The Phantom World Part 31

[416] Tertull. de Anima, c. 57.

CHAPTER XLVII.

OBJECTIONS AGAINST APPARITIONS, AND REPLIES TO THOSE OBJECTIONS.

The greatest objection that can be raised against the apparitions of angels, demons, and disembodied souls, takes its rise in the nature of these substances, which being purely spiritual, cannot appear with evident, solid, and palpable bodies, nor perform those functions which belong only to matter, and living or animated bodies.

For, either spiritual substances are united to the bodies which appear or not. If they are not united to them, how can they move them, and cause them to act, walk, speak, reason, and eat? If they are united to them, then they form but one individual; and how can they separate themselves from them, after being united to them? Do they take them and leave them at will, as we lay aside a habit or a mask? That would be to suppose that they are at liberty to appear or disappear, which is not the case, since all apparitions are solely by the order or permission of G.o.d. Are those bodies which appear only instruments which the angels, demons, or souls make use of to affright, warn, chastise, or instruct the person or persons to whom they appear? This is, in fact, the most rational thing that can be said concerning these apparitions; the exorcisms of the church fall directly on the agent and cause of these apparitions, and not on the phantom which appears, nor on the first author, which is G.o.d, who orders and permits it.

Another objection, both very common and very striking, is that which is drawn from the mult.i.tude of false stories and ridiculous reports which are spread amongst the people, of the apparitions of spirits, demons, and elves, of possessions and obsessions.

It must be owned that, out of a hundred of these pretended appearances, hardly two will be found to be true. The ancients are not more to be credited on that point than the moderns, since they were, at least, equally as credulous as people are in our own age, or rather they were more credulous than we are at this day.

I grant that the foolish credulity of the people, and the love of everything that seems marvelous and extraordinary, have produced an infinite number of false histories on the subject we are now treating of. There are here two dangers to avoid: a too great credulity, and an excessive difficulty in believing what is above the ordinary course of nature; as likewise, we must not conclude what is general from what is particular, or make a general case of a particular one, nor say that all is false because some stories are so; also, we must not a.s.sert that such a particular history is a mere invention, because there are many stories of this latter kind. It is allowable to examine, prove, and select; we must never form our judgment but with knowledge of the case; a story may be false in many of its circ.u.mstances (as related), but true in its foundation.

The history of the deluge, and that of the pa.s.sage across the Red Sea, are certain in themselves, and in the simple and natural recital given of them by Moses. The profane historians, and some Hebrew writers, and even Christians, have added some embellishment which must militate against the story in itself. Josephus the historian has much embellished the history of Moses; Christian authors have added much to that of Josephus; the Mahometans have altered several points of the sacred history of the Old and New Testament. Must we, on this account, consider these histories as problematical? The life of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus is full of miracles, as are also those of St. Martin and St. Bernard. St. Augustine relates several miraculous cures worked by the relics of St. Stephen. Many extraordinary things are related in the life of St. Ambrose. Why not give faith to them after the testimony of these great men, and that of their disciples, who had lived with them, and had been witnesses of a good part of what they relate?

It is not permitted us to dispute the truth of the apparitions noted in the Old and New Testament; but we may be permitted to explain them.

For instance, it is said that the Lord appeared to Abraham in the valley of Mamre;[417] that he entered Abraham's tent, and that he promised him the birth of a son; also, it is allowed that he received three angels, who went from thence to Sodom. St. Paul[418] notices it expressly in his Epistle to the Hebrews; _angelis hospitio receptis_.

It is also said that the Lord appeared unto Moses, and gave him the law; and St. Stephen, in the Acts,[419] informs us that it was an angel who spoke to him from the burning bush, and on Mount h.o.r.eb; and St. Paul, writing to the Galatians, says, that the law was given by angels.[420]

Sometimes, the name of angel of the Lord is taken for a prophet, a man filled with his Spirit, and deputed by him. It is certain that the Hebrew _malae_ and the Greek _angelos_ bear the same signification as our _envoy_. For instance, at the beginning of the Book of Judges,[421] it is said that there came an angel of the Lord from Gilgal to the place of tears (or Bochim), and that he there reproved the Israelites for their infidelity and ingrat.i.tude. The ablest commentators[422] think that this _angel of the Lord_ is no other than Phineas, or the then high priest, or rather a prophet, sent expressly to the people a.s.sembled at Gilgal.

In the Scripture, the prophets are sometimes styled angels of the Lord.[423] "Here is what saith the envoy of the Lord, amongst the envoys of the Lord," says Haggai, speaking of himself.

