RETURN AND APPARITIONS OF SOULS AFTER THE DEATH OF THE BODY, PROVED
FROM SCRIPTURE.
The dogma of the immortality of the soul, and of its existence after
its separation from the body which it once animated, being taken for
indubitable, and Jesus Christ having invincibly established it against
the Sadducees, the return of souls and their apparition to the
living, by the command or permission of God, can no longer appear so
incredible, nor even so difficult.
It was a known and received truth among the Jews in the time of our
Saviour; he assumed it as certain, and never pronounced a word which
could give any one reason to think that he disapproved of, or
condemned it; he only warned us that in common apparitions spirits
have neither flesh nor bones, as he had himself after his
resurrection. If St. Thomas doubted of the reality of the resurrection
of his Master, and the truth of his appearance, it was because he was
aware that those who suppose they see apparitions of spirits are
subject to illusion; and that one strongly prepossessed will often
believe he beholds what he does not see, and hear that which he hears
not; and even had Jesus Christ appeared to his apostles, that would
not prove that he was resuscitated, since a spirit can appear, while
its body is in the tomb and even corrupted or reduced to dust and
ashes.
The apostles doubted not of the possibility of the apparition of
spirits: when they saw the Saviour coming towards them, walking upon
the waves of the Lake of Gennesareth,[328] they at first believed that
it was a phantom.
After St. Peter had left the prison by the aid of an angel, and came
and knocked at the door of the house where the brethren were
assembled, the servant whom they sent to open it, hearing Peter's
voice, thought it was his spirit, or an angel[329] who had assumed his
form and voice. The wicked rich man, being in the flames of hell,
begged of Abraham to send Lazarus to earth, to warn his brothers[330]
not to expose themselves to the danger of falling like him in the
extreme of misery: he believed, without doubt, that souls could return
to earth, make themselves visible, and speak to the living.
In the transfiguration of Jesus Christ, Moses, who had been dead for
ages, appeared on Mount Tabor with Elias, conversing with Jesus Christ
then transfigured.[331] After the resurrection of the Saviour, several
persons, who had long been dead, arose from their graves, went into
Jerusalem and appeared unto many.[332]
In the Old Testament, King Saul addresses himself to the witch of
Endor, to beg of her to evoke for him the soul of Samuel;[333] that
prophet appeared and spoke to Saul. I know that considerable
difficulties and objections have been formed as to this evocation and
this apparition of Samuel. But whether he appeared or not--whether the
Pythoness did really evoke him, or only deluded Saul with a false
appearance--I deduce from it that Saul and those with him were
persuaded that the spirits of the dead could appear to the living, and
reveal to them things unknown to men.
St. Augustine, in reply to Simplicius, who had proposed to him his
difficulties respecting the truth of this apparition, says at
first,[334] that it is no more difficult to understand that the demon
could evoke Samuel by the help of a witch than it is to comprehend how
that Satan could speak to God, and tempt the holy man Job, and ask
permission to tempt the apostles; or that he could transport Jesus
Christ himself to the highest pinnacle of the Temple of Jerusalem.
We may believe also that God, by a particular dispensation of his
will, may have permitted the demon to evoke Samuel, and make him
appear before Saul, to announce to him what was to happen to him, not
by virtue of magic, not by the power of the demon alone, but solely
because God willed it, and ordained it thus to be.
He adds that it may be advanced that it is not Samuel who appears to
Saul, but a phantom, formed by the illusive power of the demon, and by
the force of magic; and that the Scripture, in giving the name of
Samuel to this phantom, has made use of ordinary language, which gives
the name of things themselves to that which is but their image or
representation in painting or in sculpture.
If it should be asked how this phantom could discover the future, and
predict to Saul his approaching death, we may likewise ask how the
demon could know Jesus Christ for God alone, while the Jews knew him
not, and the girl possessed with a spirit of divination, spoken of in
the Acts of the Apostles,[335] could bear witness to the apostles, and
undertake to become their advocate in rendering good testimony to
their mission.
Lastly, St. Augustine concludes by saying that he does not think
himself sufficiently enlightened to decide whether the demon can, or
cannot, by means of magical enchantments, evoke a soul after the death
of the body, so that it may appear and become visible in a corporeal
form, which may be recognized, and capable of speaking and revealing
the hidden future. And if this potency be not accorded to magic and
the demon, we must conclude that all which is related of this
apparition of Samuel to Saul is an illusion and a false apparition
made by the demon to deceive men.
