There had, indeed, come into the Middle Ages an inheritance of scientific thought. The ideas of Hippocrates, Celius Aurelianus, Galen, and their followers, were from time to time revived; the Arabian physicians, the School of Salerno, such writers as Salicetus and Guy de Chauliac, and even some of the religious orders, did something to keep scientific doctrines alive; but the tide of theological thought was too strong; it became dangerous even to seem to name possible limits to diabolical power. To deny Satan was atheism; and perhaps nothing did so much to fasten the epithet "atheist" upon the medical profession as the suspicion that it did not fully acknowledge diabolical interference in mental disease. Following in the lines of the earlier fathers, St. Anselm, Abelard, St. Thomas Aquinas, Vincent of Beauvais, all the great doctors in the medieval Church, some of them in spite of occasional misgivings, upheld the idea that insanity is largely or mainly demoniacal possession, basing their belief steadily on the sacred Scriptures; and this belief was followed up in every quarter by more and more constant citation of the text "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." No other text of Scripture—save perhaps one—has caused the shedding of so much innocent blood.
As we look over the history of the Middle Ages, we do, indeed, see another growth from which one might hope much; for there were two great streams of influence in the Church, and never were two powers more unlike each other.
On one side was the spirit of Christianity, as it proceeded from the heart and mind of its blessed Founder, immensely powerful in aiding the evolution of religious thought and effort, and especially of provision for the relief of suffering by religious asylums and tender care. Nothing better expresses this than the touching words inscribed upon a great medieval hospital, "Christo in pauperibus suis." But on the other side was the theological theory—proceeding, as we have seen, from the survival of ancient superstitions, and sustained by constant reference to the texts in our sacred books—that many, and probably most, of the insane were possessed by the devil or in league with him, and that the cruel treatment of lunatics was simply punishment of the devil and his minions. By this current of thought was gradually developed one of the greatest masses of superstitious cruelty that has ever afflicted humanity. At the same time the stream of Christian endeavour, so far as the insane were concerned, was almost entirely cut off. In all the beautiful provision during the Middle Ages for the alleviation of human suffering, there was for the insane almost no care. Some monasteries, indeed, gave them refuge. We hear of a charitable work done for them at the London Bethlehem Hospital in the thirteenth century, at Geneva in the fifteenth, at Marseilles in the sixteenth, by the Black Penitents in the south of France, by certain Franciscans in northern France, by the Alexian Brothers on the Rhine, and by various agencies in other parts of Europe; but, curiously enough, the only really important effort in the Christian Church was stimulated by the Mohammedans. Certain monks, who had much to do with them in redeeming Christian slaves, found in the fifteenth century what John Howard found in the eighteenth, that the Arabs and Turks made a large and merciful provision for lunatics, such as was not seen in Christian lands; and this example led to better establishments in Spain and Italy.
All honour to this work and to the men who engaged in it; but, as a rule, these establishments were few and poor, compared with those for other diseases, and they usually degenerated into "mad-houses," where devils were cast out mainly by cruelty.(349)
(349) For a very full and learned, if somewhat one-sided, account of the
earlier effects of this stream of charitable thought, see Tollemer, Des
Origines de la Charite Catholique, Paris, 1858. It is instructive to
note that, while this book is very full in regard to the action of the
Church on slavery and on provision for the widows and orphans, the sick,
infirm, captives, and lepers, there is hardly a trace of any care for
the insane. This same want is incidentally shown by a typical example
in Kriegk, Aerzte, Heilanstalten und Geisteskranke im mittelalterlichen
Frankfurt, Frankfurt a. M., 1863, pp. 16, 17; also Kirschhof, pp. 396,
397. On the general subject, see Semelaigne, as above, p. 214; also
Calmeil, vol. i, pp. 116, 117. For the effect of Muslem example in Spain
and Italy, see Krafft-Ebing, as above, p. 45, note.
The first main weapon against the indwelling Satan continued to be the exorcism; but under the influence of inferences from Scripture farther and farther fetched, and of theological reasoning more and more subtle, it became something very different from the gentle procedure of earlier times, and some description of this great weapon at the time of its highest development will throw light on the laws which govern the growth of theological reasoning, as well as upon the main subject in hand.
A fundamental premise in the fully developed exorcism was that, according to sacred Scripture, a main characteristic of Satan is pride. Pride led him to rebel; for pride he was cast down; therefore the first thing to do, in driving him out of a lunatic, was to strike a fatal blow at his pride,—to disgust him.
This theory was carried out logically, to the letter. The treatises on the subject simply astound one by their wealth of blasphemous and obscene epithets which it was allowable for the exorcist to use in casting out devils. The Treasury of Exorcisms contains hundreds of pages packed with the vilest epithets which the worst imagination could invent for the purpose of overwhelming the indwelling Satan.(350)
(350) Thesaurus Exorcismorum atque Conjurationum terribilium,
potentissimorum, efficacissimorum, cum PRACTICA probatissima: quibus
spiritus maligni, Daemones Maleficiaque omnia de Corporibus humanis
obsessis, tanquam Flagellis Fustibusque fugantur, expelluntur,...
Cologne, 1626. Many of the books of the exorcists were put upon the
various indexes of the Church, but this, the richest collection of all,
and including nearly all those condemned, was not prohibited until
1709. Scarcely less startling manuals continued even later in use; and
exorcisms adapted to every emergency may of course still be found in all
the Benedictionals of the Church, even the latest. As an example, see
the Manuale Benedictionum, published by the Bishop of Passau in 1849, or
the Exorcismus in Satanam, etc., issued in 1890 by the present Pope, and
now on sale at the shop of the Propoganda in Rome.
Some of those decent enough to be printed in these degenerate days ran as follows: