THE DIFFICULTY OF EXPLAINING THE MANNER IN WHICH APPARITIONS MAKE
THEIR APPEARANCE, WHATEVER SYSTEM MAY BE PROPOSED ON THE SUBJECT.
The difficulty is much greater, if we suppose that these spirits are
absolutely disengaged from any kind of matter; for how can they
assemble about them a certain quantity of matter, clothe themselves
with it, give it a human form, which can be discerned; is capable of
acting, speaking, conversing, eating and drinking, as did the angels
who appeared to Abraham,[441] and the one who appeared to the young
Tobias,[442] and conducted him to Rages! Is all that accomplished by
the natural power of these spirits? Has God bestowed on them this
power in creating them, and has he engaged himself by virtue of his
natural laws, and by a consequence of his acting intimately and
essentially on the creature, in his quality of Creator, to impress on
occasion at the will of these spirits certain motions in the air, and
in the bodies which they would move, condense, and cause to act, in
the same manner proportionally that he has willed by virtue of the
union of the soul with a living body, that that soul should impress on
that body motions proportioned to its own will, although, naturally,
there is no natural proportion between matter and spirit, and,
according to the laws of physics, the one cannot act upon the other,
unless the first cause, the Creator, has chosen to subject himself to
create this movement, and to produce these effects at the will of man,
movements which without that would pass for superhuman (supernatural).
Or shall we say, with some new philosophers,[443] that although we may
have ideas of matter and thought, perhaps we shall never be capable of
knowing whether a being purely material thinks or not, because it is
impossible for us to discover by the contemplative powers of our own
minds without revelation, if God has not given to some collections of
matter, disposed as he thinks proper, the power to perceive and to
think, or whether he has joined and united to the matter thus
arranged, an immaterial substance which thinks? Now in relation to our
notions, it is not less easy for us to conceive that God can add to
our idea of matter the faculty of thinking, since we know not in what
thought consists, and to what species of substance that Almighty being
has judged proper to grant this faculty, which could exist in no
created being except by virtue of the goodness and the will of the
Creator.
This system certainly embraces great absurdities, and greater to my
mind than those it would fain avoid. We conceive clearly that matter
is divisible, and capable of motion; but we do not conceive that it is
capable of thought, nor that thought can consist of a certain
configuration or a certain motion of matter. And even could thought
depend on an arrangement, or on a certain subtility, or on a certain
motion of matter, as soon as that arrangement should be disturbed, or
the motion interrupted, or this heap of subtile matter dispersed,
thought would cease to be produced, and consequently that which
constitutes man, or the reasoning animal, would no longer subsist;
thus all the economy of our religion, all our hopes of a future life,
all our fears of eternal punishment would vanish; even the principles
of our philosophy would be overthrown.
God forbid that we should wish to set bounds to the almighty power of
God; but that all-powerful Being having given us as a rule of our
knowledge the clearness of the ideas which we form of everything, and
not being permitted to affirm that which we know but indistinctly, it
follows that we ought not to assert that thought can be attributed to
matter. If the thing were known to us through revelation, and taught
by the authority of the Scriptures, then we might impose silence on
human reason, and make captive our judgment in obedience to faith; but
it is owned that the thing is not at all revealed; neither is it
demonstrated, either by its cause, or by its effects. It must, then,
be considered as a simple system, invented to do away certain
difficulties which result from the opinion opposed to it.
If the difficulty of explaining how the soul acts upon our bodies
appears so great, how can we comprehend that the soul itself should be
material and extended? In the latter case will it act upon itself, and
give itself the impulsion to think, or will this movement or impulsion
be thought itself, or will it produce thought? Will this thinking
matter think on always, or only at times; and when it has ceased to
think, who will make it think anew? Will it be God, will it be itself?
Can so simple an agent as the soul act upon itself, and reproduce it
in some sort by thinking, after it has ceased to think?
My reader will say that I leave him here embarrassed, and that instead
of giving him any light on the subject of the apparition of spirits, I
cast doubt and uncertainty on the subject. I own it; but I better like
to doubt prudently, than to affirm that which I know not. And if I
hold by what my religion teaches me concerning the nature of souls,
angels, and demons, I shall say that being purely spiritual, it is
impossible that they should appear clothed with a body except through
a miracle; always in the supposition that God has not created them
naturally capable of these operations, with subordination to his
sovereignly powerful will, which but rarely allows them to use this
faculty of showing themselves corporeally to mortals.
If sometimes angels have eaten, spoken, acted, walked, like men, it
was not from any need they had to drink or eat to sustain themselves
and to be able to live, but to execute the designs of God, whose will
it was that they should appear to men acting, drinking, and eating, as
the angel Raphael observes,[444]--"When I was staying with you, I was
there by the will of God; I seemed to you to eat and drink, but for my
part I make use of an invisible nourishment which is unknown to men."
It is true that we know not what may be the food of angels who are
substances which are purely spiritual, nor what became of that food
which Raphael and the angels that Abraham entertained in his tent,
took, or seemed to take, in the company of men. But there are so many
other things in nature which are unknown and incomprehensible to us,
that we may very well console ourselves for not knowing how it is that
the apparitions of angels, demons, and disembodied souls are made to
appear.
Footnotes:
[441] Gen. xviii.
[442] Tob. xii. 19.
[443] M. Lock. de Intellectu Human. lib. iv. c. 3.
[444] Tob. xii. 18, 19.
DISSERTATION
ON THE GHOSTS WHO RETURN TO EARTH BODILY,
THE EXCOMMUNICATED,
THE OUPIRES OR VAMPIRES, VROUCOLACAS, ETC.
PREFACE.
Every age, every nation, every country has its prejudices, its
maladies, its customs, its inclinations, which characterize them, and
which pass away, and succeed to one another; often that which has
appeared admirable at one time, becomes pitiful and ridiculous at
another. We have seen that in some ages all was turned towards a
certain kind of devotion, of studies and of exercises. It is known
that, for more than one century, the prevailing taste of Europe was
the journey to Jerusalem. Kings, princes, nobles, bishops,
ecclesiastics, monks, all pressed thither in crowds. The pilgrimages
to Rome were formerly very frequent and very famous. All that is
fallen away. We have seen provinces over-run with flagellants, and now
none of them remain except in the brotherhoods of penitents which are
still found in several parts.
We have seen in these countries jumpers and dancers, who every moment
jumped and danced in the streets, squares or market-places, and even
in the churches. The convulsionaries of our own days seem to have
revived them; posterity will be surprised at them, as we laugh at them
now. Towards the end of the sixteenth and at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, nothing was talked of in Lorraine but wizards and
witches. For a long time we have heard nothing of them. When the
philosophy of M. Descartes appeared, what a vogue it had! The ancient
philosophy was despised; nothing was talked of but experiments in
physics, new systems, new discoveries. M. Newton appears; all minds
turn to him. The system of M. Law, bank notes, the rage of the Rue
Quinquampoix, what movements did they not cause in the kingdom? A sort
of convulsion had seized on the French. In this age, a new scene
presents itself to our eyes, and has done for about sixty years in
Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, and Poland: they see, it is said, men who
have been dead for several months, come back to earth, talk, walk,
infest villages, ill use both men and beasts, suck the blood of their
near relations, make them ill, and finally cause their death; so that
people can only save themselves from their dangerous visits and their
hauntings by exhuming them, impaling them, cutting off their heads,
tearing out the heart, or burning them. These _revenans_ are called by
the name of oupires or vampires, that is to say, leeches; and such
particulars are related of them, so singular, so detailed, and
invested with such probable circumstances and such judicial
information, that one can hardly refuse to credit the belief which is
held in those countries, that these _revenans_ come out of their tombs
and produce those effects which are proclaimed of them.
Antiquity certainly neither saw nor knew anything like it. Let us read
through the histories of the Hebrews, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and
the Latins; nothing approaching to it will be met with.
It is true that we remark in history, though rarely, that certain
persons after having been some time in their tombs and considered as
dead, have returned to life. We shall see even that the ancients
believed that magic could cause death and evoke the souls of the dead.
Several passages are cited, which prove that at certain times they
fancied that sorcerers sucked the blood of men and children, and
caused their death. They saw also in the twelfth century in England
and Denmark, some _revenans_ similar to those of Hungary. But in no
history do we read anything so usual or so pronounced, as what is
related to us of the vampires of Poland, Hungary, and Moravia.
Christian antiquity furnishes some instances of excommunicated persons
who have visibly come out of their tombs and left the churches, when
the deacon commanded the excommunicated, and those who did not partake
of the communion, to retire. For several centuries nothing like this
has been seen, although it is known that the bodies of several
excommunicated persons who died while under sentence of
excommunication and censure of the Church are buried in churches.
The belief of the modern Greeks, who will have it that the bodies of
the excommunicated do not decay in their tombs or graves, is an
opinion which has no foundation, either in antiquity, in good
theology, or even in history. This idea seems to have been invented by
the modern Greek schismatics, only to authorize and confirm them in
their separation from the church of Rome. Christian antiquity
believed, on the contrary, that the incorruptibility of a body was
rather a probable mark of the sanctity of the person and a proof of
the particular protection of God, extended to a body which during its
lifetime had been the temple of the Holy Spirit, and of one who had
retained in justice and innocence the mark of Christianity.
The vroucolacas of Greece and the Archipelago are again _revenans_ of
a new kind. We can hardly persuade ourselves that a nation so witty as
the Greeks could fall into so extraordinary an opinion. Ignorance or
prejudice, must be extreme among them since neither an ecclesiastic
nor any other writer has undertaken to undeceive them.
The imagination of those who believe that the dead chew in their
graves, with a noise similar to that made by hogs when they eat, is so
ridiculous that it does not deserve to be seriously refuted. I
undertake to treat here on the matter of the _revenans_ or vampires of
Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, and Poland, at the risk of being criticised
however I may discuss it; those who believe them to be true, will
accuse me of rashness and presumption, for having raised a doubt on
the subject, or even of having denied their existence and reality;
others will blame me for having employed my time in discussing this
matter which is considered as frivolous and useless by many sensible
people. Whatever may be thought of it, I shall be pleased with myself
for having sounded a question which appeared to me important in a
religious point of view. For if the return of vampires is real, it is
of import to defend it, and prove it; and if it is illusory, it is of
consequence to the interests of religion to undeceive those who
believe in its truth, and destroy an error which may produce dangerous
effects.
DISSERTATION
ON THE GHOSTS WHO RETURN TO EARTH BODILY,
THE EXCOMMUNICATED,
THE OUPIRES OR VAMPIRES, VROUCOLACAS, ETC.
