Is there rank, or order, or distinction among the fallen angels?Is there rank, or order, or distinction among the fallen angels?
Yes; Lucifer is looked upon as the head, and the rest are his subjects. "If Satan be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand?" (Luke 11:18) "The wicked shall go into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels." Therefore he has power over them. They selected him as their leader, and by a fit punishment God permits him, for his and their punishment, to be their leader still. It is a punishment to them, for he domineers over them and inflicts pain. It is a punishment to him, for with the bright intelligence that belongs to an angel, and of which the rebellious were not deprived, he sees what a noble thing it would be to rule over noble souls working for a noble end; on the other hand, what a prostitution of nobility to rule over evil agents for evil purposes. Milton, indeed, describes him as taking a demon pleasure in so ruling; but a demon pleasure brings no joy, and so the great poet (before leaving) takes care to represent the gratification as but assumed -
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield
. . . . .
Here we may reign secure, and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven
. . . . .
So spake the apostate angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair.
Is there distinction among the fallen angels?
Yes. It is the more common opinion that angels were lost from every one of the nine orders in heaven, and that natural rank and distinction which existed among them because of superiority or inferiority of endowments and gifts was never obliterated. Saint Paul seems to point out this when he divides the demons into their several classes Angels, Principalities, Powers, Virtues, and rulers of the kingdom of darkness. Saint Thomas signifies the same, when he says that some command others, and that inferiors are subject to superiors. For the same reason that God permits the empire rule in the hands of Lucifer, we can understand that he would permit a subordinate rule in his lieutenants, that so those who were seduced should be punished by their seducers, and the seducers in turn punished by the seduced. Even such a nemesis is found in human life.
Saint Bonaventure says that "after the fall, there still remained among the demons a distinction of rank, but that distinction is imperfect and perverse. It is imperfect, on account of the want of grace which would perfect the capability of their nature, and perverse, because of sin, which, though it does not substantially corrupt their natural powers, yet besmears and deranges them.
"Prelacy also there is, and will be, among the demons, until their state of ministering or being sent shall have passed away, and this for a twofold reason. First, the children of darkness always make attempts, no matter how false and imperfect, to imitate the children of light. These they see performing their functions according to the commands of higher and wiser spirits, and so they too in their evil ways. Secondly, they have a struggling against the human race, and their kingdom and their army, if it be without a head and divided against itself, cannot stand; and as men fighting in battle, no matter how vainglorious or brave they individually be, yet, for hatred of the enemy and for the common goodwill, willingly subject themselves to the command of one man, their leader; so too might it be fairly assumed in the case of the demons. And further, if it be asked, by what has this prelacy come to be? I answer, it is not by election, nor mastery, but (as I believe) by nature and divine appointment. By their condition, there is a ministry implanted in them, in some greater, in some less; and God ordained that the less wise and less powerful should be subject to the stronger and more cunning. And Hugo says, what they have received from the condition of their nature, that they continue to perform, so that they command one another now just as they would have done if they had continued firm."
What have the fallen angels to do with man?
To tempt him to rebel against God as they themselves rebelled. Our first parents were so tempted. Christ says of the devil that "he was a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44). Saint Peter says: "Your adversary, the devil, goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." (1 Peter 5:8) Saint Paul says: "For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places." (Ephesians 6:12)
Tradition - Saint Cyril says: "Truly the demon is man's enemy."
Saint Ambrose says: "In a thousand ways, and by a thousand wiles, the devil endeavours to overthrow man, and is much more enraged by the steadfastness of those who resist than overjoyed by the conquest of those who fall."
Saint Irenseus: "The devil is never at rest, nor will he leave whole nations alone, any way provided he can seduce men and lead them to transgress the commands of Almighty God."
The devil thus attacks man for many reasons from the perversity of his nature. Good men do good things from the kindness of their nature. Now, no men were ever so disposed of their nature to be kind as angels were; when the angelic nature was then perverted, none were so disposed to desire and to effect evil. Secondly, he hates man, because of God's image - the image of Him who is the greatest object of hate to the devil - because of that ever blessed image impressed on man's soul. And lastly, because of the love of God and of Jesus Christ for man, the devil hates man with a demon hatred. "And yet," says Saint Chrysostom, "it brings him no gain, but even greater torments." "Ye have been reduced," says Bossuet, "to the base and malicious occupation of being our seducers first, and then the murderers of those ye seduce. Unholy ministers of God's justice, you first experience that justice, and then you increase it by trying to drag others beneath its rigours." It must be borne in mind that when the Saints speak of increasing their pains, they do not mean that the essential pain of the demons surfer change, for that is not what we believe, but that the accidental pains which belong to their position are superadded; for as a saint in glory receives accidental bliss and happiness by the continuation on the earth of a charitable undertaking of which he was the primary cause, so accidental pain is considered to be inflicted because of analogous evil deeds.
But why does God Almighty permit man to be tempted at all?
For three reasons,
(1) Because of God's own sake. Says Saint Augustine: "God hath considered it more befitting His most wonder-working goodness, to draw good out of evil, than not to permit evil at all." If evil were not permitted, what means would God have, in the present order of things, to show forth the sweetness of His mercy; or would the attraction of his ever-blessed mercy be shut out from the eyes of man, and man go on through life and never be able to "taste and see how sweet the Lord is?" It is, indeed, very mysterious when we come to look at it on the part of God.
(2) On the part of man. Here it is not so mysterious. We at once recognise the justice of the Apostle's doctrine: "No one shall be crowned, but he who has legitimately striven." (2 Timothy 2:5) And then again: "Blessed is the man who suffereth temptation, for when he is proved he shall receive the crown of life." God allows temptations to us, that our bliss in heaven might be increased; and He expressly tells us that in permitting temptation "he will not allow us to be tempted beyond our strength," and that He is ever with us: "My grace is sufficient for thee."
(3) Because of the demon. That in being overthrown and defeated in his assaults upon men, whose natural powers as being so much inferior to the angelic he despises, he should be therefore the more humiliated and pained.
Has the demon some connection with every sin committed?
In one way, certainly, he has - inasmuch as he induced Adam and Eve to commit sin, and thereby brought on all the effects consequent on original sin, and which effects existing in us all are the prolific source of temptations and evil deeds. But whether he is the immediate cause, apart from that, of every sin committed, theologians do not at all agree. Saint Chrysostom, Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Saint Thomas say, that he is not - thus holding man as the instigator himself as well as the author of sin. And indeed if man have liberty of action as he has, and if good works are imputable to him, why not evil deeds also. Yet good works are never done except by the aid of anticipating grace, and perhaps that would be a reason for holding, as Saint Damascene, Saint Leo, Saint Denis, and Saint Jerome do, that the devil's temptation always precedes a man's evil act. This is a good deal strengthened by the answer to the following question.
Has every man a special demon to tempt him?
Answer. The most common opinion is, that to each man there is deputed a special demon. The early Fathers of the Church, Tertullian, Origen, Saint Gregory, all held this. The same is taught by the greatest of modern schoolmen, Suarez. And it seems probable, for the demon attempts in everything to rival Almighty God. Now God has given to each man a guardian angel, and the demon would therefore be supposed to assign one of the fallen angels to tempt, and therefore to oppose, contradict, and, if possible, frustrate God's designs. Therefore it is possible, nay rather probable, that that companionship commences with a man's conception, and continues to his grave, as in the case of the guardian angels. At times that temptation may (it is believed) cease: either because the demon may hope that man may lose caution, being untempted, and that he might find it more easy to wile him after a season of peace, or that continual temptations may only lead to continual triumphs, and therefore to greater graces and higher degrees of glory on the part of the tempted; or that God, seeing that man may yield under continual temptation, may command the wicked angel to desist; or because of signal struggles, as in the case of the Saints, when rest may be absolutely needed. We, however, need never fear, God is with us always. His beautiful angel never leaves our side, and is far more watchful and unremitting in protecting us than the evil one in assaulting us.
