Naming maladies
Sometimes Jesus called a disease by name, as when he
said to the epileptic boy, "Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I
charge thee, come out of him, and enter no
more into him." It is added that "the spirit
[error] cried, and rent him sore and came out of him, and
he was as one dead," - clear evidence that the malady
was not material. These instances show the concessions
which Jesus was willing to make to the popular ignorance
of spiritual Life-laws. Often he gave no name to the
distemper he cured. To the synagogue ruler's daughter,
whom they called dead but of whom he said, "she is not
dead, but sleepeth," he simply said, "Damsel, I say unto
thee, arise!" To the sufferer with the withered hand
he said, "Stretch forth thine hand," and it "was restored
whole, like as the other."
