they were recognized as Demons. In the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, where "idols" are spoken of in the Hebrew, the word is sometimes translated "demons;" as, for instance, Psalm xcvi. 5 is rendered: "For all the gods of the nations are demons."(l) The national superstition betrays itself in this and many other passages of this version, which so well represented the views of the first ages of the Church that the Fathers regarded it as miraculous. Irenæus relates how Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, brought seventy of the elders of the Jews together to Alexandria in order to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, but fearing that they might agree amongst themselves to conceal the real meaning of the Hebrew, he separated them, and commanded each to make a translation. When the seventy translations of the Bible were completed and compared, it was found that, by the inspiration of God, the very same words and the very same names from beginning to end had been used by them all.(2) The same superstition is quite as clearly expressed in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul, for instance, speaking of things sacrificed to idols, says: "But (I say) that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God; and I would not that ye should be partakers with {102} demons. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of demons; ye cannot partake of the Lord's table, and of the table of demons."(l) The apocryphal Book of Tobit affords some illustration of the opinions of the more enlightened Jews during the last century before the commencement of the Christian era.(2) The angel Raphael prescribes, as an infallible means of driving a demon out of man or woman so effectually that it should never more come back, fumigation with the heart and liver of a fish.(3) By this exorcism the demon Asmodeus, who from love of Sara, the daughter of Raguel, has strangled seven husbands who attempted to marry her,(4) is overcome, and flies into "the uttermost parts of Egypt," where the angel binds him.(5) The belief in demons, and in the necessity of exorcism, is so complete that the author sees no incongruity in describing the angel Raphael, who has been sent, in answer to prayer, specially to help him, as instructing Tobias to adopt such means of subjecting demons. Raphael is described in this book as the angel of healing,(6) the office generally assigned to him by the Fathers. He is also represented as saying of himself that he is one of the seven holy angels which present the prayers of the saints to God.(7) {103}