How are the assaults of the demon to be resisted?
The great anchorite, Saint Antony, who was so troubled by the assaults of the demons, tells us: "Believe me," he says to his brethren, "Satan dreads pious watchings, prayers, fasts, voluntary poverty, charity, humility, but especially an ardent love of Jesus Christ, by the single sign of whose cross he flies away terrified and disarmed."
Is the power of the demon more limited since the coming of Jesus Christ?
Yes. Blessed be the power of our God. In the Apocalypse we read: "And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and he bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should no more seduce the nations till the thousand years be finished, and after that he must be loosed a little time." (Apocalypse 20:1) Now some of the Fathers understand this passage of the power of the demons generally to tempt man. Others think that but Lucifer himself is so bound, and thus prevented from personally tempting man, and that he will continue so bound till the time of Antichrist. It is, at any rate, a fact not to be disputed, that such visible power of the demon, as is represented by persons possessed, is not so frequently manifested now as in former days, nor in the times after as in the times before the establishment of the Church. Whence it may be argued that the power of the demon is much restricted. Truly, God protects and defends those whom He loves, and will not let them be harassed by the demon; and if at times He does give permission, He always accompanies the permission with immense graces to the person so tried. Man may rest assured that he is safe in the keeping of his God, who will not have that the demon approach even a herd of swine without permission.
In the Roman Breviary under September 26, we find the following encouraging and very interesting sketch of Saints Cyprian and Justina (this Saint Cyprian must not be con founded with the great African bishop and martyr of the same name, whose feast occurs on September 16): "Cyprian, at first a magician but afterwards a martyr, endeavoured when a young man to win by charms and potions the affections of Justina, a Christian maiden, whom he ardently desired to make his wife. But not succeeding, he consulted the oracles, and received for reply, that no magical art could prevail against a faithful follower of Christ. Cyprian was so struck with this that he flung away all his instruments of magic, destroyed all his tablets of spells and charm-words, and, grieving bitterly over his past life, became a true and earnestly devoted convert to Christianity. When his con version became known, he and Justina were apprehended, and professing openly the faith of Christ, they both were beaten with whips and rods, and then cast into a squalid prison. After some days they were brought forth, and still declaring themselves Christians, they were cast into a cauldron of boiling oil, pitch, and resin. From this they were miraculously rescued, and at last suffered death by the sword at Nicomedia. For six days the dead bodies remained unburied, but one night some sailors stole the sacred remains, and brought them to Rome, where they were laid first outside the city in the grounds of Rufina, a gentlewoman of Rome, and afterwards in the Basilica of Constantine near the baptistry, in the city. . . ." (This is given at much greater length and more interesting detail in Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints.)
The Power of the Demons
Besides the internal and invisible attacks of the demon, there are times when it pleases God to permit him to attack man in outward, visible, and extraordinary ways. "It is well worthy of your consideration to know whether demons enter substantially into men's bodies, or whether they are said to enter because they exercise their malice in harassing and oppressing human souls, and trying to draw them into sin by God's permission." (Saint Bonaventure)
Is there such a thing as possession by the devil?
Yes. By "possession" is meant that power of the demon over the body of a person, by which he harasses it in various ways, sometimes without ceasing, sometimes at intervals. Obsession is different from possession. It is called obsession when the demon seems to act from outside the person, possession when from within. On this account "possessed persons" are technically called energumens, i.e., afflicted or harassed internally.
Saint Bonaventure says: "By the permission of God, demons may enter human bodies, and worry and annoy them. The holy text, as also Augustine in his work on Divination, declare that demons, by their subtle and spiritual nature, can enter bodies, and without any obstacle or impediment subsist in them; and by their power as angels they can disturb and harass them. God permits this, either for His own glory, or for punishment, or the correction of the sinner, or for our instruction; but from which one of these causes definitely no one may guess, as "God's ways are hidden ways."
Have persons been possessed by the devil?
Yes. In the first book of Kings (16:13) we read: "And Samuel anointed David in the midst of his brethren. And the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. And the servants of Saul said to him: Behold, now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. Let our lord give orders, and thy servants who are before thee will seek out a man skillful in playing on the harp, that when the evil spirit of the Lord is upon thee he may play with his hand, and thou mayst bear it more easily. . . . So whensoever the evil spirit from the Lord was upon Saul, David took his harp, and Saul was refreshed, for the evil spirit departed from him."
And the Bible describes how Saul acted when the evil spirit came upon him. "And the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied [i.e., acted like a prophet, but in a mad manner] in the midst of his house. And David played with his hand as at other times. And Saul held a spear in his hand, and threw it, thinking to nail David to the wall. David stept aside out of his presence twice. And Saul feared David, because the Lord was with him, and was departed from himself." (1 Kings 18:10)
What rage the devil must have infused into the man that would fling a dangerous weapon at another, such as Saul did! It tells of another attack: "And the evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul, and he sat in his house, and held a spear in his hand; and David played with his hand. And Saul endeavoured to nail David to the wall with his spear. And David slipped away out of the presence of Saul; and the spear missed him, and was fastened in the wall, and David fled and escaped that night." (1 Kings 19:9)
In that singularly interesting book of the Old Testament, the book of Tobias, and in its third chapter, we read that when poor old Tobias was blind, and had been upbraided by his wife, he sighed and began to pray with tears, "That the Lord would do with him according to His will, and that He would command his spirit to be received in peace, for that it was better for him to die than to live." It continues: "Now, it happened on that same day that Sara, daughter of Raguel, received a reproach from one of her father's servant maids, because she had been given to seven husbands, and a devil named Asmodeus had killed them. So when she reproved the maid for her fault, she answered her saying: May we never see son or daughter of thine upon the earth, thou murderer of thy husbands. . . . At these words she went into an upper chamber of her house, and for three days and three nights did neither eat nor drink, but continuing in prayer with tears, besought God that he would deliver her from this reproach. . . . At that time the prayers of them both [the elder Tobias and Sara] were heard in the sight of the glory of the Most High God, and the holy angel of the Lord, Raphael, was sent to heal them both." In the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eleventh chapters the way in which they were cured is told with every detail.
We turn to the New Testament, to the evangelist Saint Mark (chapter 5:1): "And they came over the straits of the sea into the country of the Gerasens. And as He went out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the monuments a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling in the tombs (note - these were caves), and no man could bind him, not even with chains. For having often been bound with fetters and chains, he had burst the chains and broken the fetters in pieces, and no man could tame him. And he was always day and night in the monuments and on the mountains, crying and cutting himself with stones. And seeing Jesus afar off, he ran and adored Him, and crying with a loud voice, he said: What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure Thee by God that Thou torment me not. For He said unto him: Go out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And He asked him, What is thy name? And he saith to Him, My name is Legion, for we are many. And he besought Him much that He would not drive him away out of the country. And there was then near the mountain a great herd of swine feeding. And the spirits besought Him saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And Jesus immediately gave them leave. And the unclean spirits going out, entered into the swine; and the herd with great violence was carried into the sea, being about 2000, and were stifled in the sea."
