A Deep Dive into the Superstitious Roman Catholic Pseudo-Rite of EXORCISM

By Samuel Maresius, Professor of Theology, University of Groningen, Netherlands, AD 1648 

Translated from original Latin 

An example of a modern-day Exorcism formula used in baptism: 

“I exorcise thee, unclean spirit, in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, that thou goest out and depart from this servant of God, N. For He commands Thee, accursed one, Who walked upon the sea, and stretched out His right hand to Peter about to sink. Therefore, accursed devil, acknowledge thy sentence, and give honor to the living and true God: give honor to Jesus Christ His Son, and to the Holy Spirit; and depart from this servant of God, N. because God and our Lord Jesus Christ hath vouchsafed to call him (her) to His holy grace and benediction and to the font of Baptism.” (Source)

CHAPTER ONE 

Twofold kinds of superstition. 

 The name ‘Exorcism.’  

Minor orders. 

 Exorcism in Pontifical communion. 

1. “Religion is situated as it were between two rocks, Superstition and Impiety,” says Justus Lipsius, Political Admonitions and Examples, book 1, chap.3. It is not easy to determine which is more harmful. Plutarch, in his treatise, on Superstition, seems to think the latter is worse. Lipsius opposes the more harmful impiety, which is the more frequent Superstition because it commends itself under the name of piety. It is not without reason that someone, along with Curtius [Rufus], in book 7, called this “a mockery of human minds;” although those who complain about it may draw others to it, “they are captivated by the superstition of the mind,” as Livy says in book 4, since, as they judge after Curtius, book 4, “nothing governs the multitude more effectively than superstition. “ 

2. How many kinds of superstition prevail among those who adhere to the Roman communion, it is not easy to say; But since their theologians make superstition of two kinds, one of false worship, the other of undue worship, as they are distinguished in [the Dutch Jesuit Martin] Delrio’s Investigations into Magic, book 1, chapter 1;  and [the Spanish Jesuit] Francisco de Toledo, book 4, On Instructions for Priests, chapter 14, n. 1, nowhere are both more clearly revealed than in their Exorcisms, so close to the vanity of magic that it is not less like the expression “an egg within an egg.” Wherefore we thought it worthwhile to investigate their Exorcisms more closely to demonstrate and combat their impious superstition. 

3. The word exorcism is Greek, which in Latin means ‘adjuration’ or ‘conjuration;’ Indeed, to swear in Latin is sometimes the same as to vow; as in Plautus’ Menaechmi, Scene 2, Act 2: “By Jove and all the gods I swear [adjuro], wife—does that mean this to you, that I did not nod to him?” But ‘to adjure’ properly means to bind someone by force of an oath owed to God to either do or confess something. Thus, the High Priest adjured Jesus by the living God to tell him whether he was the Christ, Matt. 26:63 where the Greek text has the word έξορκίζω [“I adjure”]. Thus, Mark 5:7, where the demon adjures Christ by the living God not to torment him, where the verb is the simple ὁρκίζω [“I adjure”].  Paul uses this verb in 1 Thess. 5:27: “I put you under oath [Latin = adjuro; Greek = Ἐνορκίζω] before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.” The same meaning is often read in the Alexandrian or LXX Interpreters, as in Gen. 24:37 [“and my master made me swear” = ὁρκισθῆναι] & elsewhere; but more frequently they use the simple rather than the compound verb.  

4. The Exorcisms and adjurations of the Pontiffs include something more: namely, certain defined rites and prescribed formulas which they use both toward things and persons to abase the Demon and break his powers. These formulas exist not only in the Thesaurus of Exorcisms and in the Roman Ritual, but also in any Pastorals, and particularly in the Exorcism Manual of Antwerp published in 1626 [sic: 1619] with the approval of the Bishop of Antwerp and by the privilege of the Archdukes. It is among the minor Orders that we find the office of ‘Exorcist,’ whose ordination is found in the Pontifical, page 8, as if this office of exorcising must be a perpetual one in the Church. Therefore, in order to explain these Exorcisms, we will first deal with the Exorcists themselves, then we will come to the Exorcisms. 

