Remedies prescribed
for those who are Bewitched by being Inflamed with
Inordinate Love or Extraordinary Hatred.
JUST
as the generative faculty can be bewitched, so can
inordinate love or hatred be caused in the human mind.
First we shall consider the cause of this, and then, as
far as possible, the remedies.
Philocaption,
or inordinate love of one person for another, can be
caused in three ways. Sometimes it is due merely to a
lack of control over the eyes; sometimes to the
temptation of devils; sometimes to the spells of
necromancers and witches, with the help of devils.
The first is
spoken of in S. James i. 14, 15: Every man is
tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and
allured. Then when concupiscence hath conceived, it
bringeth forth sin: but sin, when it is completed,
begetteth death. And so, when Shecham saw Dinah going
out to see the daughters of the land, he loved her, and
ravished her, and lay with her, and his soul clave unto
her (Genesis xxxiv). And here the gloss says that
this happened to an infirm spirit because she left her
own concerns to inquire into those of other people; and
such a soul is seduced by bad habits, and is led to
consent to unlawful practices.
The second
cause arises from the temptation of devils. In this way
Amnon loved his beautiful sister Tamar, and was so vexed
that he fell sick for love of her (II. Samuel
xiii). For he could not have been so totally corrupt in
his mind as to fall into so great a crime of incest
unless he had been grievously tempted by the devil. The
book of the Holy Fathers refers to this kind of love,
where it says that even in their hermitages they were
exposed to every temptation, including that of carnal
desires; for some of them were at times tempted with the
love of women more than it is possible to believe. S.
Paul also says, in II. Corinthians xii: There was
given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan
to buffet me: and the gloss explains this as referring
to the temptation of lust.
But it is
said that when a man does not give way to temptation he
does not sin, but it is an exercise for his virtue; but
this is to be understood of the temptation of the devil,
not of that of the flesh; for this is a venial sin even
if a man does not yield to it. Many examples of this are
to be read.
As for the
third cause, by which inordinate love proceeds from
devils' and witches' works, the possibility of this sort
of witchcraft has been exhaustively considered in the
Questions of the First Part as to whether devils through
the agency of witches can turn the minds of men to
inordinate love or hatred, and it was proved by examples
which had fallen within our own experience. Indeed this
is the best known and most general form of witchcraft.
But the
following question may be asked: Peter has been seized
with an inordinate love of this description, but he does
not know whether it is due to the first or the second or
the third cause. It must be answered that it can be by
the work of the devil that hatred is stirred up between
married people so as to cause the crime of adultery. But
when a man is so bound in the meshes of carnal lust and
desire that he can be made to desist from it by no
shame, words, blows or action; and when a man often puts
away his beautiful wife to cleave to the most hideous of
women, and when he cannot rest in the night, but is so
demented that he must go by devious ways to his
mistress; and when it is found that those of noblest
birth, Governors, and other rich men, are the most
miserably involved in this sin (for this age is
dominated by women, and was foretold by S. Hildegard, as
Vincent of Beauvais records in the Mirror of History,
although he said it would note endure for as long as it
already has); and when the world is now full of
adultery, especially among the most highly born; when
all this is considered, I say, of what use is it to
speak of remedies to those who desire no remedy?
Nevertheless, for the satisfaction of the pious reader,
we will set down briefly some of the remedies for Philocaption
when it is not due to witchcraft.
Avicenna
mentions seven remedies which may be used when a man is
made physically ill by this sort of love; but they are
hardly relevant to our inquiry except in so far as they
may be of service to the sickness of the soul. For he
says, in Book III, that the root of the sickness may be
discovered by feeling the pulse and uttering the name of
the object of the patient's love; and then, if the law
permits, he may be cured by yielding to nature. Or
certain medicines may be applied, concerning which he
gives instructions. Or the sick man may be turned from
his love by lawful remedies which will cause him to
direct his love to a more worthy object. Or he may avoid
her presence, and so distract his mind from her. Or, if
he is open to correction, he may be admonished and
expostulated with, to the effect that such love is the
greatest misery. Or he may be directed to someone who,
as far as he may with God's truth, will vilify the body
and disposition of his love, and so blacken her
character that she may appear to him altogether base and
deformed. Or, finally, he is to be set to arduous duties
which may distract his thoughts.