In the same Gospel (9:16) we have another instance, described, too, with detail, of a person possessed. "And one of the multitude answering, said: Master, I have brought my son to Thee having a dumb spirit, who, wheresoever he taketh him, dasheth him, and he foameth and gnasheth with the teeth, and pineth away. . . . And when He had seen him, immediately the spirit troubled him, and being thrown down upon the ground, he rolled about foaming. And He asked his father, How long hath this happened to him? But he said, From his infancy; and oftentimes hath he cast him into the fire and into waters to destroy him. But if Thou canst do anything, help us, having compassion on us. . . . And when Jesus saw the multitude running together [likely, clustered together through fear], He threatened the unclean spirit, saying to him: Deaf and dumb spirit, I command thee go out of him, and enter not any more into him. And crying out, and greatly tearing him, he went out of him, and he became as dead; so that many said, he is dead. But Jesus taking him by the hand, lifted him up, and he arose."
In the lives of the Saints, throughout the history of the Church, are to be found numerous instances of possession or obsession, and one will scarcely wonder, when one remembers that the demon always endeavours to thwart God's works. In the Roman Breviary of 26th June there is an instance:
"John and Paul were brothers, born at Rome, and living there. They had faithfully and piously, as became good Christians, served the Princess Constantia, daughter of Constantine; and when she was dying she left them a large legacy, which they expended on the poor in food and clothing.
"Julian, the apostate, being come to the throne, invited them to be of his household, but they declared they would not serve one who had turned away from Jesus Christ. Upon this he gave them plainly to understand that, if within ten days they did not change their mind, become his adherents, and sacrifice to the gods, he would have them condemned to death.
"They knew he would do as he had said, and within that time they made all possible haste to distribute their goods, and thus assist a larger number of poor people; that so, in the first place, they might have less to bind them to earth; and, in the second, have many more to receive them into eternal tabernacles. On the tenth day, Terence, prefect of the Pretorian cohort, was sent to them. He carried with him a statue of Jupiter, and the Emperor's orders were, if they did not offer sacrifice they were to die.
"The brothers were in prayer when he arrived, and, without a moment's hesitation, answered him that they were ready to lay down their lives for that God whom they adored with their hearts and confessed with their lips.
"Terence was afraid that, if these men were publicly slain, there would be a tumult in the city, so widely were they known for their good works and so greatly beloved. He therefore got them beheaded in the interior of their own house, and then industriously spread the rumour that they were but sent into exile. Their death, however, became known, and in a way that Terence little dreamt of. A number of persons were possessed by the devil, and among the rest Terence's only son, and these never ceased crying out and publishing the fact. Terence now became greatly alarmed, and, taking his son with him, he knelt at the graves of the martyrs, whereupon the young man was immediately cured. Terence and all his household became Christians, and with his own hand he wrote the lives and acts of these holy martyrs."
The Holy Fathers everywhere speak of persons being possessed, and unanimously refer to the Church's power in casting out demons as one of the signs of its divine mission. Even the very pagans have never denied the fact of persons being possessed, and are struck dumb when asked to account for their liberation by the Church's ministers. Finally, the Church, in ordaining that the power be given to exorcists of casting out demons, openly gives expression to its belief on the matter.
"Such an influence and power of the demon is not to be wondered at, if we recollect what, and how great, is the natural power of an angel (fallen or unfallen) to remove immense bodies of matter; nor, again, is it to be questioned on the part of God, who permits such attacks either as a punishment of sin or as a proving and refining of virtue." (Bonal)
"Blessed is the man who suffereth temptation, because when he hath been proved, he shall receive the crown of life which God hath prepared for those who love Him." (James 1:12)
What is the knowledge of the demon?
Knowledge such as an angel he was endowed with before his fall, and that we believe to be pre-eminent and extraordinary. The prophet Ezechiel (chapter 28) says: "Thou, the seal of similitude, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty." His knowledge far exceeds the know ledge of all rational creatures; and then he possesses a subtlety of nature, a comprehensiveness of intellect, an experience of time, and an insight into created things, that make him all but omniscient. This God has permitted that not to our own strength may we trust in our wrestling with the powers of darkness, but to Him who can give us wisdom, understanding, counsel, etc., and all other perfect gifts with the Holy Ghost from on high.
Saint Dionysius, writing on the divine names, says: "We say that there were given to them (the demons) full and splendid gifts, and that these were in nowise changed."
Saint Isidore (de Summo Bono) says: "The transgressing angels, though they lost their sanctity, never lost the fundamental inheritance of the angelic nature."
Saint Bonaventure says: "There is a two-fold knowledge knowledge of things to be known and knowledge of things to be done. The first knowledge, although it remain substantially unaltered as to its power, yet sometimes on account of their fall becomes somewhat darkened, especially in their judgment of contingent things; but the second, their knowledge of what ought to be done, is wholly and absolutely destructive; and they are just as blinded in not doing right as they are obstinate in desiring it, and hence they are called children of darkness, and are said to be given over to a reprobate sense."
"The demon, then," says an old Franciscan writer of the seventeenth century, "being endowed with such knowledge; and this knowledge embracing not alone the present and the past, but even the future, so far as the future can be foretold from deep insight into natural laws, natural causes, and effects, what wicked inventions can he not bring forth, and what malicious arts may he not be master of, and so satisfy his devilish appetite to work innumerable evils? For most plainly does he know the movements of heavenly bodies, the influences of stars, the conjunctions of planets,, the mixtures of elements, the virtues of minerals, the operations of metals, the power of herbs, the properties of animals, the dispositions of men, the secret and wonderful qualities of all things - their sympathies or their antipathies - as well how they are to be applied as how they are to be modified; what seasons and times are opportune; what may hinder, retard, or assist their natural effects; to select the matter which may have the power of altering, of cooling or heating, of opening, shutting, dividing, emptying, destroying; in fine, what may be injurious or advantageous to plants, animals, or man, and of bringing about change, recovery, sickness, death, or other evil. All these are within his power, since he knows the species and nature of everything in the mineral, vegetable, animal, and atmospheric world clearly and most intimately, as Saint Augustine, Saint Bonaventure, Scotus, Saint Thomas, and all theologians unanimously hold." (Brognolo)
It is not therefore to be wondered at that a spirit so full of knowledge and so intent on evil should work such extraordinary things, especially when, as holy Job says (41), "there is not a power on earth to be compared to his." "The power of the demon," says Saint Gregory, "is to be accounted indefinitely beyond all things on the earth, because, although by his own act he has fallen far below the condition of man, yet, in its origin, the angelic nature (which he still possesses) super-eminently transcends that of the human race." "And with that power," says Saint Bernardine, "there is united an evil will - a will so wanton and evil, that it wishes and desires the most wicked thing it can possibly effect; and were it not for the infinite mercy of God it would overturn and destroy all things within its grasp or power, such as this world with all its surroundings; for they all, as being inferior to the angelic state, are within the scope of his power." We can well understand, then, that in that unhappy empire, where he reigns and has full sway, "there is no order, but everlasting horror dwelleth."
Saint Bonaventure thus describes their knowledge of the past: "So far as their memory as a faculty of the mind is concerned, there can be no forgetfulness; but as a recollection or a gratefulness, they have no remembrance of God's benefits or of His desire to have them blessed. In this latter sense a shameful oblivion has come upon them, so much so that since their fall they are incapable of at all remembering good."
Do men act wisely when they say, The devil take you?
