Did the early Church fathers believe in or teach exorcism from demon power?
There is recorded history to support a positive response to this question. During the first centuries of the Christian Church, the spiritual leaders dealt extensively with demon power. Here are some examples:
Justin Martyr, in his apology LTV, insisted that heathen mythology was originated by demon power:
"The evil spirits were not satisfied with saying before Christ's appearance that those who were said to be sons of Jupiter were born of him: but after He had appeared and had been born among men, and when they learned how He had been foretold by the prophets and knew He should be believed upon and looked for in every nation, they again put forward other men, the Samaritans, Simon and Menander, who did mighty works by magic and deceived many and still kept them deceived."
From this quotation we see that Justin Martyr had a real grip on the functioning of demon power.
The Church father, Lactantius, in his Divine Institutes, Number 2, says:
"The inventors of astrology, and soothsaying, and divination, and those productions which are called oracles, and necromancy, and the art of magic, and whatever evil practices besides these men exercise, either openly or in secret: these are they who taught men from the worship of the true God, caused the countenances of dead kings to be erected and consecrated, and assumed to themselves their names."
The great Church father, Augustine, wrote in chapter 25 of his City of God, Book 2:
"What spirit can that be which by a hidden inspiration stirs men's corruption, and goads them into adultery, and feeds on full-fledged iniquity, unless it be the same that finds pleasure in such religious ceremonies, sets in the temples images of devils, and loves to see in play the images of vices; that whispers in secret some righteous sayings to deceive the few who are good, and scatters in public invitations to profligacy, to gain possession of the millions who are wicked?"
In chapter 33 of his Seventh Book, Augustine rightly argues that Christianity, the only true religion, "has alone been able to manifest that the gods of the nations are most impure demons, who desire to be thought gods, availing themselves of the names of certain defunct souls, or the appearance of mundane creatures, and with proud impurity divine honors, and envying human souls their conversion to the true God."
The early Church fathers did believe in and preach against satanic forces. They taught the casting out, or exorcism, of demons; and they possessed Christ's power to deliver the afflicted from demonic forces.
It is modern theologians who have said little about demon power, and I find that the less preachers teach on demons, the more control the devil has over society. The Word of God says, And the truth shall make you free (John 8:32).
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