Dissertation on the Natural Knowledge of Angelic Existence

(ν) P. Sp. Met. c. 4.

(ξ) Theol. Gentil. l. 1. c. 6.

(ο) Theol Natur. l. 2. c. 2.

(π) Disquiſ. Magic. l. 6. Anaceph. mon. 1.

(ρ) Encyclop. l. 12. c. 1.

in this matter, who have the most learned men, Scheibler (ν), Vossius (ξ), Clasenius (ο), Martin Delrio (π), Alstedius (ρ), and others, by whose judgment the words of Ebelius just alleged are to be judged by us, which are surely not approved by us. For that which is said first about God has no difficulty. For when the question is about the possessed, who commit such things as cannot by any means be performed by a human through his own faculty, those actions are for the most part conjoined with circumstances which do not permit one to take refuge in God as their cause. For besides the fact that those men are often so deprived of their minds for a certain interval of time that they do not know what is being done by them, when the use of reason returns, they are also tortured and tormented in wondrous ways, and they abuse God himself, the cause of all good, and utter most foul speeches. Hence Clasen. (σ) well states,

(σ) l. c.

"We hear," he says, "the possessed speak blasphemous words in a foreign idiom: now let us assume they had never learned an exotic language: therefore, that speech cannot proceed from them as such. Nor will it be permitted to say that this is done by God, since it is alien to the holiness of God to blaspheme."

Therefore, this is done by angels inhabiting the human. Indeed, that separated souls are not able to occupy a human, to torture him and afflict him with pains, to break open doors, to burst chains, to crush men, and to effect other things of this kind, can be taken as a most manifest sign: for if it were otherwise, both the force of Divine Justice would be violated, and the authority of magistrates, who pursue evil deeds with punishments, would be drawn into most manifest danger. That, because God out of His justice removes the wicked from the present life, so that the impious may no longer be injurious or troublesome to Him, or to the good, with their malicious actions; now indeed, if souls departed from the body were equipped with the addition of such great powers that they could vex humans still living at their pleasure and afflict them in various ways, this counsel of Divine justice would be overturned. Indeed, the good would have more reason to fear the dead, and the evil souls of the dead, than the living and the cruel insults of the living. This