From the second through the sixth centuries, Christian writers, including apologists, bishops, and monastic teachers, described the expulsion of demons in Jesus' name as a normal part of church life and as evidence for the truth of the gospel. Our white paper explains how EMPOWER! Healing and Deliverance® carries that practice into the local church today.

The Witnesses

Early Christian writers describe the deliverance from demons in Jesus’ name as a normal part of church life. Click any name to read the passage. Translations: Ante-Nicene and Nicene Fathers series (public domain).

  • Justin Martyr - Second Apology 6: Christians cast out demons in Jesus' name where others failed.

    "For numberless demoniacs throughout the whole world, and in your city, many of our Christian men exorcising them in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have healed and do heal, rendering helpless and driving the possessing devils out of the men, though they could not be cured by all the other exorcists, and those who used incantations and drugs."

  • Irenaeus - Against Heresies 2.32.4: believers in his day still drove out demons.

    "For some do certainly and truly drive out devils, so that those who have thus been cleansed from evil spirits frequently both believe [in Christ], and join themselves to the Church."

  • Tertullian - Apology 23: challenges Rome to watch any Christian command a demon.

    "Let a person be brought before your tribunals, who is plainly under demoniacal possession. The wicked spirit, bidden to speak by a follower of Christ, will as readily make the truthful confession that he is a demon, as elsewhere he has falsely asserted that he is a god."

  • Origen - Against Celsus 1.6: demons expelled by the name of Jesus.

    "It is not by incantations that Christians seem to prevail (over evil spirits), but by the name of Jesus, accompanied by the announcement of the narratives which relate to Him; for the repetition of these has frequently been the means of driving demons out of men, especially when those who repeated them did so in a sound and genuinely believing spirit."

  • Origen - Against Celsus 7.4: deliverance done by ordinary believers.

    "And this, we may observe, they do without the use of any curious arts of magic, or incantations, but merely by prayer and simple adjurations which the plainest person can use. Because for the most part it is unlettered persons who perform this work."

  • Cyprian - To Demetrian 15: the church's power over evil spirits.

    "Oh, would you but hear and see them when they are adjured by us, and tortured with spiritual scourges, and are ejected from the possessed bodies with tortures of words, when howling and groaning at the voice of man and the power of God, feeling the stripes and blows, they confess the judgment to come!"

  • Athanasius - Life of Antony 63: a demon rebuked in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

    "A youth with an evil spirit, who had come and hidden himself in the ship, cried out. But the demon being rebuked in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ departed from him, and the man became whole."

  • Augustine - City of God 22.8: healings and deliverances in his own day.

    "I know that a young woman of Hippo was immediately dispossessed of a devil, on anointing herself with oil, mixed with the tears of the presbyter who had been praying for her. I know also that a bishop once prayed for a demoniac young man whom he never saw, and that he was cured on the spot."

  • John Cassian - Conferences 7.24: how evil spirits gain entrance through the mind and thoughts.

    "It is clear then that unclean spirits cannot make their way into those whose bodies they are going to seize upon, in any other way than by first taking possession of their minds and thoughts."

Deliverance Among Christians: Second and Third Centuries

The early church taught that baptism drives out demons. Yet these writers also warn that believers can give the enemy room through sin, and describe Christians afflicted after baptism and delivered. Translations: Ante-Nicene Fathers series. Public domain.

  • Shepherd of Hermas - Commandment 5.1: an evil spirit and the Holy Spirit in the same believer.

    "If any outburst of anger take place, immediately the Holy Spirit, who is tender, is straitened, not having a pure place, and He seeks to depart. For he is choked by the vile spirit… The two spirits, then, when dwelling in the same habitation, are at discord with each other, and are troublesome to that man in whom they dwell."

  • Tertullian - On the Spectacles 26: a believer goes to the theatre and comes back demonized.

