XVI. In a word, it is of no little importance to destroy the popular errors which attack the unalterable attributes of the Supreme Being, as if he had laid it down as a law to himself that he would condescend to all the impious and fantastic wishes of malignant spirits, and of the madman who had recourse to them, by seconding them, and permitting the wonderful effects that they desire to produce. Do reason and good sense allow us to imagine that the Sovereign Master of all things, who for reasons which we are not permitted to examine, refuses so often to grant our most ardent prayers for what we need, whether it be public or private, can be so prompt to lend an ear to the requests of the vilest and most wicked, by allowing that which they desire to happen? So long as they believe in the reality of magic, that it is able to work wonders, and that by means of it man can force the demon to obey, it will be in vain to preach against the superstition, impiety, and folly of wizards. There will always be found too many people who will try to succeed in it, and will even fancy they have succeeded in it in fact. To uproot this pest we must begin by making men clearly understand that it is useless in them to be guilty of this horrible crime; that in this way they never obtain anything they wish for, and that all that is said on this subject is fabulous and chimerical. It will not be difficult to persuade any sensible person of this truth, by only leading him to pay attention, and mark if it be possible that all these pretended miracles can be true, whilst it is proved that magic has never possessed the power to enrich those who professed it, which would be much more easy. How could this wonderful art send maladies to those who were in good health, render a married couple impotent, or make any one invisible or invulnerable, whilst it has never been able to bring a hundred crowns, which another would keep locked up in his strong box? And why do we not make any use of so wonderful an art in armies? Why is it so little sought after by princes and their ministers? The most efficacious means for dissipating all these vain fancies would be never to speak of them, and to bury them in silence and oblivion. In any place where for time immemorial no one has ever been suspected of witchcraft, let them only hear that a monk is arrived to take cognizance of this crime and punish it, and directly you will see troops of green-sick girls, andhypochondriacal men; crowds of children will be brought to him ill with unknown maladies; and it will not fail to be affirmed that these things are caused by spells cast over them, and even when and how the thing happened. It is certainly a wrong way of proceeding, whether in sermons, or in the works published against witches, to amuse themselves with giving the history of all these mad-headed people boast of, of the circumstances in which they have taken a part, and the way in which they happened. It is in vain then to declaim against them, for you may be assured that people are not wanting who suffer themselves to be dazzled by these pretended miracles, who become smitten with these effects, so extraordinary and so wonderful, and try by every means to succeed in them by the very method which has just been taught them, and forget nothing which can place them in the number of this imaginary society. It is then with reason that the author says in his book, that punishment even sometimes serves to render crime more common, and "that there are never more witches than in those places where they are most persecuted." I am delighted to be able to finish with this eulogium, in order that it may be the more clearly seen that if I have herein attacked magic, it is only with upright intentions.
XVII. The eagerness with which I have written this letter has made me forget several things which might very well have a place in it. The greatest difficulty which can be opposed to my argument is that we sometimes find, even amongst people who possess a certain degree of knowledge and good sense, some persons who will say to you, "But I have seen this, or that; such and such things have happened to myself." Upon which it is proper, first of all, to pay attention to the wonderful tricks of certain jugglers, who, by practice and address, succeed in deceiving even the most clear-sighted and sensible persons. It must next be considered that the most natural effects may sometimes appear beyond the power of nature, when cleverly presented in the most favorable point of view. I formerly saw a charlatan who, having driven a nail or a large pin into the head of a chicken, with that nailed it to a table, so that it appeared dead, and was believed to be so by all present; after that, the charlatan having taken out the nail and played some apish tricks, the chicken came to life again and walked about the room. The secret of all this is that these birds have in the forepart of the head two bones, joined in such a way that if anything is driven through with address, though it causes them pain, yet they do not die of it. You may run large pins into a man's leg without wounding or hurting him, or but very slightly, just like a prick which is felt when the pin first enters; which has sometimes served as a pastime for jokers. In my garden, which, thanks to the care of M. Seguier, is become quite a botanic garden,I have a plant called theonagra,[701] which rises to the height of a man, and bears very beautiful flowers; but they remain closed all day, and only open towards sunset, and that not by degrees, as with all other night plants, but in budding all at once, and showing themselves in a moment in all their beauty. A