In his missionary journeys S. Paul was continually combating Witchcraft. At Paphos he was opposed by the sorcerer Elymas; in Philippi a medium, “a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination,” “spiritum pythonem,” followed him along the streets crying out and naming him as “a servant of the most high God,” until he exorcized the spirit; at Ephesus, a hotbed of sorcery and superstition, he converted many diviners and witches, who cleansed their souls by the Sacrament of Penance, and burned their conjuring books, a library of no mean value. It amounted indeed to fifty thousand drachmas (£2000), and one may suppose that in addition to manuscripts there were amulets of silver and gold, richly wrought and jewelled. In Ephesus, also, had foregathered a large number of vagabond Jews, exorcists. The chief characteristic of a Jewish exorcism was the recitation of names believed to be efficacious, principally names of good angels, which were used either alone, or in combination with El (God); and, indeed, a blind reliance upon the sound of mere names had long been a settled practice with these amateur sorcerers, who considered that the essence of their charms lay in the use of particular names declaimed in a particular order, which differed on several occasions. It was this belief, no doubt, that induced the seven sons of Sceva, who had witnessed S. Paul’s exorcisms in the name of Jesus, to try upon their own account the formula “I conjure thee by Jesus whom Paul preacheth,” an experiment disastrous to their credit. For in one case the patient cried out “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?” and leaped upon them with infernal strength, beating and wounding them, so that they fled for safety from the house, their limbs bruised and their garments torn, to the great scandal of the neighbourhood. For the fact of demoniac possession the authority of Christ Himself is plainly pledged; whilst Witchcraft is explicitly ranked by S. Paul with murder, sedition, hatred, and heresy (Galatians v. 20-21). S. John, also, twice mentions sorcerers in a hideous catalogue of sinners. There can be no doubt whatsoever that the reality of Witchcraft is definitely maintained by the New Testament writers,[36] and any denial of this implicitly involves a rejection of the truth of the Christian revelation. Among the Jews of a later period, and probably even to-day, various diseases are said to be induced by demons, who, it is instructive to notice, haunt marshy places, damp and decayed houses, latrines, squalid alleys, foul atmospheres where sickness is bred and ripened.