CHAPTER I.
THE RESURRECTION OF A DEAD PERSON IS THE WORK OF GOD ONLY.
After having treated in a separate dissertation on the matter of the
apparitions of angels, demons, and disembodied souls, the connection
of the subject invites me to speak also of the ghosts and
excommunicated persons, whom, it is said, the earth rejects from her
bosom; of the vampires of Hungary, Silesia, Bohemia, Moravia, and
Poland; and of the vroucolacas of Greece. I shall report first of all,
what has been said and written of them; then I shall deduce some
consequences, and bring forward the reasons or arguments that may be
adduced for, and against, their existence and reality.
The _revenans_ of Hungary, or vampires, which form the principal
object of this dissertation, are men who have been dead a considerable
time, sometimes more, sometimes less; who leave their tombs, and come
and disturb the living, sucking their blood, appearing to them, making
a racket at their doors, and in their houses, and lastly, often
causing their death. They are named vampires, or oupires, which
signifies, they say, in Sclavonic, a leech. The only way to be
delivered from their haunting, is to disinter them, cut off their
head, impale them, burn them, or pierce their heart.
Several systems have been propounded to explain the return, and these
apparitions of the vampires. Some persons have denied and rejected
them as chimerical, and as an effect of the prepossession and
ignorance of the people of those countries, where they are said to
come back or return.
Others have thought that these people were not really dead, but that
they had been interred alive, and returned naturally to themselves,
and came out of their tombs.
Others believe that these people are very truly dead, but that God, by
a particular permission, or command, permits or commands them to come
back to earth, and resume for a time their own body; for when they are
exhumed, their bodies are found entire, their blood vermilion and
fluid, and their limbs supple and pliable.
Others maintain that it is the demon who causes these _revenans_ to
appear, and by their means does all the harm he occasions both men and
animals.
In the supposition that vampires veritably resuscitate, we may raise
an infinity of difficulties on the subject. How is this resurrection
accomplished? It is by the strength of the _revenant_, by the return
of his soul into his body? Is it an angel, is it a demon who
reanimates it? Is it by the order, or by the permission of God that he
resuscitates? Is this resurrection voluntary on his part, and by his
own choice? Is it for a long time, like that of the persons who were
restored to life by Jesus Christ? or that of persons resuscitated by
the Prophets and Apostles? Or is it only momentary, and for a few days
and a few hours, like the resurrection operated by St. Stanislaus upon
the lord who had sold him a field; or that spoken of in the life of
St. Macarius of Egypt, and of St. Spiridion, who made the dead to
speak, simply to bear testimony to the truth, and then left them to
sleep in peace, awaiting the last, the judgment day.
First of all, I lay it down as an undoubted principle, that the
resurrection of a person really dead is effected by the power of God
alone. No man can either resuscitate himself, or restore another man
to life, without a visible miracle.
Jesus Christ resuscitated himself, as he had promised he would; he did
it by his own power; he did it with circumstances which were all
miraculous. If he had returned to life as soon as he was taken down
from the cross, it might have been thought that he was not quite dead,
that there remained yet in him some remains of life, that they might
have been revived by warming him, or by giving him cordials and
something capable of bringing him back to his senses.
But he revives only on the third day. He had, as it were, been killed
after his death, by the opening made in his side with a lance, which
pierced him to the heart, and would have put him to death, if he had
not then been beyond receiving it.
When he resuscitated Lazarus,[445] he waited until he had been four
days in the tomb, and began to show corruption; which is the most
certain mark that a man is really deceased, without a hope of
returning to life, except by supernatural means.
The resurrection which Job so firmly expected,[446] and that of the
man who came to life, on touching the body of the prophet Elisha in
his tomb;[447] and the child of the widow of Shunem, whom the same
Elisha restored to life;[448] that army of skeletons, whose
resurrection was predicted by Ezekiel,[449] and which in spirit he saw
executed before his eyes, as a type and pledge as the return of the
Hebrews from their captivity at Babylon;--in short, all the
resurrections related in the sacred books of the Old and New
Testament, are manifestly miraculous effects, and attributed solely to
the Almighty power of God. Neither angels, nor demons, nor men, the
holiest and most favored of God, could by their own power restore to
life a person really dead. They can do it by the power of God alone,
who when he thinks proper so to do, is free to grant this favor to
their prayers and intercession.
Footnotes:
[445] John xi. 39.
[446] Job xxi. 25.
[447] 1 Kings xiii. 21, 22.
[448] 2 Kings iv.
[449] Ezek. xxxvii. 1, 2, 3.
CHAPTER II.
ON THE REVIVAL OF PERSONS WHO WERE NOT REALLY DEAD.
The resuscitation of some persons who were believed to be dead, and
who were not so, but simply asleep, or in a lethargy; and of those who
were supposed to be dead, having been drowned, and who came to life
again through the care taken of them, or by medical skill. Such
persons must not pass for being really resuscitated; they were not
dead, or were so only in appearance.
We intend to speak in this place of another order of resuscitated
persons, who had been buried sometimes for several months, or even
several years; who ought to have been suffocated in their graves, had
they been interred alive, and in whom are still found signs of life:
the blood in a liquid state, the flesh entire, the complexion fine and
florid, the limbs flexible and pliable. Those persons who return
either by night or by day, disturb the living, suck their blood, kill
them, appear in their clothes, in their families, sit down to table,
and do a thousand other things; then return to their graves without
any one seeing how they re-enter them. This is a kind of momentary
resurrection, or revival; for whereas the other dead persons spoken of
in Scripture have lived, drank, eaten and conversed with other men
after their return to life, as Lazarus, the brother of Mary and
Martha,[450] and the son of the widow of Shunem, resuscitated by
Elisha.[451] These appeared during a certain time, in certain places,
in certain circumstances; and appear no more as soon as they have been
impaled, or burned, or have had their heads cut off.
If this last order of resuscitated persons were not really dead, there
is nothing wonderful in their revisiting the world, except the manner
in which it is done, and the circumstances by which that return is
accompanied. Do these _revenans_ simply awaken from their sleep, or do
they recover themselves like those who fall down in syncope, in
fainting fits, or in swoons, and who at the end of a certain time come
naturally to themselves when the blood and animal spirits have resumed
their natural course and motion.
But how can they come out of their graves without opening the earth,
and how re-enter them again without its appearing? Have we ever seen
lethargies, or swoons, or syncopes last whole years together? If
people insist on these resurrections being real ones, did we ever see
dead persons resuscitate themselves, and by their own power?
If they are not resuscitated by themselves, is it by the power of God
that they have left their graves? What proof is there that God has
anything to do with it? What is the object of these resurrections? Is
it to show forth the works of God in these vampires? What glory does
the Divinity derive from them? If it is not God who drags them from
their graves, is it an angel? is it a demon? is it their own spirit?
Can the soul when separated from the body re-enter it when it will,
and give it new life, were it but for a quarter of an hour? Can an
angel or a demon restore a dead man to life? Undoubtedly not, without
the order, or at least the permission of God. This question of the
natural power of angels and demons over human bodies has been examined
in another place, and we have shown that neither revelation nor reason
throws any certain light on the subject.
Footnotes:
[450] 1 John xii. 2.
[451] 2 Kings viii. 5.
CHAPTER III.
REVIVAL OF A MAN WHO HAD BEEN INTERRED FOR THREE YEARS, AND WAS
RESUSCITATED BY ST. STANISLAUS.
All the lives of the saints are full of resurrections of the dead;
thick volumes might be composed on the subject.
These resurrections have a manifest relation to the matter which we
are here treating of, since it relates to persons who are dead, or
held to be so, who appear bodily and animated to the living, and who
live after their return to life. I shall content myself with relating
the history of St. Stanislaus, Bishop of Cracow, who restored to life
a man that had been dead for three years, attended by such singular
circumstances, and in so public a manner, that the thing is beyond the
severest criticism. If it is really true, it must be regarded as one
of the most unheard of miracles which are read of in history. They
assert that the life of this saint was written either at the time of
martyrdom,[452] or a short time afterwards, by different well-informed
authors; for the martyrdom of the saint, and, above all, the
restoration to life of the dead man of whom we are about to speak,
were seen and known by an infinite number of persons, by all the court
of king Boleslaus. And this event having taken place in Poland, where
vampires are frequently met with even in our days, it concerns, for
that reason, more particularly the subject we are treating.
The bishop, St. Stanislaus, having bought of a gentleman, named
Pierre, an estate situated on the banks of the Vistula, in the
territory of Lublin, for the profit of his church at Cracow, gave the
price of it to the seller, in the presence of witnesses, and with the
solemnities requisite in that country, but without written deeds, for
they then wrote but seldom in Poland on the occasion of sales of this
kind; they contented themselves with having witnesses. Stanislaus took
possession of this estate by the king's authority, and his church
enjoyed it peaceably for about three years.
In the interim, Pierre, who had sold it, happened to die. The king of
Poland, Boleslaus, who had conceived an implacable hatred against the
holy bishop, because he had freely reproved him for his excesses,
seeking occasion to cause him trouble, excited against him the three
sons of Pierre, and his heirs, and told them to claim the estate which
their father had sold, on pretence of its not having been paid for. He
promised to support their demand, and to cause it to be restored to
them. Thus these three gentlemen had the bishop cited to appear before
the king, who was then at Solech, occupied in rendering justice under
some tents in the country, according to the ancient custom of the
land, in the general assembly of the nation. The bishop was cited
before the king, and maintained that he had bought and paid for the
estate in question. The day was beginning to close, and the bishop ran
great risk of being condemned by the king and his counselors.
Suddenly, as if inspired by the Divine Spirit, he promised the king to
bring him in three days Pierre, of whom he had bought it, and the
condition was accepted mockingly, as a thing impossible to be
executed.
The holy bishop repairs to Pictravin, remains in prayer, and keeps
fast with his household for three days; on the third day he goes in
his pontifical robes, accompanied by his clergy and a multitude of
people, causes the grave-stone to be raised, and makes them dig until
they found the corpse of the defunct all fleshless and corrupted. The
saint commands him to come forth and bear witness to the truth before
the king's tribunal. He rises; they cover him with a cloak; the saint
takes him by the hand, and leads him alive to the feet of the king. No
one had the boldness to interrogate him; but he took the word, and
declared that he had in good faith sold the estate to the prelate, and
that he had received the value of it; after which he severely
reprimanded his sons, who had so maliciously accused the holy bishop.
