Some advantage of these instances and these arguments may be derived in favor of vampirism, by saying that the ghosts of Hungary, Moravia, and Poland are not really dead, that they continue to live in their graves, although without motion and without respiration; the blood which is found in them being fine and red, the flexibility of their limbs, the cries which they utter when their heart is pierced or their head being cut off, all prove that they still exist.
That is not the principal difficulty which arrests my judgment; it is to know how they come out of their graves without any appearance of the earth having been removed, and how they have replaced it as it was; how they appear dressed in their clothes, go and come, and eat. If it is so, why do they return to their graves? why do they not remain amongst the living? why do they suck the blood of their relations? Why do they haunt and fatigue persons who ought to be dear to them, and who have done nothing to offend them? If all that is only imagination on the part of those who are molested, whence comes it that these vampires are found in their graves in an uncorrupted state, full of blood, supple, and pliable; that their feet are found to be in a muddy condition the day after they have run about and frightened the neighbors, and that nothing similar is remarked in the other corpses interred at the same time and in the same cemetery. Whence does it happen that they neither come back nor infest the place any more when they are burned or impaled? Would it be again the imagination of the living and their prejudices which reassure them after these executions? Whence comes it that these scenes recur so frequently in those countries, that the people are not cured of their prejudices, and daily experience, instead of destroying, only augments and strengthens them?
It is an opinion widely spread in Germany, that certain dead persons chew in their graves, and devour whatever may be close to them; that they are even heard to eat like pigs, with a certain low cry, and as if growling and grunting.
A German author,[575] named Michael Rauff, has composed a work, entitledDe Masticatione Mortuorum in Tumulis—"Of the Dead who Masticate in their Graves." He sets it down as a proved and sure thing, that there are certain dead persons who have devoured the linen and everything that was within reach of their mouth, and even their own flesh, in their graves. He remarks,[576] that in some parts of Germany, to prevent the dead from masticating, they place a motte of earth under their chin in the coffin; elsewhere they place a little piece of money and a stone in their mouth; elsewhere they tie a handkerchief tightly round their throat. The author cites some German writers who make mention of this ridiculous custom; he quotes several others who speak of dead people that have devoured their own flesh in their sepulchre. This work was printed at Leipsic in 1728. It speaks of an author named Philip Rehrius, who printed in 1679 a treatise with the same title—De Masticatione Mortuorum.
He might have added to it the circumstance of Henry Count of Salm,[577] who, being supposed to be dead, was interred alive; they heard during the night, in the church of the Abbey of Haute-Seille, where he was buried, loud cries; and the next day, on his tomb being opened, they found him turned upon his face, whilst in fact he had been buried lying upon his back.
Some years ago, at Bar-le-Duc, a man was buried in the cemetery, and a noise was heard in his grave; the next day they disinterred him, and found that he had gnawed the flesh of his arms; and this we learned from ocular witnesses. This man had drunk brandy, and had been buried as dead. Rauff speaks of a woman of Bohemia,[578] who, in 1355, had eaten in her grave half her shroud. In the time of Luther, a man who was dead and buried, and a woman the same, gnawed their own entrails. Another dead man in Moravia ate the linen clothes of a woman who was buried next to him.
All that is very possible, but that those who are really dead move their jaws, and amuse themselves with masticating whatever may be near them, is a childish fancy—like what the ancient Romans said of theirManducus, which was a grotesque figure of a man with an enormous mouth, and teeth proportioned thereto, which they caused to move by springs, and grind his teeth together, as if this figure had wanted to eat. They frightened children with them, and threatened them with the Manducus.[579]
Some remains of this old custom may be seen in certain processions, where they carry a sort of serpent, which at intervals opens and shuts a vast jaw, armed with teeth, into which they throw cakes, as if to gorge it, or satisfy its appetite.
Footnotes:
[575] Mich. Rauff, alterâ Dissert. Art. lvii. pp. 98, 99, et Art. lix. p. 100.
[576] De Nummis in Ore Defunctorum repertis, Art. ix. à Beyermuller, &c.
[577] Richer, Senon, tom. iii. Spicileg. Ducherii, p. 392.
[578] Rauff, Art. xlii. p. 43.
[579]"Tandemque venit ad pulpita nostrumExodium, cum personæ pallentis hiatumIn gremio matris fastidit rusticus infans."Juvenal, Sat. iii. 174.
The most remarkable instance cited by Rauff[580] is that of one Peter Plogojovitz, who had been buried ten weeks in a village of Hungary, called Kisolova. This man appeared by night to some of the inhabitants of the village while they were asleep, and grasped their throat so tightly that in four-and-twenty hours it caused their death. Nine persons, young and old, perished thus in the course of eight days.
The widow of the same Plogojovitz declared that her husband since his death had come and asked her for his shoes, which frightened her so much that she left Kisolova to retire to some other spot.
From these circumstances the inhabitants of the village determined upon disinterring the body of Plogojovitz and burning it, to deliver themselves from these visitations. They applied to the emperor's officer, who commanded in the territory of Gradiska, inHungary, and even to the curé of the same place,forpermission to exhume the body of Peter Plogojovitz. The officer and the curé made much demur in granting this permission, but the peasants declared that if they were refused permission to disinter the body of this man, whom they had no doubt was a true vampire (for so they called these revived corpses), they should be obliged to forsake the village, and go where they could.
