And he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake.
Luke xi. 14.
This was a belief of deafness, an error of mortal sense, which our blessed Master cast out. The wrong sense must yield to the right.
The meaning of the term devil needs to be understood. The idea that the Devil is one person is too limited and contradictory. The apostle Paul refers to this personality of evil as "the god of this world," and then defines this god as "dishonesty, craftiness, handling the Word of God deceitfully." In the Bible, the Devil was at first a serpent. Subsequently, the ancients changed the meaning of the term, and the serpent became a symbol of divine wisdom.
The Scripture, in John vi., refers to a wicked man as the Devil: "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a Devil." According to the Scripture, if the Devil is an individuality, there is more than one. We read in Mark ix. 3: "Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name." This plural term destroys any consistent supposition of a personal Devil. The text refers to a devil as dumb; but the original texts define him as an accuser, or calumniator, which would be impossible if he were speechless. Let us obey St. Paul's injunction, to reject fables, and accept the Scriptures in their broader mental and practical meaning. When we speak of a good man, we do not mean that man is God, because the ancient name for Deity was Good. So when referring to a liar, we do not mean that he is entirely a Devil because the Scripture text describes the Devil as a liar. It is important to man's spiritual progress that the terms God and Devil be much better understood.