little before their chalice bursts open, it swells and becomes a little inflated. Now, if any one, profiting by the last-named peculiarity, which is but little known, wished to persuade any simple persons that by the help of some magical words he could, when he would, cause a beautiful flower to bloom, is it not certain that he would find plenty of people disposed to believe him? The common people in our days leave nothing undone to find out the secret of making themselves invulnerable; by which they show that they ascribe to magic more power than was granted to it by the ancients, who believed it very capable of doing harm, but not of doing good. So, when the greater number of the Jews attributed the miracles wrought by the Saviour to the devil, some of the more sensible and reasonable among them asked, "Can the devil restore sight to the blind?"[702] At this day, there are more ways than ever of making simple and ignorant persons believe in magic. For instance, would it be very difficult for a man to pass himself off as a magician, if he said to those who were present, "I can, at my will, either send the bullet in this pistol through this board, or make it simply touch it and fall down at our feet without piercing it?" Nevertheless, nothing is easier; it only requires when the pistol is loaded, that instead of pressing the wadding immediately upon the bullet as is customary, to put it, on the contrary, at the mouth of the barrel. That being done, when they fire, if the end of the pistol is raised, the ball, which is not displaced, will produce the usual effect; but if, on the contrary, the pistol is lowered, so that the ball runs into the barrel and joins the wadding, it will fall on the ground from the board without having penetrated it. It seems to me that something like this may be found in the "Natural Experiments" of Redi, which I have not at hand just now. But on this subject, you can consult Jean Baptista, Porta, and others. We must not, however, place amongst the effects of this kind of magic, what a friend jokingly observed to me in a very polite letter which he wrote to me two months ago:—A noisy exhalation having ignited in a house, and not having been perceived by him who was in the spot adjoining, nor in any other place, he writes me word that those who, according to the vulgar prejudice, persisted in believing that these kinds of fire came from the sky and the clouds, were necessarily forced to attribute thiseffect to real magic. I shall again add, on the subject of electrical phenomena, that those who think to explain them by means of two electrical fluids, the one hidden in bodies, and the other circulating around them, would perhaps say something less strange and surprising, if they ascribed them to magic. I have endeavored, in the last letter which is joined to that I wrote upon the subject of exhalations, to give some explanation of these wonders; and I have done so, at least, without being obliged to invent from my own head, and without any foundation, to universal electrical matters which circulate within bodies and without them. Certainly, the ancient philosophers, who reasoned so much on the magnet, would have spared themselves a great deal of trouble, if they had believed it possible to attribute its admirable properties to a magnetic spirit which proceeded from it. But the pleasure I should find in arguing with them, might perhaps engage me in other matters; for which reason I now end my letter.
Footnotes:
[672] The author here alludes to the hypogryphe, a winged horse, invented by Ariosto, that carried the Paladins through the air.
[673] Magicus Vanitates.
[674] Plin. lib. xxx. c. 1.
[675]"Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala rides?"Horat.lib. ii. Ep. 2.
[676] Inexpugnabili magicæ disciplinæ potestate, &c.—Lib. iii.
[677] Delle magiche frodi seppe il Givoco.—Dante, Inf.c. 20.
[678] Pp. 139 and 145.
[679] P. 9.
[680] P. 144.
[681]Goësy, orGoësia, is said to be a kind of magic. It is asserted that those who profess it repair at night to the tombs, where they invoke the demon and evil genii by lamentations and complaints.
In regard toTheurgy, the ancients gave this name to that part of magic which is calledwhite magic. The wordTheurgysignifies the art of doing divine things, or such as God only can perform—the power of producing wonderful and supernatural effects by licit means, in invoking the aid of God and angels.Theurgydiffers fromnatural magic, which is performed by the powers of nature; and fromnecromancy, which is operated only by the invocation of the demons.
[682] P. 170.
[683] P. 654.
[684] P. 749.
[685] P. 9.
[686] P. 30, de Lam.
[687] P. 94.
[688] What is enclosed between the brackets is a long addition sent by the author to the printer whilst they were working at a second edition of his letter.
[689] Et vidi angelum descendentem de cœlo habentem clavem abyssi et catenam magnam in manu suà; et appehendit draconem, serpentem, antiquum, qui est Diabolus et Satanas, et ligavit eum per annos mille.—Apoc.xx. 1.
[690] Et cum consummati fuerint mille anni, solvetur Satanas de carcere suo.—Apoc.v. 7.
[691] Cujus est adventus secundùm operationem Satanæ in omni virtute et signis et prodigiis mendacibus.—2 Thess. ii. 9.
[692] Joseph. Antiq. lib. viii. c. 2.
[693] Acts viii. 6.
[694] Mittet siquidem Dominus in iram et furorem suum per angelos pessimos. Hier. ad Eph. i. 7. p. 574.
[695] Vid. de Beatif. lib. iv. p. i. c. 3.
[696] Pp. 67, 75.
[697] P. 243.
[698] Lib. ii. p. 364.
[699] In pecunia divinabunt.—Mich. iii. 11.
[700] P. 127.
[701] Now well known as the evening primrose.
[702] Numquid dæmonium potest cœcorum oculos asperire? Joan. ix, 21.