The emperor's officer, who wrote this account, seeing he could hinder them neither by threats nor promises, went with the curé of Gradiska to the village of Kisolova, and having caused Peter Plogojovitz to be exhumed, they found that his body exhaled no bad smell; that he looked as when alive, except the tip of the nose; that his hair and beard had grown, and instead of his nails, which had fallen off, new ones had come; that under his upper skin, which appeared whitish, there appeared a new one, which looked healthy, and of a natural color; his feet and hands were as whole as could be desired in a living man. They remarked also in his mouth some fresh blood, which these people believed that this vampire had sucked from the men whose death he had occasioned.
The emperor's officer and the curé having diligently examined all these things, and the people who were present feeling their indignation awakened anew, and being more fully persuaded that he was the true cause of the death of their compatriots, ran directly for a sharp-pointed stake, which they thrust into his breast, whence there issued a quantity of fresh and crimson blood, and also from the nose and mouth; something also proceeded from that part of his body which decency does not allow us to mention. After this the peasants placed the body on a pile of wood and saw it reduced to ashes.
M. Rauff,[581] from whom we have these particulars, cites several authors who have written on the same subject, and have related instances of dead people who have eaten in their tombs. He cites particularly Gabril Rzaczincki in his history of the Natural Curiosities of the Kingdom of Poland, printed at Sandomic in 1721.
Footnotes:
[580] Rauff, Art. xii. p. 15.
[581] Rauff, Art. xxi. p. 14.
Those authors have reasoned a great deal on these events. 1. Some have believed them to be miraculous. 2. Others have looked upon them simply as the effect of a heated imagination, or a sort of prepossession. 3. Others again have believed that there was nothing in all that but what was very simple and very natural, these persons not being dead, and acting naturally upon other bodies. 4. Others have asserted[582] that it was the work of the devil himself; amongst these, some have advanced the opinion that there were certain benign demons, differing from those who are malevolent and hostile to mankind, to which (benign demons) they have attributed playful and harmless operations, in contradistinction to those bad demons who inspire the minds of men with crime and sin, ill use them, kill them, and occasion them an infinity of evils. But what greater evils can one have to fear from veritable demons and the most malignant spirits, than those which the ghouls of Hungary cause the persons whose blood they suck, and thus cause to die? 5. Others will have it that it is not the dead who eat their own flesh or clothes, but serpents, rats, moles, ferrets, or other voracious animals, or even what the peasants callstriges,[583] which are birds that devour animals and men, and suck their blood. Some have said that these instances are principally remarked in women, and, above all, in a time of pestilence; but there are instances of ghouls of both sexes, and principally of men; although those who die of plague, poison, hydrophobia, drunkenness, and any epidemical malady, are more apt to return, apparently because their blood coagulates with more difficulty; and sometimes some are buried who are not quite dead, on account of the danger there is in leaving them long without sepulture, from fear of the infection they would cause.
It is added that these vampires are known only to certain countries, as Hungary, Moravia, and Silesia, where those maladies are more common, and where the people, being badly fed, are subjectto certain disorders caused or occasioned by the climate and the food, and augmented by prejudice, fancy, and fright, capable of producing or of increasing the most dangerous maladies, as daily experience proves too well. As to what some have asserted that the dead have been heard to eat and chew like pigs in their graves, it is manifestly fabulous, and such an idea can have its foundation only in ridiculous prepossessions of the mind.
Footnotes:
[582] Rudiga, Physio. Dur. lib. i. c. 4. Theophrast. Paracels. Georg. Agricola, de Anim. Subterran. p. 76.
[583] Ovid, lib. vi. Vide Debrio, Disquisit. Magic. lib. i. p. 6, and lib. iii. p. 355.
The opinion of those who hold that all that is related of vampires is the effect of imagination, fascination, or of that disorder which the Greeks termphrenesisorcoribantism, and who pretend by that means to explain all the phenomena of vampirism, will never persuade us that these maladies of the brain can produce such real effects as those we have just recounted. It is impossible that on a sudden, several persons should believe they see a thing which is not there, and that they should die in so short a time of a disorder purely imaginary. And who has revealed to them that such a vampire is undecayed in his grave, that he is full of blood, that he in some measure lives there after his death? Is there not to be found in the nation one sensible man who is exempt from this fancy, or who has soared above the effects of this fascination, these sympathies and antipathies—this natural magic? And besides, who can explain to us clearly and distinctly what these grand terms signify, and the manner of these operations so occult and so mysterious? It is trying to explain a thing which is obscure and doubtful, by another still more uncertain and incomprehensible.
If these persons believe nothing of all that is related of the apparition, the return, and the actions of vampires, they lose their time very uselessly in proposing systems and forming arguments to explain what exists only in the imagination of certain prejudiced persons struck with an idea; but, if all that is related, or at least a part, is true, these systems and these arguments will not easily satisfy those minds which desire proofs far more weighty than those.
Let us see, then, if the system which asserts that these vampires are not really dead is well founded. It is certain that death consists in the separation of the soul from the body, and that neitherthe one nor the other perishes, nor is annihilated by death; that the soul is immortal, and that the body destitute of its soul, still remains entire, and becomes only in part corrupt, sometimes in a few days, and sometimes in a longer space of time; sometimes even it remains uncorrupted during many years or even ages, either by reason of a good constitution, as in Hector[584] and Alexander the Great, whose bodies remained several days undecayed;[585] or by means of the art of embalming; or lastly, owing to the nature of the earth in which they are interred, which has the power of drying up the radical humidity and the principles of corruption. I do not stop to prove all these things, which besides are very well known.
