History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom Part 35

Albert the Great taught the same doctrine, and showed how a certain salve thrown into a spring produced whirlwinds. The great Franciscan--the "seraphic doctor"--St. Bonaventura, whose services to theology earned him one of the highest places in the Church, and to whom Dante gave special honour in paradise, set upon this belief his high authority. The lives of the saints, and the chronicles of the Middle Ages, were filled with it. Poetry and painting accepted the idea and developed it. Dante wedded it to verse, and at Venice this thought may still be seen embodied in one of the grand pictures of Bordone: a shipload of demons is seen approaching Venice in a storm, threatening destruction to the city, but St. Mark, St. George, and St. Nicholas attack the vessel, and disperse the h.e.l.lish crew.(219)

(219) For Bede, see the Hist. Eccles., vol. i, p. 17; Vita Cuthberti, c. 17 (Migne, tome xliv). For Thomas Aquinas, see the Summa, pars I, qu.

lx.x.x, art. 2. The second citation I owe to Rydberg, Magic of the Middle Ages, p. 73, where the whole interesting pa.s.sage is given at length. For Albertus Magnus, see the De Potentia Daemonum (cited by Maury, Legendes Pieuses). For Bonaventura, see the Comp. Theol. Veritat., ii, 26. For Dante, see Purgatorio, c. 5. On Bordone's picture, see Maury, Legendes Pieuses, p. 18, note.

The popes again and again sanctioned this doctrine, and it was amalgamated with various local superst.i.tions, pious imaginations, and interesting arguments, to strike the fancy of the people at large. A strong argument in favour of a diabolical origin of the thunderbolt was afforded by the eccentricities of its operation. These attracted especial attention in the Middle Ages, and the popular love of marvel generalized isolated phenomena into rules. Thus it was said that the lightning strikes the sword in the sheath, gold in the purse, the foot in the shoe, leaving sheath and purse and shoe unharmed; that it consumes a human being internally without injuring the skin; that it destroys nets in the water, but not on the land; that it kills one man, and leaves untouched another standing beside him; that it can tear through a house and enter the earth without moving a stone from its place; that it injures the heart of a tree, but not the bark; that wine is poisoned by it, while poisons struck by it lose their venom; that a man's hair may be consumed by it and the man be unhurt.(220)

(220) See, for lists of such admiranda, any of the early writers--e. g., Vincent of Beauvais, Reisch's Margarita, or Eck's Aristotle.

These peculiar phenomena, made much of by the allegorizing sermonizers of the day, were used in moral lessons from every pulpit. Thus the Carmelite, Matthias Farinator, of Vienna, who at the Pope's own instance compiled early in the fifteenth century that curious handbook of ill.u.s.trative examples for preachers, the Lumen Animae, finds a spiritual a.n.a.logue for each of these anomalies.(221)

(221) See the Lumen animae, Eichstadt, 1479.

This doctrine grew, robust and noxious, until, in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, we find its bloom in a mult.i.tude of treatises by the most learned of the Catholic and Protestant divines, and its fruitage in the torture chambers and on the scaffolds throughout Christendom. At the Reformation period, and for nearly two hundred years afterward, Catholics and Protestants vied with each other in promoting this growth. John Eck, the great opponent of Luther, gave to the world an annotated edition of Aristotle's Physics, which was long authoritative in the German universities; and, though the text is free from this doctrine, the woodcut ill.u.s.trating the earth's atmosphere shows most vividly, among the clouds of mid-air, the devils who there reign supreme.(222)

(222) See Eck, Aristotelis Meteorologica, Augsburg, 1519.

Luther, in the other religious camp, supported the superst.i.tion even more zealously, a.s.serting at times his belief that the winds themselves are only good or evil spirits, and declaring that a stone thrown into a certain pond in his native region would cause a dreadful storm because of the devils, kept prisoners there.(223)

(223) For Luther, see the Table Talk; also Michelet, Life of Luther (translated by Hazlitt, p. 321).

Just at the close of the same century, Catholics and Protestants welcomed alike the great work of Delrio. In this, the power of devils over the elements is proved first from the Holy Scriptures, since, he declares, "they show that Satan brought fire down from heaven to consume the servants and flocks of Job, and that he stirred up a violent wind, which overwhelmed in ruin the sons and daughters of Job at their feasting." Next, Delrio insists on the agreement of all the orthodox fathers, that it was the devil himself who did this, and attention is called to the fact that the hail with which the Egyptians were punished is expressly declared in Holy Scripture to have been brought by the evil angels. Citing from the Apocalypse, he points to the four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the winds and preventing their doing great damage to mortals; and he dwells especially upon the fact that the devil is called by the apostle a "prince of the power of the air." He then goes on to cite the great fathers of the Church--Clement, Jerome, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas.(224)