Stanislaus asked Pierre if he wished to remain alive to do penance. He
thanked him, and said he would not anew expose himself to the danger
of sinning. Stanislaus reconducted him to his tomb, and being arrived
there, he again fell asleep in the Lord. It may be supposed that such
a scene had an infinite number of witnesses, and that all Poland was
quickly informed of it. The king was only the more irritated against
the saint. He some time after killed him with his own hand, as he was
coming from the altar, and had his body cut into seventy-two parts, in
order that they might never more be collected together in order to pay
them the worship which was due to them as the body of a martyr for the
truth and for pastoral liberty.
Now then let us come to that which is the principal subject of these
researches, the vampires, or _revenans_, of Hungary, Moravia, and
similar ones, which appear only for a little time in their natural
bodies.
Footnotes:
[452] The reverend fathers the Bollandists, believed that the life of
St. Stanislaus, which they had printed, was very old, and nearly of
the time of the martyrdom of the saint; or at least that it was taken
from a life by an author almost his cotemporary, and original. But
since the first edition of this dissertation it has been observed to
me that the thing was by no means certain; that M. Baillet, on the 7th
of May, in the critical table of authors, asserts that the life of St.
Stanislaus was only written 400 years after his death, from uncertain
and mutilated memoirs. And in the life of the saint he owns that it is
only the tradition of the writers of the country which can render
credible the account of the resurrection of Pierre. The Abbe Fleuri,
tom. xiii. of the Ecclesiastical History, l. 62, year 1079, does not
agree either to what is written in that life or to what has followed
it. At any rate, the miracle of the resurrection of Pierre is related
as certain in a discourse of John de Polemac, delivered at the Council
of Constance, 1433; tom. xii. Councils, p. 1397.
CHAPTER IV.
CAN A MAN WHO IS REALLY DEAD APPEAR IN HIS OWN BODY?
If what is related of vampires were certainly true, the question here
proposed would be frivolous and useless; they would reply to us
directly--In Hungary, Moravia, and Poland, persons who were dead and
interred a long time, have been seen to return, to appear, and torment
men and animals, suck their blood, and cause their death.
These persons come back to earth in their own bodies; people see them,
know them, exhume them, try them, impale them, cut off their heads,
burn them. It is then not only possible, but very true and very real,
that they appear in their own bodies.
It might be added in support of this belief, that the Scriptures
themselves give instances of these apparitions: for example, at the
Transfiguration of our Saviour, Elias and Moses appeared on Mount
Tabor,[453] there conversing with Jesus Christ. We know that Elias is
still alive. I do not cite him as an instance; but in regard to Moses,
his death is not doubtful; and yet he appeared bodily talking with
Jesus Christ. The dead who came out of their graves at the
resurrection of the Saviour,[454] and who appeared to many persons in
Jerusalem, had been in their sepulchres for several years; there was
no doubt of their being dead; and nevertheless they appeared and bore
testimony to the resurrection of the Saviour.
When Jeremiah appeared to Judas Maccabaeus,[455] and placed in his hand
a golden sword, saying to him, "Receive this sword as a gift from God,
with which you will vanquish the enemies of my people of Israel;" it
was apparently this prophet in his own person who appeared to him and
made him that present, since by his mien he was recognized as the
prophet Jeremiah.
I do not speak of those persons who were really restored to life by a
miracle, as the son of the widow of Shunem resuscitated by Elijah; nor
of the dead man who, on touching the coffin of the same prophet, rose
upon his feet and revived; nor of Lazarus, to whom Jesus Christ
restored life in a way so miraculous and striking. Those persons
lived, drank, ate, and conversed with mankind, after, as before their
death and resurrection.
It is not of such persons that we now speak. I speak, for instance, of
Pierre resuscitated by Stanislaus for a few hours; of those persons of
whom I made mention in the treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits, who
appeared, spoke, and revealed hidden things, and whose resurrection
was but momentary, and only to manifest the power of God, in order to
bear witness to truth and innocence, or to maintain the credit of the
church against obstinate heretics, as we read in various instances.
St. Martin, being newly made Archbishop of Tours, conceived some
suspicions against an altar which the bishops his predecessors had
erected to a pretended martyr, of whom they knew neither the name nor
the history, and of whom none of the priests or ministers of the
chapel could give any certain account. He abstained for some time from
going to this spot, which was not far from the city; but one day he
repaired thither accompanied by a few monks, and having prayed, he
besought God to let him know who it was that was interred there. He
then perceived on his left a hideous and dirty-looking apparition; and
having commanded it to tell him who he was, the spectre declared his
name, and confessed to him that he was a robber, who had been put to
death for his crimes and acts of violence, and that he had nothing in
common with the martyrs. Those who were present heard distinctly what
he said, but saw no one. St. Martin had the tomb overthrown, and cured
the ignorant people of their superstitions.
The philosopher Celsus, writing against the Christians, maintained
that the apparitions of Jesus Christ to his apostles were not real,
but that they were simply shadowy forms which appeared. Origen,
retorting his reasoning, tells him[456] that the pagans give an
account of various apparitions of AEsculapius and Apollo, to which they
attribute the power of predicting future events. If these appearances
are admitted to be real, because they are attested by some, why not
receive as true those of Jesus Christ, which are related by ocular
witnesses, and believed by millions of persons?
He afterwards relates this history. Aristeus, who belonged to one of
the first families of Proconnesus, having one day entered a foulon
shop, died there suddenly. The __________ having locked the door, ran
directly to inform the relations of the deceased; but as the report
was instantly spread in the town, a man of Cyzica, who came from
Astacia, affirmed that it could not be, because he had met Aristeus on
the road from Cyzica, and had spoken to him, which he loudly
maintained before all the people of Proconnesus.
Thereupon the relations arrive at the foulon's, with all the necessary
apparatus for carrying away the body; but when they entered the house,
they could not find Aristeus there, either dead or alive. Seven years
after, he showed himself in the very town of Proconnesus; made there
those verses which are termed Arimaspean, and then disappeared for the
second time. Such is the story related of him in those places.
Three hundred and forty years after that event, the same Aristeus
showed himself in Metapontus, in Italy, and commanded the Metapontines
to build an altar to Apollo, and afterwards to erect a statue in honor
of Aristeus of Proconnesus, adding that they were the only people of
Italy whom Apollo had honored with his presence; as for himself who
spoke to them, he had accompanied that god in the form of a crow; and
having thus spoken he disappeared.
The Metapontines sent to consult the oracle of Delphi concerning this
apparition; the Delphic oracle told them to follow the counsel which
Aristeus had given them, and it would be well for them; in fact, they
did erect a statue to Apollo, which was still to be seen there in the
time of Herodotus;[457] and at the same time, another statue to
Aristeus, which stood in a small plantation of laurels, in the midst
of the public square of Metapontus. Celsus made no difficulty of
believing all that on the word of Herodotus, though Pindar and he
refused credence to what the Christians taught of the miracles wrought
by Jesus Christ, related in the Gospel and sealed with the blood of
martyrs. Origen adds, What could Providence have designed in
performing for this Proconnesian the miracles we have just mentioned?
What benefit could mankind derive from them? Whereas, what the
Christians relate of Jesus Christ serves to confirm a doctrine which
is beneficial to the human race. We must, then, either reject this
story of Aristeus as fabulous, or ascribe all that is told of it as
the work of the evil spirit.
Footnotes:
[453] Matt. ix. 34.
[454] Matt. xxvii. 53.
[455] Macc. xiv. 14, 15.
[456] Origen. contra Celsum, lib. i. pp. 123, 124.
[457] Herodot. lib. iv.
CHAPTER V.
REVIVAL OR APPARITION OF A GIRL WHO HAD BEEN DEAD SOME MONTHS.
Phlegonus, freed-man of the Emperor Adrian,[458] in the fragment of
the book which he wrote on wonderful things, says that at Tralla, in
Asia, a certain man named Machates, an innkeeper, was connected with a
girl named Philinium, the daughter of Demostrates and Chariton. This
girl being dead, and placed in her grave, continued to come every
night for six months to see her gallant, to drink, eat, and sleep with
him. One day this girl was recognized by her nurse, when she was
sitting by Machates. The nurse ran to give notice of this to Chariton,
the girl's mother, who, after making many difficulties, came at last
to the inn; but as it was very late, and everybody gone to bed, she
could not satisfy her curiosity. However, she recognized her
daughter's clothes, and thought she recognized the girl herself in bed
with Machates. She returned the next morning, but having missed her
way, she no longer found her daughter, who had already withdrawn.
Machates related everything to her; how, since a certain time, she had
come to him every night; and in proof of what he said, he opened his
casket and showed her the gold ring which Philinium had given him, and
the band with which she covered her bosom, and which she had left with
him the preceding night.
Chariton, who could no longer doubt the truth of the circumstance, now
gave way to cries and tears; but as they promised to inform her the
following night, when Philinium should return, she went away home. In
the evening the girl came back as usual, and Machates sent directly to
let her father and mother know, for he began to fear that some other
girl might have taken Philinium's clothes from the sepulchre, in order
to deceive him by the illusion.
Demostrates and Chariton, on arriving, recognized their daughter and
ran to embrace her; but she cried out, "Oh, father and mother, why
have you grudged me my happiness, by preventing me from remaining
three days longer with this innkeeper without injury to any one? for I
did not come here without permission from the gods, that is to say,
from the demon, since we cannot attribute to God, or to a good spirit,
a thing like that. Your curiosity will cost you dear." At the same
time, she fell down stiff and dead, and extended on the bed.
Phlegon, who had some command in the town, stayed the crowd and
prevented a tumult. The next day, the people being assembled at the
theatre, they agreed to go and inspect the vault in which Philinium,
who had died six months before, had been laid. They found there the
corpses of her family arranged in their places, but they found not the
body of Philinium. There was only an iron ring, which Machates had
given her, with a gilded cup, which she had also received from him.
Afterwards they went back to the dwelling of Machates, where the body
of the girl remained lying on the ground.
They consulted a diviner, who said that she must be interred beyond
the limits of the town; they must appease the furies and terrestrial
Mercury, make solemn funeral ceremonies to the god Manes, and
sacrifice to Jupiter Hospitaller, to Mercury, and Mars. Phlegon adds,
speaking to him to whom he was writing: "If you think proper to inform
the emperor of it, write to me, that I may send you some of those
persons who were eye-witnesses of all these things."