Sometimes the body, without being dead and forsaken by its reasonable soul, remains as if dead and motionless, or at least with so slow a motion and such feeble respiration, that it is almost imperceptible, as it happens in faintings, swoons, in certain disorders very common amongst women, in trances—as we remarked in the case of Pretextat, priest of Calame; we have also reported more than one instance, considered dead and buried as such; I may add that of the Abbé Salin, prior of St. Christopher,[586] who being in his coffin, and about to be interred, was resuscitated by some of his friends, who made him swallow a glass of champagne.
Several instances of the same kind are related.[587] In the "Causes Célèbres," they make mention of a girl who becameenceinteduring a long swoon; we have already noticed this. Pliny cites[588] a great number of instances of persons who have been thought dead, and who have come to life again, and lived for a long time. He mentions a young man, who having fallen asleep in a cavern, remained there forty years without waking. Our historians[589] speak of the seven sleepers, who slept for 150 years, from the year of Christ 253 to 403. It is said that the philosopher Epimenides slept in a cavern during fifty-seven years, or according to others, forty-seven, or only forty years; for the ancients do not agree concerning the number of years; they even affirm, that this philosopher had the power to detach his soul from his body, and recall it when he pleased. The same thing is related of Aristæus of Proconnesus. I am willing to allow that that is fabulous; but we cannot gainsay the truth of several other stories of persons who have come to life again, after having appeared dead for three, four, five, six, and seven days. Pliny acknowledges that there are several instances of dead people who haveappeared after they were interred; but he will not mention them more particularly, because, he says, he relates only natural things and not prodigies—"Post sepulturam quoque visorum exempla sunt, nisi quod naturæ opera non prodigia sectamur." We believe that Enoch and Elijah are still living. Several have thought that St. John the Evangelist was not dead,[590] but that he is still alive in his tomb.
Plato and St. Clement of Alexandria[591] relate, that the son of Zoroaster was resuscitated twelve days after his (supposed) death, and when his body had been laid upon the funeral pyre. Phlegon says,[592] that a Syrian soldier in the army of Antiochus, after having been killed at Thermopylæ, appeared in open day in the Roman camp, and spoke to several. And Plutarch relates,[593] that a man named Thespesius, who had fallen from the roof of a house, came to himself the third day after he died (or seemed to die) of his fall.
St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians,[594] seems to suppose that sometimes the soul transported itself without the body, to repair to the spot where it is in mind or thought; for instance, he says, that he has been transported to the third heaven; but he adds that he knows not whether in the body, or only in spirit—"Sive in corpora, sive extra corpus, nescio, Deus scit." We have already cited St. Augustine,[595] who mentions a priest of Calamus, named Pretextat, who, at the sound of the voices of some persons who lamented their sins, fell into such an ecstasy of delight, that he no longer breathed or felt anything; and they might have cut and burnt his flesh without his perceiving it; his soul was absent, or really so occupied with these lamentations, that he was insensible to pain. In swoons and syncope, the soul no longer performs her ordinary functions. She is nevertheless in the body, and continues to animate it, but she perceives not her own action.
A curé of the Diocese of Constance, named Bayer, writes me word that in 1728, having been appointed to the curé of Rutheim, he was disturbed a month afterwards by a spectre, or an evil genius, in the form of a peasant, badly made, and ill-dressed, very ill-looking, and stinking insupportably, who came and knocked at the door in an insolent manner, and having entered his study told him that he had been sent by an official of the Prince of Constance, his bishop, upon a certain commission which was found to be absolutely false. He then asked for something to eat, and they placed before himmeat, bread, and wine. He took up the meat with both hands, and devoured it bones and all, saying, "See how I eat both flesh and bone—do the same." Then he took up the wine-cup, and swallowed it at a draught, asking for another, which he drank off in the same fashion. After that he withdrew, without bidding the curé good-bye; and the servant who showed him to the door having asked his name, he replied, "I was born at Rutsingen, and my name is George Raulin," which was false. As he was going down stairs he said to the curé in German, in a menacing tone, "I will show you who I am."
He passed all the rest of the day in the village, showing himself to everybody. Towards midnight he returned to the curé's door, crying out three times in a terrible voice, "Monsieur Bayer!" and adding, "I will let you know who I am." In fact, during three years he returned every day towards four o'clock in the afternoon, and every night till dawn of day. He appeared in different forms, sometimes like a water-dog, sometimes as a lion, or some other terrible animal; sometimes in the shape of a man, or a girl, when the curé was at table, or in bed, enticing him to lasciviousness. Sometimes he made an uproar in the house, like a cooper putting hoops on his casks; then again you might have thought he wanted to throw the house down by the noise he made in it. To have witnesses to all this, the curé often sent for the beadle and other personages of the village to bear testimony to it. The spectre emitted, wherever he showed himself, an insupportable stench.
At last the curé had recourse to exorcisms, but they produced no effect. And as they despaired almost of being delivered from these vexations, he was advised, at the end of the third year, to provide himself with a holy branch on Palm Sunday, and also with a sword sprinkled with holy water, and to make use of it against the spectre. He did so once or twice, and from that time he was no more molested. This is attested by a Capuchin monk, witness of the greater part of these things, the 29th of August, 1749.
I will not guarantee the truth of all these circumstances; the judicious reader will make what induction he pleases from them. If they are true, here is a real ghost, who eats, drinks, and speaks, and gives tokens of his presence for three whole years, without any appearance of religion. Here follows another instance of a ghost who manifested himself by actions alone.
