the name of Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate (Justin Martyr, Apologia 6.6). Whether or not the object was used by a Christian, however, is unclear (cf. Origen, Cont. Cels. 1.6).

I am not sure if this alone is enough to explain John’s silence on Jesus’ exorcisms. It it is unclear to me why connecting Satan’s defeat to Jesus’ death would preclude that Jesus’ exorcism of demons throughout his ministry. Yet it may be that John leaves them out for dramatic emphasis – he wants the cross to be the decisive moment.

Exploring a Silence

When it comes to explaining a silence in the Gospels, the ipssima intentio – or exact intention – of the evangelist is not available to us. It could have been one or more of these concerns which led to his omission of a vital part of the Synoptic tradition. It is also possible that, for a reason entirely unknown to us, John just didn’t like exorcisms.

What we can say is that John’s omission of exorcisms make a good sense within the narrative logic of the text he has written: the particular role ‘signs’ play within his narrative, the stripping of ‘Kingdom of God’ language from Jesus’ ministry, and (to a lesser extent) his reframing of Jesus’ defeat of Satan as the result of Jesus’ crucifixion.

When we read the Gospels, we should of course pay attention to what they do say, but just as important is what they don’t. Silences raises vital questions about the kind of text we are reading – its characterisation, theology and narratological emphases. As a philosopher once said, ‘Every word has consequences. Every silence, too.’

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Thanks for reading this piece! If you enjoyed it, you might also like my post, ‘Is the Gospel of John Historical? Five Differences Between John and the Synoptics’

If you are interested in finding out more about Jesus’ exorcisms, check out this Biblical Time Machine podcast I produced with expert Professor Graham Twelftree.

Please also consider supporting my work, so I can continue to write regular posts:

1. See the collection of essays by international scholars, Eve-Marie Becker, Helen K. Bond, Catrin H. Williams (eds.) John’s Transformation of Mark (London: T&T Clark, 2021).

2. See James W. Barker, Writing and Rewriting the Gospels: John and the Synoptics (Cambridge, MA: Eerdmans, 2025); Mark Goodacre, The Fourth Synoptic Gospel: John’s Knowledge of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Cambridge, MA: Eerdmans, 2025).

3. See Eric Plumer, “The Absence of Exorcisms in the Fourth Gospel,” Biblica 78 n.3 (1997): 350-368.

4. See Origen, Against Celsus, 1.28; 38; 68-69; 2.48; cf. b. Sanhedrin 43a; 107b.

5. See John 7:20; 8:48; 8:52; 10:20.

6. See John 7:12; 7:47.

7. Here and in the following discussion, I depend heavily on Graham H. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist: A Contribution to the Study of the Historical Jesus, WUNT 2.54 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), 141-142.

8. See John 12:31-33; 14:30; 16:11.