CONTINUATION OF OBJECTIONS AGAINST POSSESSIONS, AND SOME REPLIES TO
THOSE OBJECTIONS.
We read in works, published and printed, composed by Catholic authors
of our days,[263] that it is proved by reason, that possessions of the
demon are naturally impossible, and that it is not true, in regard to
ourselves and our ideas, that the demon can have any natural power
over the corporeal world; that as soon as we admit in the created
wills a power to act upon bodies, and to move them, it is impossible
to set bounds to it, and that this power is truly infinite.
They maintain that the demon can act upon our souls simply by means of
suggestion; that it is impossible the demon should be the physical
cause of the least external effect; that all the Scripture tells us of
the snares and stratagems of Satan signifies nothing more than the
temptations of the flesh and concupiscence; and that to seduce us, the
demon requires only mental suggestions. His is a moral, not a physical
power; in a word, _that the demon can do neither good nor harm; that
his might is nought_; that we do not know if God has given to any
other spirit than the soul of man the power to move the body; that, on
the contrary, we ought to presume that the wisdom of God has willed
that pure spirits should have no commerce with the body; they maintain
moreover that the pagans never knew what we call bad angels and
demons.
All these propositions are certainly contrary to Scripture, to the
opinions of the Fathers, and to the tradition of the Catholic Church.
But these gentlemen do not trouble themselves about that; they affirm
that the sacred writers have often expressed themselves according to
the opinions of their time, whether because the necessity of making
themselves understood forced them to conform to it, or that they
themselves had adopted those opinions. There is, say they, more
likelihood that several infirmities which the Scripture has ascribed
to the demon had simply a natural cause; that in these places the
sacred authors have spoken according to vulgar opinions; the error of
this language is of no importance.
The prophets of Saul, and Saul himself, were never what are properly
termed Prophets; they might be attacked with those (fits) which the
pagans call _sacred_. You must be asleep when you read, not to see
that the temptation of Eve is only an allegory. It is the same with
the permission given by God to Satan to tempt Job. Why wish to explain
the whole book of Job literally, and as a true history, since its
beginning is only a fiction? It is anything but certain that Jesus
Christ was transported by the demon to the highest pinnacle of the
temple.
The Fathers were prepossessed on one side by the reigning ideas of the
philosophy of Pythagoras and Plato on the influences of mean
intelligences, and on the other hand by the language of the holy
books, which to conform to popular opinions often ascribed to the
demon effects which were purely natural. We must then return to the
doctrine of reason to decide on the submission which we ought to pay
to the authority of the Scriptures and the Fathers concerning the
power of the demons.
The uniform method of the Holy Fathers in the interpretations of the
Old Testament is human opinion, whence one can appeal to the tribunal
of reason. They go so far as to say that the sacred authors were
informed of the Metempsychosis, as the author of the Book of Wisdom,
chap. viii. 19, 20: "I was an innocent child, and I received a good
spirit; and as I was already good, I entered into an uncorrupted
body."
Persons of this temper will certainly not read this work of ours, or,
if they do read it, it will be with contempt or pity. I do not think
it necessary to refute those paradoxes here; the Bishop of Senez has
done it with his usual erudition and zeal, in a long letter printed at
Utrecht in 1736. I do not deny that the sacred writers may sometimes
have spoken in a popular manner, and in accordance with the prejudice
of the people. But it is carrying things too far to reduce the power
of the demon to being able to act upon us only by means of suggestion;
and it is a presumption unworthy of a philosopher to decide on the
power of spirits over bodies, having no knowledge, either by
revelation or by reason, of the extent of the power of angels and
demons over matter and human bodies. We may exceed due measure by
granting them excessive power, as well as in not according them
enough. But it is of infinite importance to Religion to discern justly
between what is natural, or supernatural, in the operations of angels
and demons, that the simple may not be left in error, nor the wicked
triumph over the truth, and make a bad use of their own wit and
knowledge, to render doubtful what is certain, and deceiving both
themselves and others by ascribing to chance or illusion of the
senses, or a vain prepossession of the mind, what is said of the
apparitions of angels, demons, and deceased persons; since it is
certain that several of these apparitions are quite true, although
there may be a great number of others that are very uncertain, and
even manifestly false.