They write me word from Constance, the 8th of August, 1748, that towards the end of the year 1746 sighs were heard, which seemed to proceed from the corner of the printing-office of the Sieur Lahart, one of the common council men of the city of Constance. The printers only laughed at it at first, but in the following year, 1747, in the beginning of January, they heard more noise than before. There was a hard knocking near the same corner whence they had at first heard some sighs; things went so far that the printers received slaps, and their hats were thrown on the ground. They had recourse to the Capuchins, who came with the books proper for exorcising the spirit. The exorcism completed they returned home, and the noise ceased for three days.
At the end of that time the noise recommenced more violently than before; the spirit threw the characters for printing, whether letters or figures, against the windows. They sent out of the city for a famous exorcist, who exorcised the spirit for a week. One day the spirit boxed the ears of a lad; and again the letters, &c., were thrown against the window-panes. The foreign exorcist, not having been able to effect anything by his exorcisms, returned to his own home.
The spirit went on as usual, giving slaps in the face to one, and throwing stones and other things at another, so that the compositors were obliged to leave that corner of the printing-office and place themselves in the middle of the room, but they were not the quieter for that.
They then sent for other exorcists, one of whom had a particle of the true cross, which he placed upon the table. The spirit did not, however, cease disturbing as usual the workmen belonging to the printing-office; and the Capuchin brother who accompanied the exorcist received such buffets that they were both obliged to withdraw to their convent. Then came others, who, having mixed a quantity of sand and ashes in a bucket of water, blessed the water, and sprinkled with it every part of the printing-office. They also scattered the sand and ashes all over the room upon the paved floor; and being provided with swords, the whole party began to strike at random right and left in every part of the room, to see if they could hit the ghost, and to observe if he left any foot-marks upon the sand or ashes which covered the floor. They perceived at last that he had perched himself on the top of the stove or furnace, and they remarked on the angles of it marks of his feet and hands impressed on the sand and ashes they had blessed.
They succeeded in ousting him from there, and they very soon perceived that he had slid under the table, and left marks of his hands and feet on the pavement. The dust raised by all this movement in the office caused them to disperse, and they discontinued the pursuit. But the principal exorcist having taken out a screw from the angle where they had first heard the noise, found in a hole in the wall some feathers, three bones wrapped up in a dirty piece of linen, some bits of glass, and a hair-pin, or bodkin. He blessed a fire which they lighted, and had all that thrown into it. But this monk had hardly reached his convent when one of the printers cameto tell him that the bodkin had come out of the flames three times of itself, and that a boy who was holding a pair of tongs, and who put this bodkin in the fire again, had been violently struck in the face. The rest of the things which had been found having been brought to the Capuchin convent, they were burnt without further resistance; but the lad who had carried them there saw a naked woman in the public market-place, and that and the following days groans were heard in the market-place of Constance.
Some days after this the printer's house was again infested in this manner, the ghost giving slaps, throwing stones, and molesting the domestics in divers ways. The Sieur Lahart, the master of the house, received a great wound in his head, two boys who slept in the same bed were thrown on the ground, so that the house was entirely forsaken during the night. One Sunday a servant girl carrying away some linen from the house had stones thrown at her, and another time two boys were thrown down from a ladder.
There was in the city of Constance an executioner who passed for a sorcerer. The monk who writes to me suspected him of having some part in this game; he began to exhort those who sat up with him in the house, to put their confidence in God, and to be strong in faith. He gave them to understand that the executioner was likely to be of the party. They passed the night thus in the house, and about ten o'clock in the evening, one of the companions of the exorcist threw himself at his feet in tears, and revealed to him, that that same night he and one of his companions had been sent to consult the executioner in Turgau, and that by order of the Sieur Lahart, printer, in whose house all this took place. This avowal strangely surprised the good father, and he declared that he would not continue to exorcise, if they did not assure him that they had not spoken to the executioners to put an end to the haunting. They protested that they had not spoken to them at all. The Capuchin father had everything picked up that was found about the house, wrapped up in packets, and had them carried to his convent.
The following night, two domestics tried to pass the night in the house, but they were thrownoutof their beds, and constrained to go and sleep elsewhere. After this, they sent for a peasant of the village of Annanstorf, who was considered a good exorcist. He passed the night in the haunted house, drinking, singing, and shouting. He received slaps and blows from a stick, and was obliged to own that he could not prevail against the spirit.
The widow of an executioner presented herself then to perform the exorcisms; she began by using fumigations in all parts of the dwelling, to drive away the evil spirits. But before she had finished these fumigations, seeing that the master was struck in the face andon his body by the spirit, she ran away from the house, without asking for her pay.
They next called in the Curé of Valburg, who passed for a clever exorcist. He came with four other secular curés, and continued the exorcisms for three days, without any success. He withdrew to his parish, imputing the inutility of his prayers to the want of faith of those who were present.
During this time, one of the four priests was struck with a knife, then with a fork, but he was not hurt. The son of Sieur Lahart, master of the dwelling, received upon his jaw a blow from a pascal taper, which did him no harm. All that being of no service, they sent for the executioners of the neighborhood. Two of the persons who went to fetch them were well thrashed and pelted with stones. Another had his thigh so tightly pressed that he felt the pain for a long time. The executioners carefully collected all the packets they found wrapped up about the house, and put others in their room; but the spirit took them up and threw them into the market-place. After this, the executioners persuaded the Sieur Lahart that he might boldly return with his people to the house; he did so, but the first night, when they were at supper, one of his workmen named Solomon was wounded on the foot, and then followed a great effusion of blood. They then sent again for the executioner, who appeared much surprised that the house was not yet entirely freed, but at that moment he was himself attacked by a shower of stones, boxes on the ears, and other blows, which constrained him to run away quickly.
