Before Exorcism: The Ancient Art of Warding Off Evil

Most readers will have encountered exorcism in the Gospels or in films: someone is afflicted by a demonic presence, and the exorcist seeks to drive it out. But what about asking God to keep evil from taking hold in the first place?

That kind of protection is the subject of apotropaism, a term scholars use for efforts to ward off evil. The word may be unfamiliar even when the prayer is not. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches his followers to ask God to “deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13, NABRE). Anyone praying those words is already asking for protection from evil.

My nonfiction study, Warding Off Evil: Apotropaic Tradition in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Synoptic Gospels, examines protective prayers and practices in ancient Judaism and what they help us understand about Matthew, Mark and Luke. Published by Mohr Siebeck in 2017, it gives particular attention to this preventive response to demonic evil. You can read about the book here or find it on Amazon.

In the book’s opening discussion, I describe a response to demonic evil that

“is characterized by its preventative nature and is typically referred to as ‘apotropaism’”

Michael J. Morris, Warding Off Evil, p. 2. Publisher record

One of the prayers I examine was preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls: ancient Jewish manuscripts found in caves near the Dead Sea. It asks for the same sort of protection that Christians seek in the Lord’s Prayer. Reading the two together helps us hear that familiar petition in its Jewish setting.

A prayer from Cave 11

The prayer is known as the Plea for Deliverance. It survives in a scroll of psalms found in Cave 11 near Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. Scholars identify that scroll as 11Q5. In one petition, the speaker asks God:

“Let not Satan rule over me”

Plea for Deliverance, 11Q5, column XIX, line 15. Translation by James A. Sanders, quoted in Warding Off Evil, p. 84.

The person praying has already asked God for forgiveness and purification. The request for protection continues with a reference to an unclean spirit, then to pain and evil inclination. The prayer draws these concerns together because the petitioner seeks help with the dangers that threaten the whole person.

The name “Satan” also needs a little explanation. Here the Hebrew term may refer to a demonic adversary without being a personal name in the later Christian sense. I discuss that possibility in Warding Off Evil (pp. 84–85). The prayer’s language should be read within its own setting before we identify all its terms with later Christian usage.

Returning to the Lord’s Prayer

Like the Lord’s Prayer, the Plea for Deliverance asks God for forgiveness as well as protection from evil. Its speaker brings spiritual danger into the same conversation with God as the need to be forgiven.

The comparison helps explain why I examine the Lord’s Prayer in a study of apotropaic tradition. Earlier Jewish prayers provide a setting in which a request for protection from spiritual harm can belong within a wider prayer about life before God. The material from the Scrolls allows us to hear something of that setting. I develop the comparison in Warding Off Evil, pp. 225–230.

The final words in Matthew have also generated considerable discussion. The Greek can be understood as referring to evil or to the evil one. The New American Bible Revised Edition adopts the latter reading. If a personal adversary is intended, the petition asks God to protect the faithful from that adversary, and its apotropaic character becomes particularly apparent.

This comparison does not establish that Jesus borrowed a particular prayer from the Cave 11 manuscript. Similarity between texts is evidence to examine, and the degree of relationship needs to be argued. What the Jewish material does provide is a recognizable tradition of asking God for protection against hostile powers. That tradition helps us understand the kind of request Matthew places on the lips of Jesus’ followers.

What the distinction lets us see

A study of evil in the Gospels that concentrates on exorcism will follow the moments when Jesus confronts a person’s affliction and brings relief. Apotropaic prayer draws attention to people seeking protection as they continue to live in a world where evil remains active. This is a substantial part of the picture my book seeks to recover.

For readers coming to these questions through The First Silence, this scholarship offers some of the historical background to its concern with spiritual danger. The ancient texts deserve attention in their own right. A brief petition preserved in a cave can make us listen more closely to words that have become familiar through repetition.

For the wider setting, see the Dead Sea Scrolls, demons, and protection.

Sources

Michael J. Morris, Warding Off Evil: Apotropaic Tradition in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Synoptic Gospels, WUNT II/451 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), pp. 2, 84–85, 225–230. Publisher record.

James A. Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsᵃ), Discoveries in the Judaean Desert IV (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), pp. 77–78; brief translation quoted as reproduced and credited in Morris, p. 84.

Matthew 6:9–13, New American Bible Revised Edition.