Another Turk, about to drink a cup of wine in his cellar, first made a tremendous noise and grotesque faces to warn his soul, he said, not to share the guilt of the foul deed he was about to commit. Such trifles keep people in fear and so cowed that they dare not resist or infringe the smallest detail of their law, because their conscience is misled by superstition. No human decree or force of arms could otherwise have imposed such obedience.

Last come false Christians. In describing their superstitious symptoms, a mixture of all the others, I may repeat what St Benedict once saw in a vision: one devil in the marketplace, but ten in a monastery, because there was more work there. In populous cities, people would swear, perjure themselves, lie, falsify and deceive readily enough on their own: one devil could ensnare a thousand. But in their religious houses a thousand devils could scarcely tempt one simple monk.

I think all the chief devils busy themselves undermining Christians. Jews, Gentiles and Muslims are “outside the fold,” out of the fold, and need no such attention: they offer no resistance, “for he neglects to assail those whom he feels he possesses by undisputed right”; they are his own already. But Christians have the shield of faith and sword of the Spirit with which to resist, and must endure a heavy bombardment before they can be overcome.

That the Devil is busiest among us who belong to the true Church is evident from the various forms of opposition, heresies and schisms he has raised in every age to overthrow it, especially in the Church of Rome, where Antichrist himself now sits and displays his skill. This mystery of iniquity began to work even in the apostles’ time. Many antichrists and heretics were abroad; many have arisen since, many are present now, and there will be more until the world’s end, to derange people’s minds and seduce and enslave their souls.

I know no better way to describe their symptoms than by dividing them into those who lead and those who are led. The leaders are heretics, schismatics, false prophets, impostors and their ministers. They have some symptoms in common and others peculiar to themselves. The common ones are madness, folly, pride, insolence, arrogance, affected singularity, perversity, obstinacy, shamelessness, and scorn and contempt for every other sect:

Bound to swear allegiance to no master’s words;

They approve nothing unless they first invent it themselves; no interpretation is good unless their infallible spirit dictates it. No one else may rank “second,” no, not even “third.” They alone are wise and learned in the truth; everyone is damned except themselves and their followers. “They massacre the Scriptures to fit their own subject,” says Tertullian: they slaughter Scripture and twist it like a wax nose to serve their own ends.

Meanwhile they are so unyielding that whatever they have once said, they must and will defend in whole volumes, replies and further replies, never yielding until death, so conceited are they, whatever you may say. As Bernard says of Peter Abelard—mistakenly, according to some—“All the Fathers speak one way, and I another.” Though all the Fathers, councils and the whole world contradict them, they do not care: they remain the same.

And, as Gregory aptly observes of people suffering from vertigo, they think that everything turns and moves, that everyone else is mistaken, when the whole error is in their own brains.

The Jesuit Magallianus, in his commentary on the First Epistle to Timothy, chapter 16, verse 20, and Alfonso de Castro, in book 1 of Against Heresies, give two further notable signs, or probable tests, by which to recognize such people—they might have taken themselves by the nose when they said it. First, they pursue novelties and trifles, preferring falsehood to truth. Second, they do not care what they say: whatever rashness and folly bring forth, pride, perversity and obstinacy will afterwards defend to the last gasp.

Their particular symptoms are monstrous paradoxes, new doctrines and empty fantasies, as numerous and various as the people themselves. The ancient Nicolaitans would have wives in common; Montanists refuse marriage altogether, as do the followers of Tatian, who forbid all meat; Severians forbid wine. Adamites go naked because Adam did so in Paradise.

Some go barefoot all their lives because God, in Exodus 3 and Joshua 5, told Moses to do so; and in Isaiah 20 the prophet was told to remove his shoes. Manichaeans maintain the Pythagorean transmigration of souls from human beings into animals.

The Circumcellions in Africa, with mad cruelty, killed themselves, some by fire, drowning or falls, and led others to do the same, threatening some if they refused. There are a thousand similar examples, as you may read in Augustine—for there were ninety-one heresies in his time, besides schisms and smaller factions—Epiphanius, Alfonso de Castro, Daneau, Gabriel Prateolus, and others.

Our church histories supply many examples of prophets, enthusiasts and impostors, of Elijahs and Christs: for example, our Eudo de Stellis, a Breton in King Stephen’s time, who went about invisibly, transported himself from one place to another in a moment and fed thousands with excellent food in the wilderness, with many similar examples. Nothing is so common as miracles, visions, revelations and prophecies.

Whatever these deranged heretics first put forward and impostors set going, however absurd, false and monstrous, ordinary people will follow and believe it. It spreads like murrain in cattle or scab in sheep. “No scab,” as he said, “is scabbier than superstition.” Just as someone bitten by a rabid dog bites others, all eventually become mad. From love of novelty, simplicity, blind zeal, hope or fear, the fickle multitude will embrace it and approve it without further examination.