The prophet Malachi, the last of the lesser prophets, says that "the Lord will send his angel, who will prepare the way before his face."[424] This angel is St. John the Baptist, who prepares the way for Jesus Christ, who is himself styled the Angel of the Lord--"And soon the Lord whom ye demand, and the so much desired Angel of the Lord, will come into his temple." This same Saviour is designated by Moses under the name of a prophet:[425] "The Lord will raise up in the midst of your nation, a prophet like myself." The name of angel is given to the prophet Nathan, who reproved David for his sin. I do not pretend, by these testimonies, to deny that the angels have often appeared to men; but I infer from them that sometimes these angels were only prophets or other persons, raised up and sent by G.o.d to his people.

As to apparitions of the demon, it is well to observe that in Scripture the greater part of public calamities and maladies are attributed to evil spirits; for example, it is said that Satan inspired David[426] with the idea of numbering his people; but in another place it is simply said that the anger of the Lord was inflamed[427] against Israel, and led David to cause his subjects to be numbered. There are several other pa.s.sages in the Holy Books, where they relate what the demon said and what he did, in a popular manner, by the figure termed prosopopoeia; for instance, the conversation between Satan and the first woman,[428] and the discourse which the demon holds in company with the good angels before the Lord, when he talks to him of Job,[429] and obtains permission to tempt and afflict him. In the New Testament, it appears that the Jews attributed to the malice of the demon and to his possession almost all the maladies with which they were afflicted. In St. Luke,[430] the woman who was bent and could not raise herself up, and had suffered this for eighteen years, "had," says the evangelist, "a spirit of infirmity;" and Jesus Christ, after having healed her, says "that Satan held her bound for eighteen years;" and in another place, it is said that a lunatic or epileptic person was possessed by the demon. It is clear, from what is said by St. Matthew and St. Luke,[431] that he was attacked by epilepsy. The Saviour cured him of this evil malady, and by that means took from the demon the opportunity of tormenting him still more; as David, by dissipating with the sound of his harp the sombre melancholy of Saul, delivered him from the evil spirit, who abused the power of those inclinations which he found in him, to awaken his jealousy against David. All this means, that we often ascribed to the demon things of which he is not guilty, and that we must not lightly adopt all the prejudices of the people, nor take literally all that is related of the works of Satan.

Footnotes:

[417] Gen. xviii. 10.

[418] Heb. xiii. 2.

[419] Acts vii. 30, 33.

[420] Gal. iii.

[421] Judges ii. 1.

[422] Vide commentar. in Judic. ii.

[423] Hagg. i. 13.

[424] Malac. iii. 1.

[425] Deut. xviii. 18.

[426] Chron. xxi. 1.

[427] 2 Sam. xxiv. 1.

[428] Gen. iii. 2, 3.

[429] Job i. 7-9.

[430] Luke xiii. 16.

[431] Matt. xvii. 14. Luke ix. 37.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

SOME OTHER OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES.

In order to combat the apparitions of angels, demons, and disembodied souls, we still bring forward the effects of a prepossessed fancy, struck with an idea, and of a weak and timid mind, which imagine they see and hear what subsists only in idea; we advert to the inventions of the malignant spirits, who like to make sport of and to delude us; we call to our a.s.sistance the artifices of the charlatans, who do so many things which pa.s.s for supernatural in the eyes of the ignorant.

Philosophers, by means of certain gla.s.ses, and what are called magic lanterns, by optical secrets, sympathetic powders, by their phosphorus, and lately by means of the electrical machine, show us an infinite number of things which the simpletons take for magic, because they know not how they are produced.

Eyes that are diseased do not see things as others see them, or else behold them differently. A drunken man will see objects double; to one who has the jaundice, they will appear yellow; in the obscurity, people fancy they see a spectre, when they see only the trunk of a tree.

A mountebank will appear to eat a sword; another will vomit coals or pebbles; one will drink wine and send it out again at his forehead; another will cut off his companion's head, and put it on again. You will think you see a chicken dragging a beam. The mountebank will swallow fire and vomit it forth, he will draw blood from fruit, he will send from his mouth strings of iron nails, he will put a sword on his stomach and press it strongly, and instead of running into him, it will bend back to the hilt; another will run a sword through his body without wounding himself; you will sometimes see a child without a head, then a head without a child, and all of them alive. That appears very wonderful; nevertheless, if it were known how all those things are done, people would only laugh, and be surprised that they could wonder at and admire such things.

