Orhan Aşkın said

Shakoor said

Is Satan an illness? I don’t think so.. He says he was given a Satan (devil) to torment him. 

  

Just as Robert has pointed out , in Paul’s time people believed  demons had caused of sickness . I think Paul was talking about bodily disease . ( in my opinion  this verse connected with  Galatians 4: 13) .

  

How deeply have you studied the literary connection between these two passages?

2 Cor 12:7

“a thorn was given to me in my flesh (τῇ σαρκί)”

Gal 4:13

and because of your (not my) temptation in my flesh (ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου, for the identical phrase in Greek, see also Rom 7:18, and Col 1:24), you did not reject or despise me…”

What was his audience’s temptation? The prevailing view is that it was Paul’s bodily weakness that put his audience to the test. But this is very awkward in the Greek. The textual variant — “my temptation in my flesh”– is a scribal attempt to make it make sense. But the critical text reads literally, “your temptation in my flesh.” Could it be that when Paul said, “I have become as you” (Gal 4:12), he was talking about having become like his Gentile converts in terms of their characteristic “temptation” to transgress (Gal 6:1)?

Many people wonder whether Paul may have been talking about forbidden “fleshly desires”: “Walk in the Spirit and you will not carry out fleshly desires (ἐπιθυμίαν σαρκὸς)” Gal 5:16

I favor this view based on study of the Greek text and ancient Christian commentaries. Although I try to use mainstream scholarly methods as best I am able, my finding in regard to the meaning of Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” do not represent the scholarly mainstream.