"These," adds the reverend father who writes to me, "are the causes of my doubting if the third dissertation was added to the two others with your knowledge. I suspected that the printer, of his own accord, or persuaded by evil intentioned persons, might have added it himself, and without your participation, although under your name. For I said to myself, either the reverend father approves this dissertation, or he does not approve of it. It appears that he approves of it, since he says that it is from a clever writer, and he would wish to preserve it from oblivion.
"Now, how can he approve a dissertation false in itself and contrary to himself? If he approves it not, is it not too much to unite to his work a foolish composition full of falsehoods, disguises, false and weak arguments, opposed to the common belief, the customs, and prayers of the church; consequently dangerous, and quite favorable to the free and incredulous thinkers which this age is so full of? Ought he not rather to combat this writing, and show its weakness, falsehood, and dangerous tendency? There, my reverend father, lies all my difficulty."
Others have sent me word that they could have wished that I had treated the subject of apparitions in the same way as the author of this dissertation, that is to say, simply as a philosopher, with the aim of destroying the credence and reality, rather than with any design of supporting the belief in apparitions which is so observable in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, in the fathers, and in the customs and prayers of the church. The author of whom we speak has cited the fathers, but in a general manner, and without marking the testimonies, and the express and formal passages. I do not know if he thinks much of them, and if he is well versed in them, but it would hardly appear so from his work.
The grand principle on which this third dissertation turns is, that since the advent and the death of Jesus Christ, all the power of the devil is limited to enticing, inspiring, and persuading to evil; but for the rest, he is tied up like a lion or a dog in his prison. He may bark, he may menace, but he cannot bite unless he is too nearly approached and yielded to, as St. Augustine truly says:[[649]] "Mordere omnino non potest nisi volentem."
But to pretend that Satan can do no harm, either to the health of mankind, or to the fruits of the earth; can neither attack us by his stratagems, his malice, and his fury against us, nor torment those whom he pursues or possesses; that magicians and wizards can make use of no spells and charms to cause both men and animals dreadful maladies, and even death, is a direct attack on the faith of the church, the Holy Scriptures, the most sacred practices, and the opinions of not only the holy fathers and the best theologians, but also on the laws and ordinances of princes, and the decrees of the most respectable parliaments.
I will not here cite the instances taken from the Old Testament, the author having limited himself to what has passed since the death and resurrection of our Saviour; because, he says, Jesus Christ has destroyed the kingdom of Satan, and the prince of this world is already judged.[[650]]
St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, and the Evangelists, who were well informed of the words of the Son of God, and the sense given to them, teach us that Satan asked to have power over the apostles of Jesus Christ, to sift them like wheat;[[651]] that is to say, to try them by persecutions and make them renounce the faith. Does not St. Paul complain of the angel of Satan who buffeted him?[[652]] Did those whom he gave up to Satan for their crimes,[[653]] suffer nothing bodily? Those who took the communion unworthily, and were struck with sickness, or even with death, did they not undergo these chastisements by the operation of the demon?[[654]] The apostle warns the Corinthians not to suffer themselves to be surprised by Satan, who sometimes transforms himself into an angel of light.[[655]] The same apostle, speaking to the Thessalonians, says to them, that before the last day antichrist will appear,[[656]] according to the working of Satan, with extraordinary power, with wonders and deceitful signs. In the Apocalypse the demon is the instrument made use of by God, to punish mortals and make them drink of the cup of his wrath. Does not St. Peter[[657]] tell us that "the devil prowls about us like a roaring lion, always ready to devour us?" And St. Paul to the Ephesians,[[658]] "that we have to fight not against men of flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the princes of this world," that is to say, of this age of darkness, "against the spirits of malice spread about in the air?"
The fathers of the first ages speak often of the power that the Christians exercised against the demons, against those who called themselves diviners, against magicians and other subalterns of the devil; principally against those who were possessed, who were then frequently seen, and are so still from time to time, both in the church and out of the church. Exorcisms and other prayers of the church have always been employed against these, and with success. Emperors and kings have employed their authority and the rigor of the laws against those who have devoted themselves to the service of the demon, and used spells, charms, and other methods which the demon employs, to entice and destroy both men and animals, or the fruits of the country.
We might add to the remarks of the reverend Dominican father divers other propositions drawn from the same work; for instance, when the author says that "the angels know everything here below; for if it is by means of specialties, which God communicates to them every day, as St. Augustine thinks, there is no reason to believe that they do not know all the wants of mankind, and that they cannot console and strengthen them, render themselves visible to them by the permission of God, without always receiving from him an express order so to do."
This proposition is rather rash: it is not certain that the angels know everything that passes here below. Jesus Christ, in St. Matthew xxiv. 36, says that the angels do not know the day of his coming. It is still more doubtful that the angels can appear without an express command from God, and that St. Augustine has so taught.