Some heretics in the neighborhood, being informed of all these things, came one day to the bookseller's shop, and upon attempting to read in a Catholic Bible which was there, were well boxed and beaten; but having taken up a Calvinist Bible, they received no harm. Two men of Constance having entered the bookseller's shop from sheer curiosity, one of them was immediately thrown down upon the ground, and the other ran away as fast as he could. Another person, who had come in the same way from curiosity, was punished for his presumption, by having a quantity of water thrown upon him. A young girl of Ausburg, a relation of the Sieur Lahart, printer, was chased away with violent blows, and pursued even to the neighboring house, where she entered.
At last the hauntings ceased, on the 8th of February. On that day the spectre opened the shop door, went in, deranged a few articles, went out, shut the door, and from that time nothing more was seen or heard of it.
Footnotes:
[584] Homer de Hectore, Iliad XXIV. 411.
[585] Plutarch de Alexandro in ejus Vita.
[586] About the year 1680; he died after the year 1694.
[587] Causes Célèbres, tom. viii. p. 585.
[588] Plin. Hist. Natur. lib. vii. c. 52.
[589] St. Gregor. Turon. de Gloria Martyr. c. 95.
[590] I have touched upon this matter in a particular Dissertation at the Head of the Gospel of St. John.
[591] Plato, de Republ. lib. x.; Clemens Alexandr. lib. v. Stromat.
[592] Phleg. de Mirabilis, c. 3.
[593] Plutarch, de Serâ Numinis Vindicta.
[594] 1 Cor. xiii. 2.
[595] Aug. lib. xiv. de Civit. Dei, c. 24.
St. Augustine relates on this subject,[596] that a countryman named Curma, who held a small place in the village of Tullia, near Hippoma, having fallen sick, remained for some days senseless and speechless, having just respiration enough left to prevent their burying him. At the end of several days he began to open his eyes, and sent to ask what they were about in the house of another peasant of the same place, and like himself named Curma. They brought him back word, that he had just expired at the very moment that he himself had recovered and was resuscitated from his deep slumber.
Then he began to talk, and related what he had seen and heard; that it was not Curma thecurial,[597] but Curma the blacksmith, who ought to have been brought; he added, that among those whom he had seen treated in different ways, he had recognized some of his deceased acquaintance, and other ecclesiastics, who were still alive, who had advised him to come to Hippoma, and be baptized by the Bishop Augustine; that according to their advice he had received baptism in his vision; that afterwards he had been introduced into Paradise, but that he had not remained there long, and that they had told him that if he wished to dwell there, he must be baptized. He replied, "I am so;" but they told him, that he had been so only in a vision, and that he must go to Hippoma to receive that sacrament in reality. He came there as soon as he was cured, and received the rite of baptism with the other catechumens.
St. Augustine was not informed of this adventure till about two years afterwards. He sent for Curma, and learnt from his own lips what I have just related. Now it is certain that Curma saw nothing with his bodily eyes of all that had been represented to him in his vision; neither the town of Hippoma, nor Bishop Augustine, nor the ecclesiastics who counseled him to be baptized, nor the persons living and deceased whom he saw and recognized. We may believe, then, that these things are effects of the power of God, who makesuse of the ministry of angels to warn, console, or alarm mortals, according as his judgment sees best.
St. Augustine inquires afterwards if the dead have any knowledge of what is passing in this world? He doubts the fact, and shows that at least they have no knowledge of it by ordinary and natural means. He remarks, that it is said God took Josiah, for instance, from this world,[598] that he might now witness the evil which was to befall his nation; and we say every day, Such-a-one is happy to have left the world, and so escaped feeling the miseries which have happened to his family or his country. But if the dead know not what is passing in this world, how can they be troubled about their bodies being interred or not? How do the saints hear our prayers? and why do we ask them for their intercession?
It is then true that the dead can learn what is passing on the earth, either by the agency of angels, or by that of the dead who arrive in the other world, or by the revelation of the Spirit of God, who discovers to them what he judges proper, and what it is expedient that they should learn. God may also sometimes send men who have long been dead to living men, as he permitted Moses and Elias to appear at the Transfiguration of the Lord, and as an infinite number of the saints have appeared to the living. The invocation of saints has always been taught and practised in the Church; whence we may infer that they hear our prayers, are moved by our wants, and can help us by their intercession. But the way in which all that is done is not distinctly known; neither reason nor revelation furnishes us with anything certain, as to the means it pleases God to make use of to reveal our wants to them.
Lucian, in his dialogue entitledPhilopseudes, or the "Lover of Falsehood," relates[599] something similar. A man named Eucratés, having been taken down to hell, was presented to Pluto, who was angry with him who presented him, saying—"That man has not yet completed his course; his turn has not yet come. Bring hither Demilius, for the thread of his life is finished." Then they sent Eucratés back to this world, where he announced that Demilius would die soon. Demilius lived near him, and was already a little ill.
But a moment after they heard the noise of those who were bewailing his death. Lucian makes a jest of all that was said on this subject, but he owns that it was the common opinion in his time. He says in the same part of his work, that a man has been seen to come to life again after having been looked upon as dead during twenty days.
The story of Curma which we have just told, reminds me ofanother very like it, related by Plutarch in his Book on the Soul, of a certain man named Enarchus,[600] who, being dead, came to life again soon after, and related that the demons who had taken away his soul were severely reprimanded by their chief, who told them that they had made a mistake, and that it was Nicander, and not Enarchus whom they ought to bring. He sent them for Nicander, who was directly seized with a fever, and died during the day. Plutarch heard this from Enarchus himself, who to confirm what he had asserted said to him—"You will get well certainly, and that very soon, of the illness which has attacked you."