(224) For Delrio, see his Disquisitiones Magicae, first printed at Liege in 1599-1600, but reprinted again and again throughout the seventeenth century. His interpretation of Psalm lxxviii, 47-49, was apparently shared by the translators of our own authorized edition. For citations by him, see Revelation vii, 1,; Ephesians ii, 2. Even according to modern commentators (e.g., Alford), the word here translated "power"

denotes not MIGHT, but GOVERNMENT, COURT, HIERARCHY; and in this sense it was always used by the ecclesiastical writers, whose conception is best rendered by our plural--"powers." See Delrio, Disquisitiones Magicae, lib. ii, c. 11.

This doctrine was spread not only in ponderous treatises, but in light literature and by popular ill.u.s.trations. In the Compendium Maleficarum of the Italian monk Guacci, perhaps the most amusing book in the whole literature of witchcraft, we may see the witch, in propria persona, riding the diabolic goat through the clouds while the storm rages around and beneath her; and we may read a rich collection of anecdotes, largely contemporary, which establish the required doctrine beyond question.

The first and most natural means taken against this work of Satan in the air was prayer; and various pet.i.tions are to be found scattered through the Christian liturgies--some very beautiful and touching. This means of escape has been relied upon, with greater or less faith, from those days to these. Various medieval saints and reformers, and devoted men in all centuries, from St. Giles to John Wesley, have used it with results claimed to be miraculous. Whatever theory any thinking man may hold in the matter, he will certainly not venture a reproachful word: such prayers have been in all ages a natural outcome of the mind of man in trouble.(225)

(225) For Guacci, see his Compendium Maleficarum (Milan, 1608). For the cases of St. Giles, John Wesley, and others stilling the tempests, see Brewer, Dictionary of Miracles, s. v. Prayer.

But against the "power of the air" were used other means of a very different character and tendency, and foremost among these was exorcism.

In an exorcism widely used and ascribed to Pope Gregory XIII, the formula is given: "I, a priest of Christ,... do command ye, most foul spirits, who do stir up these clouds,... that ye depart from them, and disperse yourselves into wild and untilled places, that ye may be no longer able to harm men or animals or fruits or herbs, or whatsoever is designed for human use." But this is mild, indeed, compared to some later exorcisms, as when the ritual runs: "All the people shall rise, and the priest, turning toward the clouds, shall p.r.o.nounce these words: 'I exorcise ye, accursed demons, who have dared to use, for the accomplishment of your iniquity, those powers of Nature by which G.o.d in divers ways worketh good to mortals; who stir up winds, gather vapours, form clouds, and condense them into hail.... I exorcise ye,... that ye relinquish the work ye have begun, dissolve the hail, scatter the clouds, disperse the vapours, and restrain the winds.'" The rubric goes on to order that then there shall be a great fire kindled in an open place, and that over it the sign of the cross shall be made, and the one hundred and fourteenth Psalm chanted, while malodorous substances, among them sulphur and asafoetida, shall be cast into the flames. The purpose seems to have been literally to "smoke out" Satan.(226)

(226) See Polidorus Valerius, Practica exorcistarum; also the Thesaurus exorcismorum (Cologne, 1626), pp. 158-162.

Manuals of exorcisms became important--some bulky quartos, others handbooks. Noteworthy among the latter is one by the Italian priest Locatelli, ent.i.tled Exorcisms most Powerful and Efficacious for the Dispelling of Aerial Tempests, whether raised by Demons at their own Instance or at the Beck of some Servant of the Devil.(227)

(227) That is, Exorcismi, etc. A "corrected" second edition was printed at Laybach, 1680, in 24mo, to which is appended another manual of Preces et conjurationes contra aereas tempestates, omnibus sacerdotibus utiles et necessaria, printed at the monastery of Kempten (in Bavaria) in 1667.

The latter bears as epigraph the pa.s.sage from the gospels describing Christ's stilling of the winds.

The Jesuit Gretser, in his famous book on Benedictions and Maledictions, devotes a chapter to this subject, dismissing summarily the scepticism that questions the power of devils over the elements, and adducing the story of Job as conclusive.(228)

(228) See Gretser, De benedictionibus et maledictionibus, lib. ii, c.

48.

Nor was this theory of exorcism by any means confined to the elder Church. Luther vehemently upheld it, and prescribed especially the first chapter of St. John's gospel as of unfailing efficacy against thunder and lightning, declaring that he had often found the mere sign of the cross, with the text, "The word was made flesh," sufficient to put storms to flight.(229)

(229) So, at least, says Gretser (in his De ben. et aml., as above).