They act most thoughtlessly and unwisely. At that moment the devil would be only too glad to take away and destroy whatever his evil power is imprecated upon. It is only the Divine Will intervening that prevents him. Saint Augustine says that the power of the devil has been checked by God because of his sin; for as his knowledge on account of his fall is less than the knowledge of the angels who remained faithful, because these, in enjoying the Beatific Vision, see all future things by what is called their morning knowledge, whereas Lucifer, not enjoying the Beatific Vision, cannot therefore see the future in the same way as the angels in glory, and thus as his knowledge was limited by his fall, so too his power, so that he has not the same power as the angels in glory; for although his power as well as his knowledge is fundamentally unchanged, yet as to liberty and execution - i.e., in respect of its accidents - it is changed and limited. "From the beginning of this world God curbed the power of Satan, not in regard of his tempting man, but of his attacking or possessing him." (Brognolo)
"By the passion and death of Christ, the demon's power was singularly broken and restrained." (Idem.) Saint Cyril of Alexandria says: "The demon had before that [before the coming of our Blessed Saviour] in his tyranny established a principality over all, and that domination he exercised mercilessly; but by the merits of the death of Christ, and by His blood, that tyranny was broken, and that principality taken away, and those whom he pitilessly held in his grasp and power were, by the mighty conqueror of death and hell, gloriously released."
Saint Hilarion, the monk, says: "By the death of Christ, the power of the demon was placed beneath our feet, and he became our slave, who, since the fall of our first parents, had lorded it wantonly over the human race." And he continues: "Who then shall not rejoice when he reads, Now shall the prince of this world be cast out! who not give thanks day and night to his glorious liberator?" No longer can he wage civil war against the creatures of God. He is cast out. From outside he still tempts and persecutes and wages war, but foreign enemies are more easily vanquished than domestic ones.
Maldonatus on the text, "As if He should say, now shall the prince of this world be cast down from his throne and thrust out from his citadel," says, he is said to be cast out, not that he is not still in the world and possesses power over many, but that Christ so cast him out that if men wish he is fully at their mercy, and unless they bow their heads he has no power over them. In the same way it is stated in the Apocalypse (chapter 12), he is cast from heaven to earth heaven here being used of the Church, and earth meaning outer darkness. And again (in chapter 30), he is said to be bound for a thousand years, not meaning that he is cast outside the Church, or that he is absolutely bound with chains, but that his power and tyranny are so curbed and limited that if men wish he can do them no harm.
For whom does God limit his power?
The power of the demon to work harm to body or soul is limited and shortened in favour of those whom God wishes to protect and to shelter from his attacks, either because of their faith in Jesus Christ or of their confidence in God's protection, or because of their devotion to the Blessed Mother of God, or to one's guardian angel, or to the saints.
Saint Liguori says: "That as men are startled and terrified by thunder and lightning; with such confusion and terror are the devils put to flight at the invocation of most holy Mary's venerable name."
Lactantius says: "The demons can do no harm to those whom the high and omnipotent hand of God protects."
Tostatus says: "It was to come to pass in time that Christ was to curb the demon's power, and therefore was it fitting that visible examples should have been given of the tyranny of the infernal spirit."
Saint Athanasius says: "So highly are they raised who have proper faith in Christ, that under their feet shall they trample that evil spirit who once dared to say, I will climb into the heavens; over the stars shall I set my throne; I will be like the Most High."
Saint Bernard on these words (Psalm 90), "He that dwelleth in the aid of the Most High, shall abide under the protection of the God of Jacob," says: "Blessed truly is he; for which of all the things under heaven can harm him whom the God of the heavens desires to shelter and protect? Now under heaven are all those things which can harm, for in heaven is nothing that wishes harm the powers of the air, the prince of this world, the flesh warring against the spirit. Well, therefore, does the Psalmist say the God of the heavens, to accentuate the fact that none of those things which are under heaven need that man fear who reposes in the protection of the Most High."
Saint Hermes, the disciple of Saint Paul, was often accompanied by his angel guardian in a visible form, and on one occasion the angel said to him: "Those who are full of faith in God need not fear the devil. He must depart from them, for he can find no place to enter."
In the Life of Saint Ambrose, the learned and venerable Bishop of Milan, there is an instance very much to the point. Saint Paulinus, his biographer, relates that, on account of the holy doctor's faith in God, no magician or evil spirit could harm him. After the death of the Arian Empress Justina, the magician Innocent (as he called himself) was being carried off into exile, and amid the greatest torments he declared that he was tortured by the guardian angel of Saint Ambrose; for that he (Innocent) had often, at the suggestion of the Empress, who hated the Saint, tried to bring the holy man into disfavour and disrepute with the people, had made use of charms to injure him, and had even called upon the demons to kill him; that these latter gladly responded to his invocation, but that they never could get beyond the doors of the church or the episcopal palace where the holy archbishop lived.
In such ways does God curb the power of the evil one, and stretch forth His protecting hand to shield the just!
In whose regard does God permit the demon a larger exercise of power?
"On the other hand, it may be easily gathered why the demon is often allowed the exercise of larger power, so that oftentimes men and even women are harassed by diabolical attacks, as well as injured by devilish arts, and even their lives taken away because of a diffidence in God's power or a disloyalty to Him." (Brognolo)
Maldonatus says: "Men themselves open the door of the citadel to the demon, and by a domestic treason receive him within the gates. Therefore it is that he still reigns, and still has supremacy, but only over the children of perdition."
A very ancient writer thus puts it: "But you will ask why is it that God permits so many men to become the victims of hellish arts, and even to be murdered by demons. Why not? As a man sows, so shall he reap. When these are sick, what doctor will they call in but the magician, the man of charms and herbs - what physician will they have but the devil? Justly then does God permit those unhappy people to be tortured by the wonder-workers they have preferred to Him. Alas! how rare a thing it is to find one who will put his whole trust in God! Look at the manners of man, and everywhere you will find that God is thrust out from His own world; and that they will go to magicians or demons more readily than they will to consult Him. And this happens age after age, and century after century and hence the foolish fear of the supernatural that is engendered in their minds in their distrust of God." (Drexelius)
Has then the demon a larger exercise of power over the wicked than the just?
Broadly speaking, yes; because of their infidelity to God.
Saint Augustine, writing against the Manicheans, says: "The devil hath power against those who despise the precepts of God" - meaning large power.
Alexander Alensis, the master of the seraphic doctor, Saint Bonaventure, says: "The devil has power to seduce and to destroy, unless God forbids him. With the good, however, he can exercise no power to destroy, only to tempt, and thereby to prove."
This power the demon exercises especially on his own agents - magicians, charmers, witches, etc. - whose souls are actually sold to him, and whose bodies he sometimes beats when they refuse to do his evil bidding. Even in their case, however, the power of the demon is limited. Saint Augustine illustrates the demon's power by a familiar example: "The demon is like a dog that Christ has chained up: he can growl or whine, but can bite only those who come near him."
Brognolo gives two instances, which I quote: "In the year 1648," he writes, "it happened at Venice that a boy of fourteen, named Justus, was possessed by a devil. The boy's father was called John de Taxis. I was ordered to exorcise the child, and on my asking the demon why he had entered the body of that boy, he made answer, that a magician sent him thither to take away the child from the earth. And the same answer was received on the same day from another demon who had taken possession of a girl of eighteen. But on my asking why they had not taken away the children's lives, seeing that they had already possessed them now over a twelve-month, they replied that God for bade them, and they had by no means the power to do everything they wished. And both these," continues the old Franciscan Father, "by the power of God, and by the invocation of the most holy Name of Jesus, were, at my orders, driven from these two children on the same day." (Question I.3)
Why are not all great sinners harassed by the demon?