Here is the fact circumstantially related, and invested with all the
marks which can make it pass for true. Nevertheless, how numerous are
the difficulties it presents! Was this young girl really dead, or only
sleeping? Was her resurrection effected by her own strength and will,
or was it a demon who restored her to life? It appears that it cannot
be doubted that it was her own body; all the circumstances noted in
the recital of Phlegon persuade us of it. If she was not dead, and all
she did was merely a game and a play which she performed to satisfy
her passion for Machates, there is nothing in all this recital very
incredible. We know what illicit love is capable of, and how far it
may lead any one who is devoured by a violent passion. The same
Phlegon says that a Syrian soldier of the army of Antiochus, after
having been killed at Thermopylae, appeared in open day in the Roman
camp, where he spoke to several persons.
Haralde, or Harappe, a Dane, who caused himself to be buried at the
entrance of his kitchen, appeared after his death, and was wounded by
one Olaues Pa, who left the iron of his lance in the wound. This Dane,
then, appeared bodily. Was it his soul which moved his body, or a
demon which made use of this corpse to disturb and frighten the
living? Did he do this by his own strength, or by the permission of
God? And what glory to God, what advantage to men, could accrue from
these apparitions? Shall we deny all these facts, related in so
circumstantial a manner by enlightened authors, who have no interest
in deceiving us, nor any wish to do so?
St. Augustine relates that, during his abode at Milan,[459] a young
man had a suit instituted against him by a person who repeated his
demand for a debt already paid the young man's father, but the receipt
for which could not be found. The ghost of the father appeared to the
son, and informed him where the receipt was which occasioned him so
much trouble.
St. Macarius, the Egyptian, made a dead man[460] speak who had been
interred some time, in order to discover a deposit which he had
received and hidden unknown to his wife. The dead man declared that
the money was slipt down at the foot of his bed.
The same St. Macarius, not being able to refute in any other way a
heretic Eunomian, according to some, or Hieracitus, according to
others, said to him, "Let us go to the grave of a dead man, and ask
him to inform us of the truth which you will not agree to." The
heretic dared not present himself at the grave; but St. Macarius went
thither, accompanied by a multitude of persons. He interrogated the
dead, who replied from the depth of the tomb, that if the heretic had
appeared in the crowd he should have arisen to convince him, and to
bear testimony to the truth. St. Macarius commanded him to fall asleep
again in the Lord, till the time when Jesus Christ should awaken him
in his place at the end of the world.
The ancients, who have related the same fact, vary in some of the
circumstances, as is usual enough when those things are related only
from memory.
St. Spiridion, Bishop of Trinitontis, in Egypt,[461] had a daughter
named Irene, who lived in virginity till her death. After her decease,
a person came to Spiridion and asked him for a deposit which he had
confided to Irene unknown to her father. They sought in every part of
the house, but could find nothing. At last Spiridion went to his
daughter's tomb, and calling her by her name, asked her where the
deposit was. She declared the same, and Spiridion restored it.
A holy abbot named Erricles resuscitated for a moment a man who had
been killed,[462] and of whose death they accused a monk who was
perfectly innocent. The dead man did justice to the accused, and the
Abbot Erricles said to him, "Sleep in peace, till the Lord shall come
at the last day to resuscitate you to all eternity."
All these momentary resurrections may serve to explain how the
_revenans_ of Hungary come out of their graves, then return to them,
after having caused themselves to be seen and felt for some time. But
the difficulty will always be to know, 1st, If the thing be true; 2d,
If they can resuscitate themselves; and, 3d, If they are really dead,
or only asleep. In what way soever we regard this circumstance, it
always appears equally impossible and incredible.
Footnotes:
[458] Phlegon. de Mirabilib. 18. Gronov. Antiq. Graec. p. 2694.
[459] Aug. de Cura pro Mortuis.
[460] Rosweid. vit. P. P. lib. ii. p. 480.
[461] Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. lib. i. c. 11.
[462] Vit. P. P. lib. ii. p. 650.
CHAPTER VI.
A WOMAN TAKEN ALIVE FROM HER GRAVE.
We read in a new work, a story which has some connection with this
subject. A shopkeeper of the Rue St. Honore, at Paris, had promised
his daughter to one of his friends, a shopkeeper like himself,
residing also in the same street. A financier having presented himself
as a husband for this young girl, was accepted instead of the young
man to whom she had been promised. The marriage was accomplished, and
the young bride falling ill, was looked upon as dead, enshrouded and
interred. The first lover having an idea that she had fallen into a
lethargy or a trance, had her taken out of the ground during the
night; they brought her to herself and he espoused her. They crossed
the channel, and lived quietly in England for some years. At the end
of ten years, they returned to Paris, where the first husband having
recognized his wife in a public walk, claimed her in a court of
justice; and this was the subject of a great law suit.
The wife and her (second) husband defended themselves on the ground
that death had broken the bonds of the first marriage. The first
husband was even accused of having caused his wife to be too
precipitately interred. The lovers foreseeing that they might be
non-suited, again withdrew to a foreign land, where they ended their
days. This circumstance is so singular that our readers will have some
difficulty in giving credence to it. I only give it as it is told. It
is for those who advance the fact to guarantee and prove it.
Who can say that, in the story of Phlegon, the young Philinium was not
thus placed in the vault without being dead, and that every night she
came to see her lover Machates? That was much easier for her than
would have been the return of the Parisian woman, who had been
enshrouded, buried, and remained covered with earth, and enveloped in
linen, during a pretty long time.
The other example related in the same work, is of a girl who fell into
a trance and was regarded as dead, and became enceinte during this
interval, without knowing the author of her pregnancy. It was a monk,
who, having made himself known, asserted that his vows should be
annulled, he having been forced into the sacred profession. A great
lawsuit ensued upon it, of which the documents are preserved to this
day. The monk obtained a dispensation from his vows, and married the
young girl.
This instance may be adduced with that of Philinium, and the young
woman of the Rue St. Honore. It is possible that these persons might
not be dead, and consequently not restored to life.
CHAPTER VII.
LET US NOW EXAMINE THE FACT OF THE REVENANS OR VAMPIRES OF MORAVIA.
I have been told by the late Monsieur de Vassimont, counsellor of the
Chamber of the Counts of Bar, that having been sent into Moravia by
his late Royal Highness Leopold, first Duke of Lorraine, for the
affairs of my Lord the Prince Charles his brother, Bishop of Olmutz
and Osnaburgh, he was informed by public report that it was common
enough in that country to see men who had died some time before,
present themselves in a party, and sit down to table with persons of
their acquaintance without saying anything; but that nodding to one of
the party, he would infallibly die some days afterwards. This fact was
confirmed by several persons, and amongst others by an old cure, who
said he had seen more than one instance of it.
The bishops and priests of the country consulted Rome on so
extraordinary a fact; but they received no answer, because,
apparently, all those things were regarded there as simple visions, or
popular fancies. They afterwards bethought themselves of taking up the
corpses of those who came back in that way, of burning them, or of
destroying them in some other manner. Thus they delivered themselves
from the importunity of these spectres, which are now much less
frequently seen than before. So said that good priest.
These apparitions have given rise to a little work, entitled _Magia
Posthuma_, printed at Olmutz, in 1706, composed by Charles Ferdinand
de Schertz, dedicated to Prince Charles, of Lorraine, Bishop of Olmutz
and Osnaburgh. The author relates that, in a certain village, a woman
being just dead, who had taken all her sacraments, she was buried in
the usual way in the cemetery. Four days after her decease, the
inhabitants of this village heard a great noise and extraordinary
uproar, and saw a spectre, which appeared sometimes in the shape of a
dog, sometimes in the form of a man, not to one person only, but to
several, and caused them great pain, grasping their throats, and
compressing their stomachs, so as to suffocate them. It bruised almost
the whole body, and reduced them to extreme weakness, so that they
became pale, lean and attenuated.
The spectre attacked even the animals, and some cows were found
debilitated and half dead. Sometimes it tied them together by their
tails. These animals gave sufficient evidence by their bellowing of
the pain they suffered. The horses seemed overcome with fatigue, all
in a perspiration, principally on the back; heated, out of breath,
covered with foam, as they are after a long and rough journey. These
calamities lasted several months.
The author whom I have mentioned examines the affair in a lawyer-like
way, and reasons much on the fact and the law. He asks if, supposing
that those disturbances, those noises and vexations proceeded from
that person who is suspected of causing them, they can burn her, as is
done to other ghosts who do harm to the living. He relates several
instances of similar apparitions, and of the evils which ensued; as of
a shepherd of the village of Blow, near the town of Kadam, in Bohemia,
who appeared during some time, and called certain persons, who never
failed to die within eight days after. The peasants of Blow took up
the body of this shepherd, and fixed it in the ground with a stake
which they drove through it.
This man, when in that condition, derided them for what they made him
suffer, and told them they were very good to give him thus a stick to
defend himself from the dogs. The same night he got up again, and by
his presence alarmed several persons, and strangled more amongst them
than he had hitherto done. Afterwards, they delivered him into the
hands of the executioner, who put him in a cart to carry him beyond
the village and there burn him. This corpse howled like a madman, and
moved his feet and hands as if alive. And when they again pierced him
through with stakes he uttered very loud cries, and a great quantity
of bright vermilion blood flowed from him. At last he was consumed,
and this execution put an end to the appearance and hauntings of this
spectre.
The same has been practiced in other places, where similar ghosts have
been seen; and when they have been taken out of the ground they have
appeared red, with their limbs supple and pliable, without worms or
decay; but not without a great stink. The author cites divers other
writers, who attest what he says of these spectres, which still
appear, he says, pretty often in the mountains of Silesia and Moravia.
They are seen by night and by day; the things which once belonged to
them are seen to move themselves and change their place without being
touched by any one. The only remedy for these apparitions is to cut
off the heads and burn the bodies of those who come back to haunt
people.
At any rate, they do not proceed to this without a form of justicial
law. They call for and hear the witnesses; they examine the arguments;
they look at the exhumed bodies, to see if they can find any of the
usual marks which lead them to conjecture that they are the parties
who molest the living, as the mobility and suppleness of the limbs,
the fluidity of the blood, and the flesh remaining uncorrupted. If all
these marks are found, then these bodies are given up to the
executioner, who burns them. It sometimes happens that the spectres
appear again for three or four days after the execution. Sometimes the
interment of the bodies of suspicious persons is deferred for six or
seven weeks. When they do not decay, and their limbs remain as supple
and pliable as when they were alive, then they burn them. It is
affirmed as certain that the clothes of these persons move without any
one living touching them; and within a short time, continues our
author, a spectre was seen at Olmutz, which threw stones, and gave
great trouble to the inhabitants.
CHAPTER VIII.
DEAD PERSONS IN HUNGARY WHO SUCK THE BLOOD OF THE LIVING.
