He ultimately became a devout believer in demoniacal and spiritual possession; and his later writings are all strongly impregnated with the lower supernaturalism.
Mahomet, it is said, declared that the house-dwelling snakes were a kind of jinn, and the heathen Arabs invariably regarded them as alike malevolent or benevolent demoniacal beings."
The other disciples, in the meantime, had been vainly endeavouring to cure a peculiarly violent case of demoniacal possession.
In Palestine and Syria, where demoniacal beings are frequently associated with water, local opinion is sometimes uncertain whether the water is under the care of a jinn or of a patron-saint.
Their enthusiasm and their prophesyings were denounced as demoniacal; their expectation of a glorious earthly kingdom of Christ was stigmatized as Jewish, their passion for martyrdom as vainglorious and their whole conduct as hypocritical.