“if not,” when in all probability it originally read פאף לָא ʾap lāʾ, “not even,” by prayer. But this proposal does not make good sense in the present context. Is Jesus really telling his disciples that this kind of demon cannot be cast out “by any means … not even by prayer”? Jesus himself was able to cast it out. Or has he told his disciples that only he can cast out the difficult demons and his disciples cannot. If the latter is true, then the earlier assertion that Jesus gave his disciples “authority