About fifteen years ago, a soldier who was billeted at the house of a
Haidamagne peasant, on the frontiers of Hungary, as he was one day
sitting at table near his host, the master of the house saw a person
he did not know come in and sit down to table also with them. The
master of the house was strangely frightened at this, as were the rest
of the company. The soldier knew not what to think of it, being
ignorant of the matter in question. But the master of the house being
dead the very next day, the soldier inquired what it meant. They told
him that it was the body of the father of his host, who had been dead
and buried for ten years, which had thus come to sit down next to him,
and had announced and caused his death.
The soldier informed the regiment of it in the first place, and the
regiment gave notice of it to the general officers, who commissioned
the Count de Cabreras, captain of the regiment of Alandetti infantry,
to make information concerning this circumstance. Having gone to the
place, with some other officers, a surgeon and an auditor, they heard
the depositions of all the people belonging to the house, who attested
unanimously that the ghost was the father of the master of the house,
and that all the soldier had said and reported was the exact truth,
which was confirmed by all the inhabitants of the village.
In consequence of this, the corpse of this spectre was exhumed, and
found to be like that of a man who has just expired, and his blood
like that of a living man. The Count de Cabreras had his head cut off,
and caused him to be laid again in his tomb. He also took information
concerning other similar ghosts, amongst others, of a man dead more
than thirty years, who had come back three times to his house at meal
time. The first time he had sucked the blood from the neck of his own
brother, the second time from one of his sons, and the third from one
of the servants in the house; and all three died of it instantly and
on the spot. Upon this deposition the commissary had this man taken
out of his grave, and finding that, like the first, his blood was in a
fluid state, like that of a living person, he ordered them to run a
large nail into his temple, and then to lay him again in the grave.
He caused a third to be burnt, who had been buried more than sixteen
years, and had sucked the blood and caused the death of two of his
sons. The commissary having made his report to the general officers,
was deputed to the court of the emperor, who commanded that some
officers, both of war and justice, some physicians and surgeons, and
some learned men, should be sent to examine the causes of these
extraordinary events. The person who related these particulars to us
had heard them from Monsieur the Count de Cabreras, at Fribourg en
Brigau, in 1730.
CHAPTER IX.
ACCOUNT OF A VAMPIRE, TAKEN FROM THE JEWISH LETTERS (LETTRES JUIVES);
LETTER 137.
This is what we read in the "Lettres Juives," new edition, 1738,
Letter 137.
We have just had in this part of Hungary a scene of vampirism, which
is duly attested by two officers of the tribunal of Belgrade, who went
down to the places specified; and by an officer of the emperor's
troops at Graditz, who was an ocular witness of the proceedings.
In the beginning of September there died in the village of Kivsiloa,
three leagues from Graditz, an old man who was sixty-two years of age.
Three days after he had been buried, he appeared in the night to his
son, and asked him for something to eat; the son having given him
something, he ate and disappeared. The next day the son recounted to
his neighbors what had happened. That night the father did not appear;
but the following night he showed himself, and asked for something to
eat. They know not whether the son gave him anything or not; but the
next day he was found dead in his bed. On the same day, five or six
persons fell suddenly ill in the village, and died one after the other
in a few days.
The officer or bailiff of the place, when informed of what had
happened, sent an account of it to the tribunal of Belgrade, which
dispatched to the village two of these officers and an executioner to
examine into this affair. The imperial officer from whom we have this
account repaired thither from Graditz, to be witness of a circumstance
which he had so often heard spoken of.
They opened the graves of those who had been dead six weeks. When they
came to that of the old man, they found him with his eyes open, having
a fine color, with natural respiration, nevertheless motionless as the
dead; whence they concluded that he was most evidently a vampire. The
executioner drove a stake into his heart; they then raised a pile and
reduced the corpse to ashes. No mark of vampirism was found either on
the corpse of the son or on the others.
Thanks be to God, we are by no means credulous. We avow that all the
light which physics can throw on this fact discovers none of the
causes of it. Nevertheless, we cannot refuse to believe that to be
true which is juridically attested, and by persons of probity. We will
here give a copy of what happened in 1732, and which we inserted in
the Gleaner (_Glaneur_), No. XVIII.
CHAPTER X.
OTHER INSTANCES OF GHOSTS--CONTINUATION OF THE GLEANER.
In a certain canton of Hungary, named in Latin _Oppida Heidanum_,
beyond the Tibisk, _vulgo_ Teiss, that is to say, between that river
which waters the fortunate territory of Tokay and Transylvania, the
people known by the name of _Heyducqs_[463] believe that certain dead
persons, whom they call vampires, suck all the blood from the living,
so that these become visibly attenuated, whilst the corpses, like
leeches, fill themselves with blood in such abundance that it is seen
to come from them by the conduits, and even oozing through the pores.
This opinion has just been confirmed by several facts which cannot be
doubted, from the rank of the witnesses who have certified them. We
will here relate some of the most remarkable.
About five years ago, a certain Heyducq, inhabitant of Madreiga, named
Arnald Paul, was crushed to death by the fall of a wagonload of hay.
Thirty days after his death four persons died suddenly, and in the
same manner in which according to the tradition of the country, those
die who are molested by vampires. They then remembered that this
Arnald Paul had often related that in the environs of Cassovia, and on
the frontiers of Turkish Servia, he had often been tormented by a
Turkish vampire; for they believe also that those who have been
passive vampires during life become active ones after their death,
that is to say, that those who have been sucked suck also in their
turn; but that he had found means to cure himself by eating earth from
the grave of the vampire, and smearing himself with his blood; a
precaution which, however, did not prevent him from becoming so after
his death, since, on being exhumed forty days after his interment,
they found on his corpse all the indications of an arch-vampire. His
body was red, his hair, nails, and beard had all grown again, and his
veins were replete with fluid blood, which flowed from all parts of
his body upon the winding-sheet which encompassed him. The hadnagi, or
bailli of the village, in whose presence the exhumation took place,
and who was skilled in vampirism, had, according to custom, a very
sharp stake driven into the heart of the defunct Arnald Paul, and
which pierced his body through and through, which made him, as they
say, utter a frightful shriek, as if he had been alive: that done,
they cut off his head, and burnt the whole body. After that they
performed the same on the corpses of the four other persons who died
of vampirism, fearing that they in their turn might cause the death of
others.
All these performances, however, could not prevent the recommencement
of these fatal prodigies towards the end of last year, that is to say,
five years after, when several inhabitants of the same village
perished miserably. In the space of three months, seventeen persons of
different sexes and different ages died of vampirism; some without
being ill, and others after languishing two or three days. It is
reported, amongst other things, that a girl named Stanoska, daughter
of the Heyducq Jotiuetzo, who went to bed in perfect health, awoke in
the middle of the night all in a tremble, uttering terrible shrieks,
and saying that the son of the Heyducq Millo who had been dead nine
weeks, had nearly strangled her in her sleep. She fell into a languid
state from that moment, and at the end of three days she died. What
this girl had said of Millo's son made him known at once for a
vampire: he was exhumed, and found to be such. The principal people of
the place, with the doctors and surgeons, examined how vampirism could
have sprung up again after the precautions they had taken some years
before.
They discovered at last, after much search, that the defunct Arnald
Paul had killed not only the four persons of whom we have spoken, but
also several oxen, of which the new vampires had eaten, and amongst
others the son of Millo. Upon these indications they resolved to
disinter all those who had died within a certain time, &c. Amongst
forty, seventeen were found with all the most evident signs of
vampirism; so they transfixed their hearts and cut off their heads
also, and then cast their ashes into the river.
All the informations and executions we have just mentioned were made
juridically, in proper form, and attested by several officers who were
garrisoned in the country, by the chief surgeons of the regiments, and
by the principal inhabitants of the place. The verbal process of it
was sent towards the end of last January to the Imperial Counsel of
War at Vienna, which had established a military commission to examine
into the truth of all these circumstances.
Such was the declaration of the Hadnagi Barriarar and the ancient
Heyducqs; and it was signed by Battuer, first lieutenant of the
regiment of Alexander of Wurtemburg, Clickstenger, surgeon-in-chief of
the regiment of Frustemburch, three other surgeons of the company, and
Guoichitz, captain at Stallach.
Footnotes:
[463] This story is apparently the same which we related before under
the name of Haidamaque, and which happened in 1729 or 1730.
CHAPTER XI.
ARGUMENTS OF THE AUTHOR OF THE "LETTRES JUIVES," ON THE SUBJECT OF
THESE PRETENDED GHOSTS.
There are two different ways of effacing the opinion concerning these
pretended ghosts, and showing the impossibility of the effects which
are made to be produced by corpses entirely deprived of sensation. The
first is, to explain by physical causes all the prodigies of
vampirism; the second is, to deny totally the truth of these stories;
and the latter means, without doubt, is the surest and the wisest. But
as there are persons to whom the authority of a certificate given by
people in a certain place appears a plain demonstration of the
reality of the most absurd story, before I show how little they ought
to rely on the formalities of the law in matters which relate solely
to philosophy, I will for a moment suppose that several persons do
really die of the disease which they term vampirism.
I lay down at first this principle, that it may be that there are
corpses which, although interred some days, shed fluid blood through
the conduits of their body. I add, moreover, that it is very easy for
certain people to fancy themselves sucked by vampires, and that the
fear caused by that fancy should make a revolution in their frame
sufficiently violent to deprive them of life. Being occupied all day
with the terror inspired by these pretended ghosts or _revenans_, is
it very extraordinary, that during their sleep the idea of these
phantoms should present itself to their imagination and cause them
such violent terror? that some of them die of it instantaneously, and
others a short time afterwards? How many instances have we not seen of
people who expired with fright in a moment? and has not joy itself
sometimes produced an equally fatal effect?
I have seen in the Leipsic journals[464] an account of a little work
entitled, _Philosophicae et Christianae Cogitationes de Vampiriis, a
Joanne Christophoro Herenbergio_; "Philosophical and Christian
Thoughts upon Vampires, by John Christopher Herenberg," at
Gerolferliste, in 1733, in 8vo. The author names a pretty large number
of writers who have already discussed this matter; he speaks, _en
passant_, of a spectre which appeared to him at noonday. He maintains
that the vampires do not cause the death of the living, and that all
that is said about them ought to be attributed only to the troubled
fancy of the invalids; he proves by divers experiments that the
imagination is capable of causing very great derangements in the body,
and the humors of the body; he shows that in Sclavonia they impaled
murderers, and drove a stake through the heart of the culprit; that
they used the same chastisement for vampires, supposing them to be the
authors of the death of those whose blood they were said to suck. He
gives some examples of this punishment exercised upon them, the one in
the year 1337, and the other in 1347. He speaks of the opinion of
those who believe that the dead eat in their tombs; a sentiment of
which he endeavors to prove the antiquity by the authority of
Tertullian, at the beginning of his book on the Resurrection, and by
that of St. Augustine, b. viii. c. 27, on the City of God, and in
Sermon xv. on the Saints.
