The Anatomy of Melancholy

It does not matter, says Paracelsus, whether God or the Devil, angels or unclean spirits cure the patient, provided he gains relief. If a man falls into a ditch, he continues, what does it matter whether a friend or an enemy helps him out? And if I suffer from such a disease, why should I care whether the Devil himself or one of his agents delivers me, with God’s permission?

He calls a magician God’s minister and representative, profanely applying to magicians the words “you are gods”; for this Thomas Erastus lashes him in part 1, folio 45. Elsewhere he encourages his patients to have firm faith and a strong imagination, and they will see the effects, whatever theologians may say against it.

He argues and seeks to prove that many diseases cannot be cured in any other way. “Those arising from incantation must be cured by incantation”: if caused by incantation, they must be cured by incantation. Constantinus, book 4, approves such remedies. Bartolus the lawyer, Pierre Ayrault, Judicial Matters, book 3, title 7, Salicetus Godefridus and others of their school permit them, “provided what magicians do serves health; otherwise not”: only if it benefits the patient, and not otherwise.

But these men are refuted by Remigius; Bodin, Demon-Mania, book 3, chapter 2; Godelmann, book 1, chapter 8; Wierus; Delrio, Investigations into Magic, book 6, question 2, volume 3; and Erastus, On Witches. All our theologians, scholastic writers and writers on cases of conscience oppose it. Scripture itself absolutely forbids it as a mortal sin: Leviticus, chapters 18, 19 and 20; Deuteronomy 18, etc.; Romans 8:19. Evil must not be done so that good may come of it.

It would be much better for patients afflicted in this way to endure a little misery in this life than to risk their souls’ eternal salvation; and, as Delrio advises, far better to die than to be cured in this manner.

Some undertake to expel devils through natural remedies and magical exorcisms, which they apparently justify from the practice of the early Church, such as the case of Eleazar cited above from Josephus, and the testimony of Irenaeus, Tertullian and Augustine. Eusebius mentions such practices, and magic itself has been publicly taught in some universities, formerly at Salamanca in Spain and Kraków in Poland; but it was condemned in 1318 by the chancellor and University of Paris.

Our papal writers still retain many of these adjurations and forms of exorcism in the Church. Besides those used in baptism, they exorcise food and the possessed, in Christ’s name, as they maintain. Read what exorcisms Girolamo Menghi, chapter 3, and Peter Thyraeus, part 3, chapter 8, prescribe, besides the usual means of fire, fumigation, lights, cutting the air with swords—chapter 57—herbs and scents. Tostatus discusses these in his commentary on Second Kings, chapter 16, question 43. Among them you will find many empty, frivolous and superstitious forms of exorcism that should neither be tolerated nor endured.