I shall therefore make no difficulty in owning that even miracles, at
least things that appear such, the prediction of future events,
movements of the body which appear beyond the usual powers of nature,
to speak and understand foreign languages unknown before, to penetrate
the thoughts, discover concealed things, to be raised up, and
transported in a moment from one place to another, to announce truths,
lead a good life externally, preach Jesus Christ, decry magic and
sorcery, make an outward profession of virtue; I readily own that all
these things may not prove invincibly that all who perform them are
sent by God, or that these operations are real miracles; yet we cannot
reasonably suppose the demon to be mixed up in them by God's
permission, or that the demons or the angels do not act upon those
persons who perform prodigies, and foretell things to come, or who can
penetrate the thoughts of the heart, or that God himself does not
produce these effects by the immediate action of his justice or his
might.
The examples which have been cited, or which may be cited hereafter,
will never prove that man can of himself penetrate the sentiments of
another, or discover his secret thoughts. The wonders worked by the
magicians of Pharaoh were only illusion; they appeared, however, to be
true miracles, and passed for such in the eyes of the King of Egypt
and all his court. Balaam, the son of Beor, was a true Prophet,
although a man whose morals were very corrupt.
Pomponatius writes that the wife of Francis Maigret, savetier of
Mantua, spoke divers languages, and was cured by Calderon, a
physician, famous in his time, who gave her a potion of Hellebore.
Erasmus says also[264] that he had seen an Italian, a native of
Spoletta, who spoke German very well, although he had never been in
Germany; they gave him a medicine which caused him to eject a quantity
of worms, and he was cured so as not to speak German any more.
Le Loyer, in his _Book of Spectres_,[265] avows that all those things
appear to him much to be doubted. He rather believes Fernel, one of
the gravest physicians of his age, who maintains[266] that there is
not such power in medicine, and brings forward as an instance the
history of a young gentleman, the son of a Knight of the Order, who
being seized upon by the demon, could be cured neither by potions, by
medicines, nor by diet (_i. e._ fasting), but who was cured by the
conjurations and exorcisms of the church.
As to the reality of the return of souls, or spirits, and their
apparitions, the Sorbonne, the most celebrated school of theology in
France, has always believed that the spirits of the defunct returned
sometimes, either by the order and power of God, or by his permission.
The Sorbonne confessed this in its decisions of the year 1518, and
still more positively the 23d of January, 1724. _Nos respondemus
vestrae petitioni animas defunctorum divinitus, seu divina virtute,
ordinatione aut permissione interdum ad vivas redire exploratum esse._
Several jurisconsults and several sovereign companies have decreed
that the apparition of a deceased person in a house could suffice to
break up the lease. We may count it for much, to have proved to
certain persons that there is a God whose providence extends over all
things past, present, and to come; that there is another life, that
there are good and bad spirits, rewards for good works, and
punishments after this life for sins; that Jesus Christ has ruined the
power of Satan; that he exercised in himself, in his apostles, and
continues to exercise in the ministers of his church, an absolute
empire over the infernal powers; that the devil is now chained; he may
bark and threaten, but he can bite only those who approach him, and
voluntarily give themselves up to him.
We have seen in these parts a woman who followed a band of mountebanks
and jugglers, who stretched out her legs in such an extraordinary
manner, and raised up her feet to her head, before and behind, with as
much suppleness as if she had neither nerves nor joints. There was
nothing supernatural in all that; she had exercised herself from
extreme youth in these movements, and had contracted the habit of
performing them.