It is not according to God's wish; and secondly, the demon himself is too wise, for if he openly and violently assaulted great sinners, his dominion would be quickly curtailed; and furthermore, he rarely attacks on this earth those whom he expects to be his for ever in the regions below, unless, of course, when ordered by God to do so.
Saint Gregory says: "The demon is careless about worrying those whom he feels he shall one day have at his ease - quos quieto jure possidere se sentit."
The reason is plain. The one great aim of the demons is to thwart the work of God, but more particularly to thwart the work that we attribute especially to our blessed Lord - namely, the redemption and salvation of souls. The order they follow is then: try to induce men to sin, and thus to forfeit eternal salvation, but, failing in that, harass and worry them in any possible way. One great reason why, in pagan times, the demons were anxious to visibly tenant the bodies of men was that thereby their power would be more feared and extolled, and that they would be adored instead of God.
Suarez says: "The demon worries man in this way to make him impatient, to make him despair, or give utterance to blasphemy, or in some way to sin against Almighty God." "But," says Brognolo, "magicians, and charmers, and seers, and those like them who are obstinate in sin, always rushing headlong into crime, hungering and thirsting after abomination, these most grievously offend God, by their blasphemies, sacrileges, iniquities; nor even is it their own selves they bind and fetter with the chains of sin, but by their soliciting others they become the agents of Satan. Now all these the demon has no need to afflict in body, particularly as he finds them to be in mind and inclination ready and willing tools of his, and as, furthermore, he already possesses them safely and securely (quieto jure). This truth," continues the Father, "a certain demon, named Beelzebub, once confessed in the city of Lyons, as is related by Bartholomew Faius Regius, a councillor of the Parisian senate: Whilst Bursus Cilius, canon of the Cathedral Church," he says, 'was driving the aforesaid demon out of a certain young girl named Nicola, he interrogated the demon in presence of many heretics, why he had taken possession of a child of the Church, and left so many wicked sinners undisturbed. He received this pithy but suggestive reply - Would you beat your own'?"
What are we to think about dreams?
Dreams may, in the first place, be from God. Anyone reading the old Bible will remember that Abraham was frequently visited by God in sleep. Joseph had dreams. Pharaoh had dreams. In the New Testament the several cases of Saint Joseph will be sufficient to enumerate. Dreams therefore may come from God. Generally speaking, how ever, they do not; and it is only in special and most notable cases that such do come from God. In the Lives of the Saints, we occasionally read of dreams which have a future and prophetic meaning; and these even the Roman Breviary, with all its staid and rigid exclusiveness, does not hesitate to put before its readers. In the main, dreams proceed from natural causes. "Although the predisposing causes of dreams may be sought for in more than one direction, they are probably in general referable to some peculiar condition of the body, and are often called into action through the agency of the external senses. Dr. Gregory relates that, having occasion to apply a bottle of hot water to his feet on going to bed, he dreamed that he was going up Mount Etna, and found the ground insufferably hot." (Chambers' Encyclopedia, "Dreaming")
But a person might say: "Oh, wonderful things happened to me in my sleep." Chambers, in the same article, relates some wonderful things. "Most of our readers are acquainted with the incident narrated by Coleridge of himself; that his fragment [of poetry] entitled Kubla Khan was composed during sleep, which had come upon him in his chair, whilst reading the following words in Purchas' Pilgrims: Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built and a stately garden thereunto, and thus ten miles of fertile ground were enclosed within a wall."
Coleridge continued for about three hours apparently in a profound sleep, during which he had the most vivid impression that he had composed between 200 and 300 lines. "The images," he says, "rose up before him as things with a parallel production of the corresponding expressions without any sensations or consciousness of effort. On awakening he had so distinct a remembrance of the whole that he seized his pen and wrote down the lines that are still preserved. Unfortunately he was called away to attend some business, and on his return to his study he found to his intense mortification that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest was passed away."
Here is another instance cited by Chambers: "Tartini is said to have composed The Devil's Sonata under the inspiration of a dream, in which the arch-fiend challenged him to a trial of skill. The dreamer lay entranced by the transcendent performance of his distinguished visitor, but on awakening and seizing his violin to reproduce the actual succession of notes, he produced from his general impression the celebrated composition which we have named."
Those who are readers of Irish light literature will remember that a late deceased and much-tried author introduces a personage who has composed a marvellous piece of music in dreams.
Chambers again says: "A woman aged 26, who had lost a portion of the scalp, skull, and dura mater, so that a portion of her brain was exposed to view, was a patient in 1821 in the hospital at Montpellier. When she was in a dream less state or in profound sleep, her brain was comparatively motionless, and lay completely within its bony case, but when the sleep was imperfect and the mind was agitated by dreams, her brain moved, and protruded from the skull, forming what is termed cerebral hernia. This protrusion was greatest when the dreams, as she reported, were most vivid; and when she was perfectly awake, especially if actively engaged in conversation, it attained its highest development; nor did this protrusion occur in jerks, alternating with recession, as if caused by arterial action, but remained permanent while the conversation continued. If the data of this case are to be depended on, the appearance of the brain during profound sleep seems to indicate that during that state there is a total, or nearly a total, suspense of the mental faculties."
One other view of dreams I will consider - namely, their extraordinary and almost miraculous rapidity. Some may think that if a great deal happened in their dreams, and the time occupied by the dream was exceedingly short, it must be something unusual and even preternatural.
Chambers cites several instances. Here are two: "Dr. Carpenter mentions the case of a clergyman falling asleep in his pulpit during the singing of the psalm before the sermon, and awakening with the conviction that he must have slept at least for an hour, and that the congregation must have been waiting for him; but on referring to his Psalm-book, he was consoled by finding that his slumber had lasted not longer than during the singing of a single line."
"Sir Benjamin Brodie relates the following anecdote of the late Lord Holland: On an occasion when he was much fatigued whilst listening to a friend who was reading aloud, he fell asleep and had a dream, the particulars of which would have occupied him a quarter of an hour or longer to express in writing. After he woke, he found that he remembered the beginning of one sentence, while he actually heard the latter part of the sentence immediately following it; so that probably the whole time during which he had slept did not occupy more than a few seconds."
Young people, sick people, overworked people, are as a rule the most exposed to dreams, and to dreams of an agonising nature. If during the day anything happens which particularly engages the attention of the young, this is almost certain to recur in dreams, especially if of a dangerous or terrific nature. A boy at school hears of a ghost having been seen near his place at home. Possibly his schoolfellow has been "taking a rise out of him." But it is no joke to the poor lad. He has forgotten it, perhaps, during the excitement of the day; but when he puts out the light and all is dark, then it recurs to his mind, and all night he lies still in affright, or tumbling in uneasiness; or if a step comes he wakes up with a start, horrified and terror-stricken.
Overworked, and especially over-anxious, people will be sure to dream of what is weighing on their minds. This is particularly true of literary men, or men who take part in debate, and whose minds consequently are very much strained. It is related of the great Pitt that after leaving the House of Commons, he always had a book of travels or other light literature read to him for some length of time before going to bed, and this in order to soothe the brain.
Sick people are also very liable to dreams, and dreams of a horrid nature. Everyone knows there is some mysterious connection between the human soul and the human body; but our best metaphysicians fail in explaining that connection. Sufficient for our purpose that such a connection exists. When the body is sick, the soul is affected too. When the body is sick, the humours of it are much more disarranged; and consequently when a slumber comes on the patient has horrid visions, rests uneasily, and often starts up with a feeling of choking. This is from the dreams that are begotten of the vapoury humours of the body or an overfull stomach.