St. Gregory the Great relates[601] something very similar to what we have just mentioned. An illustrious man of rank named Stephen well known to St. Gregory and Peter his interlocutor, was accustomed to relate to him, that going to Constantinople on business he died there; and as the doctor who was to embalm him was not in town that day, they were obliged to leave the body unburied that night. During this interval Stephen was led before the judge who presided in hell, where he saw many things which he had heard of, but did not believe. When they brought him to the judge, the latter refused to receive him, saying, "It is not that man whom I commanded you to bring here, but Stephen the blacksmith." In consequence of this order the soul of the dead man was directly brought back to his body, and at the same instant Stephen the blacksmith expired; which confirmed all that the former had said of the other life.
The plague ravaging the city of Rome in the time that Narses was governor of Italy, a young Livonian, a shepherd by profession, and of a good and quiet disposition, was taken ill with the plague in the house of the advocate Valerian, his master. Just when they thought him all but dead, he suddenly came to himself, and related to them that he had been transported to heaven, where he had learnt the names of those who were to die of the plague in his master's house; having named them to him, he predicted to Valerian that he should survive him; and to convince him that he was saying the truth, he let him see that he had acquired by infusion the knowledge of several different languages; in effect he who had never known how to speak any but the Italian tongue, spoke Greek to his master, and other languages to those who knew them.
After having lived in this state for two days, he had fits of madness, and having laid hold of his hands with his teeth, he died a second time, and was followed by those whom he had named. His master, who survived, fully justified his prediction. Men and womenwho fall into trances remain sometimes for several days without food, respiration, or pulsation of the heart, as if they were dead. Thauler, a famous contemplative (philosopher) maintains that a man may remain entranced during a week, a month, or even a year. We have seen an abbess, who when in a trance, into which she often fell, lost the use of her natural functions, and passed thirty days in that state without taking any nourishment, and without sensation. Instances of these trances are not rare in the lives of the saints, though they are not all of the same kind, or duration.
Women in hysterical fits remain likewise many days as if dead, speechless, inert, pulseless. Galen mentions a woman who was six days in this state.[602] Some of them pass ten whole days motionless, senseless, without respiration and without food.
Some persons who have seemed dead and motionless, had however the sense of hearing very strong, heard all that was said about themselves, made efforts to speak and show that they were not dead, but who could neither speak, nor give any signs of life.[603]
I might here add an infinity of trances of saintly personages of both sexes, who in their delight in God, in prayer remained motionless, without sensation, almost breathless, and who felt nothing of what was done to them, or around them.
Footnotes:
[596] August. lib. de Curâ pro Mortuis, c. xii. p. 524.
[597]Curialis—this word signifies a small employment in a village.
[598] IV. Reg. 18, et. seq.
[599] Lucian, in Phliopseud. p. 830.
[600] Plutarch, de Animâ, apud Eusebius de Præp. Evang. lib. ii. c. 18.
[601] Gregor. Dial. lib. iv. c. 36.
[602] See the treatise on the Uncertainty of the Signs of Death, tom. ii. pp. 404, 407,et seq.
[603] Ibid. lib. ii. pp. 504, 505, 506, 514.
Jerome Cardan says[604] that he fell into a trance when he liked; he owns that he does not know if, like the priest Pretextat, he should not feel great wounds or hurts, but he did not feel the pain of the gout, or the pulling him about. He adds, the priest of Calama heard the voices of those who spoke aloud near him, but as if from a distance. "For my part," says Cardan, "I hear the voice, though slightly, and without understanding what is said. And when I wish to entrance myself, I feel about my heart as it were a separation of the soul from the rest of my body, and that communicates as if by a little door with all the machine, principally by thehead and brain. Then I have no sensation except that of being beside myself."
We may report here what is related of the Laplanders,[605] who when they wish to learn something that is passing at a distance from the spot where they are, send their demon, or their souls, by means of certain magic ceremonies, and by the sound of a drum which they beat, or upon a shield painted in a certain manner; then on a sudden the Laplander falls into a trance, and remains as if lifeless and motionless sometimes during four-and-twenty hours. But all this time some one must remain near him to prevent him from being touched, or called; even the movement of a fly would wake him, and they say he would die directly or be carried away by the demon. We have already mentioned this subject in the Dissertation on Apparitions.
We have also remarked that serpents, worms, flies, snails, marmots, sloths, &c., remain asleep during the winter, and in blocks of stone have been found toads, snakes, and oysters alive, which had been enclosed there for many years, and perhaps for more than a century. Cardinal de Retz relates in his Memoirs,[606] that being at Minorca, the governor of the island caused to be drawn up from the bottom of the sea by main force with cables, whole rocks, which on being broken with maces, enclosed living oysters, that were served up to him at table, and were found very good.
On the coasts of Malta, Sardinia, Italy, &c., they find a fish called the Dactylus, or Date, or Dale, because it resembles the palm-date in form; this first insinuates itself into the stone by a hole not bigger than the hole made by a needle. When he has got in he feeds upon the stone, and grows so big that he cannot get out again, unless the stone is broken and he is extricated. Then they wash it, clean it, and dress it for the table. It has the shape of a date, or of a finger; whence its name ofDactylus, which in Greek signifies a finger.
Again, I imagine that in many persons death is caused by the coagulation of the blood, which freezes and hardens in their veins, as it happens with those who have eaten hemlock, or who have been bitten by certain serpents; but there are others whose death is caused by too great an ebullition of blood, as in painful maladies, and in certain poisons, and even, they say, in certain kinds of plague, and when people die a violent death, or have been drowned.