In the books of the Maccabees,[336] the High-Priest Onias, who had
been dead several years before that time, appeared to Judas Maccabaeus,
in the attitude of a man whose hands were outspread, and who was
praying for the people of the Lord: at the same time the Prophet
Jeremiah, long since dead, appeared to the same Maccabaeus; and Onias
said to him, "Behold that holy man, who is the protector and friend of
his brethren; it is he who prays continually for the Lord's people,
and for the holy city of Jerusalem." So saying, he put into the hands
of Judas a golden sword, saying to him, "Receive this sword as a gift
from heaven, by means of which you shall destroy the enemies of my
people Israel."
In the same second book of the Maccabees,[337] it is related that in
the thickest of the battle fought by Timotheus, general of the armies
of Syria, against Judas Maccabaeus, they saw five men as if descended
from heaven, mounted on horses with golden bridles, who were at the
head of the army of the Jews, two of them on each side of Judas
Maccabaeus, the chief captain of the army of the Lord; they shielded
him with their arms, and launched against the enemy such fiery darts
and thunderbolts that they were blinded and mortally afraid and
terrified.
These five armed horsemen, these combatants for Israel, are apparently
no other than Mattathias, the father of Judas Maccabaeus,[338] and
four of his sons, who were already dead; there yet remained of his
seven sons but Judas Maccabaeus, Jonathan, and Simon. We may also
understand it as five angels, who were sent by God to the assistance
of the Maccabees. In whatever way we regard it, these are not doubtful
apparitions, both on account of the certainty of the book in which
they are related, and the testimony of a whole army by which they
were seen.
Whence I conclude, that the Hebrews had no doubt that the spirits of
the dead could return to earth, that they did return in fact, and that
they discovered to the living things beyond our natural knowledge.
Moses expressly forbids the Israelites to consult the dead.[339] But
these apparitions did not show themselves in solid and material
bodies; the Saviour assures us of it when he says, "Spirits have
neither flesh nor bones." It was often only an aerial figure which
struck the senses and the imagination, like the images which we see in
sleep, or that we firmly believe we hear and see. The inhabitants of
Sodom were struck with a species of blindness,[340] which prevented
them from seeing the door of Lot's house, into which the angels had
entered. The soldiers who sought for Elisha were in the same way
blinded in some sort,[341] although they spoke to him they were
seeking for, who led them into Samaria without their perceiving him.
The two disciples who went on Easter-day to Emmaus, in company with
Jesus Christ their Master, did not recognize him till the breaking of
the bread.[342]
Thus, the apparitions of spirits to mankind are not always in a
corporeal form, palpable and real; but God, who ordains or permits
them, often causes the persons to whom these apparitions appear, to
behold, in a dream or otherwise, those spirits which speak to, warn,
or threaten them; who makes them see things as if present, which in
reality are not before their eyes, but only in their imagination;
which does not prove these visions and warnings not to be sent from
God, who, by himself, or by the ministration of his angels, or by
souls disengaged from the body, inspired the minds of men with what he
judges proper for them to know, whether in a dream, or by external
signs, or by words, or else by certain impressions made on their
senses, or in their imagination, in the absence of every external
object.
If the apparitions of the souls of the dead were things in nature and
of their own choice, there would be few persons who would not come
back to visit the things or the persons which have been dear to them
during this life. St. Augustine says it of his mother, St.
Monica,[343] who had so tender and constant an affection for him, and
who, while she lived, followed him and sought him by sea and land.
The bad rich man would not have failed, either, to come in person to
his brethren and relations to inform them of the wretched condition in
which he found himself in hell. It is a pure favor of the mercy or the
power of God, and which he grants to very few persons, to make their
appearance after death; for which reason we should be very much on our
guard against all that is said, and all that we find written on the
subject in books.
Footnotes:
[328] Matt. vi. 16. Mark vi. 43.
[329] Acts xii. 13, 14.
[330] Luke xxi. 14, 15.
[331] Luke ix. 32.
[332] Matt. xxvii. 34.
[333] 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, ad finem.
[334] Augustin de Diversis Quaest. ad Simplicium, Quaest. cxi.
[335] Acts xxvi. 17.
[336] Macc. x. 29.
[337] 2 Macc. x. 29.
[338] 1 Macc. xi. 1.
[339] Deut. xviii. 11.
[340] Gen. xix. 11.
[341] 2 Kings vi. 19.
[342] Luke xxvi. 16.
[343] Aug. de Cura gerenda pro Mortuis, c. xiii.