CHAPTER XXXI.
SPIRITS THAT KEEP WATCH OVER TREASURE.
Everybody acknowledges that there is an infinity of riches buried in the earth, or lost under the waters by shipwrecks; they fancy that the demon, whom they look upon as the god of riches, the god Mammon, the Pluto of the pagans, is the depositary, or at least the guardian, of these treasures. He said to Jesus Christ,[[292]] when he tempted him in the wilderness, showing to him all the kingdoms of the earth, and their glory: "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." We know also that the ancients very often interred vast treasures in the tombs of the dead; either that the dead might make use of them in the other world, or that their souls might keep guard over them in those gloomy places. Job seems to make allusion to this ancient custom, when he says,[[293]] "Would to God I had never been born: I should now sleep with the kings and great ones of the earth, who built themselves solitary places; like unto those who seek for treasure, and are rejoiced when they find a tomb;" doubtless because they hope to find great riches therein.
There were very precious things in the tomb of Cyrus. Semiramis caused to be engraved on her own mausoleum that it contained great riches. Josephus[[294]] relates that Solomon placed great treasures in the tomb of David his father; and that the High-Priest Hyrcanus, being besieged in Jerusalem by King Antiochus, took thence three thousand talents. He says, moreover, that years after, Herod the Great having caused this tomb to be searched, took from it large sums. We see several laws against those who violate sepulchres to take out of them the precious things they contain. The Emperor Marcianus[[295]] forbade that riches should be hidden in tombs. If such things have been placed in the mausoleums of worthy and holy persons, and if they have been discovered through the revelation of the good spirits of persons who died in the faith and grace of God, we cannot conclude from those things that all hidden treasures are in the power of the demon, and that he alone knows anything of them; the good angels know of them; and the saints may be much more faithful guardians of them than the demons, who usually have no power to enrich, or to deliver from the horrors of poverty, from punishment and death itself, those who yield themselves to them in order to receive some reward from them.
Melancthon relates[[296]] that the demon informed a priest where a treasure was hid; the priest, accompanied by one of his friends, went to the spot indicated; they saw there a black dog lying on a chest. The priest, having entered to take out the treasure, was crushed and smothered under the ruins of the cavern.
M. Remy,[[297]] in his Demonology, speaks of several persons whose causes he had heard in his quality of Lieutenant-General of Lorraine, at the time when that country swarmed with wizards and witches; those amongst them who believed they had received money from the demon, found nothing in their purses but bits of broken pots, coals, or leaves of trees, or other things equally vile and contemptible.
The Reverend Father Abram, a Jesuit, in his manuscript History of the University of Pont à Mousson, reports that a youth of good family, but small fortune, placed himself at first to serve in the army among the valets and serving men: from thence his parents sent him to school, but not liking the subjection which study requires, he quitted the school and returned to his former kind of life. On his way he met a man dressed in a silk coat, but ill-looking, dark, and hideous, who asked him where he was going to, and why he looked so sad: "I am able to set you at your ease," said this man to him, "if you will give yourself to me."
The young man, believing that he wished to engage him as a servant, asked for time to reflect upon it; but beginning to mistrust the magnificent promises which he made him, he looked at him more narrowly, and having remarked that his left foot was divided like that of an ox, he was seized with affright, made the sign of the cross, and called on the name of Jesus, when the spectre directly disappeared.
Three days after, the same figure appeared to him again, and asked him if he had made up his mind; the young man replied that he did not want a master. The spectre said to him, "Where are you going?" "I am going to such a town," replied he. At that moment the demon threw at his feet a purse which chinked, and which he found filled with thirty or forty Flemish crowns, amongst which were about twelve which appeared to be gold, newly coined, and as if from the stamps of the coiner. In the same purse was a powder, which the spectre said was of a very subtile quality.
At the same time, he gave him abominable counsels to satisfy the most shameful passions; and exhorted him to renounce the use of holy water, and the adoration of the host—which he called in derision that little cake. The boy was horrified at these proposals, and made the sign of the cross on his heart; and at the same time he felt himself thrown roughly down on the ground, where he remained for half an hour, half dead. Having got up again, he returned home to his mother, did penance, and changed his conduct. The pieces of money which looked like gold and newly coined, having been put in the fire, were found to be only of copper.