Remedies presribed
for those who by Prestidigitative Art have lost their
Virile Members or have seemingly been Transformed into
the Shapes of Beasts.
In
what has already been written it has clearly enough been
shown the remedies which are available for the relief of
those who are deluded by a glamour, and think that they
have lost their virile member, or have been
metamorphosed into animals. For since such men are
entirely destitute of Divine grace, according to the
essential condition of those who are so bewitched, it is
not possible to apply a healing salve while the weapon
still remains in the wound. Therefore before all things
they must be reconciled to God by a good confession.
Again, as was shown in the seventh chapter of the First
Question of the Second Part, such members are never
actually taken away from the body, but are only hidden
by a glamour from the senses of sight and touch. It is
clear, too, that those who live in grace are not so
easily deluded in this way, either actively or
passively, in such a manner, that is, that they seem to
lose their members, or that those of others should
appear to them to be missing. Therefore the remedy as
well as the disease is explained in that chapter,
namely, that they should as far as possible come to an
amicable agreement with the witch herself.
As to those
who think that they have been changed into beasts, it
must be known that this kind of witchcraft is more
practised in Easter countries than in the West; that is
to say, in the East witches more often bewitch other
people in this way, but it appears that the witches so
transform themselves more frequently in our part of the
world; namely, when they change themselves, in full
sight, into the shapes of animals, as was told in the
eighth chapter. Therefore in their case the remedies to
be used are those set out in the Third Part of this
work, where we deal with the extermination of witches by
the secular arm of the law.
But in the
East the following remedy is used for such delusions.
For we have learned much of this matter from the Knights
of the Order of S. John of Jerusalem in Rhodes; and
especially this case which happened in the city of
Salamis in the kingdom of Cyprus. For that is a seaport,
and once when a vessel was being laden with merchandise
suitable for a ship which is sailing into foreign parts,
and all her company were providing themselves with
victuals, one of them, a strong young man, went to the
house of a woman standing outside the city on the
seashore, and asked her if she had any eggs to sell. The
woman, seeing that he was a strong young man, and a
merchant far away from his own country, thought that on
that account the people of the city would feel less
suspicion if he were to be lost, and said to him:
“Wait a little, and I will get you all that you
want.” And when she went in and shut the door and kept
him waiting, the young man outside began to call out to
her to hurry, lest he should miss the ship. Then the
woman brought some eggs and gave them to the young man,
and told him to hurry back tot he ship in case he should
miss it. So he hastened back to the ship, which was
anchored by the shore, and before going on board, since
the full company of his companions was not yet returned,
he decided to eat the eggs there and refresh himself.
And behold! an hour later he was made dumb as if he had
no power of speech; and, as he afterwards said, he
wondered what could have happened to him, but was unable
to find out. Yet when he wished to go on board, he was
driven off with sticks by those who yet remained ashore,
and who all cried out: “Look what this ass is doing!
Curse the beast, you are not coming on board.” The
young man being thus driven away, and understanding from
their words that they thought he was an ass, reflected
and began to suspect that he had been bewitched by the
woman, especially since he could utter no word, although
he understood all that was said. And when, on again
trying to board the ship, he was driven off with heavier
blows, he was in bitterness of heart compelled to remain
and watch the ship sail away. And so, as he ran here and
there, since everybody thought he was an ass, he was
necessarily treated as such. At last, under compulsion,
he went back to the woman’s house, and to keep himself
alive served her at her pleasure for three years, doing
no work but to bring to the house such necessities as
wood and corn, and to carry away what had to be carried
away like a beast of burden: the only consolation that
was left to him being that although everyone else took
him for an ass, the witches themselves, severally and in
company, who frequented the house, recognized him as a
man, and he could talk and behave with them as a man
should.
Now if it is
asked how burdens were placed upon him as if he were a
beast, we must say that this case is analogous to that
of which S. Augustine speaks in his De Ciuitate Dei,
Book XVIII, chapter 17, where he tells of the tavern
women who changed their guests into beasts of burden;
and to that of the father Praestantius, who thought he
was a pack-horse and carried corn with other animals.
For the delusion caused by this glamour was threefold.
First in its
effect on the men who saw the young man not as a man but
as an ass; and it is shown above in Chapter VIII how
devils can easily cause this. Secondly, those burdens
were no illusion; abut when they were beyond the
strength of the young man, the devil invisible carried
them. Thirdly, that when he was consorting with others,
the young man himself considered in his imagination and
perceptive faculties at least, which are faculties
belonging to the bodily organs, that he was an ass; but
not in his reason: for he as not so bound but that he
knew himself to be a man, although he was magically
deluded into imagining himself a beast. Nabuchodonosor
provides an example of the same delusion.
After three
years had passed in this way, in the fourth year it
happened that the young man went one morning into the
city, with the woman following a long way behind; and he
passed by a church where Holy Mass was being celebrated,
and heard the sacred-bell ring at the elevation of the
Host (for in that kingdom the Mass is celebrated
according to the Latin, and not according to the Greek
rite). And he turned towards the church, and, not daring
to enter for fear of being driven off with blows, knelt
down outside by bending the knees of his hind legs, and
lifted his forelegs, that is, his hands, joined together
over his ass’s head, as it was thought to be, and
looked upon the elevation of the Sacrament. And when
some Genoese merchants saw this prodigy, they followed
the ass in astonishment, discussing this marvel among
themselves; and behold! the witch came and belaboured
the ass with her stick. And because, as we have said,
this sort of witchcraft is better known in those parts,
at the instance of the merchants the ass and the witch
were taken before the judge; where, being questioned and
tortured, she confessed her crime and promised to
restore the young man to his true shape if she might be
allowed to return to her house. So she was dismissed and
went back to her house, where the young man was restored
to his former shape; and being again arrested, she paid
the debt which her crimes merited. And the young man
returned joyfully to his own country.
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