The Phantom World; or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. Calmet Augustin

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СКАЧАТЬ kingdoms, provinces, towns, and private houses.

They paid them a superstitious and idolatrous worship, as to domestic divinities; they invoked them, offered them a kind of sacrifice and offerings of incense, cakes, honey, and wine, &c.—but not bloody sacrifices.[82]

      The Platonicians taught that carnal and voluptuous men could not see their genii, because their mind was not sufficiently pure, nor enough disengaged from sensual things; but that men who were wise, moderate, and temperate, and who applied themselves to serious and sublime subjects, could see them; as Socrates, for instance, who had his familiar genius, whom he consulted, to whose advice he listened, and whom he beheld, at least with the eyes of the mind.

If the oracles of Greece and other countries are reckoned in the number of apparitions of bad spirits, we may also recollect the good spirits who have announced things to come, and have assisted the prophets and inspired persons, whether in the Old Testament or the New. The angel Gabriel was sent to Daniel[83] to instruct him concerning the vision of the four great monarchies, and the accomplishment of the seventy weeks, which were to put an end to the captivity. The prophet Zechariah says expressly that the angel who appeared unto him[84] revealed to him what he must say—he repeats it in five or six places; St. John, in the Apocalypse,[85] says the same thing, that God had sent his angel to inspire him with what he was to say to the Churches. Elsewhere[86] he again makes mention of the angel who talked with him, and who took in his presence the dimensions of the heavenly Jerusalem. And again, St. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews,[87] "If what has been predicted by the angels may pass for certain."

      From all we have just said, it results that the apparitions of good angels are not only possible, but also very real; that they have often appeared, and under diverse forms; that the Hebrews, Christians, Mahometans, Greeks, and Romans have believed in them; that when they have not sensibly appeared, they have given proofs of their presence in several different ways. We shall examine elsewhere how we can explain the kind of apparition, whether of good or bad angels, or souls separated from the body.

      Footnotes:

[69] Jamblic. lib. ii. cap. 3 & 5.

[70] "Quod te per Genium, dextramque Deosque Penates, Obsecro et obtestor."—Horat. lib. i. Epist. 7. 94. ——"Dum cunctis supplex advolveris aris, Ei mitem Genium Domini præsentis adoras." Stac. lib. v. Syl. I. 73.

[71] Antiquitée expliquée, tom. i.

[72] Perseus, Satire ii.

[73] Senec. Epist. 12.

[74] Tertull. Apol. c. 23.

[75] "Troja vale, rapimur, clamant; dant oscula terræ Troades."—Ovid. Metam., lib. xiii. 421.

[76] "Quamquam cur Genium Romæ, mihi fingitis unum? Cùm portis, domibus; thermis, stabulis soleatis, Assignare suos Genios?"—Prudent. contra Symmach.

[77] Odyss. XI. sub. fin. Vid. Horat. lib. i. Satire 7, &c.

[78] Virgil. Æneid. I. 6. August. Serm. 15. de SS. et Quæst. 5. in Deut. i. 5 c. 43. Vide Spencer, de Leg. Hebræor. Ritual.

[79] Dan. x. 13.

[80] Acts xvi. 9.

[81] Josh. v. 13. Dan. x. 13, 21; xii. 1. Judg. v. 6. Rev. xii. 7

[82] Forsitan quis quærat, quid causæ sit, ut merum fundendum sit genio, non hostiam faciendam putaverint. … Scilicet ut die natali munus annale genio solverent, manum à cœde ac sanguine abstinerent.—Censorin. de Die Natali, c. 2. Vide Taffin de Anno Sæcul.

[83] Dan. viii. 16; ix. 21.

[84] Zech. i. 10, 13, 14, 19; ii. 3, 4; iv. 1, 4, 5; v. 5, 10.

[85] Rev. i. 1.

[86] Rev. x. 8, 9, &c.; xi. 1, 2, 3, &c.

[87] Heb. ii. 2.

CHAPTER VI.

       Table of Contents

THE APPARITION OF BAD ANGELS PROVED BY THE HOLY SCRIPTURES—UNDER WHAT FORM THEY HAVE APPEARED.

       Table of Contents

The books of the Old and New Testament, together with sacred and profane history, are full of relations of the apparition of bad spirits. The first, the most famous, and the most fatal apparition of Satan, is that of the appearance of this evil spirit to Eve, the first woman,[88] in the form of a serpent, which animal served as the instrument of that seducing demon in order to deceive her and induce her to sin. Since that time he has always chosen to appear under that form rather than any other; so in Scripture he is often termed the Old Serpent;[89] and it is said that the infernal dragon fought against the woman who figured or represented the church; that the archangel St. Michael vanquished him and cast him down from heaven. He has often appeared to the servants of God in the form of a dragon, and he has caused himself to be adored by unbelievers in this form, in a great number of places: at Babylon, for instance, they worshiped a living dragon,[90] which Daniel killed by making it swallow a ball or bolus, composed of ingredients of a mortally poisonous nature. The serpent was consecrated to Apollo, the god of physic and of oracles; and the pagans had a sort of divination by means of serpents, which they called Ophiomantia.

The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans worshiped serpents, and regarded them as divine.[91] СКАЧАТЬ