Prescribed Remedies
for those who are Obsessed owing to some Spell.
We
have shown in Chapter X of the preceding Question that
sometimes devils, through witchcraft, substantially
inhabit certain men, and why they do this: namely, that
it may be for some grave crime of the man himself, and
for his own ultimate benefit; or sometimes for the
slight fault of another man; sometimes for a man's own
venial sin; and sometimes for another man's grave sin.
For any of these reasons a man may in varying degrees be
possessed by a devil. Nider in his Formicarius
states that there is no cause for wonder if devils, at
the instance of witches and with God's permission,
substantially take possession of men.
It is clear
also from the details given in that chapter what are the
remedies by which such men can be liberated; namely, by
the exorcisms of the Church; and by true contrition and
confession, when a man is possessed for some mortal sin.
An example is the manner in which that Bohemian priest
was set free. But there are three other remedies
besides, which are of virtue; namely, the Holy Communion
of the Eucharist, the visitation of shrines and the
prayers of holy men, and by lifting the sentence of
excommunication. Of these we shall speak, although they
are plainly set out in the discourses of the Doctors,
since all have not easy access to the necessary
treatises.
Cassian, in
his Collation of the Abbots, speaks in these
words of the Eucharist: We do not remember that our
elders ever forbade the administration of the Holy
Communion to those possessed by evil spirits; it should
even be given to them every day if possible. For it must
be believed that It is of great virtue in the purgation
and protection of both soul and body; and that when a
man receives It, the evil spirit which afflicts his
members or lurks hidden in them is driven away as if it
were burned with fire. And lately we saw the Abbot
Andronicus healed in this way; and the devil will rage
with mad fury when he feels himself shut out by the
heavenly medicine, and he will try the harder and the
oftener to inflict his tortures, as he feels himself
driven farther off by this spiritual remedy. So says S.
John Cassian.
And again he
adds: Two things must be steadfastly believed. First,
that without the permission of God no one is altogether
possessed by these spirits. Second, that everything
which God permits to happen to us, whether it seem to be
sorrow or gladness, is sent for out good as from a
pitying Father and merciful Physician. For the devils
are, as it were, schoolmasters of humility, so that they
who descend from this world may either be purged for the
eternal life or be sentenced to the pain of their
punishment; and such, according to S. Paul, are in the
present life delivered unto Satan for the destruction of
the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
But here
there arises a doubt. For S. Paul says: Let a man
examine himself, and so eat of the Bread: then how can a
man who is possessed communicate, since he has not the
use of his reason? S. Thomas answers this in his Third
Part, Question 80, saying that there are distinct
degrees in madness. For to say that a man has not the
use of his reason may mean two things. In one case he
has some feeble power of reason; as a man is said to be
blind when he can nevertheless see imperfectly. And
since such men can to some extent join in the devotion
of this Sacrament, it is not to be denied to them.
But others
are said to be mad because they have been so from birth;
and such may not partake of the Sacrament, since they
are in no way able to engage in devout preparation for
it.
Or perhaps
they have not always been without the use of their
reason; and then, if when they were sane they appeared
to appreciate the devotion due to the Sacrament, It
should be administered to them when they are at the
point of death, unless it is feared that they may vomit
or spew It out.
The following
decision is recorded by the Council of Carthage (26, q.
6). When a sick man wishes to confess, and if on the
arrival of the priest he is rendered dumb by his
infirmity, or falls into a frenzy, those who have heard
him speak must give their testimony. And if he is
thought to be at the point of death, let him be
reconciled with God by the laying on of hands and the
placing of the Sacrament in his mouth. S. Thomas also
says that the same procedure may be used with baptized
people who are bodily tormented by unclean spirits, and
with other mentally distracted persons. And he adds, in
Book IV, dist. 9, that the Communion must not be denied
to demoniacs unless it is certain that they are being
tortured by the devil for some crime. To this Peter of
Palude adds: In this case they are to be considered as
persons to be excommunicated and delivered up to Satan.
From this it
is clear that, even if a man be possessed by a devil for
his own crimes, yet if he has lucid intervals and, while
he has the use of his reason, is contrite and confesses
his sins, since he is absolved in the sight of God, he
must in no way be deprived of the Communion of the
Divine Sacrament of the Eucharist.