Indeed, just
as the animal nature of man may be cured by such
remedies, so may they all be of use in reforming his
inner spirit. Let a man obey the law of his intellect
rather than that of nature, let him turn his love to
safe pleasures, let him remember how momentary is the
fruition of lust and how eternal the punishment, let him
seek his pleasure in that life where joys begin never to
end, and let him consider that if he cleaves to this
earthly love, that will be his sole reward, but he will
lose the bliss of Heaven, and be condemned to eternal
fire: behold! the three irrevocable losses which proceed
from inordinate lust.
With regard
to Philocaption caused by witchcraft, the
remedies detailed in the preceding chapter may not
inconveniently be applied here also; especially the
exorcisms by sacred words which the bewitched person can
himself use. Let him daily invoke the Guardian Angel
deputed to him by God, let him use confession and
frequent the shrines of the Saints, especially of the
Blessed Virgin, and without doubt he will be delivered.
But how
abject are those strong men who, discarding their
natural gifts and the armour of virtue, cease to defend
themselves; whereas the girls themselves in their
invincible frailty use those very rejected weapons to
repel this kind of witchcraft. We give one out of many
examples in their praise.
There was in
a country village near Lindau in the diocese of
Constance a grown maid fair to see and of even more
elegant behaviour, at sight of whom a certain man of
loose principles, a cleric in sooth, but not a priest,
was smitten with violent pangs of love. And being unable
to conceal the wound in his heart any longer, he went to
the place where the girl was working, and with fair
words showed that he was in the net of the devil,
beginning by venturing in words only to persuade the
girl to grant him her love. She, perceiving by Divine
instinct his meaning, and being chaste in mind and body,
bravely answered him: Master, do not come to my house
with such words, for modesty itself forbids. To this he
replied: Although you will not be persuaded by gentle
words to love me, yet I promise you that soon you will
be compelled by my deeds to love me. Now that man was a
suspected enchanter and wizard. The maiden considered
his words as but empty air, and until then felt in
herself no spark of carnal love for him; but after a
short time she began to have amorous thoughts.
Perceiving this, and being inspired by God, she sought
the protection of the Mother of Mercy, and devoutly
implored Her to intercede with Her Son to help her.
Anxious, moreover, she went on a pilgrimage to a
hermitage, where there was a church miraculously
consecrated in that diocese to the Mother of God. There
she confessed her sins, so that no evil spirit could
enter her, and after her prayers to the Mother of Pity
all the devil's machinations against her ceased, so that
these evil crafts thenceforth never afflicted her.
None the less
there are still some strong men cruelly enticed by
witches to this sort of love, so that it would seem that
they could never restrain themselves from their
inordinate lust for them, yet these often most manfully
resist the temptation of lewd and filthy enticements,
and by the aforesaid defences overcome all the wiles of
the devil.
A rich young
man in the town of Innsbruck provides us with a notable
pattern of this sort of struggle. He was so importuned
by witches that it is hardly possible for pen to
describe his strivings, but he always kept a brave
heart, and escaped by means of the remedies we have
mentioned. Therefore it may justly be concluded that
these remedies are infallible against this disease, and
that they who use such weapons will most surely be
delivered.
And it must
be understood that what we have said concerning
inordinate love applies also to inordinate hatred, since
the same discipline is of benefit for the two opposite
extremes. But though the degree of witchcraft is equal
in each, yet there is this difference in the case of
hatred; the person who is hated must seek another
remedy. For the man who hates his wife and puts her out
of his heart will not easily, if he is an adulterer, be
turned back again to his wife, even though he go on many
a pilgrimage.
Now it has
been learned from witches that they cause this spell of
hatred by means of serpents; for the serpent was the
first instrument of the devil, and by reason of its
curse inherits a hatred of women; therefore they cause
such spells by placing the skin or head of a serpent
under the threshold of a room or house. For this reason
all the nooks and corners of the house where such a
woman lives are to be closely examined and reconstructed
as far as possible; or else she must be lodged in the
houses of others.
And when it
is said the bewitched men can exorcise themselves, it is
to be understood that they can wear the sacred words or
benedictions of incantations round their necks, if they
are unable to read or pronounce the benedictions; but it
will be shown later in what way this should be done.
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