The first mentioned cannot return to life without an evident miracle; for that purpose the fluidity of the blood must be re-established,and the peristaltic motion must be restored to the heart. But in the second kind of death, people can sometimes be restored without a miracle, by taking away the obstacle which retards or suspends the palpitation of the heart, as we see in time-pieces, the action of which is restored by taking away anything foreign to the mechanism, as a hair, a bit of thread, an atom, some almost imperceptible body which stops them.
Footnotes:
[604] Hieron. Cardanus, lib. viii. de Varietate Verum, c. 34.
[605] Olaus Magnus, lib. iii. Epitom. Hist. Septent. Perecer de Variis Divinat. Generib. p. 282.
[606] Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, tom. iii. lib. iv. p. 297.
Supposing these facts, which I believe to be incontestably true, may we not imagine that the vampires of Hungary, Silesia, and Moldavia, are some of those men who have died of maladies which heat the blood, and who have retained some remains of life in their graves, much like those animals which we have mentioned, and those birds which plunge themselves during the winter in the lakes and marshes of Poland, and in the northern countries? They are without respiration or motion, but still not destitute of vitality. They resume their motion and activity when, on the return of spring, the sun warms the waters, or when they are brought near a moderate fire, or laid in a room of temperate heat; then they are seen to revive, and perform their ordinary functions, which had been suspended by the cold.
Thus, vampires in their graves returned to life after a certain time, and their soul does not forsake them absolutely until after the entire dissolution of their body, and when the organs of life, being absolutely broken, corrupted, and deranged, they can no longer by their agency perform any vital functions. Whence it happens, that the people of those countries impale them, cut off their heads, burn them, to deprive their spirit of all hope of animating them again, and of making use of them to molest the living.
Pliny,[607] mentioning the soul of Hermotimes, of Lazomene, which absented itself from his body, and recounted various things that had been done afar off, which the spirit said it had seen, and which, in fact, could only be known to a person who had been present at them, says that the enemies of Hermotimes, named Cantandes, burned that body, which gave hardly any sign of life, and thus deprived the soul of the means of returning to lodge in its envelop;"donec cremato corpore interim semianimi, remeanti animæ vetut vaginam ademerint."
Origen had doubtless derived from the ancients what he teaches,[608] that the souls which are of a spiritual nature take, on leaving their earthly body, another, more subtile, of a similar form to the grosser one they have just quitted, which serves them as a kind of sheath, or case, and that it is invested with this subtile body that they sometimes appear about their graves. He founds this opinion on what is said of Lazarus and the rich man in the Gospel,[609] who both of them have bodies, since they speak and see, and the wicked rich man asks for a drop of water to cool his tongue.
I do not defend this reasoning of Origen; but what he says of a subtile body, which has the form of the earthly one which clothed the soul before death, quite resembles the opinion of which we spoke in Chapter IV.
That bodies which have died of violent maladies, or which have been executed when full of health, or have simply swooned, should vegetate underground in their graves; that their beards, hair, and nails should grow; that they should emit blood, be supple and pliant; that they should have no bad smell, &c.—all these things do not embarrass us: the vegetation of the human body may produce all these effects. That they should even eat and devour what is about them, the madness with which a man interred alive must be transported when he awakes from his torpor, or his swoon, must naturally lead him to these violent excesses. But the grand difficulty is to explain how the vampires come out of their graves to haunt the living, and how they return to them again. For all the accounts that we see suppose the thing as certain, without informing us either of the way or the circumstances, which would, however, be the most interesting part of the narrative.
How a body covered with four or five feet of earth, having no room to move about and disengage itself, wrapped up in linen, covered with pitch, can make its way out, and come back upon the earth, and there occasion such effects as are related of it; and how after that it returns to its former state, and re-enters underground, where it is found sound, whole, and full of blood, and in the same condition as a living body? Will it be said that these bodies evaporate through the ground without opening it, like the water and vapors which enter into the earth, or proceed from it, without sensibly deranging its particles? It were to be wished that the accounts which have been given us concerning the return of thevampires had been more minute in their explanations of this subject.
Supposing that their bodies do not stir from their graves, that it is only their phantoms which appear to the living, what cause produces and animates these phantoms? Can it be the spirit of the defunct, which has not yet forsaken them, or some demon, which makes their apparition in a fantastic and borrowed body? And if these bodies are merely phantomic, how can they suck the blood of living people? We always find ourselves in a difficulty to know if these appearances are natural or miraculous.
A sensible priest related to me, a little while ago, that, traveling in Moravia, he was invited by M. Jeanin, a canon of the cathedral at Olmutz, to accompany him to their village, called Liebava, where he had been appointed commissioner by the consistory of the bishopric, to take information concerning the fact of a certain famous vampire, which had caused much confusion in this village of Liebava some years before.
The case proceeded. They heard the witnesses, they observed the usual forms of the law. The witnesses deposed that a certain notable inhabitant of Liebava had often disturbed the living in their beds at night, that he had come out of the cemetery, and had appeared in several houses three or four years ago; that his troublesome visits had ceased because a Hungarian stranger, passing through the village at the time of these reports, had boasted that he could put an end to them, and make the vampire disappear. To perform his promise, he mounted on the church steeple, and observed the moment when the vampire came out of his grave, leaving near it the linen clothes in which he had been enveloped, and then went to disturb the inhabitants of the village.
