Demonic · Deliverance tradition · c. 80 CE
The Spirit of Infirmity
A woman bent double for eighteen years, described by Luke as having a spirit of infirmity and by Jesus as bound by Satan.
Narrow source base
Luke 13 describes a woman who had 'a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself'. Jesus heals her on a sabbath and, answering the objection, says she was one 'whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years'.
It is the clearest single warrant for the deliverance tradition's treatment of some illness as spiritual rather than only medical, and it is notable that Luke — whom Paul calls the beloved physician — is the evangelist who records it. The corresponding caution, made within the tradition as well as against it, is that the gospels elsewhere distinguish healing from exorcism and explicitly reject the assumption that affliction implies fault.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
None. A category in modern deliverance teaching rather than a figure anyone has ever worshipped — these are diagnoses of a condition, and a diagnosis has no address.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
- First attested
- New Testament · c. 50–110 CE
- Named there as
- A spirit of infirmity
- Rank
- Named Spirit
- Order
- Deliverance tradition
- Base of operations
- None. A category in modern deliverance teaching rather than a figure anyone has ever worshipped — these are diagnoses of a condition, and a diagnosis has no address.
- Era
- c. 80 CE
- Traditions
- Christian, Deliverance & Spiritual Warfare
Traits
- Domain
- Long-term illness and physical affliction
- How firm the basis is
- Strong as a phrase, in a gospel written by a physician
- Textual basis
- Luke 13:11
Stats
3 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 3 offices attributed to The Spirit of Infirmity, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- martial1
- malefic2
3 claims
What is it blamed for?
Harms attributed to this figure by a named text. An attribution is not a diagnosis, and where a claim carries a grading it is about how well it rests on the passage it cites.
Fever
1998Persistent physical illness treated as potentially having a spiritual cause requiring deliverance rather than only treatment.
Grading · Contested. The tradition's own writers warn against assuming a spiritual cause for illness, and the gospels distinguish healing from exorcism.
The Bent Body
c. 50–110 CEHolds a woman bent double for eighteen years, unable to straighten herself. Jesus looses her and calls her a daughter of Abraham whom Satan had bound.
Jesus lays hands on her and she is made straight immediately.
The Bent Body
1998Taken as the model case for treating a long-standing physical condition as an affliction to be commanded rather than only treated.
Grading · Strong as a phrase. Luke uses it as a description, and how far it generalises to other illness is the live disagreement.
2 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names The Spirit of Infirmity, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
2 texts spanning roughly 1,918 years
Where the texts differ
- Name: given as A spirit of infirmity, Spirit of infirmity
- Rank: given as Affliction; Affliction spirit
Holds a woman bent double for eighteen years. Jesus looses her on the sabbath and describes her as one whom Satan had bound.
“There was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together.”
Cited as the basis for treating certain persistent physical conditions as having a spiritual cause.
Connections
What is it connected to?
No relationship to another figure in this corpus is recorded in the texts cited above. Where an edge exists here it is because a source states it, so an empty section means the sources are silent rather than that the connection is unknown.
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention The Spirit of Infirmity?
What rank is The Spirit of Infirmity?
How else is The Spirit of Infirmity spelled?
What is The Spirit of Infirmity said to do?
How old is The Spirit of Infirmity?
Nearest in the corpus
If The Spirit of Infirmity is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
The Korah Spirit
Named Spirit · Deliverance tradition
Deliverance teaching names this spirit for the Levite who told Moses the whole congregation was holy, so why did he exalt himself — and was swallowed by the ground.
The Jezebel Spirit
Named Spirit · Deliverance tradition
The most discussed figure in modern deliverance teaching, and a category rather than a being — built from a queen in Kings and a rival teacher in Revelation.
The Absalom Spirit
Named Spirit · Deliverance tradition
Named in deliverance teaching for the son who stood at the gate, listened sympathetically to everyone with a grievance, and stole the hearts of Israel.
The Ahab Spirit
Named Spirit · Deliverance tradition
The passive half of the pair — named for the king who let his queen act and then took the vineyard she obtained for him.
The Familiar Spirit
Named Spirit · Deliverance tradition
The biblical term for a medium's attending spirit — and at Endor, the one occasion where the practice is depicted as working.
The Leviathan Spirit
Named Spirit · Deliverance tradition
Job's sea-beast read as a spirit of pride, and specifically of the twisting of words between people who are trying to understand each other.
The books behind The Spirit of Infirmity
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
New Testament
Various · c. 50–110 CE · Koine Greek
Read New Testament in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.