How those who
are possessed may be delivered by the intercessions and
prayers of the Saints is found in the Legends of the
Saints. For by the merits of Saints, Martyrs, Confessors
and Virgins the unclean spirits are subdued by their
prayers in the land where they live, just as the Saints
in their earthly journey subdued them.
Likewise we
read that the devout prayers of wayfarers have often
obtained the deliverance of those possessed. And Cassian
urges them to pray for them, saying: If we hold the
opinion or rather faith of which I have written above,
that everything is sent by the Lord for the good of our
souls and the betterment of the universe, we shall in no
way despise those who are possessed; but we shall
incessantly pray for them as for our own selves, and
pity them with our whole heart.
As for the
last method, that of releasing the sufferer from
excommunication, it must be known that this is rare, and
only lawfully practised by such as have authority and
are informed by revelation that the man has become
possessed on account of the excommunication of the
Church: such was the case of the Corinthian fornicator
(I. Corinthians v) who was excommunicated by S.
Paul and the Church, and delivered unto Satan for the
destruction of the flesh, that his spirit might be saved
in the day of our Lord JESUS Christ; that is, as the
gloss says, either for the illumination of grace by
contrition or for judgement.
And he
delivered to Satan false teachers who had lost the
faith, such as Hymenaeus and Alexander, that they might
learn not to blaspheme (I. Timothy i). For so
great was the power and the grace of S. Paul, says the
gloss, that by the mere words of his mouth he could
deliver to Satan those who fell away from the faith.
S. Thomas
(IV. 18) teaches concerning the three effects of
excommunication as follows. If a man, he says, is
deprived of the prayers of the Church, he suffers a
threefold loss corresponding with the benefits which
accrue to one who is in communion with the Church. For
those who are excommunicated are bereft of the source
from which flows an increase of grace to those who have
it, and a mean to obtain grace for those who have it
not; and, being deprived of grace, they lose also the
power of preserving their uprightness; although it must
not be thought that they are altogether shut out from
God's providence, but only from that special providence
which watches over the sons of the Church; and they lose
also a strong source of protection against the Enemy,
for greater power is granted to the devil to injure such
men, both bodily and spiritually.
For in the
primitive Church, when men had to be drawn into the
faith by signs, just as the Holy Spirit was made
manifest by a visible sign, so also a bodily affliction
by the devil was the visible sign of a man who was
excommunicated. And it is not unfitting that a man whose
case is not quite desperate should be delivered to
Satan; for he is not given to the devil as one to be
damned, but to be corrected, since it is in the power of
the Church, when she pleases, to deliver him again from
the hands of the devil. So says S. Thomas. Therefore the
lifting of the ban of excommunication, when prudently
used by a discreet exorcist, is a fitting remedy for
those who are possessed.
But Nider
adds that the exorcist must particularly beware of
making too presumptive a use of his powers, or of
mingling any ribaldry or jesting with the serious work
of God, or adding to it anything that smacks of
superstition or witchcraft; for otherwise he will hardly
escape punishment, as he shows by an example.
For Blessed
Gregory, in his First Dialogue, tells of a certain woman
who, against her conscience, yielded to her husband's
persuasions to take pare in the ceremonies at the vigil
of the dedication of the Church of S. Sebastian. And
because she joined in the Church's procession against
her conscience, she became possessed and raged publicly.
When the priest of that church saw this, he took the
cloth from the altar and covered her with it; and the
devil suddenly entered into the priest. And because he
had presumed beyond his strength, he was constrained by
his torments to reveal who he was. So says S. Gregory.
And to show
that no spirit of ribaldry must be allowed to enter into
the holy office of exorcism, Nider tells that he saw in
a monastery at Cologne a brother who was given to
speaking jestingly, but was a very famous expeller of
devils. This man was casting a devil out of a man
possessed in the monastery, and the devil asked him to
give him some place to which he could go. This pleased
the Brother, and he jokingly said, “Go to my privy.”
So the devil went out; and when in the night the Brother
wished to go and purge his belly, the devil attacked him
so savagely in the privy that he with difficulty escaped
with his life.
But especial
care is to be taken that those who are obsessed through
witchcraft should not be induced to go to witches to be
healed. For S. Gregory goes on to say of the woman we
have just mentioned: Her kindred and those who loved her
in the flesh took her to some witches to be healed, by
whom she was taken to a river and dipped in the water
with many incantation; and upon this she was violently
shaken, and instead of one devil being cast out, a
legion entered into her, and she began to cry out in
their several voices. Therefore her kindred confessed
what they had done, and in great grief brought her to
the holy Bishop Fortunatus, who by daily prayers and
fasting entirely restored her to health.