Such are nearly the contents of the work of M. Herenberg on vampires.
The passage of Tertullian[465] which he cites, proves very well that
the pagans offered food to their dead, even to those whose bodies had
been burned, believing that their spirits regaled themselves with it:
_Defunctis parentant, et quidem impensissimo studio, pro moribus eorum
pro temporibus esculentorum, ut quos sentire quicquam negant escam
desiderare proesumant._ This concerns only the pagans.
But St. Augustine, in several places, speaks of the custom of the
Christians, above all those of Africa, of carrying to the tombs meats
and wine, which they placed upon them as a repast of devotion, and to
which the poor were invited, in whose favor these offerings were
principally instituted. This practice is founded on the passage of the
book of Tobit;--"Place your bread and wine on the sepulchre of the
just, and be careful not to eat or drink of it with sinners." St.
Monico, the mother of St. Augustine,[466] having desired to do at
Milan what she had been accustomed to do in Africa, St. Ambrose,
bishop of Milan, testified that he did not approve of this practice,
which was unknown in his church. The holy woman restrained herself to
carrying thither a basket full of fruits and wine, of which she
partook very soberly with the women who accompanied her, leaving the
rest for the poor. St. Augustine remarks, in the same passage, that
some intemperate Christians abused these offerings by drinking wine to
excess: _Ne ulla occasio se ingurgitandi daretur ebriosis._
St. Augustine,[467] however, by his preaching and remonstrances, did
so much good, that he entirely uprooted this custom, which was common
throughout the African Church, and the abuse of which was too general.
In his books on the City of God,[468] he avows that this usage is
neither general nor approved in the Church, and that those who
practice it content themselves with offering this food upon the tombs
of the martyrs, in order that through their merits these offerings
should be sanctified; after which they carry them away, and make use
of them for their own nourishment and that of the poor: _Quicumque
suas epulas eo deferant, quad quidem a melioribus Christianis non fit,
et in plerisque terrarum nulla talis est consuetudo; tamen quicumque
id faciunt, quas cum appossuerint, orant, et auferunt, ut vescantur
vel ex eis etiam indigentibus largiantur._ It appears, from two
sermons which have been attributed to St. Augustine,[469] that in
former times this custom had crept in at Rome, but did not subsist
there any time, and was blamed and condemned.
Now, if it were true that the dead could eat in their tombs, and that
they had a wish or occasion to eat, as is believed by those of whom
Tertullian speaks, and as it appears may be inferred from the custom
of carrying fruit and wine to be placed on the graves of martyrs and
other Christians, I think even that I have good proof that in certain
places they placed near the bodies of the dead, whether buried in the
cemeteries or the churches, meat, wine, and other liquors. I have in
our study several vases of clay and glass, and even plates, where may
be seen small bones of pig and fowls, all found deep underground in
the church of the Abbey of St. Mansuy, near the town of Toul.
It has been remarked to me that these vestiges found in the ground
were plunged in virgin earth which had never been disturbed, and near
certain vases or urns filled with ashes, and containing some small
bones which the flames could not consume; and as it is known that the
Christians did not burn their dead, and that these vases we are
speaking of are placed beneath the disturbed earth, in which the
graves of Christians are found, it has been inferred, with much
semblance of probability, that these vases with the food and beverage
buried near them, were intended not for Christians but for heathens.
The latter, then, at least, believed that the dead ate in the other
life. There is no doubt that the ancient Gauls[470] were persuaded of
this; they are often represented on their tombs with bottles in their
hands, and baskets and other comestibles, or drinking vessels and
goblets;[471] they carried with them even the contracts and bonds for
what was due to them, to have it paid to them in Hades. _Negotiorum
ratio, etiam exactio crediti deferebatur ad inferos._
Now, if they believed that the dead ate in their tombs, that they
could return to earth, visit, console, instruct, or disturb the
living, and predict to them their approaching death, the return of
vampires is neither impossible nor incredible in the opinion of these
ancients.
But as all that is said of dead men who eat in their graves and out of
their graves is chimerical and beyond all likelihood, and the thing is
even impossible and incredible, whatever may be the number and quality
of those who have believed it, or appeared to believe it, I shall
always say that the return (to earth) of the vampires is
unmaintainable and impracticable.
Footnotes:
[464] Supplem. ad visu Erudit. Lips. an. 1738, tom. ii.
[465] Tertull. de Resurrect. initio.
[466] Aug. Confess. lib. vi. c. 2.
[467] Aug. Epist. 22, ad Aurel. Carthag. et Epist. 29, ad Alipi. Item
de Moribus Eccl. c. 34.
[468] Aug. lib. viii. de Civit. Dei, c. 27.
[469] Aug. Serm. 35, de Sanctis, nunc in Appendice, c. 5. Serm. cxc.
cxci. p. 328.
[470] Antiquite expliquee, tom. iv. p. 80.
[471] Mela. lib. ii. c. 4.
CHAPTER XII.
CONTINUATION OF THE ARGUMENT OF THE "DUTCH GLEANERS," OR "GLANEUR
HOLLANDAIS."
On examining the narrative of the death of the pretended martyrs of
vampirism, I discover the symptoms of an epidemical fanaticism; and I
see clearly that the impression made upon them by fear is the true
cause of their being lost. A girl named Stanoska, say they, daughter
of the Heyducq Sovitzo, who went to bed in perfect health, awoke in
the middle of the night all in a tremble, and shrieking dreadfully,
saying that the son of the Heyducq Millo, who had been dead for nine
weeks, had nearly strangled her in her sleep. From that moment she
fell into a languishing state, and at the end of three days died.
For any one who has eyes, however little philosophical they may be,
must not this recital alone clearly show him that this pretended
vampirism is merely the result of a stricken imagination? There is a
girl who awakes and says that some one wanted to strangle her, and who
nevertheless has not been sucked, since her cries have prevented the
vampire from making his repast. She apparently was not so served
afterwards either, since, doubtlessly, they did not leave her by
herself during the other nights; and if the vampire had wished to
molest her, her moans would have warned those of it who were present.
Nevertheless, she dies three days afterwards. Her fright and lowness,
her sadness and languor, evidently show how strongly her imagination
had been affected.
Those persons who find themselves in cities afflicted with the plague,
know by experience how many people lose their lives through fear. As
soon as a man finds himself attacked with the least illness, he
fancies that he is seized with the epidemical disease, which idea
occasions him so great a sensation, that it is almost impossible for
the system to resist such a revolution. The Chevalier de Maifin
assured me, when I was at Paris, that being at Marseilles during the
contagion which prevailed in that city, he had seen a woman die of the
fear she felt at a slight illness of her servant, whom she believed
attacked with the pestilence. This woman's daughter was sick and near
dying.
Other persons who were in the same house went to bed, sent for a
doctor, and assured him they had the plague. The doctor, on arriving,
visited the servant, and the other patients, and none of them had the
epidemical disorder. He tried to calm their minds, and ordered them to
rise, and live in their usual way; but his care was useless as
regarded the mistress of the family, who died in two days of the
fright alone.
Reflect upon the second narrative of the death of a passive vampire,
and you will see most evident proofs of the terrible effects of fear
and prejudice. (See the preceding chapter.) This man, three days after
he was buried, appears in the night to his son, asks for something to
eat, eats, and disappears. On the morrow, the son relates to his
neighbors what had happened to him. That night the father does not
appear; but the following night they find the son dead in his bed. Who
cannot perceive in these words the surest marks of prepossession and
fear? The first time these act upon the imagination of the pretended
victim of vampirism they do not produce their entire effect, and not
only dispose his mind to be more vividly struck by them; that also
does not fail to happen, and to produce the effect which would
naturally follow.
Notice well that the dead man did not return on the night of the day
that his son communicated his dream to his friends, because, according
to all appearances, these sat up with him, and prevented him from
yielding to his fear.
I now come to those corpses full of fluid blood, and whose beard, hair
and nails had grown again. One may dispute three parts of these
prodigies, and be very complaisant if we admit the truth of a few of
them. All philosophers know well enough how much the people, and even
certain historians, enlarge upon things which appear but a little
extraordinary. Nevertheless, it is not impossible to explain their
cause physically.
Experience teaches us that there are certain kinds of earth which will
preserve dead bodies perfectly fresh. The reasons of this have been
often explained, without my giving myself the trouble to make a
particular recital of them. There is at Thoulouse a vault in a church
belonging to some monks, where the bodies remain so entirely perfect
that there are some which have been there nearly two centuries, and
appear still living.
They have been ranged in an upright posture against the wall, and are
clothed in the dress they usually wore. What is very remarkable is,
that the bodies which are placed on the other side of this same vault
become in two or three days the food of worms.
As to the growth of the nails, the hair and the beard, it is often
perceived in many corpses. While there yet remains a great deal of
moisture in the body, it is not surprising that during some time we
see some augmentation in those parts which do not demand a vital
spirit.
The fluid blood flowing through the canals of the body seems to form a
greater difficulty; but physical reasons may be given for this. It
might very well happen that the heat of the sun warming the nitrous
and sulphureous particles which are found in those earths that are
proper for preserving the body, those particles having incorporated
themselves in the newly interred corpses, ferment, decoagulate, and
melt the curdled blood, render it liquid, and give it the power of
flowing by degrees through all the channels.
This opinion appears so much the more probable from its being
confirmed by an experiment. If you boil in a glass or earthen vessel
one part of chyle, or milk, mixed with two parts of cream of tartar,
the liquor will turn from white to red, because the tartaric salt will
have rarified and entirely dissolved the most oily part of the milk,
and converted it into a kind of blood. That which is formed in the
vessels of the body is a little redder, but it is not thicker; it is,
then, not impossible that the heat may cause a fermentation which
produces nearly the same effects as this experiment. And this will be
found easier, if we consider that the juices of the flesh and bones
resemble chyle very much, and that the fat and marrow are the most
oily parts of the chyle. Now all these particles in fermenting must,
by the rule of the experiment, be changed into a kind of blood. Thus,
besides that which has been discoagulated and melted, the pretended
vampires shed also that blood which must be formed from the melting of
the fat and marrow.
CHAPTER XIII.