St. Augustine[267] speaks of a soothsayer whom he had known at
Carthage, an illiterate man, who could discover the secrets of the
heart, and replied to those who consulted him on secret and unknown
affairs. He had himself made an experiment on him, and took to witness
St. Alypius, Licentius, and Trygnius, his interlocutors, in his
dialogue against the Academicians. They, like him, had consulted
Albicerius, and had admired the certainty of his replies. He gives us
an instance--a spoon which had been lost. They told him that some one
had lost something; and he instantly, without hesitation, replied that
such a thing was lost, that such a one had taken it, and had hid it in
such a place, which was found to be quite true.
They sent him a certain quantity of pieces of silver; he who was
charged to carry them had taken away some of them. He made the person
return them, and perceived the theft before the money had been shown
to him. St. Augustine was present. A learned and distinguished man,
named Flaccianus, wishing to buy a field, consulted the soothsayer,
who declared to him the name of the land, which was very
extraordinary, and gave him all the details of the affair in question.
A young student, wishing to prove Albicerius, begged of him to declare
to him what he was thinking of; he told him he was thinking of a verse
of Virgil; and, as he then asked him which verse it was, the diviner
repeated it instantly, though he had never studied the Latin language.
This Albicerius was a scoundrel, as St. Augustine says, who calls him
_flagitiosum hominem_. The knowledge which he had of hidden things was
not, doubtless, a gift of heaven, any more than the Pythonic spirit
which animated that maid in the Acts of the Apostles whom St. Paul
obliged to keep silence.[268] It was then the work of the evil spirit.
The gift of tongues, the knowledge of the future, and power to divine
the thoughts of others, are always adduced, and with reason, as solid
proofs of the presence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; but if the
demon can sometimes perform the same things, he does it to mislead and
induce sin, or simply to render true prophecies doubtful; but never to
lead to truth, the fear and love of God, and the edification of those
around. God may allow such corrupt men as Balaam, and such rascals as
Albicerius, to have some knowledge of the future, and secret things,
and even of the hidden thoughts of men; but he never permits their
criminality to remain unrevealed to the end, and so become a
stumbling-block for simple or worthy people. The malice of these
hypocritical and corrupt men will be made manifest sooner or later by
some means; their malice and depravity will be found out, by which it
will be judged, either that they are inspired only by the evil spirit,
or that the Holy Spirit makes use of their agency to foretell some
truth, as he prophesied by Balaam, and by Caiphas. Their morals and
their conduct will throw discredit on them, and oblige us to be
careful in discerning between their true predictions and their bad
example. We have seen hypocrites who died with the reputation of being
worthy people, and who at bottom were scoundrels--as for instance,
that cure, the director of the nuns of Louviers, whose possession was
so much talked of.
Jesus Christ, in the Gospel, tells us to be on our guard against
wolves in sheep's clothing; and, elsewhere, he tells us that there
will be false Christs and false prophets, who will prophesy in his
name, and perform wonders capable of deceiving the very elect
themselves, were it possible. But he refers us to their works to
distinguish them.
To apply all these things to the possessed nuns of Loudun, and to
Mademoiselle de Ranfaing, even to that girl whose hypocrisy was
unmasked by Mademoiselle Acarie, I appeal to their works, and their
conduct both before and after.
* * * * *
God will not allow those who sincerely seek the truth to be deceived.
A juggler will guess which card you have touched, or even simply
thought of; but it is known that there is nothing supernatural in
that, and that it is done by the combination of the cards according to
mathematical rules. We have seen a deaf man who understood what they
wished to say to him by simply observing the motion of the lips of
those who spoke. There is nothing more miraculous in this than in two
persons conversing together by signs upon which they have agreed.
Footnotes:
[263] See the letter of the Bishop of Senez, printed at Utrecht, in
1736, and the works that he therein cites and refutes.
[264] Erasm. Orat. de laudibus Medicinae.
[265] Le Loyer, lib. de Spec. cap. ii. p. 288.
[266] Fernel, de abditis Rerum Causis, lib. ii. c. 26.
[267] August. contra Academic. lib. ii. art. 17, 18.
[268] Acts xvi. 16.