5. Although it is not agreed among the Pontiffs themselves about the number of sacred orders, with Canonists asserting there are nine, and Theologians seven, as [Bishop Agostinho] Barbosa acknowledges in Remiss. ad Conc. Trent. Sess. 23. cap. 2. de Sacr. Ordinis, lit. B., nevertheless they agree that some orders are greater [majores] and others lesser [minores]. Those called ‘Sacred’ and have a vow of continence attached to them, whom they consecrate to God, having been fully initiated forever, cannot ever become secular, according to the distinction assigned by [Flemish Jesuit theologian], Giles de Coninck, volume 2 of the Sacred Disputation, 20, dub. 3. Again, about the minor orders, there are endless controversies among them: For the question is whether Exorcism is a Sacrament or not. Bellarmine, however, On the Sacred Law, in Ordin., chap. 8, considers the affirmative opinion only more probable, but not necessary. Many deny as well. [Maresius then cites several authoritative works which deny]. 

6. There is also a question whether those lower orders should be imprinted with an indelible character [characterem = mark]. For although [philologist Erycius] Puteanus affirms this with certainty in the third part of Thomas [Aquinas’] question, concerning only the Sacramental Orders, nonetheless it cannot be more certain than what was stated above, and the Tridentine Council, by establishing through sacred ordination the imposition of a character, Sess. 23, can. 4, seems to remove that privilege from the lesser orders, which are not called sacred. It is also debated among the same, whether one who accepts minor orders with the intention never to accept greater ones—and the bishop, knowing this, ordains such a person—sins mortally. [Maresius then cites those who affirm this position.] However, the Council of Trent, Session 23, can. 2, established that through them one tends to the Priesthood as if by certain degrees. 

7. There is also a dispute about their minister: Bellarmine decided that orders could only be conferred by a Bishop in book 2, On the Sacraments in Gen., chapter 28, & On Holy Orders, Chapter 11. Others, such as Puteanus and Giles de Coninck, want any Priest to be able to confer minor orders, at least by delegation of the Pope. Similarly, it is established according to the opinions of those who deny that minor orders are Sacraments that the Pope can, without doubt, entrust their bestowal to someone who is not a Priest. 

8. Nor are they more certain of the inadequacy of their order to that of those greater; as the History of the Council of Trent, book 8, not without reason reports, that this declaration of the Council was read with admiration by many: “The lower orders are only steps to the higher ones, all to the priesthood; since it is clearly evident from the ancient reading of ecclesiastical history that those ordained to some office or ministry, that it was practiced for the most part perpetually, that such a translation, ascending to a more sublime degree, was something fortuitous and, from rare occurrences, used only out of necessity or for great utility; that of the seven Deacons ordained by the Apostles, none ascended to a higher degree; and that in the very Roman Church in which Deacons anciently attended the Confessions of the Martyrs, it nowhere appears that they ascended to the titles of Presbyter; that the ordination of Ambrose to Bishop, of St. Jerome, Augustine and Paulinus to Priests, and of Gregory the Great to Deacon, without passing through other degrees, is described.” According to Giles de Coninck: “Except for the Episcopate, a higher order is validly conferred on one who does not have a lower one, but nevertheless illicitly.” 

9. Some theologians who reject the view that minor orders are Sacraments argue that, with papal dispensation, women may be eligible to receive them. Conversely, others maintain that women should not be admitted to any such orders, a perspective that, according to Puteanus, may originate from aversion linked to the legend of Pope Joan. Additionally, there remains debate as to whether the functions associated with minor orders can only be performed by those formally promoted to each respective order. While the Council of Trent, session 23, chapter 17, appears to define these roles accordingly, it also advises Prelates to restore these practices where feasible, considering factors such as congregation size and church resources. The guidance implies these stipulations are not absolute requirements, as strict adherence would prove challenging—for example, if only designated porters were permitted to ring church bells or operate doors, or if only Acolytes could light lamps and candles—functions intended to support progression toward the Priesthood. 