NARRATION EXTRACTED FROM THE "MERCURE GALENT" OF 1693 AND 1694,
CONCERNING GHOSTS.
The public memorials of the years 1693 and 1694 speak of _oupires_,
vampires or ghosts, which are seen in Poland, and above all in Russia.
They make their appearance from noon to midnight, and come and suck the
blood of living men or animals in such abundance that sometimes it flows
from them at the nose, and principally at the ears, and sometimes the
corpse swims in its own blood oozed out in its coffin.[472] It is said
that the vampire has a sort of hunger, which makes him eat the linen
which envelops him. This reviving being, or _oupire_, comes out of his
grave, or a demon in his likeness, goes by night to embrace and hug
violently his near relations or his friends, and sucks their blood so
much as to weaken and attenuate them, and at last cause their death.
This persecution does not stop at one single person; it extends to the
last person of the family, if the course be not interrupted by cutting
off the head or opening the heart of the ghost, whose corpse is found in
his coffin, yielding, flexible, swollen, and rubicund, although he may
have been dead some time. There proceeds from his body a great quantity
of blood, which some mix up with flour to make bread of; and that bread
eaten in ordinary protects them from being tormented by the spirit,
which returns no more.
Footnotes:
[472] V. Moreri on the word _stryges_.
CHAPTER XIV.
CONJECTURES OF THE "GLANEUR DE HOLLANDE," DUTCH GLEANER, IN 1733.--NO.
IX.
The Dutch Gleaner, who is by no means credulous, supposes the truth of
these facts as certain, having no good reason for disputing them, and
reasons upon them in a way which shows he thinks lightly of the
matter; he asserts that the people, amongst whom vampires are seen,
are very ignorant and very credulous, so that the apparitions we are
speaking of are only the effects of a prejudiced fancy. The whole is
occasioned and augmented by the bad nourishment of these people, who,
the greater part of their time, eat only bread made of oats, roots,
and the bark of trees--aliments which can only engender gross blood,
which is consequently much disposed to corruption, and produces dark
and bad ideas in the imagination.
He compares this disease to the bite of a mad dog, which communicates
its venom to the person who is bitten; thus, those who are infected by
vampirism communicate this dangerous poison to those with whom they
associate. Thence the wakefulness, dreams, and pretended apparitions
of vampires.
He conjectures that this poison is nothing else than a worm, which
feeds upon the purest substance of man, constantly gnaws his heart,
makes the body die away, and does not forsake it even in the depth of
the grave. It is certain that the bodies of those who have been
poisoned, or who die of contagion, do not become stiff after their
death, because the blood does not congeal in the veins; on the
contrary, it rarifies and bubbles much the same as in vampires, whose
beard, hair, and nails grow, whose skin is rosy, who appear to have
grown fat, on account of the blood which swells and abounds in them
everywhere.
As to the cry uttered by the vampires when the stake is driven through
their heart, nothing is more natural; the air which is there confined,
and thus expelled with violence, necessarily produces that noise in
passing through the throat. Dead bodies often do as much without being
touched. He concludes that it is only an imagination that is deranged
by melancholy or superstition, which can fancy that the malady we have
just spoken of can be produced by vampire corpses, which come and suck
away, even to the last drop, all the blood in the body.
A little before, he says that in 1732 they discovered again some
vampires in Hungary, Moravia, and Turkish Servia; that this phenomenon
is too well averred for it to be doubted; that several German
physicians have composed pretty thick volumes in Latin and German on
this matter; that the Germanic Academies and Universities still
resound with the names of Arnald Paul, of Stanoska, daughter of
Sovitzo, and of the Heyducq Millo, all famous vampires of the quarter
of Medreiga, in Hungary.
Here is a letter which has been written to one of my friends, to be
communicated to me; it is on the subject of the ghosts of
Hungary;[473] the writer thinks very differently from the Gleaner on
the subject of vampires.
"In reply to the questions of the Abbe dom Calmet concerning vampires,
the undersigned has the honor to assure him that nothing is more true
or more certain than what he will doubtless have read about it in the
deeds or attestations which have been made public, and printed in all
the Gazettes in Europe. But amongst all these public attestations
which have appeared, the Abbe must fix his attention as a true and
notorious fact on that of the deputation from Belgrade, ordered by his
late Majesty Charles VI., of glorious memory, and executed by his
Serene Highness the late Duke Charles Alexander of Wirtemberg, then
Viceroy or Governor of the kingdom of Servia; but I cannot at present
cite the year or the day, for want of papers which I have not now by
me.
"That prince sent off a deputation from Belgrade, half consisting of
military officers and half of civil, with the auditor-general of the
kingdom, to go to a village where a famous vampire, several years
deceased, was making great havoc amongst his kin; for note well, that
it is only in their family and amongst their own relations that these
blood-suckers delight in destroying our species. This deputation was
composed of men and persons well known for their morality and even
their information, of irreproachable character; and there were even
some learned men amongst the two orders: they were put to the oath,
and accompanied by a lieutenant of the grenadiers of the regiment of
Prince Alexander of Wirtemberg, and by twenty-four grenadiers of the
said regiment.
"All that were most respectable, and the duke himself, who was then at
Belgrade, joined this deputation in order to be ocular spectators of
the veracious proof about to be made.
"When they arrived at the place, they found that in the space of a
fortnight the vampire, uncle of five persons, nephews and nieces, had
already dispatched three of them and one of his own brothers. He had
begun with his fifth victim, the beautiful young daughter of his
niece, and had already sucked her twice, when a stop was put to this
sad tragedy by the following operations.
"They repaired with the deputed commissaries to a village not far from
Belgrade, and that publicly, at night-fall, and went to the vampire's
grave. The gentleman could not tell me the time when those who had
died had been sucked, nor the particulars of the subject. The persons
whose blood had been sucked found themselves in a pitiable state of
languor, weakness, and lassitude, so violent is the torment. He had
been interred three years, and they saw on this grave a light
resembling that of a lamp, but not so bright.
"They opened the grave, and found there a man as whole and apparently
as sound as any of us who were present; his hair, and the hairs on his
body, the nails, teeth, and eyes as firmly fast as they now are in
ourselves who exist, and his heart palpitating.
"Next they proceeded to draw him out of his grave, the body in truth
not being flexible, but wanting neither flesh nor bone; then they
pierced his heart with a sort of round, pointed, iron lance; there
came out a whitish and fluid matter mixed with blood, but the blood
prevailing more than the matter, and all without any bad smell. After
that they cut off his head with a hatchet, like what is used in
England at executions; there came out also a matter and blood like
what I have just described, but more abundantly in proportion to what
had flowed from the heart.
"And after all this they threw him back again into his grave, with
quicklime to consume him promptly; and thenceforth his niece, who had
been twice sucked, grew better. At the place where these persons are
sucked a very blue spot is formed; the part whence the blood is drawn
is not determinate, sometimes it is in one place and sometimes in
another. It is a notorious fact, attested by the most authentic
documents, and passed or executed in sight of more than 1,300 persons,
all worthy of belief.
"But I reserve, to satisfy more fully the curiosity of the learned
Abbe dom Calmet, the pleasure of detailing to him more at length what
I have seen with my own eyes on this subject, and will give it to the
Chevalier de St. Urbain to send to him; too glad in that, as in
everything else, to find an occasion of proving to him that no one is
with such perfect veneration and respect as his very humble, and very
obedient servant, L. de Beloz, ci-devant Captain in the regiment of
his Serene Highness the late Prince Alexander of Wirtemberg, and his
Aid-de-Camp, and at this time first Captain of grenadiers in the
regiment of Monsieur the Baron Trenck."
Footnotes:
[473] There is reason to believe that this is only a repetition of
what has already been said in Chapter X.
CHAPTER XV.
ANOTHER LETTER ON GHOSTS.
In order to omit nothing which can throw light on this matter, I shall
insert here the letter of a very honest man, who is well informed
respecting ghosts. This letter was written to a relation.
"You wish, my dear cousin, to be exactly informed of what takes place
in Hungary concerning ghosts who cause the death of many people in
that country. I can write to you learnedly upon it, for I have been
several years in those quarters, and I am naturally curious. I have
heard in my lifetime an infinite number of stories, true, or pretended
to be such, concerning spirits and sorceries, but out of a thousand I
have hardly believed a single one. We cannot be too circumspect on
this point without running the risk of being duped. Nevertheless,
there are certain facts so well attested that one cannot help
believing them. As to the ghosts of Hungary, the thing takes place in
this manner: A person finds himself attacked with languor, loses his
appetite, grows visibly thinner, and, at the end of eight or ten days,
sometimes a fortnight, dies, without fever, or any other symptom than
thinness and drying up of the blood.
"They say in that country that it is a ghost which attaches itself to
such a person and sucks his blood. Of those who are attacked by this
malady the greater part think they see a white spectre which follows
them everywhere as the shadow follows the body. When we were quartered
among the Wallachians, in the ban of Temeswar, two horsemen of the
company in which I was cornet, died of this malady, and several
others, who also were attacked by it, would have died in the same
manner, if a corporal of our company had not put a stop to the
disorder by employing the remedy used by the people of the country in
such case. It is very remarkable, and although infallible, I never
read it in any ritual. This is it:--
"They choose a boy young enough to be certain that he is innocent of
any impurity; they place him on an unmutilated horse, which has never
stumbled, and is absolutely black. They make him ride about the
cemetery and pass over all the graves; that over which the animal
refuses to pass, in spite of repeated blows from a switch that is
delivered to his rider, is reputed to be filled by a vampire. They
open this grave, and find therein a corpse as fat and handsome as if
he were a man happily and quietly sleeping. They cut the throat of
this corpse with the stroke of a spade, and there flows forth the
finest vermilion blood in a great quantity. One might swear that it
was a healthy living man whose throat they were cutting. That done,
they fill up the grave, and we may reckon that the malady will cease,
and that all those who had been attacked by it will recover their
strength by degrees, like people recovering from a long illness, and
who have been greatly extenuated. That happened precisely to our
horsemen who had been seized with it. I was then commandant of the
company, my captain and my lieutenant being absent. I was piqued at
that corporal's having made the experiment without me, and I had all
the trouble in the world to resist the inclination I felt to give him
a severe caning--a merchandize which is very cheap in the emperor's
troops. I would have given the world to be present at this operation;
but I was obliged to make myself contented as it was."