What has not been said for and against the divining-rod of Jacques Aimar? Scripture proves to us the antiquity of divination by the divining-rod, in the instance of Nebuchadnezzar,[432] and in what is said of the prophet Hosea.[433] Fable speaks of the wonders wrought by the golden rod of Mercury. The Gauls and Germans also used the rod for divination; and there is reason to believe that often G.o.d permitted that the rods should make known by their movements what was to happen; for that reason they were consulted. Every body knows the secret of Circe's wand, which changed men into beasts. I do not compare it with the rod of Moses, by means of which G.o.d worked so many miracles in Egypt; but we may compare it with those of the magicians of Pharaoh, which produced so many marvelous effects.

Albertus Magnus relates that there had been seen in Germany two brothers, one of whom pa.s.sing near a door securely locked, and presenting his left side, would cause it to open of itself; the other brother had the same virtue in the right side. St. Augustine says that there are men[434] who move their two ears one after another, or both together, without moving their heads; others, without moving it also, make all the skin of their head with the hair thereon come down over their forehead, and put it back as it was before; some imitate so perfectly the voices of animals, that it is almost impossible not to mistake them. We have seen men speak from the hollow of the stomach, and make themselves heard as if speaking from a distance, although they were close by. Others swallow an incredible quant.i.ty of different things, and by tightening their stomachs ever so little, throw up whole, as from a bag, whatever they please. Last year, in Alsatia, there was seen and heard a German who played on two French horns at once, and gave airs in two parts, the first and the second, at the same time. Who can explain to us the secret of intermitting fevers, of the flux and reflux of the sea, and the cause of many effects which are certainly all natural?

Galen relates[435] that a physician named Theophilus, having fallen ill, fancied that he saw near his bed a great number of musicians, whose noise split his head and augmented his illness. He cried out incessantly for them to send those people away. Having recovered his health and good sense, he perfectly well remembered all that had been said to him; but he could not get those players on musical instruments out of his head, and he affirmed that they tired him to death.

In 1629, Desbordes, valet-de-chambre of Charles IV., Duke of Lorraine, was accused of having hastened the death of the Princess Christina of Salms, wife of Duke Francis II., and mother of the Duke Charles IV., and of having inflicted maladies on different persons, which maladies the doctors attribute to evil spells. Charles IV. had conceived violent suspicions against Desbordes, since one day when in a hunting-party this valet-de-chambre had served a grand dinner to the duke and his company, without any other preparation than having to open a box with three shelves; and to wind up the wonders, he had ordered three robbers, who were dead and hung to a gibbet, to come down from it, and come and make their bow to the duke, and then to go back and resume their place at the gallows. It was said, moreover, that on another occasion he had commanded the personages in a piece of tapestry to detach themselves from it, and to come and present themselves in the middle of the room.

Charles IV. was not very credulous; nevertheless, he allowed Desbordes to be tried. He was, it is said, convicted of magic, and condemned to the flames; but I have since been a.s.sured[436] that he made his escape; and some years after, on presenting himself before the duke, and clearing himself, he demanded the rest.i.tution of his property, which had been confiscated; but he recovered only a very small part of it. Since the adventure of Desbordes, the partisans of Charles IV.

wished to cast a doubt on the validity of the baptism of the d.u.c.h.ess Nichola, his wife, because she had been baptized by Lavallee, Chantre de St. George, a friend of Desbordes, and like him convicted of several crimes, which drew upon him similar condemnation. From a doubt of the baptism of the d.u.c.h.ess, they wished to infer the invalidity of her marriage with Charles, which was then the grand business of Charles IV.

Father Delrio, a Jesuit, says that the magician called Trois-Ech.e.l.les, by his enchantments, detached in the presence of King Charles IX. the rings or links of a collar of the Order of the King, worn by some knights who were at a great distance from him; he made them come into his hand, and after that replaced them, without the collar appearing deranged.

John Faust Cudlingen, a German, was requested, in a company of gay people, to perform in their presence some tricks of his trade; he promised to show them a vine loaded with grapes, ripe and ready to gather. They thought, as it was then the month of December, he could not execute his promise. He strongly recommended them not to stir from their places, and not to lift up their hands to cut the grapes, unless by his express order. The vine appeared directly, covered with leaves and loaded with grapes, to the great astonishment of all present; every one took up his knife, awaiting the order of Cudlingen to cut some grapes; but after having kept them for some time in that expectation, he suddenly caused the vine and the grapes to disappear: then every one found himself armed with his knife and holding his neighbor's nose with one hand, so that if they had cut off a bunch without the order of Cudlingen, they would have cut off one another's noses.

We have seen in these parts a horse which appeared gifted with wit and discernment, and to understand what his master said. All the secret consisted in the horse's having been taught to observe certain motions of his master; and from these motions he was led to do certain things to which he was accustomed, and to go to certain persons, which he would never have done but for the sign or motion which he saw his master make.