In Foster's Life of Charles Dickens a singular dream is told. The famous author was at Genoa in the year 1844. "Let me tell you" (he wrote on the 30th September) "of a curious dream I had last Monday night. I had lain awake all night suffering from rheumatism, which knotted round my waist like a girdle of pain. At last I fell asleep and dreamed this dream. In an indistinct place, which was quite sublime in its indistinctness, I was visited by a spirit. I could not make out the face, nor do I recollect that I desired to do so. It wore a blue drapery, as a Madonna might in a picture by Raphael, and bore no resemblance to anyone I have known, except in stature. I think, but I am not sure, that I recognized the voice. Anyway I knew it was poor Mary's [his sister's] spirit. I was not at all afraid, but in a great delight, so that I wept very much, and, stretching out my arms to it, called it 'Dear'. At this I thought it recoiled, and I felt immediately that, not being of my gross nature, I ought not to have addressed it so familiarly. 'Forgive me,' I said. It was so full of compassion and sorrow for me that it cut me to the heart. [He is desired to ask a question. He does so.] I thought with myself, if I form a selfish wish, it will vanish. [He asks a question about her mother, and she replies.] 'But answer me one other question,' I said, in an agony of entreaty lest it should leave me. 'What is the true religion?' As it paused a moment without replying, 'Good God!' I said, in such an agony of haste, lest it should go away, 'you think, as I do, that the form of religion does not so greatly matter if we try to do good? Or,' I said, observing that it still hesitated, and was moved with the greatest compassion for me, 'perhaps the Roman Catholic is the best? Perhaps it makes one think of God oftener, and believe in Him more steadily?' 'For you,' said the spirit, speaking with such heavenly tenderness to me that I thought my heart would break - 'for you it is the best.' Then I awoke with the tears running down my face. It was just dawn."
Dr. Murray of Maynooth College - (may his soul be with the just!) - once gave a short but most useful advice with regard to dreams: "Never think of your dreams in the morning, and never make a habit of relating or referring to them." As a rule the telling of dreams worries everybody except the narrator and some old female that has nothing else to occupy her. But has the devil the power of telling future things in dreams? To a certain extent he has. It is possible for him, for instance, to know things that are happening far away, and which, as far as we are concerned, are hidden as yet in the womb of the future. Again, he can know things much more intimately, and can therefore make a much more accurate guess at what may happen, than is possible for us. But he does not know, and cannot know, the future to a certainty. The same is to be said of fortune-tellers. It is possible that fortune-tellers, especially if aided by diabolic art, may tell persons things that happened in the past, and which no one but the actors themselves knew, and which therefore seem preternatural to the persons consulting them. Such an act, as well as every endeavour, by unlawful means, to read the future, is a heinous sin against God. It is taking away from God that one attribute which He has jealously reserved to Himself and refused to every creature that, namely, of knowing the future; and when man or woman consults fortune-tellers or the like, it is tacitly acknowledging that these are equal to God in respect of knowing the future. "Oh, such a gipsy woman told me things that I thought the ground hardly knew;" the insinuation of course being that if she knew the secrets of the past, why not the secrets of the future too. It is possible for a fortune-teller, by the agency of the demon, or, what is more likely, of a confederate, to know the locked and midnight secrets of the past; but the secrets of the future God has reserved to Himself, and revealed to no one.
"Future events may be said to be of a three-fold nature - (1) some are of a determined and infallible character, as, for instance, the motions of the heavenly bodies; (2) others are of a determined but fallible character, as, for instance, seed cast into the ground, which generally grows up, but may not; and (3) some are indetermined and fallible, as, for instance, things depending on our own will, and which therefore may or may not occur. In the first case even creatures may predict with certainty; in the second, skillful persons may predict, and that too with a degree of certainty; in the last, no creature may predict, for no one knows except God Almighty, or those to whom He reveals such secrets. And the reason is, because the knowledge of creatures pendet ex re; but, since this is an uncertain mode of knowledge, it is not possible for creatures to know or foretell certitudinaliter. But the divine knowledge non pendet a re aliqua, nay, all that He knows He knows according to the measure of His own truth; and, since this truth is most certain, He knows everything, contingent as well as necessary, in the most certain manner. Knowledge of the future therefore belongs to God, or is from God; and hence the declaration of all such future things is called divination, because it is a divine act. But since the proud demons desire to be honoured as God, they strive especially to show they possess this power; and to attribute such power to them is to attribute to them what solely and peculiarly belongs to God, and is therefore infidelity and idolatry of the worst type, and consequently to be avoided and abhorred." (Saint Bonaventure)
How does the demon take possession?
Sometimes by the order, sometimes by the permission, of God. Suarez says: "God sometimes orders it for the punishment of great crimes." Saint Anselm says: "God sometimes permits the demon to bring this sort of punishment on a man for his salvation." The first then is because of vindictive punishment pure and simple; the second for the sake of correction.
"The demon takes occasion sometimes to enter human bodies because of their fear fear, namely, that God cannot save them from the power of the demon; sometimes through man's own passions, for the demon takes occasion of a man's or woman's anger or indignation to possess their bodies." (Brognolo)
According to Saint Augustine, "the demon is most covetous to do harm"; and when therefore a man does an action that displeases God, God withdraws Himself proportionately from that man, and thus leaves him more exposed to the attacks of the infernal one.
How does the demon exist in the body?
In a spiritual way, like the soul. There is this difference, that the soul is in every part of the body, and is there whole and entire; whereas the demon may occupy only one member or one portion the head, the arm, the foot, the side, the heart. He can never occupy the soul in the same way as he occupies the body. "He may be united to it by application or oppression," says Saint Augustine, "but it is God alone, the soul's creator, that can substantially occupy it."
Are there any such things as ghosts?
We must first make up our minds as to what is meant by ghosts. By ghosts we generally mean the appearance again on this earth of persons that are dead. This appearance generally takes place at night, and, as a rule, when the person seeing it is alone. Old raths or forts, old castles, old houses, the scenes of murder or of other horrible deeds, are the places where, according to popular belief, these appearances take place. We will now proceed to examine whether it is possible for a living person to see one that is dead. No one will, for a moment, dream that it is the body that arises out of the grave. That is long since corrupted, and nothing but the archangel's trumpet shall put life into the withered flesh, and bring the dry bones together. It, therefore, is not the body that is seen; and if not the body, it can be but the soul. We will therefore discuss whether it is possible to see a soul. Is it possible to see air, to see the wind? No. Yet these are much more material substances, imperceptible and quasi-spiritual though they be, than the human soul. A man never saw his own soul; a man never saw his neighbour's soul. Why so? Because the soul is a pure spirit, and cannot be seen by corporal eyes. Can a person see the soul of one that is dead? No; no more than the soul of one that is alive. It would take a miracle from God for a person to see the soul of a person alive or dead. Now, will any sane person believe that God works a miracle every time some person takes it into a foolish imagination to think that a ghost has appeared. Preposterous! Again, the soul of the dead person is in one of three places - hell, heaven, or purgatory. If it be in hell, never fear it will not appear, even for the sake of cautioning brothers and relatives on this earth. "They have Moses and the prophets - if they will not hear these, neither will they hear one from the dead." If the soul be in heaven, it is too happily engaged blessing and adoring God, to wish to leave unless by God's express orders. If the soul be in purgatory, and granting, what some holy writers think, that a soul may spend its purgatory on this earth, it has something else to do than showing itself to benighted, half-hearted, or half-drunken travellers - not taking into account the impossibility, as before said, of our corporal eyes seeing the soul of a person alive or dead.
