This partiality of devils for flagellation can most probably be attributed to their horribly jealous disposition; for it is well known that the saints took great delight in fustigating, not only those who offended them, but their most faithful votaries. Flagellation was therefore the most grateful punishment that could be inflicted to propitiate the beatified; and we have several well-authenticated facts which prove that the Virgin was frequently appeased by this practice. Under the pontificate of Sextus IV., a heterodox professor of divinity, who had written against the tabernacle, was flogged publicly by a pious monk, to the great edification of the by-standers, more particularly the ladies. The description of this operation would lose materially by translation, I therefore give it in the original. “Apprehendens ipsum revolvit super ejus genua; erat enim valdè fortis. Elevatis itaque pannis, quia ille minister contra sanctum Dei tabernaculum locutus fuerat, cœpit cum palmis percutere super quadrata tabernacula quæ erant nuda, non enim habebat femoralia vel antiphonam; et quia ipse infamare voluerat beatam Virginem, allegando forsitan Aristotelem in libro priorum, iste prædicator illum confutavit legendo in libro ejus posteriorum: de hoc autem omnes qui aderant gaudebant. Tunc exclamavit quædam devota mulier, dicens, ‘Domine Prædicator, detis ei alios quatuor palmatus pro me; et alia postmodum dixit, ‘Detis ei etiam quatuor; sicque multæ aliæ rogabant, ita quòd si illarum petitionibus satisfacere voluisset, per totum diem aliud facere non potuisset.”
We need not seek for similar instances of the mighty power of proper fustigation in foreign parts. The Annals of Wales record a singular instance of the kind, which happened in the year 1188, as related by Silvester Gerald, in such a circumstantial manner that the most obdurate incredulity alone could doubt the fact:—“On the other side of the river Humber,” he says, “in the parish of Hoëden, lived the rector of that church, with his concubine. This concubine, one day, sat rather imprudently on the tomb of St. Osanna, sister to King Osred, which was made of wood, and raised above the ground in the shape of a seat: when she attempted to rise from that place, she stuck to the wood in such a manner that she could not be parted from it, till, in the presence of the people who flocked to see her, she had suffered her clothes to be torn from her, and had received a severe discipline on her naked body, and that too to a great effusion of blood, and with many tears and devout supplications on her part; which done, and after she had engaged to submit to further penitence, she was divinely released.”
In this instance, as in many others, freedom from vulgar habiliments appears to have been considered as acceptable to Heaven; so much so, indeed, that the state of greater or lesser nudity has been commensurate with the degree of the offence. The Cynic philosophers of Greece, among whom Diogenes made himself most conspicuous, used to appear in public without a rag upon them. The Indian wise men, called Gymnosophists, or naked sages, indulged in the same vagaries. In more modern times, the Adamites appeared in the simple condition of our first father. In the 13th century, a sect called Les Turlupins (a denomination which appears to have been an opprobrious nickname), perambulated France, disencumbered of vain accoutrements; and, in 1535, some Anabaptists made an excursion in Amsterdam in the condition in which they had quitted their baths, for which breach of decorum the impious burgomasters had them bastinadoed. We further read of one Friar Juniperus, a worthy Franciscan, who, according to history, “entered the town of Viterboo, and, while he stood within the gate, he put his hose on his head, and his gown being tied round his neck in the shape of a load, he walked through the streets of the town, where he suffered much abuse and maltreatment from the wicked inhabitants; and, still in the same situation, he went to the convent of the brothers, who all exclaimed against him, but he cared little for them, so holy was the good little brother (tam sanctus fuit iste fraticellus).”
The pranks of brother Juniper have been performed at sundry periods by various holy men. Are we not warranted in conceiving that these individuals were dæmonomaniacs? for surely the devil alone could have inspired them with such fancies, although Cardinal Damian defends the practice in the following terms, when speaking of the day of judgment: “Then shall the sun lose its lustre, the moon shall be involved in darkness; the stars shall fall from their places, and all the elements be confounded together: of what service then will be to you those clothes and garments with which you are now covered, and which you refuse to lay aside, to submit to the exercise of penitence?”