Sir—I have received The Historical and Dogmatical Treatise on Apparitions, Visions, and particular Revelations, with Observations on the Dissertations of the Reverend Father Dom. Calmet, Abbot of Sénones, on Apparitions and Ghosts. At Avignon, 1751. By the Abbé Lenglet du Frenoy.
I have looked over this work with pleasure. M. du Frenoy wished to turn to account therein what he wrote fifty-five years ago, as he says himself, on the subject of visions, and the life of Maria d'Agreda, of whom they spoke then, and of whom they still speak even now in so undecided a manner. M. du Frenoy had undertaken at that time to examine the affair thoroughly and to show the illusions of it; there is yet time for him to give his opinion upon it, since the Church has not declared herself upon the work, on the life and visions of that famous Spanish abbess.
It is only accidentally that he composed his remarks on my Dissertations on Apparitions and Vampires. I have no reason to complain of him; he has observed towards me the rules of politeness and good breeding, and I shall try to imitate him in what I say in my own defence. But if he had read the second edition of my work, printed at Einsidlen in Switzerland, in 1749; the third, printed in Germany at Augsburg, in 1750; and the fourth, on which you are now actually engaged; he might have spared himself the trouble of censuring several passages which I have corrected, reformed, suppressed, or explained myself.
If I had wished to swell my work, I could have added to it some rules, remarks, and reflections, with a vast number of circumstances. But by that means I should have fallen into the same error which he seems to have acknowledged himself, when he says that he has perhaps placed in his works too many such rules and remarks: andI am persuaded that it is, in fact, the part that will be least read and least used.[703]
People will be much more struck with stories squeamishly extracted from Thomas de Cantimpré and Cesarius, whose works are everywhere decried, and that one dare no longer cite openly without exposing them to mockery. They will read, with only too much pleasure, what he relates of the apparitions of Jesus Christ to St. Francis d'Assis, on the Indulgence of the Partionculus, and the particularities of the establishment of the Carmelite Fathers, and of the Brotherhood of the Scapulary, by Simon Stock, to whom the Holy Virgin herself gave the Scapulary of the order. It will be seen in his work that there are few religious establishments or societies which are not founded on some vision or revelation. It seemed even as if it was necessary for the propagation of certain orders and certain congregations;so that these kind of revelations were, as it were, taken by storm; and there seems to have been a competition as to who should produce the greatest number of them, and the most extraordinary, to have them believed. I could not persuade myself that he related seriously the pretended apparition of St. Francis to Erasmus. It is easy to comprehend that it was a joke of Erasmus, who wished to divert himself at the expense of the Cordeliers. But one cannot help being pained at the way in which he treats several fathers of the church, as St. Gregory the Great, St. Gregory of Tours, St. Sulpicius Severus, Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Clugny, St. Anselm, Cardinal Pierre Damien, St. Athanasius even, and St. Ambrose,[704] in regard to their credulity, and the account they have given us of several apparitions and visions, which are little thought of at this day. I say the same of what he relates of the visions of St. Elizabeth of Schonau, of St. Hildegrade, of St. Gertrude, of St. Mecthelda, of St. Bridget, of St. Catherine of Sienna, and hardly does he show any favor to those of St. Theresa.
Would it not have been better to leave the world in this respect as it is,[705] rather than disturb the ashes of so many holy personages and saintly nuns, whose lives are held blessed by the church, and whose writings and revelations have so little influence over thesalvation and the morals of the faithful in general. What service does it render the church to speak disparagingly of the works of the contemplatives, of the Thaulers, the Rushbrooks, the Bartholomews of Pisa, of St. Vincent Ferrier, of St. Bernardine of Sienna, of Henry Harphius, of Pierre de Natalibus, of Bernardine de Bustis, of Ludolf the Chartreux, and other authors of that kind, whose writings are so little read and so little known, whose sectaries are so few in number, and have so little weight in the world, and even in the church?
The Abbé du Frenoy acknowledges the visions and revelations which are clearly marked in Scripture; but is there not reason to fear that certain persons may apply the rules of criticism which he employs against the visions of the male and female saints of whom he speaks in his work, and that they may say, for instance, that Jeremiah yielded to his melancholy humor, and Ezekiel to his caustic disposition, to predict sad and disagreeable things to the Jewish people?[706]
We know how many vexations the prophets endured from the Jews, and that in particular[707] those of Anathoth had resolved to put their countryman Jeremiah to death, to prevent him from prophesying in the name of the Lord. To what persecutions were not himself and Baruch his disciple exposed for having spoken in the name of the Lord? Did not King Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, throw the book of Baruch into the fire,[708] after having hacked it with a penknife, in hatred of the truths which it announced to him?
