δαιμονιζομένους

Scholarly Notes

these are persons who are often afflicted with especially severe diseases, either bodily or mentally (such as paralysis, blindness, deafness, loss of speech, epilepsy, melancholy, insanity) in whom demons had entered, and so held possession of them as not only to afflict them with ills, but also to dethrone the reason and take control of the physical body; accordingly the possessed were wont to express the mind and consciousness of the demons dwelling in them; and their cure requires the expulsion of the demon. this is different from a mere disease (regardless of the severity).