SPIRITS THAT KEEP WATCH OVER TREASURE.
Everybody acknowledges that there is an infinity of riches buried in
the earth, or lost under the waters by shipwrecks; they fancy that the
demon, whom they look upon as the god of riches, the god _Mammon_, the
Pluto of the pagans, is the depositary, or at least the guardian, of
these treasures. He said to Jesus Christ,[292] when he tempted him in
the wilderness, showing to him all the kingdoms of the earth, and
their glory: "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall
down and worship me." We know also that the ancients very often
interred vast treasures in the tombs of the dead; either that the dead
might make use of them in the other world, or that their souls might
keep guard over them in those gloomy places. Job seems to make
allusion to this ancient custom, when he says,[293] "Would to God I
had never been born: I should now sleep with the kings and great ones
of the earth, who built themselves solitary places; like unto those
who seek for treasure, and are rejoiced when they find a tomb;"
doubtless because they hope to find great riches therein.
There were very precious things in the tomb of Cyrus. Semiramis caused
to be engraved on her own mausoleum that it contained great riches.
Josephus[294] relates that Solomon placed great treasures in the tomb
of David his father; and that the High-Priest Hyrcanus, being besieged
in Jerusalem by King Antiochus, took thence three thousand talents. He
says, moreover, that years after, Herod the Great having caused this
tomb to be searched, took from it large sums. We see several laws
against those who violate sepulchres to take out of them the precious
things they contain. The Emperor Marcianus[295] forbade that riches
should be hidden in tombs. If such things have been placed in the
mausoleums of worthy and holy persons, and if they have been
discovered through the revelation of the good spirits of persons who
died in the faith and grace of God, we cannot conclude from those
things that all hidden treasures are in the power of the demon, and
that he alone knows anything of them; the good angels know of them;
and the saints may be much more faithful guardians of them than the
demons, who usually have no power to enrich, or to deliver from the
horrors of poverty, from punishment and death itself, those who yield
themselves to them in order to receive some reward from them.
Melancthon relates[296] that the demon informed a priest where a
treasure was hid; the priest, accompanied by one of his friends, went
to the spot indicated; they saw there a black dog lying on a chest.
The priest, having entered to take out the treasure, was crushed and
smothered under the ruins of the cavern.
M. Remy[297], in his Demonology, speaks of several persons whose
causes he had heard in his quality of Lieutenant-General of Lorraine,
at the time when that country swarmed with wizards and witches; those
amongst them who believed they had received money from the demon,
found nothing in their purses but bits of broken pots, coals, or
leaves of trees, or other things equally vile and contemptible.
The Reverend Father Abram, a Jesuit, in his manuscript History of the
University of Pont a Mousson, reports that a youth of good family, but
small fortune, placed himself at first to serve in the army among the
valets and serving men: from thence his parents sent him to school,
but not liking the subjection which study requires, he quitted the
school and returned to his former kind of life. On his way he met a
man dressed in a silk coat, but ill-looking, dark, and hideous, who
asked him where he was going to, and why he looked so sad: "I am able
to set you at your ease," said this man to him, "if you will give
yourself to me."
The young man, believing that he wished to engage him as a servant,
asked for time to reflect upon it; but beginning to mistrust the
magnificent promises which he made him, he looked at him more
narrowly, and having remarked that his left foot was divided like that
of an ox, he was seized with affright, made the sign of the cross, and
called on the name of Jesus, when the spectre directly disappeared.
Three days after, the same figure appeared to him again, and asked him
if he had made up his mind; the young man replied that he did not want
a master. The spectre said to him, "Where are you going?" "I am going
to such a town," replied he. At that moment the demon threw at his
feet a purse which chinked, and which he found filled with thirty or
forty Flemish crowns, amongst which were about twelve which appeared
to be gold, newly coined, and as if from the stamps of the coiner. In
the same purse was a powder, which the spectre said was of a very
subtile quality.
At the same time, he gave him abominable counsels to satisfy the most
shameful passions; and exhorted him to renounce the use of holy water,
and the adoration of the host--which he called in derision that little
cake. The boy was horrified at these proposals, and made the sign of
the cross on his heart; and at the same time he felt himself thrown
roughly down on the ground, where he remained for half an hour, half
dead. Having got up again, he returned home to his mother, did
penance, and changed his conduct. The pieces of money which looked
like gold and newly coined, having been put in the fire, were found to
be only of copper.
I relate this instance to show that the demon seeks only to deceive
and corrupt even those to whom he makes the most specious promises,
and to whom he seems to give great riches.