Is it then absolutely untrue when a person says he has seen a ghost; or does anything preternatural appear?
It is possible that God may permit a soul to return from the other world, and appear to one on this earth; but plainly this must be for some weighty and important reason. In the book of Kings it is told that the witch of Endor brought up by her incantations the ghost of the prophet Samuel to king Saul; but commentators are divided whether this was really the soul of the prophet or merely an appearance; the latter is the more general opinion, because if Samuel appeared in reality, the witch would then possess divine power. Our blessed Lord did undoubtedly bring back from the other world the souls of many persons. But these were miracles - miracles wrought with a divine purpose - that, namely, of proving the truth of His heavenly mission. Such also has been the case in the instances of His Saints doing the like. Now, where does such a reason exist in the thousand and one occurrences that we may hear of every day? If an appearance really takes place, that appearance is to be prima facie attributed to the demon.
"The demons," says Saint Bonaventure, "can produce artificial forms by their own power, but the natural living things they cannot. As man may make figures and images, even so the demon; but it is God alone who, of His own power, can create things that did not already exist, or form things from things not existing. Therefore, in the case of the serpents, they were merely imitations, which the Egyptian sorcerers, by the aid of the demon, were permitted to produce before Pharao, and not real creatures.
"Thus, too, angels (whether good or bad) sometimes assume human bodies as instruments, signs, and dwelling-places; as instruments or organs, to work with; as signs, to manifest themselves; as coverings or dwelling-places, to converse. These they assume as a man might his clothes; and thus it is plain that it is not for anything to be done to the assumed bodies themselves, but to make use of them for working, for manifesting, for conversing. While thus assumed, the body follows the laws of spirit, rather than, conversely, the spirit the laws of bodies, because it is by the spirit it is formed, by it it is conserved, and by it it is ruled. These bodies are not true bodies, nor have they complete organisation such as human bodies have; they are merely effigies or appearances of bodies; for if an angel would form a human body de novo, there is no reason why it may not also raise up a dead body from the grave, and that has never been permitted to it."
Saint Bonaventure asks the question, Where, and how, and of what are these assumed bodies formed? "On this matter," he replies, "learned men have held different opinions. Some have thought that the angels assume these bodies ex natura elemantari, but yet not from one thing but from many one, however, predominating; and hence they look on this assumed body as a truly mixed body, though no; a truly human one. Others think that these assumed bodies are formed out of the air; the angels, by some process known to them, condensing it (as, for instance, water by cold is changed into ice), and thus these bodies assume the outward shape and appearance of human bodies. There is still a third way," continues the saint, "which seems the most probable, that these bodies assumed by the angels are elementary; not that they are formed in certain proportions of the four elementary things such as organised bodies are, but that principally they are formed of air, with a certain mixture of another element; just, for instance, as the clouds, which, though they be not fully mixed, yet are formed from more than one element. It does not, then, need that an angel should search at great trouble for matter for their bodies, since the air, to a certain extent, is always a mixture of two or more elements.
"Such bodies cannot exercise the natural functions of human bodies. They do not make use of food. It is written in the twelfth chapter of Tobias: I seemed indeed to you to eat and drink; but I make use of food and drink that is invisible . An assumed body, then, has not power to convert food into itself, etc., but it sometimes exercises operations somewhat similar to the functions of the human body, though not real."
As I have already dwelt at length on this subject, I will merely quote authorities: Saint Augustine, his book on Heresy, chapter 68; City of God, Book 10, chapter 2; Saint Chrysostom, Homily 29, on Saint Matthew; Saint Thomas Aquinas, I. Par., qu. 117; Sanchez, I; Decalog, Book II.
But it will be urged that these appearances have told persons to make restitution in their name, to get prayers said for them, or have masses offered. Even so, "great caution is to be exercised with regard to such apparitions; for without a particular grace of God, no one can safely assert which are genuine and which are not, especially as Saint Paul testifies that the discretion of spirits is a gratuitous gift of God." (1 Corinthians 13, Brognolo) The demon may thus put on the appearance of an angel of light, in order the more surely to deceive the unwary.
The devotion to the holy souls in purgatory is a very great charity towards God, towards Jesus Christ, towards guardian angels, but especially towards our deceased relatives and friends; for that reason I wish to add one word more. I am one who will believe that the angel-guardian of a soul detained in purgatory may put it into the mind of a relative or friend on this earth to say a prayer, give a charity, offer holy communion, or procure a mass to be celebrated for the soul of the deceased. I will even believe that that intimation may come during sleep. I am anxious that the soul in purgatory should not forfeit the slightest chance of being remembered or relieved. But I very distinctly refuse to believe in any appearance whatsoever. That, so far as I can understand the case, except under most exceptional circumstances, is the work of the demon, or the product of a deranged imagination. I am totally abstracting here from such apparitions as our Blessed Lady at Lourdes or elsewhere.
What about forts, fairies, good people, etc., etc.?
The forts we see scattered through the country, and which so enhance and beautify the scenery, were, a great many of them, the ancient dwelling-places of our forefathers. They were built in a circular form, and protected with stakes driven in the ground for shelter and defence. Some are larger than others, just as some of our dwellings today are larger than others, implying thereby a higher rank, a larger family, or what is commonly spoken of as a larger "following". In some cases they were inhabited by but one family; and the cattle belonging to it, like the Arab's horse, all but slept with the family. Solitary dwellers, however, were the exceptions: many families living together was the rule. Our forefathers had not the same notions of architecture as we have. They threw up a mound of earth, palisaded it all round, made some excavations in the heap of clay, which served as the place of their cabins, and then covered them over with the green boughs of the forest. This was the origin of our forts; and if one can realise the state of society during the chieftaincies of Ireland, and the irruptions of the Danes, one will see - will readily see - how admirably adapted were those rude structures to the necessities of the times, being capable of reconstruction on the evening of the very day they were burnt and destroyed. I should be tempted to go at some length into this question, but the subject will be found fully and exhaustively treated in our Irish histories and other collateral works, especially those of Dr. Petrie, Dr. O Donovan, Professor O Curry, and in our own day in the works of Mr. Joyce.
In a qualified way I am glad that our forts have the reputation of being haunted, as they are thus saved from the hand of the spoiler. It would be a great drawback to the picturesqueness of the landscape, as it would be a great historical loss, if any of these our most revered, most ancient, most characteristic, and most lasting national landmarks, or their more stately brethren, the round towers, "those dials of ages," were removed. We are reminded of four different classes and periods when we look to (1) our round towers, (2) our fairy forts, (3) our ivied ecclesiastical ruins, and (4) our dismantled castles and strongholds. All these, in the popular mind, have become entwined with ghostly stories.
What then have we to say of fairies? No such things exist. Or good-people? No such things exist. Or leprechauns or phookas? Alas for fairy-tales! no such things exist! It is not told us anywhere - and if it be, it must be a very hidden place - that God made fairies, or good-people, or phookas. And if God did not make them, they could not be. God made everything in heaven and earth. To be sure, God made angels, and some of them fell, and some of these are called the powers of the air - but that is all!
What is obsession?
We speak of obsession when the devil assumes a visible form, and from time to time attacks a person from outside the body. A most notable example of this took place in recent times in the city of Limerick, and lest, through want of thought, it might be said, "no portents now our foes amaze," I will transcribe a description of an obsession from the work of a right reverend author, lately deceased.
