Instead of reliance upon observation, experience, experiment, and thought, attention was turned toward supernatural agencies.( 299) (299) For the mysticism which gradually enveloped the School of Alexandria, see Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, De l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, Paris, 1845, vol.vi, p.161.For the effect of the new doctrines on the Empire of the East, see Sprengel, vol.ii, p.240.As to the more common miracles of healing and the acknowledgment of non-Christian miracles of healing by Christian fathers, see Fort, p.

84.
IV.

THE ATTRIBUTION OF DISEASE TO SATANIC INFLUENCE.
-- "PASTORAL MEDICINE" CHECKS SCIENTIFIC EFFORT.
Especially prejudicial to a true development of medical science among the first Christians was their attribution of disease to diabolic influence.

As we have seen, this idea had come from far, and, having prevailed in Chaldea, Egypt, and Persia, had naturally entered into the sacred books of the Hebrews.

Moreover, St.Paul had distinctly declared that the gods of the heathen were devils; and everywhere the early Christians saw in disease the malignant work of these dethroned powers of evil.