10. But although the Pontiffs are so doubtful about these four minor orders [acolyte, exorcist, lector, and porter], they nevertheless make one of them the office of Exorcist, which, according to the Pontifical, page 9, is created by the tradition of the book of Exorcisms, or in its place, the Missal or Pontifical, with these words: “Receive, commend to memory, and have the power of laying hands on the demon-possessed, whether baptized or catechumens.” And in the same place he is called “Spiritual Commander to cast out Demons from possessed bodies, with all their manifold wickedness;” and likewise, Bellarmine, in his book, De Cleri, chap. 13. “The third,” he says, “is the order of Exorcists, whose duty it is to read the exorcisms of the Church against the demon-possessed, to prepare those who have them so that they may be partakers of the Divine Sacrifice.” Nor does [French Catholic jurist] Pierre Grégoire have anything dissimilar in Syntaxes artis mirabilis, book 16, chapter 5, No. 1. [N. B. This encyclopedic book included magic and demonology and was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books.] And from this I think it is evident that all Exorcisms of the Roman Church are to be performed by this order, according to its power and authority. 

11. But from this, even granting that this order is legitimate, about which later, I gather two things in particular that are worthy of observation against the Exorcisms of the Pontiffs:  

(1) The authority conferred upon Exorcists at their ordination is expressly limited to cases of demonic possession. However, its application has been extended to a range of subjects, including baptized infants, individuals believed to be bewitched, livestock, insects such as mice and locusts, and even objects or phenomena like salt, water, milk, lettuce, houses, and storms. It cannot be reasonably argued that an individual granted the ability to act in lesser circumstances may therefore act in greater ones; specifically, Exorcists are empowered to expel demons from those possessed, not to prevent potential instances of possession in others. Since exorcisms directly address the demon itself, it is logical to restrict such interventions to those in whom demonic presence is evident. The role of Exorcists is therapeutic rather than preventive—they are tasked with eliminating evil where it is manifest, rather than forestalling its occurrence. 

12. (2) However, although the power of all exorcisms is exerted in that particular order, why is it not permitted for anyone else to perform exorcisms who are in the other minor orders, or indeed for any other priest, but only for those who have obtained permission from the Superior, as the Exorcism Manual  suggests, P.1., inst. 1.? It is indeed said that the work of exorcism is of the “greatest merit of mercy,” therefore, is it required that someone who is already sufficiently empowered through his own ordination, that he must additionally obtain the permission of a superior to carry out a work of the “greatest merit and mercy?” Will no one in that Communion be permitted to do good and act well without special permission? Indeed, since this power, like the others that the Church received from Christ, is not founded on the piety of the minister, but on the ordination and will of Christ who so instituted it, confirming his ordination through the presence of the Holy Spirit, as is stated in the Pastoral of Roermond, part 2, page 188, why then is the freedom to exercise this power restricted to a very few, as if they were more conspicuous for a holier life? 

CHAPTER TWO

An investigation into the function of the Exorcist. 

The origin of the name ‘Exorcist’ comes from the Heathens and the Jews. 

1. Truly, we maintain that this office of Exorcists cannot be considered proper in the Church, nor is it legitimate for any reason, and therefore all Exorcisms based on this imaginary order are to be considered vain and superstitious. First of all, we cannot derive the origin of this name from any other source than from Heathen and Jewish superstition. [3^rd cent. Roman jurist] Ulpian’s Digest, book 30, title 13, About extraordinary knowledge of the law, section 2: “It is said that those who treat a disease with incantations are entitled to a fee as legitimate doctors; if, it is said, they have incantated, if they have cursed, if, as the common term of impostors is used, they have exorcised, these are not types of medicine, although there are those who claim that these have benefited others by their proclamations.” Therefore, the voice of impostors was to exorcise and likewise the impostor exorcists of Ulpian’s time. At this point, it suddenly occurs to us to wonder at Baronius, in the year 56, n. Epit., Spond. 3., whether he was speaking more about other matters than about Christians, but then, regarding what he says with the word exorcise it was proper for impostors to want to kill Christians. We are even more surprised that Gottfried was suspected of having acted in accordance with that law; for who would imagine that Ulpian had the intention of suppressing Christians, when he does not speak of Christians? 