It must be remarked, in extenuation of these exhibitions, that they were accompanied by flagellation; which sometimes bore a close analogy to those of the Saturnalia and Lupercalia, and the discipline of the flagellants was not always dissimilar to that of the Luperci.
To resume: Dæmonomania may be considered the result of a morbid condition of the mind, and the dread of supernatural agency. The belief of an incarnation of the devil leads to the natural apprehension of his having taken possession of our bodies, when a credulous creature fancies that he has fallen into his snares, and forsaken the ways of the Omnipotent. This sad delusion has been admirably illustrated by Sir Walter Scott in his curious and learned Demonology. “It is, I think,” says he, “conclusive that mankind, from a very early period, have their minds prepared for such events (supernatural occurrences) by the consciousness of the existence of a spiritual world. But imagination is apt to intrude its explanations and inferences founded on inadequate evidence. Sometimes our violent and inordinate passions, originating in sorrow for our friends, remorse for our crimes, our eagerness of patriotism, or our deep sense of devotion,—these, or other violent excitements of a moral character, in the visions of the night, or the rapt ecstasy of the day, persuade us that we witness with our eyes and ears an actual instance of that supernatural communication, the possibility of which cannot be denied. At other times the corporeal organs impose upon the mind, while the eye and the ear, diseased, deranged, or misled, convey false impressions to the patient. Very often both the mental delusion and the physical deception exist at the same time; and men’s belief of the phenomena presented to them, however erroneously, by the senses, is the firmer and more readily granted, that the physical impressions corresponded with the mental excitement.”
From the foregoing observations we may venture to conclude, that an individual who gives credence to apparitions will also believe in the incarnation of the devil. In both cases we infer that spiritual beings can assume corporeal forms; and, although we may not presume to question the possibility of such appearances when it may please the Omnipotent so to will it, to believe in possession is actually to admit that the devil is a spiritual being endowed with specific attributes and powers, and acting either independently or with the consent of the Almighty. This admission would to a certain extent border on the heresy of the Manicheans, who believed, with the heresiarch Cubricus, that there existed a good and an evil principle coeternal and independent of each other. We find in Holy Writ that indulgence was granted to Satan to visit the earth. But the period when miraculous power ceased, or rather was withdrawn from the church, is not determined. The Protestants bring it down beneath the accession of Constantine, while the Roman Catholic clergy still claim the power of producing or procuring supernatural manifestations when it suits their purpose; but, as Scott justly observes, it is alike inconsistent with the common sense of either Protestant or Roman Catholic, that fiends should be permitted to work marvels, which are no longer exhibited on the part of religion.
Cullen’s opinion on this disease is worthy of remark. He says, “I do not allow that there is any true dæmonomania, because few people nowadays believe that demons have any power over our bodies or our minds; and, in my opinion, the species recorded are either a species of melancholy or mania,—diseases falsely referred by the spectators to the power of demons,—feigned diseases,—or diseases partly real or partly feigned.”
Esquirol, moreover, justly observes, that “in modern times the punishments that the priest denounces have ceased to influence the minds and the conduct of men, and governments have recourse to restraints of a different kind. Many lunatics express now as much dread of the tribunals of justice, as they formerly entertained of the influence of stars and demons.”
We frequently meet with despondent monomaniacs labouring under the fatal delusion of having forfeited all hopes of salvation, and being in fact inevitably doomed to perdition, but who are apparently of sound mind when touching upon other subjects. The case of one Samuel Brown was peculiarly striking. This unfortunate man, at a period when all his intellectual faculties were in full vigour, fancied that his rational soul had gradually succumbed under divine displeasure, and that he solely enjoyed an animal life in common with brutes.