The Jews sometimes went so far as to insult them in their dwellings, and even to say to them,[709]Ubi est verbum Domini? veniat; and elsewhere, "Let us plot against Jeremiah; for the priests will not fail to cite the law, and the prophets will not fail to allege the words of the Lord: come, let us attack him with derision, and pay no regard to his discourse."
Isaiah did not endure less vexation and insult, the libertine Jews having gone even into his house, and said to him insolently[710]—Manda, remanda; expecta, re-expecta; modicum ibi, et modicum ibi, as if to mock at his threats.
But all that has not prevailed, nor ever will prevail, against the truth and word of God; the faithful and exact execution of the threats of the Lord has justified, and ever will justify, the predictions and visions of the prophets. The gates of hell will not prevail against the Christian church, and the word of God will triumph over themalice of hell, the artifice of corrupt men, of libertines, and over all the subtlety of pretended free-thinkers. True and real visions, revelations, and apparitions will always bear in themselves a character of truth, and will serve to destroy those which are false, and proceed from the spirit of error and delusion. And coming now to what regards myself in particular, M. du Frenoy says, that the public have been surprised that instead of placing my proofs before the circumstances of my apparitions, I have given them afterwards, and that I have not entered fully enough into the subject of these proofs.
I am going to give the public an account of my method and design. Having proposed to myself to prove the truth, the reality, and consequently the possibility of apparitions, I have related a great many authentic instances, derived from the Old and New Testament, which forms a complete proof of my opinion, for the certainty of the facts carries with it here the certainty of the dogma.
After that I have related instances and opinions taken from the Hebrews, Mahometans, Greeks, and Latins, to assure the same truth. I have been careful not to draw any parallel between these testimonies and the scriptural ones which preceded. My object in this was to demonstrate that in every age, and in all civilized nations, the idea of the immortality of the soul, of its existence after death, of its return and appearance, is one of those truths which the length of ages has never been able to efface from the mind of nations.
I draw the same inference from the instances which I have related, and of which I do not pretend to guarantee either the truth or the certainty. I willingly yield all the circumstances that are not revealed to censure and criticism; I only esteem as true that which is so in fact.
M. du Frenoy finds that the proof of the immortality of the soul which I infer from the apparition of the spirit after death, is not sufficiently solid; but it is certainly one of the most palpable and most easy of comprehension to the generality of mankind; it would make more impression upon them than arguments drawn from philosophy and metaphysics. I do not intend for that reason to attack any other proofs of the same truth, or to weaken a dogma so essential to religion.
He endeavors to prove, at great length,[711] that the salvation of the Emperor Trajan is not a thing which the Christian religion can confirm. I agree with him; and it was useless to take any trouble to demonstrate it.[712]
He speaks of the young man of Delme,[713] who having fallen into a swoon remained in it some days; they brought him back to life, and a languor remained upon him which at last led to his death at the end of the year. It is thus he arranges that story.
M. du Frenoy disguises the affair a little; and although I do not believe that the devil could restore the youth to life, nevertheless the original and cotemporaneous authors whom I have quoted maintain that the demon had much to do with this event.[714]
What has principally prevented me from giving rules and prescribing a method for discerning true and false apparitions is, that I am quite persuaded that the way in which they occur is absolutely unknown to us; that it contains insurmountable difficulties; and that consulting only the rules of philosophy, I should be more disposed to believe them impossible than to affirm their truth and possibility. But I am restrained by respect for the Holy Scriptures, by the testimony of all antiquity and by the tradition of the Church.
"I am, sir,Your very humbleand very obedient servant,D. A. Calmet, Abbot of Sénones."
Footnotes:
[703] Dom. Calmet has a very bad opinion of the public, to believe that it values so little what is, perhaps, the best and most sensible part of the book. Wise people think quite differently from himself.
[704] Neither Gregory of Tours, nor Sulpicius Severus, nor Peter the Venerable, nor Pierre Damien, have ever been placed in a parallel line with the fathers of the Church. In regard to the latter, it has always been allowable, without failing in the respect which is due to them, to remark certain weaknesses in their works, sometimes even errors, as the Church has done in condemning the Millenaries, &c.
[705] An excellent maxim for fomenting credulity and nourishing superstition.
[706] What a parallel! how could any one make it without renouncing common sense?
[707] Jeremiah xxi. 21.
[708] Jerem. xxxvi.
[709] Jerem. xvii. 15.
[710] Isai. xxviii. 10.
[711] Tom. ii. p. 92et seq.
[712] It is true that what Dom. Calmet had said of this in his first edition, the only one M. Lenglet has seen, has been corrected in the following ones.
[713] P. 155.
[714] A bad foundation; credulous or interested authors.
Transcriber's Notes:
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