ἐξορκιστής

From the study of Acts 19:13

Range of meaning

A person who drives spirits out by exorkizein, "putting under oath," "adjuring." The verb behind it first meant making a person swear an oath. Abraham makes his servant swear in Gen 24:3 LXX, and the high priest says to Jesus, "I adjure you by the living God" (Matt 26:63). Later it came to mean binding a spirit with an oath backed by a stronger name. An exorkistēs is therefore a specialist in binding formulas, a practitioner of a known craft.

Against the English

English "exorcist" comes straight from this word through Latin exorcista. A modern reader, though, pictures either an ordained office of the Christian church or the figure from horror films. The Greek describes a freelance technician. Nothing in the word says whether he succeeds, whether he is legitimate, or what faith he practises.

How it drifted

From the third century the Western church had an official minor order called "exorcist," and later the Roman Rite of exorcism. Twentieth-century popular culture then reshaped the word again. Both layers sit on top of the plain first-century sense of "one who adjures."

Used elsewhere in the period

This is the only use in the New Testament or the Septuagint. Josephus says Solomon left "modes of exorcism" (tropous exorkōseōn) and describes a Jew named Eleazar drawing a demon out through a man's nose with a ring and Solomon's incantations, in front of Vespasian (Ant. 8.45–49). Justin Martyr (Dialogue 85.3) mentions Jewish exorcists who use "fumigations and bindings" as the Gentiles do. BDAG cites a few later secular uses of the noun.