The Hungarian, having seen him come out of his grave, went down quickly from the steeple, took up the linen envelops of the vampire, and carried them with him up the tower. The vampire having returned from his prowlings, cried loudly against the Hungarian, who made him a sign from the top of the tower that if he wished to have his clothes again he must fetch them; the vampire began to ascend the steeple, but the Hungarian threw him down backwards from the ladder, and cut his head off with a spade. Such was the end of this tragedy.
The person who related this story to me saw nothing, neither did the noble who had been sent as commissioner; they only heard the report of the peasants of the place, people extremely ignorant, superstitious and credulous, and most exceedingly prejudiced on the subject of vampirism.
But supposing that there be any reality in the fact of these apparitions of vampires, shall they be attributed to God, to angels,to the spirits of these ghosts, or to the devil? In this last case, will it be said that the devil will subtilize these bodies, and give them power to penetrate through the ground without disturbing, to glide through the cracks and joints of a door, to pass through a keyhole, to lengthen or shorten themselves, to reduce themselves to the nature of air, or water, to evaporate through the ground—in short, to put them in the same state in which we believe the bodies of the blessed will be after the resurrection, and in which was that of our Saviour after his resurrection, who showed himself only to those whom he thought proper, and who without opening the doors,[610] appeared suddenly in the midst of his disciples.
But should it be allowed that the demon could reanimate these bodies, and give them the power of motion for a time, could he also lengthen, diminish, rarefy, subtilize the bodies of these ghosts, and give them the faculty of penetrating through the ground, the doors and windows? There is no appearance of his having received this power from God, and we cannot even conceive that an earthly body, material and gross, can be reduced to that state of subtility and spiritualization without destroying the configuration of its parts and spoiling the economy of its structure; which would be contrary to the intention of the demon, and render this body incapable of appearing, showing itself, acting and speaking, and, in short, of being cut to pieces and burned, as is commonly seen and practiced in Moravia, Poland, and Silesia. These difficulties exist in regard to those persons of whom we have made mention, who, being excommunicated, rose from their tombs, and left the church in sight of everybody.
We must then keep silence on this article, since it has not pleased God to reveal to us either the extent of the demon's power, or the way in which these things can be done. There is even much appearance of illusion; and even if some reality were mixed up with it, we may easily console ourselves for our ignorance in that respect, since there are so many natural things which take place within us and around us, of which the cause and manner are unknown to us.
Footnotes:
[607] Plin. Hist. Natur. lib. vii. c. 52.
[608] Orig. de Resurrect. Fragment. lib. i. p. 35. Nov. edit. Et contra Celsum, lib. vii. p. 679.
[609] Luke xvi. 22, 23.
[610] John xx. 26.
Those who have recourse to the fascination of the senses to explain what is related concerning the apparition of vampires, throw themselves into as great a perplexity as those who acknowledge sincerely the reality of these events; for fascination consists either in the suspension of the senses, which cannot see what is passing before their sight, like that with which the men of Sodom were struck[611] when they could not discover the door of Lot's house, though it was before their eyes; or that of the disciples at Emmaus, of whom it is said that "their eyes were holden, so that they might not recognize Jesus Christ, who was talking with them on the way, and whom they knew not again until the breaking of the bread revealed him to them;"[612]—or else it consists in an object being represented to the senses in a different form from that it wears in reality, as that of the Moabites,[613] who believed they saw the waters tinged with the blood of the Israelites, although nothing was there but the simple waters, on which the rays of the sun being reflected, gave them a reddish hue; or that of the Syrian soldiers sent to take Elisha,[614] who were led by this prophet into Samaria, without their recognising either the prophet or the city.
This fascination, in what way soever it may be conceived, is certainly above the usual power known unto man, consequently man cannot naturally produce it; but is it above the natural powers of an angel or a demon? That is what is unknown to us, and obliges us to suspend our judgment on this question.
There is another kind of fascination, which consists in this, that the sight of a person or a thing, the praise bestowed upon them, the envy felt towards them, produce in the object certain bad effects, against which the ancients took great care to guard themselves and theirchildren, by making them wear round their necks preservatives, or amulets, or charms.
A great number of passages on this subject might be cited from the Greek and Latin authors; and I find that at this day, in variousparts of Christendom, people are persuaded of the efficacy of these fascinations. But we must own three things; first, that the effect of these pretended fascinations (or spells) is very doubtful; the second, that if it were certain, it is very difficult, not to say impossible, to explain it; and lastly, that it cannot be rationally applied to the matter of apparitions or of vampires.
If the vampires or ghosts are not really resuscitated nor their bodies spiritualized and subtilized, as we believe we have proved, and if our senses are not deceived by fascination, as we have just seen it, I doubt if there be any other way to act on this question than to absolutely deny the return of these vampires, or to believe that they are only asleep or torpid; for if they truly are resuscitated, and if what is told of their return be true—if they speak, act, reason, if they suck the blood of the living, they must know what passes in the other world, and they ought to inform their relations and friends of it, and that is what they do not. On the contrary, they treat them as enemies; torment them, take away their life, suck their blood, cause them to die with lassitude.
If they are predestinated and blessed, whence happens it that they disturb and torment the living, their nearest relations, their children, and all that for nothing, and simply for the sake of doing harm? If these are persons who have still something to expiate in purgatory, and who require the prayers of the living, why do they not explain their condition? If they are reprobate and condemned, what have they to do on this earth? Can we conceive that God allows them thus to come without reason or necessity and molest their families, and even cause their death?
If theserevenansare really dead, whatever state they may be in in the other world, they play a very bad part here, and keep it up still worse.
Footnotes:
[611] Gen. xix. 2.
[612] Luke xxiv. 16.
[613] 2 Kings iii. 23.
[614] 2 Kings iv. 19, 20.