RELIGIOUS HEALING 

IN

FIRST-CENTURY CHRISTIANITY

The acts of miraculous healing by Jesus and his disciples form a major theme in the development of early Christianity. In particular, these New Testament accounts frequently portrayed healing as the casting out of evil spirits from possessed individuals. In so doing early Christianity established a model of behaviour for both sufferer and religious healer that would continue to modern times. What were the first-century contexts and possible sources for the emergence of early Christian healing? Masses of individuals believing themselves possessed by unclean or evil spirits sought the help of Jesus and his disciples. How can we understand this historical portrayal, its literary and behavioural reality? Does it bear a correspondence to our modern formulation of crowd behaviour and possession?

Our modern-day concepts of the occult and the scientific are not readily matched to the understanding that the first-century Palestinian had of the real world. Magic and science did not exist as separate and well defined pursuits or disciplines. Medicine, an art and practice based on observation, shared the marketplace with magical and spiritual healing. In the Roman world, Pliny the Elder (23-79 C.E.), in his Natural History, recognized that he was stacking in one storehouse "20,000 noteworthy facts" of diverse origins and vastly different natures. While he spoke scornfully of the deceits and lies of the Magi, he dutifully recorded the most fantastic hearsay items without comment. Pliny noted that the powers to heal or transform took both a natural and a super-natural form. The boundaries of magical belief in the Roman world were not clear and much of medical practice was supernaturally rooted. The deliberate trickster, the charlatan, the mountebank exploited popular imagination and took his place alongside the sincere medical practitioner and religious healer In first-century Palestine, the miraculous healing by Jesus and followers occurred within a context of public exorcists and accounts in the Talmud, Flavius Josephus, and other writings.

Among the rabbis, of particular interest is R. Hanina ben Dosa, a con-temporary of Jesus. Hanina lived in Arav in the Galilee and was a student and colleague of the great sage Johanan ben Zakkai. It is likely their association began when Johanan spent 18 years there early in his career, contemporaneous with Jesus. Hanina was renowned for miracles and spiritual healing. When Johanan's son became ill, the teacher asked his disciple to pray for his son "that he may live." Hanina's fervent prayer was answered. Johanan's wife then asked her husband, "Is Hanina greater than you?" Johanan replied that Henna is like a servant before a king who comes and goes while he, Johanan, is like a nobleman who only comes before the king at specified times. On other occasions when called on, Hanina's words had healing effects.

In the New Testament, the healing power of Jesus of Nazareth is portrayed as a key element in his attracting public attention and inspiring faith. Spiritual healing by Jesus is mentioned 65 times in the Gospels, all but four of these occurring in the synoptic Gospels. In Acts 12, episodes of miraculous healing by the followers of Jesus are recounted. Specific cases of healing by Jesus are referred to 49 times and general or unspecified references occur 16 times. A specific episode is often repeated in two or three of the synoptic Gospels. In all, 24 healings by Jesus of specific individuals are found. Could all of these episodes have been the results of good propaganda or the gullibility of willing followers?