    "We have the case of the woman — the Lord Himself is witness — who went to the theatre, and came back possessed. In the outcasting, accordingly, when the unclean creature was upbraided with having dared to attack a believer, he firmly replied, 'And in truth I did it most righteously, for I found her in my domain.'"

  • Origen - On First Principles 3.2.4: how believers give the devil room.

    "And when he says, 'Neither give place to the devil,' he shows by that injunction that it is through certain acts, or a kind of mental slothfulness, that room is made for the devil, so that, if he once enter our heart, he will either gain possession of us, or at least will pollute the soul, if he has not obtained the entire mastery over it, by casting on us his fiery darts."

  • Cyprian - On the Lapsed 26: Christians who fall away and do not repent.

    "How many there are daily who do not repent nor make confession of the consciousness of their crime, who are filled with unclean spirits!"

  • Cyprian - Epistle 75.16: baptized Christians troubled again after sin.

    "Some of those who are baptized in health, if subsequently they begin to sin, are shaken by the return of the unclean spirit, so that it is manifest that the devil is driven out in baptism by the faith of the believer, and returns if the faith afterwards shall fail."

Deliverance Among Christians: Fourth to Sixth Centuries

Translations: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series; Gregory, Dialogues (1608 translation, ed. 1911). Public domain.

  • Jerome - Life of Hilarion 21: a consecrated virgin delivered, and warned about the open door.

    "Thereupon the maid began to show signs of insanity… Her parents therefore brought her to the monastery and delivered her to the aged saint… 'Tell me, how is it that you dared to enter into this maid who belongs to God?'… He declared that demons are deceitful and well versed in dissimulation, and sharply rebuked the virgin when she had recovered her health for having by her conduct given an opportunity for the demon to enter."

  • John Cassian - Conferences 7.27: a desert monk delivered by another monk's prayer.

    "…he was instantly delivered to so dreadful a demon that he filled his mouth with filth which he supplied… for as soon as Abbot Macarius committed himself to prayer, quicker than a word the evil spirit fled away from him and departed."

  • John Cassian - Conferences 7.30: demonized monks kept at communion and delivered.

    "But we never remember that holy communion was forbidden them; nay rather if it were possible, they thought that it ought to be given to them daily… For in this way we have lately seen Abbot Andronicus and many others cured."

  • Gregory the Great - Dialogues 1.4: a nun demonized and delivered.

    "Upon a certain day, one of the Nuns of the same monastery, going into the garden, saw a lettice that liked her, and forgetting to bless it before with the sign of the cross, greedily did she eat it: whereupon she was suddenly possessed with the devil… But the man of God in great zeal commanded him to depart, and not to tarry any longer in the servant of almighty God, who straightways went out, not presuming any more to touch her."

  • Gregory the Great - Dialogues 2.16: a clergyman demonized and delivered by Benedict.

    "At the same time a certain clergyman, that served in the church of Aquinum, was possessed… wherefore at length he was brought unto him, who, praying for help to Jesus Christ our Lord, did forthwith cast the old enemy out of the possessed man's body."

  • Gregory the Great - Dialogues 2.30: an old monk delivered at once.

    "The wicked spirit found an old monk drawing of water, into whom he entered, and straightways cast him upon the ground, and grievously tormented him. The man of God coming from his prayers, and seeing him in such pitiful case gave him only a little blow with his hand, and at the same instant he cast out that cruel devil, so that he durst not any more presume to enter in."

Endorsed By

Sam Storms, Ph.D. - Past President, Evangelical Theological Society; Enjoying God Ministries; Convergence Church Network


Dr. Clinton E. Arnold - Past President, Evangelical Theological Society; Talbot School of Theology, Biola University


Michael Rowntree - Convergence OKC; The Remnant Radio

Read their full endorsements on our About Us page


Further Reading

Clinton E. Arnold, 3 Crucial Questions about Spiritual Warfare

Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness

Sam Storms, Understanding Spiritual Warfare