|
SERENUS: What you speak of as taking place in the case of demoniacs is
not opposed to our assertion; viz., that those possessed by unclean spirits
say and do what they do not i want to, and are forced to utter what they
know not; for it is perfectly clear that they are not subject to the
entrance of the spirits all in the same way: for some are affected by them
in such a way as to have not the slightest conception of what they do and
say, while others know and afterwards recollect it. But we must not imagine
that this is done by the infusion of the spirit in such a way that it
penetrates into the actual substance of the soul and, being as it were
united to it and somehow clothed with it, utters words and sayings through
the mouth of the sufferer. For we ought not to believe that this can
possibly be done by them. For we can clearly see that this results from no
loss of the soul but from weakness of the body, when the unclean spirit
seizes on those members in which the vigour of the soul resides, and laying
on them an enormous and intolerable weight overwhelms it with foulest
darkness, and interferes with its intellectual powers: as we see sometimes
happen also from the fault of wine and fever or excessive cold, and other
indispositions affecting men from without; and it was this which the devil
was forbidden to attempt to inflict on the blessed Job, though he had
received power over his flesh, when the Lord commanded him saying: "Lo, I
give him into thine hands: only preserve his soul," i.e., do not weaken
the seat of his soul and make him mad, and overpower the understanding and
wisdom of what remains, by smothering the ruling power in his heart with
your weight.
|
|