2.  Yet [Dutch theologian Hugo] Grotius stumbled upon the same stone, Florum spars. ad jus Justinianen, p. 265. with no other argument than that Ulpian, a man of Tyre, was very unjust to Christians, as he had also written several books about the punishments of Christians, as if he were convinced by this very reason, therefore, that he wanted to punish Christians with this law; who indeed, if they had miraculously raised anyone in the name of Christ, would not have wanted to be paid anything in reward, as the gifts of healing were still in force, like those of whom the text speaks. 

3. That the Heathens had their own exorcists is evident not only from that passage of Ulpian, in which magicians who wish to drive away diseases by incantations are called exorcists and impostors, as attested by Pierre Grégoire, Syntagma juris universi, book 3, chapter 4, n. 9 (so that the most celebrated Jesuit Bailius proæm. in Cath. Orthod. 1, rightly lashes out because he says that Ulpian calls the exorcisms of the Church impostures); but also from Pliny, book 28, chapter 2, who mentions that certain poems were written against hail and various kinds of diseases. Moreover, Pierre Grégoire, ibid., book 16, chapter 5, no. 11 ff., On the Exorcists, acknowledges that the Heathens had their own Exorcists, who professed to cast out demons and cure diseases by incantations, as well as to avert storms. 

4. Wasn’t Apollonius of Tyana waging war as an exorcist according to Philostratus, book 4, Life of Apollonius, when he expelled a demon in the form of an old man who was wandering the city of Ephesus infecting it with a plague? Or did he force a Lamia [a female monster] who was marrying Menippus to confess who she really was and disrupt his wedding? Or in book 2, he rebuked the enemy who was approaching him in the Caucasus with insulting words, urging his allies to do the same, knowing that this was the best remedy against such invasions. What else were they but exorcists of χαλαζοφύλακες, that is, hailstones and explorers of storms, whom Seneca mentions in his quest. nat. lib. 4, cap. 6, and Caesar Constantine in his Codex lib. 9, tit. 18, on Evils & Math. L. 4: “Those,” he says, “who use magical arts to harm others or corrupt moral character should face the harshest laws. However, seeking natural remedies or offering harmless prayers for crops should not be condemned, as these actions do not harm anyone and benefit both divine gifts and human effort.” 

5. Let no one think these popular means used to heal bodies and drive away storms which the law mentions were anything other than magical and illicit; for this law was subsequently abolished by the Emperor Leo in express words, Const. 67, which Pierre Grégoire observes in Synt. juris, book 34, chapter 18, no. 8: “Indeed,” (says Leo, after having said much about that law, and having pronounced it to be abolished as a whole from the laws;) “if anyone is found to have used incantations in any way, whether to restore or preserve health, or to avert calamity from the things of the world, he will be punished as an apostate and will endure the supreme punishment.” Additionally, Balaam the pseudo-prophet is perceived as a renowned exorcist hired by Balak for compensation to use his spells to avert what he believed was an impending threat to his kingdom from the Israelites, as described in Numbers 22:5-6.    

6.  And just as Ulpian mentions the same impostors who exorcised, I find no record of the name of exorcists in the sacred writings, except among certain street Jews, mentioned in Acts 19:13, from which one might infer that the name and craft of exorcists had spread to Christians, both from pagan vanity and from Jewish superstition. Bailius, treatise 1, question 9, Catholic Catechism: To demonstrate the necessity of traditions under the Old Testament, he uses the instance that there was institutionalized exorcism by exorcists who were present at that time (of whom there is mention in Acts 19:13; Matthew 12:27). But I would rather conclude from this that such exorcists were not divinely ordained. Those who wish to believe that David exorcised Saul are deservedly rejected by the most learned Justin Martyr, both because he did not use adverbs, but rather musical verses, and because he did not fully heal Saul, but only alleviated his affliction, Loc. Com. class. 4, chap.9, n. 8. 

