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33. πνεῦμα δαιμονίου ἀκαθάρτου. The word ‘unclean’ is peculiar to St Luke, who writes for Gentiles. The word for devil is not diabolos, which is confined to Satan, or human beings like him (Joh 6:70), but daimonion, which in Greek was also capable of a good sense. The Jews believed daimonia to be the spirits of the wicked (Jos. B. J. VII. 6, § 3). Here begins that description of one complete Sabbath-day in the life of Jesus, from morning till night, which is also preserved for us in Mat 8:14-17; Mar 1:21-31. It is the best illustration of the life of ‘the Good Physician’ of which the rarest originality was that “He went about doing good” (Act 10:38). Into the question of the reality or unreality of ‘demoniac possession,’ about which theologians have held different opinions, we cannot enter. On the one hand, it is argued that the Jews attributed nearly all diseases, and especially all mental and cerebral diseases, to the immediate action of evil spirits; and that these ‘possessions’ are ranged with cases of ordinary madness; and that the common belief would lead those thus afflicted to speak as if possessed:—on the other hand, the literal interpretation of the Gospels points the other way, and in unenlightened ages, as still in dark and heathen countries, the powers of evil seem to have an exceptional range of influence over the mind of man. The student will see the whole question fully and reverently discussed in Jahn, Archaeologia Biblica, E. T. pp. 200–216.