From the beginning of the Middle Ages until long after the Reformation the chronicles give ample ill.u.s.tration of the successful use of such exorcisms. So strong was the belief in them that it forced itself into minds comparatively rational, and found utterance in treatises of much importance.

But, since exorcisms were found at times ineffectual, other means were sought, and especially fetiches of various sorts. One of the earliest of these appeared when Pope Alexander I, according to tradition, ordained that holy water should be kept in churches and bedchambers to drive away devils.(230) Another safeguard was found in relics, and of similar efficacy were the so-called "conception billets" sold by the Carmelite monks. They contained a formula upon consecrated paper, at which the devil might well turn pale. Buried in the corner of a field, one of these was thought to give protection against bad weather and destructive insects.(231)

(230) "Inst.i.tuit ut aqua quam sanctum appellamus sale admixta interpositus sacris orationibus et in templis et in cubiculis ad fugandos daemones retineretur." Platina, Vitae Pontif. But the story is from the False Decretals.

(231) See Rydberg, The Magic of the Middle Ages, translated by Edgren, pp. 63-66.

But highest in repute during centuries was the Agnus Dei--a piece of wax blessed by the Pope's own hand, and stamped with the well-known device representing the "Lamb of G.o.d." Its powers were so marvellous that Pope Urban V thought three of these cakes a fitting gift from himself to the Greek Emperor. In the Latin doggerel recounting their virtues, their meteorological efficacy stands first, for especial stress is laid on their power of dispelling the thunder. The stress thus laid by Pope Urban, as the infallible guide of Christendom, on the efficacy of this fetich, gave it great value throughout Europe, and the doggerel verses reciting its virtues sank deep into the popular mind. It was considered a most potent means of dispelling hail, pestilence, storms, conflagrations, and enchantments; and this feeling was deepened by the rules and rites for its consecration. So solemn was the matter, that the manufacture and sale of this particular fetich was, by a papal bull of 1471, reserved for the Pope himself, and he only performed the required ceremony in the first and seventh years of his pontificate. Standing unmitred, he prayed: "O G.o.d,... we humbly beseech thee that thou wilt bless these waxen forms, figured with the image of an innocent lamb,...

that, at the touch and sight of them, the faithful may break forth into praises, and that the crash of hailstorms, the blast of hurricanes, the violence of tempests, the fury of winds, and the malice of thunderbolts may be tempered, and evil spirits flee and tremble before the standard of thy holy cross, which is graven upon them."(232)

(232) These pious charms are still in use in the Church, and may be found described in any ecclesiastical cyclopaedia. The doggerel verses run as follows:

"Tonitrua magna terret, Inimicos nostras domat Et peccata nostra delet; Praegnantem c.u.m partu salvat, Ab incendio praeservat, Dona dignis multa confert, A subersione servat, Utque malis mala defert. A morte cita liberat, Portio, quamvis parva sit, Et Cacodaemones fugat, Ut magna tamen proficit."

See these verses cited in full faith, so late as 1743, in Father Vincent of Berg's Enchiridium, pp. 23, 24, where is an ample statement of the virtues of the Agnus Dei, and istructions for its use. A full account of the rites used in consecrating this fetich, with the prayers and benedictions which gave colour to this theory of the powers of the Agnus Dei, may be found in the ritual of the Church. I have used the edition ent.i.tled Sacrarum ceremoniarum sive rituum Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae libri tres, Rome, 1560, in folio. The form of the papal prayer is as follows: "Deus... te supplicater deprecamur, ut... has cereas formas, innocentissimi agni imagine figuritas, benedicere... digneris, ut per ejus tactum et visum fideles invitentur as laudes, fragor grandinum, procella turbinum, impetus tempestatum, ventorum rabies, infesta tonitrua temperentur, fugiant atque tremiscant maligni spiritus ante Sanctae Crucis vexillum, quod in illis exculptum est...."(Sacr. Cer.

Rom. Eccl., as above). If any are curious as to the extent to which this consecrated wax was a specific for all spiritual and most temporal ills during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, let them consult the Jesuit Litterae annuae, pa.s.sim.

Another favourite means with the clergy of the older Church for bringing to naught the "power of the air," was found in great processions bearing statues, relics, and holy emblems through the streets. Yet even these were not always immediately effective. One at Liege, in the thirteenth century, thrice proved unsuccessful in bringing rain, when at last it was found that the image of the Virgin had been forgotten! A new procession was at once formed, the Salve Regina sung, and the rain came down in such torrents as to drive the devotees to shelter.(233)

(233) John of Winterthur describes many such processions in Switzerland in the thirteenth century, and all the monkish chronicles speak of them.