7. Indeed, the passage Matthew 12:27 is cited: If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? And so; from this some conclude, as well as Martyr himself, n. 9, that there were exorcists among the Hebrews: But even if some at the time of Christ, while the Synagogue was still standing, were endowed with this charism of casting out demons, it does not follow from this that it was either an ordinary function, or that they used exorcisms and conjurations for this purpose. For since, according to the Pastoral of Roermond, “there is a twofold form of acting against demons: one by prayer, the other by command,” of which the former is most efficacious, if the prayers proceed from true piety and are corroborated by true faith. But the latter, which is that of exorcists, is not founded on the piety of the minister. Why were not some among the Jews at the time of Christ able to cast out demons by prayer, without attempting anything by adjurations or command? But most interpreters understand Christ’s words refer to the Apostles: “Your sons,” that is, the Apostles who are from your own people, “how do they cast out demons? Is it not in my name?  If, therefore, they cast out demons not in the name of Beelzebub, but in my name, how say ye that I cast them out in the name of Beelzebub? And if the Apostles by my power cast out what you cannot deny, much more I, whose power it is.” Thus, in the most renowned [Huguenot] Andre Rivet’s Summae Cont. tract. 1. quest. 9, n. 27, [cites as in agreement] the Jesuit Maldonado, after Hilary, Chrysostom, Jerome, Theophylact, and Euthymius, to whom Rivet also adds Athanasius. We also add Ferus, Lyra, Erasmus, Bredembachius to that place, and also [Isaac of] Stella in Luke 11:19. 

8. Those Itinerant, of whom mention is made in the Acts, according to Cyprian, on Baptisms, if that treatise is actually of Cyprian, are called Exorcists for profit, who were not instructed in a legitimate duty; For no sane person would say that free grace was in force among the Jews at that time. These are described by Luke [Acts 19] as being neither arrogant nor impudent. Baronius,¹ at the year 56, n. 1, conjectures that they had a certain secret handed down by their elders because they were not ignoble men, but sons of the Prince of the Priesthood, and he brings forward both the efficacy of the Tetragrammaton name of God from the opinion of the Jews, and also the authority of Josephus, who attributes that art to Solomon, and refers to a certain plant’s root indicated by him having the admirable power of casting out demons, of which a certain Eleazar exhibited an example to Vespasian in Antiquities, book 8, chapter 2. [“God also enabled him (Solomon) to learn that skill which expels demons: which is a science useful, and sanative to men. He composed such incantations also by which distempers are alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms; by which they drive away demons; so that they never return and this method of cure is of great force unto this day. For I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his Captains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers: the manner of the cure was this: he put a ring that had a root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils. And when the man fell down immediately, he abjured him to return into him no more: making still mention of Solomon and reciting the incantations which he composed.”] 

9.  But meanwhile Baronius, either from the Kabbalah or from Solomon who summoned these exorcists, he imprudently confirms our opinion: namely, that they were impostors supported by magical superstitions, not endowed with a legitimate calling from God [because they claimed the power was in the efficacy of the root]. For whatever prodigies are done by the Kabbalistic art, when demons are bound by the hidden power of divine names, is Necromantic and Magical, as the Roman Inquisition itself acknowledged, which condemned all books pertaining to the Kabbalah, as [converted Jew] Sixtus of Siena, the Dominican, reports in his Bibliotheca Sancta l.2, by the name Esdras. There is no doubt that magical marks [characteres] were born from this, which even [Heinrich Cornelius] Agrippa himself took from there, as can be seen in almost his entire book 3, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, specifically chapter 30. Josephus, indeed, mentions the rites of exorcisms discovered by Solomon for driving away diseases and demons. In fact, Bartholomew Petri Lintrensis, theological faculty member of Douai, whose notes concerning Acts 19 does not dare to establish that the exorcists mentioned by Luke used magical marks, when Thomas [Aquinas] asserts they were discovered by Solomon through magical arts at the time when he worshipped idols, de potent. q. 6. art. 10. ad 3. [Spanish Catholic theologian, Francisco de] Vitoria thinks the same, Lectures on Magical Arts, num. 28. Dutch Jesuit theologian, Martin Delrio, also, in volume 1, chapter 3, of his six- volume Investigations into Magic, says that either what Josephus reports about diseases cured by Solomon by incantation is false, or that it should be referred to that time when he immersed himself in idolatry and all superstition. 

