[215] 2. THE VENTRILOQUIST. (XVI 16) AND IT CAME TO PASS, AS WE WERE GOING TO THE PLACE OF PRAYER, THAT A CERTAIN SLAVE-GIRL, POSSESSED OF A SPIRIT PYTHON, i.e., a ventriloquist, MET US, WHICH BROUGHT HER MASTERS MUCH GAIN BY SOOTHSAYING. (17) THE SAME, FOLLOWING AFTER PAUL AND US, KEPT CRYING OUT SAYING, "THESE MEN ARE THE SLAVES OF THE GOD THE HIGHEST, WHICH ANNOUNCE TO YOU THE WAY OF SAFETY ". (18) AND THIS SHE DID FOR MANY DAYS. BUT PAUL, BEING SORE TROUBLED, TURNED AND SAID TO THE SPIRIT, "I CHARGE THEE IN THE NAME OF JESUS THE ANOINTED TO GO OUT FROM HER"; AND IT WENT OUT THAT VERY MOMENT.

The idea was universally entertained that ventriloquism was due to superhuman influence, and implied the power of foretelling the future. The girl herself believed this; and in her belief lay her power. Her words need not be taken as a witness to Christianity. "God the Highest" was a wide-spread pagan expression, and "salvation" was the object of many vows and prayers to that and other gods. We need not ask too curiously what was her motive in thus calling out at Paul's [216] company. In such a case there is no distinct motive; for it is a poor and false view, and one that shows utter incapacity to gauge human nature, that the girl was a mere impostor. That her mind became distorted and diseased by her belief in her supernatural possession, is certain; but it became thereby all the more acute in certain perceptions and intuitions. With her sensitive nature, she became at once alive to the moral influence, which the intense faith by which the strangers were possessed gave them, and she must say what she felt without any definite idea of result therefrom; for the immediate utterance of her intuitions was the secret of her power. She saw in Paul what the populace at Pisidian Antioch saw in Thekla, "a devotee, bound by some unusual conditions, an inspired servant of 'the God,'who differed from the usual type"of "God-driven"devotees.

When Paul turned on her, and ordered the spirit to come forth from her in the name of his Master, the girl, who had been assiduously declaring that Paul and his companions were God-possessed, and fully believed it, was utterly disconcerted, and lost her faith in herself and with it her power. When next she tried to speak as she had formerly done, she was unable to do so; and in a few days it became apparent that she had lost her power. Along with her power, her hold on the superstitions of the populace disappeared; and people ceased to come to her to have their fortunes read, to get help in finding things they had lost, and so on. Thus the comfortable income that she had earned for her owners was lost; and these, knowing who had done the mischief, sought revenge. This was by no means a rare motive for the [217] outbreak of persecution against the Church in later time; and at this stage, when Christianity was an unknown religion, it was only through its interference with the profits of any individual or any class (p. 277) that it was likely to arouse opposition among the pagans.