A relation of this same officer has written me word, the 17th of
October, 1746, that his brother, who has served during twenty years in
Hungary, and has very curiously examined into everything which is said
there concerning ghosts, acknowledges that the people of that country
are more credulous and superstitious than other nations, and they
attribute the maladies which happen to them to spells. That as soon as
they suspect a dead person of having sent them this illness, they
inform the magistrate of it, who, on the deposition of some witnesses,
causes the dead body to be exhumed. They cut off the head with a
spade, and if a drop of blood comes from it, they conclude that it is
the blood which he has sucked from the sick person. But the person who
writes appears to me very far from believing what is thought of these
things in that country.
At Warsaw, a priest having ordered a saddler to make him a bridle for
his horse, died before the bridle was made, and as he was one of those
whom they call vampires in Poland, he came out of his grave dressed as
the ecclesiastics usually are when inhumed, took his horse from the
stable, mounted it, and went in the sight of all Warsaw to the
saddler's shop, where at first he found only the saddler's wife, who
was frightened, and called her husband; he came, and the priest having
asked for his bridle, he replied, "But you are dead, Mr. Cure." To
which he answered, "I am going to show you I am not," and at the same
time struck him so hard that the poor saddler died a few days after,
and the priest returned to his grave.
The steward of Count Simon Labienski, starost of Posnania, being dead,
the Countess Dowager de Labienski wished, from gratitude for his
services, to have him inhumed in the vault of the lords of that
family. This was done; and some time after, the sexton, who had the
care of the vault, perceived that there was some derangement in the
place, and gave notice of it to the ________, who desired, according to
the received custom in Poland, that the steward's head might be cut
off, which was done in the presence of several persons, and amongst
others of the Sieur Jouvinski, a Polish officer, and governor of the
young Count Simon Labienski, who saw that when the sexton took this
corpse out of his tomb to cut off his head, he ground his teeth, and
the blood came from him as fluidly as that of a person who died a
violent death, which caused the hair of all those who were present to
stand on end; and they dipped a white pocket-handkerchief in the blood
of this corpse, and made all the family drink some of the blood, that
they might not be tormented.
CHAPTER XVI.
PRETENDED VESTIGES OF VAMPIRISM IN ANTIQUITY.
Some learned men have thought they discovered some vestiges of
vampirism in the remotest antiquity; but all that they say of it does
not come near what is related of the vampires. The lamiae, the strigae,
the sorcerers whom they accused of sucking the blood of living
persons, and of thus causing their death, the magicians who were said
to cause the death of new-born children by charms and malignant
spells, are nothing less than what we understand by the name of
vampires; even were it to be owned that these lamiae and strigae have
really existed, which we do not believe can ever be well proved.
I own that these terms are found in the versions of Holy Scripture.
For instance, Isaiah, describing the condition to which Babylon was to
be reduced after her ruin, says that she shall become the abode of
satyrs, lamiae, and strigae (in Hebrew, _lilith_). This last term,
according to the Hebrews, signifies the same thing, as the Greeks
express by _strix_ and _lamiae_, which are sorceresses or magicians,
who seek to put to death new-born children. Whence it comes that the
Jews are accustomed to write in the four corners of the chamber of a
woman just delivered, "Adam, Eve, begone from hence _lilith_."
The ancient Greeks knew these dangerous sorceresses by the name of
_lamiae_, and they believed that they devoured children, or sucked away
all their blood till they died.[474]
The Seventy, in Isaiah, translate the Hebrew _lilith_ by _lamia_.
Euripides and the Scholiast of Aristophanes also make mention of it as
a fatal monster, the enemy of mortals. Ovid, speaking of the strigae,
describes them as dangerous birds, which fly by night, and seek for
infants to devour them and nourish themselves with their blood.[475]
These prejudices had taken such deep root in the minds of the
barbarous people that they put to death persons suspected of being
strigae, or sorceresses, and of eating people alive. Charlemagne, in
his Capitularies, which he composed for his new subjects,[476] the
Saxons, condemns to death those who shall believe that a man or a
woman are sorcerers (striges esse) and eat living men. He condemns in
the same manner those who shall have them burnt, or give their flesh
to be eaten, or shall eat of it themselves.
Wherein it may be remarked, first of all, that they believed there
were people who ate men alive; that they killed and burnt them; that
sometimes their flesh was eaten, as we have seen that in Russia they
eat bread kneaded with the blood of vampires; and that formerly their
corpses were exposed to wild beasts, as is still done in countries
where these ghosts are found, after having impaled them, or cut off
their head.
The laws of the Lombards, in the same way, forbid that the servant of
another person should be put to death as a witch, _strix_, or _masca_.
This last word, _masca_, whence _mask_, has the same signification as
the Latin _larva_, a spirit, a phantom, a spectre.
We may class in the number of ghosts the one spoken of in the
Chronicle of Sigibert, in the year 858.
Theodore de Gaza[477] had a little farm in Campania, which he had
cultivated by a laborer. As he was busy digging up the ground, he
discovered a round vase, in which were the ashes of a dead man;
directly, a spectre appeared to him, who commanded him to put this
vase back again in the ground, with what it contained, or if he did
not do so he would kill his eldest son. The laborer gave no heed to
these threats, and in a few days his eldest son was found dead in his
bed. A little time after, the same spectre appeared to him again,
reiterating the same order, and threatening to kill his second son.
The laborer gave notice of all this to his master, Theodore de Gaza,
who came himself to his farm, and had everything put back into its
place. This spectre was apparently a demon, or the spirit of a pagan
interred in that spot.
Michael Glycas[478] relates that the emperor Basilius, having lost his
beloved son, obtained by means of a black monk of Santabaren, power to
behold his said son, who had died a little while before; he saw him,
and held him embraced a pretty long time, until he vanished away in
his arms. It was, then, only a phantom which appeared in his son's
form.
In the diocese of Mayence, there was a spirit that year which made
itself manifest first of all by throwing stones, striking against the
walls of a house, as if with strong blows of a mallet; then talking,
and revealing unknown things; the authors of certain thefts, and other
things fit to spread the spirit of discord among the neighbors. At
last he directed his fury against one person in particular, whom he
liked to persecute and render odious to all the neighborhood,
proclaiming that he it was who excited the wrath of God against all
the village. He pursued him in every place, without giving him the
least moment of relaxation. He burnt all his harvest collected in his
house, and set fire to all the places he entered.
The priests exorcised, said their prayers, dashed holy water about.
The spirit threw stones at them, and wounded several persons. After
the priests had withdrawn, they heard him bemoaning himself, and
saying that he had hidden himself under the hood of a priest, whom he
named, and accused of having seduced the daughter of a lawyer of the
place. He continued these troublesome hauntings for three years, and
did not leave off till he had burnt all the houses in the village.
Here follows an instance which bears connection with what is related
of the ghosts of Hungary, who come to announce the death of their near
relations. Evodius, Bishop of Upsala, in Africa, writes to St.
Augustine, in 415,[479] that a young man whom he had with him, as a
writer, or secretary, and who led a life of rare innocence and purity,
having just died at the age of twenty-two, a virtuous widow saw in a
dream a certain deacon who, with other servants of God, of both sexes,
ornamented a palace which seemed to shine as if it were of silver.
She asked who they were preparing it for, and they told her it was for
a young man who died the day before. She afterwards beheld in the same
palace an old man, clad in white, who commanded two persons to take
this young man out of his tomb and lead him to heaven.
In the same house where this young man died, an aged man, half asleep,
saw a man with a branch of laurel in his hand, upon which something
was written.
Three days after the death of the young man, his father, who was a
priest named Armenius, having retired to a monastery to console
himself with the saintly old man, Theasus, Bishop of Manblosa, the
deceased son appeared to a monk of this monastery, and told him that
God had received him among the blessed, and that he had sent him to
fetch his father. In effect, four days after, his father had a slight
degree of fever, but it was so slight that the physician assured him
there was nothing to fear. He nevertheless took to his bed, and at the
same time, as he was yet speaking, he expired.
It was not of fright that he died, for it does not appear that he knew
anything of what the monk had seen in his dream.
The same bishop, Evodius, relates that several persons had been seen
after their death to go and come in their houses as during their
lifetime, either in the night, or even in open day. "They say also,"
adds Evodius, "that in the places where bodies are interred, and
especially in the churches, they often hear a noise at a certain hour
of the night like persons praying aloud. I remember," continues
Evodius, "having heard it said by several, and, amongst others, by a
holy priest, who was witness to these apparitions, that they had seen
coming out of the baptistry a great number of these spirits, with
shining bodies of light, and had afterwards heard them pray in the
middle of the church." The same Evodius says, moreover, that
Profuturus, Privus, and Servilius, who had lived very piously in the
monastery, had talked with himself since their death, and what they
had told him had come to pass.
St. Augustine, after having related what Evodius said, acknowledges
that a great distinction is to be made between true and false visions,
and testifies that he could wish to have some sure means of justly
discerning between them.
But who shall give us the knowledge necessary for such discerning, so
difficult and yet so requisite, since we have not even any certain and
demonstrative marks by which to discern infallibly between true and
false miracles, or to distinguish the works of the Almighty from the
illusions of the angel of darkness.
Footnotes:
[474]
"Neu pransae lamiae vivum puerum ex trahat alvo."
_Horat. Art. Poet._ 340.
[475]
"Carpere dicuntur lactentia viscera rostris,
Et plenum poco sanguine guttur habent,
Est illis strigibus nomen."
[476] Capitul. Caroli Magni pro partibus Saxoniae, i. 6:--"Si quis a
Diabolo deceptus crediderit secundum morem Paganorum, virum aliquem
aut foeminam strigem esse, et homines comedere; et propter hoc ipsum
incenderit, vel carnem ejus ad comedendum dederit, vel ipsam comederit
capitis sententia puniatur."
[477] Le Loyer, des Spectres, lib. ii. p. 427.
[478] Mich. Glycas, part iv. Annal.
[479] Aug. Epist. 658, and Epist. 258, p. 361.
CHAPTER XVII.
OF GHOSTS IN THE NORTHERN COUNTRIES.
Thomas Bartholin, the son, in his treatise entitled "_Of the Causes of
the contempt of Death felt by the Ancient Danes while yet Gentiles_,"
remarks[480] that a certain Hordus, an Icelander, saw spectres with
his bodily eyes, fought against them and resisted them. These
thoroughly believed that the spirits of the dead came back with their
bodies, which they afterwards forsook and returned to their graves.
Bartholinus relates in particular that a man named Asmond, son of
Alfus, having had himself buried alive in the same sepulchre with his
friend Asvitus, and having had victuals brought there, was taken out
from thence some time after covered with blood, in consequence of a
combat he had been obliged to maintain against Asvitus, who had
haunted him and cruelly assaulted him.