Eleazar the exorcist
Jewish exorcist described by Josephus
- Source
- Josephus, Antiquities 8.2.5
- Audience
- Vespasian, his sons, officers and soldiers
- Method
- A ring with a root prescribed by Solomon, held to the nose
- Proof
- A basin of water the demon was ordered to overturn
A Jewish exorcist who, Josephus says, drew a demon out through a man's nose with Solomon's ring and root in front of Vespasian.
What is Eleazar the exorcist known for?
Eleazar is known from a single passage in Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews (8.2.5), written in the 90s CE. Discussing King Solomon's wisdom, Josephus says Solomon composed incantations and methods of exorcism that were still in use, and offers an example he claims to have seen himself.
A man of his own nation named Eleazar freed people possessed by demons in front of Vespasian, his sons, and a crowd of officers and soldiers. He held to the possessed man's nose a ring containing a root of a kind Solomon had prescribed, drew the demon out through the nostrils, and, as the man fell down, ordered it never to return, invoking Solomon and reciting his incantations. To prove it had left, he set a cup or basin of water nearby and commanded the demon to overturn it, which it did.
Nothing else is known of Eleazar. The passage is important evidence that by the first century CE Solomon had a reputation as master of spirits, the tradition later developed in the Testament of Solomon and in stories about his ring.
His exorcism with a Solomonic ring shows Solomon's reputation as a master of demons already alive in the first century.
Mentioned on these pages
- Rabbit holeSeal of Solomon (Solomon's ring)
Sources
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 8.2.5 (tr. Whiston), sacred-texts.comPrimary text
- Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews (tr. Whiston), Project GutenbergPrimary text
Pictures on profile pages are drawn placeholders, not likenesses. Public-domain portraits and photographs will replace them.