The Anatomy of Melancholy

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.