Some years ago, two monks, both of them well informed and prudent men,
consulted me upon a circumstance which occurred at Orbe, a village of
Alsatia, near the Abbey of Pairis. Two men of that place told them
that they had seen come out of the ground a small box or casket, which
they supposed was full of money, and having a wish to lay hold of it,
it had retreated from them and hidden itself again under ground. This
happened to them more than once.
Theophanes, a celebrated and grave Greek historiographer, under the
year of our era 408, relates that Cabades, King of Persia, being
informed that between the Indian country and Persia there was a castle
called Zubdadeyer, which contained a great quantity of gold, silver,
and precious stones, resolved to make himself master of it; but these
treasures were guarded by demons, who would not permit any one to
approach it. He employed some of the magi and some Jews who were with
him to conjure and exorcise them; but their efforts were useless. The
king bethought himself of the God of the Christians--prayed to him,
and sent for the bishop who was at the head of the Christian church in
Persia, and begged of him to use his efforts to obtain for him these
treasures, and to expel the demons by whom they were guarded. The
prelate offered the holy sacrifice, participated in it, and going to
the spot, drove away the demons who were guardians of these riches,
and put the king in peaceable possession of the castle.
Relating this story to a man of some rank,[298] he told me, that in
the Isle of Malta, two knights having hired a slave, who boasted that
he possessed the secret of evoking demons, and forcing them to
discover the most hidden secrets, they led him into an old castle,
where it was thought that treasures were concealed. The slave
performed his evocations, and at last the demon opened a rock whence
issued a coffer. The slave would have taken hold of it, but the coffer
went back into the rock. This occurred more than once; and the slave,
after vain efforts, came and told the knights what had happened to
him; but he was so much exhausted that he had need of some
restorative; they gave him refreshment, and when he had returned they
after a while heard a noise. They went into the cave with a light, to
see what had happened, and they found the slave lying dead, and all
his flesh full of cuts as of a penknife, in form of a cross; he was so
covered with them that there was not room to place a finger where he
was not thus marked. The knights carried him to the shore, and threw
him into the sea with a great stone hung round his neck. We could name
these persons and note the dates, were it necessary.
The same person related to us, at that same time, that about ninety
years before, an old woman of Malta was warned by a genius that there
was a great deal of treasure in her cellar, belonging to a knight of
high consideration, and desired her to give him information of it; she
went to his abode, but could not obtain an audience. The following
night the same genius returned, and gave her the same command; and as
she refused to obey, he abused her, and again sent her on the same
errand. The next day she returned to seek this lord, and told the
domestics that she would not go away until she had spoken to the
master. She related what had happened to her; and the knight resolved
to go to her dwelling, accompanied by people with the proper
instruments for digging; they dug, and very shortly there sprung up
such a quantity of water from the spot where they inserted their
pickaxes that they were obliged to give up the undertaking.
The knight confessed to the Inquisitor what he had done, and received
absolution for it; but he was obliged to inscribe the fact we have
recounted in the Registers of the Inquisition.
About sixty years after, the canons of the Cathedral of Malta, wishing
for a wider space before their church, bought some houses which it was
necessary to pull down, and amongst others that which had belonged to
that old woman. As they were digging there, they found the treasure,
consisting of a good many gold pieces of the value of a ducat, bearing
the effigy of the Emperor Justinian the First. The Grand Master of the
Order of Malta affirmed that the treasure belonged to him as sovereign
of the isle; the canons contested the point. The affair was carried to
Rome; the grand master gained his suit, and the gold was brought to
him, amounting in value to about sixty thousand ducats; but he gave
them up to the cathedral.
Some time afterwards, the knight of whom we have spoken, who was then
very aged, remembered what had happened to himself, and asserted that
the treasure ought to belong to him; he made them lead him to the
spot, recognized the cellar where he had formerly been, and pointed
out in the Register of the Inquisition what had been written therein
sixty years before. They did not permit him to recover the treasure;
but it was a proof that the demon knew of and kept watch over this
money. The person who told me this story has in his possession three
or four of these gold pieces, having bought them of the canons.
Footnotes:
[292] Matt. iv. 8.
[293] Job iii. 13, 14, 22.
[294] Joseph. Ant. lib. xiii.
[295] Martian. lib. iv.
[296] Le Loyer, liv. ii. p. 495.
[297] Remy, Demonol. c. iv. Ann. 1605.
[298] M. le Chevalier Guiot de Marre.