Miss Tyrrell tells about her maid Emma Crane, the obsessed girl: "She came to me only on Mon day, and her melancholy look interested me in her behalf. . . . Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, yesterday, passed. Last night she was discovered lying on the floor torn and bleeding, head, face, neck, and shoulders, and for a long while after the discovery scarcely able to explain her sad fate."
Miss Tyrrell tells how it commenced: "On a calm summer evening, just the 20th of last May, she sat in an arbour which belonged to the garden of a dwelling in which she had been employed. Poor Emma had a mind to see the delicate beauties of the fresh young leaves, and her eyes wandered from her work . . . when her heart began to beat, and she became alarmed. She called back her thoughts, and forcing her looks on the path before her, she saw crouched, with bared teeth and blazing eye, a huge, greyish rat. She screamed, called upon God and the Virgin Mary, and fainted. The poor girl heard and felt no more till she found herself in bed, with various applications to her head and neck, and weltering in her blood."
Emma is introduced, and she herself tells the remainder of it: "In a quarter of an hour or less Emma Crane presented herself. She was an interesting young woman of one and twenty. She was deadly pale, and her neck was swathed with linens. . . . 'All the world was flying from me,' she said, 'when they heard of it. I could get no employment, and scarcely a lodging; while every day for a week my terrible curse appeared to me and attacked me. I had only one friend, and he always trusted me, sharing with me the little he could obtain from his calling.' (This was her confessor.) 'He has been to me the angel of God - long since, I fear, I should have died by my own hand but for him. Oh!' cried Emma, falling on her knees, 'wherever he is, may the light of heaven be in his heart and on his head! What would have become of me only for him?'
"'Well, sir, continued Emma, I presented myself to him time after time, all bloody and nearly mad. Oh! the agony that came with the night-time! and the doom that came in the shadows! . . . I could not, dare not, lie down! And then my blood would freeze, and the room would rock; and while I yet looked oh, God! oh, Virgin Mother! the demon stood before me on the floor, and lay down just as I saw him the first terrible day before he flew at my throat and tore me!
"Emma shuddered!
"'You went to your confessor regularly?
"'Yes! oh, yes! I should have died but for that. He made me live on, "under the hand of God." He gave me his small means, and endeavoured to obtain work for me. But I lived in continued excitement; and my brain used to burn, and, in fits of desperation crazed from the memory of the night past, and maddened by the fear of the night to come I have gone to drown myself. . . . The poor people were beginning to be frightened at my approach, and the little children that used to play with me, and love me, flew shrieking away when I came near. The shopkeepers prayed I wouldn't come to their places, and the tradespeople were "not home" for me. Everything and everyone be came my enemy, and my heart was blackening against the world. . . . The world was an enemy - only him, and the warm love of God came into my heart when he spoke.'
"'He relieved you from the monster?'
"'He believed in me. Oh, may God bless him, he did; only for that I should now be in hell; it struck him to obtain leave for me to lie on the boards in the sacristy, looking at the light that hung before Jesus. . . . How happy I was there! For over four months I have lain on the sacristy floor at night, and worked there during the day, and for four months my soul was in heaven.'
"'You were not allowed to stay?'
"'The parish clergyman, merciful and good, was cautious. He said: "However true she is she cannot always remain here, and whatever may be done last may as well be done first".'
"She went to London, hoping that in a strange country and across the seas she would be free from her demon tormentor.
"'For three days I made up my mind that I had left the demon beyond the sea, but last night - oh! mother of God! - having risen from my knees . . . the creature stood there before me! The same malignant eye was on me, and the bloody teeth were bare oh, God!' She had to return home.
"The little room was like a chapel. An altar occupied one corner, in which there was a small tabernacle. . . . A lamp burned before the tabernacle. . . . Poor Emma Crane lay on a small sofa, her neck covered, and her cheeks torn, and her eyes bloodshot. . . .
"'You have been attacked again?' asked Ailey.
"'Alas!' she cried, uncovering her neck and showing some frightful gashes alas! three times this day and a half.
"'But I thought,' Ailey continued, 'that since the little tabernacle was placed in your room you had had perfect freedom.'
"'There is my despair!' cried Emma - 'there is my despair! Never had the demon dared to present himself in the presence of the ADORABLE; and after great trouble, and many refusals, my confessor obtained leave to place HIM in my room, keeping the key himself. For a week I was in heaven! I lay down at night with a soul so happy, and I could not sleep; I needed not, for I felt fresh in the dear presence of my Saviour. He used to say to me. . . . Fear not! Oh! . . . I am a sinner! - I am a sinner! The night before last! Oh, God! . . . My heart is breaking. I feel it! I had not seen IT since I was in London my God had protected me! And the night before last I was as usual in my little bed and thinking on my God, and looking at the little lamp. . . . Oh! my heart began to beat. . . . I looked on the floor. It stood there there! . . . IT gnashed its teeth, and the fire flashed red from its murderous jaws, and IT crouched for the bound, and - O Saviour! I called upon Jesus and Mary in vain, and Jesus so near me! I am deserted because I am a sinner! I am deserted! Oh, God!' The Blessed Sacrament had been secretly removed.
"The obsession continued six months and a half. The girl's face and neck were wounded - one frightful collection of lacerations and scars. She had been driven mad. I saw her in that condition with my own eyes - black, torn, bleeding, and desperate. . . . We formed a mixed jury of Protestants and Catholics. We brought the young lady to a room entirely denuded of furniture. We firmly nailed an arm-chair in the midst of this room. We put a straight-waistcoat on the young person, and a soldier's stock under her neck this last precaution being taken to save her throat. . . . We left her in a state of utter incapacity to stir body, hand, arm, or head. The left foot alone remained free, to enable her to give notice of any attack by knocking on the floor. We then taped the window-sashes and sealed them. We stopped the entrance to the chimney and sealed it. We locked the door, sealed the keyhole, and left her to her fate. . . . We had not waited long when a knocking was heard overhead we had retired to the room underneath. We slowly unsealed the keyholes. . . . We unlocked the door and looked in. The sight was terrible. There was the poor young lady. Her face was black and livid; her eyes were fixed and glaring from beneath her brows. She frothed in convulsions, and spat forth blood and foam at every spasm. Her cheeks were laid open in wounds and bites. She appeared on the verge of a sudden death.
"The most wonderful part remains to be spoken. The confessor of the young lady was accompanied by two other clergymen; and having by great exertion restored the poor thing, the room was prepared for Mass. . . . At the close of the Mass the young lady received communion. . . . Shortly after the exorcism commenced. Turned towards the lady who knelt before him, while we stood witnesses of the deed, the clergyman took a large book in his hands, and, with a look like one who commanded earth and hell in the name of God, he raised his right hand aloft and made the sign of the Cross. Then he commanded the spirit to be gone 'in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost' . . . . The girl shrieked and tore away through the women who held her, as though she was flying from the embrace of fire. An amiable looking clergyman suggested to the exorcist to change the adjurations . . . and to use some indifferent Latin words in the same tones of voice. Three times the priest pronounced the words of his Ritual, and at each adjuration she seemed flung into hell. Between each of them he pronounced some rules of syntax precisely in the same tone, and she lay comparatively calm and exhausted.
"I remarked precisely the same effects produced by blessed water. . . . When the effects had been produced by blessed water, he substituted common water, and I assure you no change whatever followed the use of it. The clergy men then returned to the use of the blessed water, and having cast it upon her, she shrieked and bounded with the power of ten devils. [From that forward] the young lady remained calm, tranquil, and happy, and has so continued to this hour." - Alley Moore: a Tale of the Times; by Father Baptist