But since it
has been said that exorcists must beware lest they make
use of anything savouring of superstition or witchcraft,
some exorcist may doubt whether it is lawful to use
certain unconsecrated herbs and stones. In answer we say
that it is so much the better if the herbs are
consecrated; but that if they are not, then it is not
superstitious to use a certain herb called Demonifuge,
or even the natural properties of stones. But he must
not think that he is casting out devils by the power of
these; for then he would fall into the error of
believing that he could use other herbs and incantations
in the same way; and this is the error of necromancers,
who think that they can perform this kind of work
through the natural and unknown virtues of such objects.
Therefore S.
Thomas says, Book IV. dist. 7, art. the last: It must
not be any corporeal powers; and therefore they are not
to be influenced by invocations or any acts of sorcery,
except in so far as they have entered into a pact with a
witch. Of this Esaias (xxviii) speaks: We have made a
covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement.
And he thus explains the passage in Job xli:
Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook? and the
following words. For he says: If one rightly considers
all that has been said before, it will seem that it
belongs to the heretical presumption of necromancers
when anyone tries to make an agreement with devils, or
to subject them in any way to his own will.
Having, then,
shown that man cannot of his own power overcome the
devil, he concludes by saying: Place your hand upon him;
but understand that, if you have any power, it is yet by
Divine virtue that he is overcome. And he adds: Remember
the battle which I wage against him; that is to say, the
present being put for the future, I shall fight against
him on the Cross, where Leviathan will be taken with an
hook, that is, by the divinity hidden under the bait of
humanity, since he will think our Saviour to be only a
man. And afterwards it says: There is no power on earth
to be compared with him: by which it is meant that no
bodily power can equal the power of the devil, which is
a purely spiritual power. So says S. Thomas.
But a man
possessed by a devil can indirectly be relieved by the
power of music, as was Saul by David's harp, or of a
herb, or of any other bodily matter in which there lies
some natural virtue. Therefore such remedies may be
used, as can be argued both from authority and by
reason. For S. Thomas, XXVI. 7, says that stones and
herbs may be used for the relief of a man possessed by a
devil. And there are the words of S. Jerome.
And as for
the passage in Tobias, where the Angel says:
Touching the heart and the liver (which you took from
the fish), if a devil or an evil spirit trouble any, we
must make a smoke thereof before the man or the woman,
and the party shall be no more vexed; S. Thomas says: We
ought not to marvel at this, for the smoke of a certain
tree when it is burned seems to have the same virtue, as
if it has in it some spiritual sense, or power of
spiritual prayer for the future.
Of the same
opinion are Blessed Albert, in his commentary on S.
Luke ix, and Nicolas of Lyra and Paul of Burgos, on
I. Samuel xvi. The last-named homilist comes to
this conclusion: that it must be allowed that those
possessed by a devil can not only be relieved, but even
entirely delivered by means of material things,
understanding that in the latter case they are not very
fiercely molested. And he proves this by reasoning as
follows: Devils cannot alter corporeal matter just at
their will, but only by bringing together complementary
active and passive agents, as Nicolas says. In the same
way some material object can cause in the human body a
disposition which makes it susceptible to the operations
of the devil. For example, according to physicians,
mania very much predisposes a man to dementia, and
consequently to demoniac obsession: therefore if, in
such a case, the predisposing passive agent be remove,
it will follow that the active affliction of the devil
will be cured.
In this light
we may consider the fish's liver; and the music of
David, by which Saul was at first relieved and then
entirely delivered of the evil spirit; for it says: And
the evil spirit departed from him. But it is not
consonant with the meaning of the Scripture to say that
this was done by the merits or prayers of David; for the
Scripture says nothing of any such matter, whereas it
would have spoken notably in his praise if this had been
so. This reasoning we take fro Paul of Burgos. There is
also the reason which we gave in Question V of the First
Part: that Saul was liberated because by the harp was
prefigured the virtue of the Cross on which were
stretched the Sacred Limbs of Christ's Body. And more is
written there which may be considered together with the
present inquiry. But we shall only conclude by saying
that the use of material things in lawful exorcisms is
not superstitious. And now it is expedient that we
should speak about the exorcisms themselves.
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