Chapter IV
That Witches Effect their Marvels with the Help of the Devil
Argument
The demon can effect the most rapid local movement of bodies, so that he can withdraw an object from sight and substitute another so quickly that he deludes the understanding and the eyes of the onlookers into a belief that the first object has been changed into the second. We must believe that the metamorphoses of the heathen were of this sort; such as the transformation of Diomedes’ companions into birds, and of Iphigeneia into a hind, as S. Augustine[1] observes. These deceptions were exposed by Astirius also, whose deeds were saved from oblivion by Eusebius.
We must, then, consider marvels as of two kinds. The first is when the effect is not due to any local motion and is beyond the sphere of applied natural causes, as, for example, the raising of the dead or the healing of true blindness; for in such there is always some glamour or deception. The other is when a visible object suddenly vanishes; and this is due to some prestidigital contrivance. An example of the first is when a sorcerer places in a room a bow made of a certain wood, and an arrow of another wood, and a string of a certain material, and shoots the arrow and causes a river to appear in the place as wide as the length of the bow shot; of the second, when a horse appears to be torn in pieces, and then is found to be whole. Of the same sort is that trick mentioned by Nicetas,[2] to which we shall refer later, in which a conjurer produces what appears to be a serpent. But for a better understanding of this it must be known that the devil deceives our senses in many different ways. First when he wholly or in part hides from our eyes an object which is present. Secondly, when he so affects the medium of our vision that an object seen through it seems different from what it is: as when salt is mixed with acid and a linen cloth soaked in it, if that cloth be lighted at a candle the faces of those present will assume a ghastly appearance; or if a candle made from an ass’s semen and wax be lighted, all those present appear to have asses’ heads. Thirdly, when the vapours of the intermediate air are thickened and so it appears that a cock is drawing along a beam, when it is really only a straw. Fourthly, when objects seem to move through the air, as trees appear to sailors to move along together with their ship. Fifthly, when there is shown to the onlookers an aerial or a fantastic body similar to that which they suppose it to be. Sixthly, by a swift agitation or a sudden concealment of visible objects, and by various secret arrangements and divisions of them, as conjurers do with strings and little balls, etc. Seventhly, if the bodily humours be agitated or disturbed things appear to be different from what they are, as happens to drunkards and madmen. Finally, I say that the devil can so compound and arrange fantasms that even when a man may be said to be awake he is as one who sleeps, and thinks he sees what he does not see, according to Gaetani,[3] 2. 2, q. 95, artic. 3.
- ↑ “S. Augustine.” “De Ciuitate Dei,” XVIII, 18.
- ↑ “Nicetas.” Acominatus, also called Choniates (from his birthplace Chonae in Phrygia). He ranks among the most important Byzantine historians. Of his “Annales” there are editions by Bekker, Bonn, 1835; by Migne, Paris, 1865. “Annales,” IV, 23.
- ↑ “Gaetani.” Tomaso de Vio Gaetani, Dominican Cardinal, philosopher, theologian, and exegete, 1469–1534. His Commentaries on the “Summa” of S. Thomas are recognised as a classic of scholastic literature, and were by order of Leo XIII incorporated in the official Leonine edition of the works of S. Thomas, of which the first volume appeared at Rome in 1882.