10. It seems more likely to us that the impostors of the Jewish exorcists falsely attributed the origin of their art to Solomon, so that they might gain greater authority for themselves from such a great name; as also the Magicians of today circulate books falsely attributed to him pertaining to their art, such as the Key of Solomon, also Exorcism and On the Shadows of Ideas, and others mentioned by Sixtus of Siena, book 2, which use the name of Solomon, and also Delrio, book 2, quaest. 3. The same Delrio says that Josephus’ Eleazar was a magician, who, by applying a ring to the nose of a demoniac, under whose cloak was a root of wonderful power, as demonstrated by Solomon, and reciting Solomon’s incantations, cast out the demon working through an acquired sign. He is also suspect of that which Josephus had written about that root.  

11. Therefore, as I willingly concede to Baronius that those Exorcists whom Luke mentions used the exorcisms that were attributed to Solomon, and practiced the same art with that of Joseph’s Eleazar, so it further follows that they were conjurers and deceivers, worthy of the Papal exorcists, who have ‘lips like lettuce,’ yet who reject their origin and instead acknowledge them as fellow soldiers. Nor is it surprising that those charlatans were not from the lowest common people, but from the priestly lineage: for that most secret Kabbalah, which we have called Magic, flourished only among the foremost. No one was admitted to the great Sanhedrin who was not most expert in all Magic; as from the Talmud tractate, Dine Mammonoth, the illustrious Plessis [Philip de Mornay] relates in paraen. to Jud. chap. 5, and it is observed by Josephus in book 20, unt. chap. 6. In happy times Judea was filled with Magi and seducers, with whom we rightly think that those seven sons of Sceva should be counted. What if a peculiar superstition had arisen among them, whereby they believed they possessed a special power because of the number seven, which was most highly celebrated among the Jews more than other nations, as some maintain that every seventh male born without an intermediate female had the power to cure goiters by touch or word alone? Hence, Peter Bungus of Bergomo, Italy, in his encyclopedic, On the Mysteries of Numbers, reviews the praises relating to the number seven, speaking thus on page 288: “The sons of Sceva, because they were [tasked] to expel evil spirits, are reckoned as the number seven.” 

CHAPTER THREE 

Christ never instituted any Exorcists.  

Power over unclean Spirits comes from Christ. 

The Order of Exorcists is not a Sacrament.

1. Since then, as is clear from what has just been said, the profession of Exorcists was particular to impostors, both among Heathens and Jews, is it probable that Christ the Savior ordained Exorcists in His Church, comparable to those who are known to have been Sorcerers both inside and outside the Synagogue? We do not deny that Christ bestowed various charisms on His disciples, and in particular, the gift of healing and the power to cast out demons.  

However, first, Christ is never read to have used any conjurations or exorcisms in casting out demons or healing the sick. Nor is it found [in the Scriptures] the solemn rites of exorcism which the Roman Church recommends to its apostles, either by example or by precept. Baronius² is indifferent as to the year 56, n. 2, when he refers to those signs which Christ sometimes used to heal demons, such as that which Mark mentions in chapter VII, vs. 33-34, as having had a certain power of exorcism. But good God, what does this have to do with exorcisms? Christ used these signs not to torment the demon, but rather that it might be more evident that He was the performer of a miracle. “He put his finger into the ears of the one being healed, to show that his humanity was the instrument of Divinity,” says Lyra, “and said Ephphatha, that is, ‘be opened,’ showing,” says the same, “that he was truly God by healing through command, just as he sighed, looking up to heaven, to show that he was truly a man seeking help from God.” And although according to the Roman Ritual, a not dissimilar rite is observed in those being baptized, it is nevertheless distinguished from exorcism by a rubric [written in red].  

Secondly, the disciples of Christ themselves also never used exorcisms and adjurations composed for horror, such as are used among the Papists, but in the name of the Lord they commanded the demons to come out, and restored the sick to their former health, invoking the name of Jesus over them, sometimes adding that symbolic oil, of which mention is made in Mark 6:13 and James 5:14, as well as the solemn imposition of hands, which was formerly customary in every blessing.  

Third, when Christ’s disciples had discovered a more persistent demon which they could not cast out, Christ did not blame it on neglected exorcisms, or on adjurations not properly performed, but on their ἀπίςιαν [lack of faith], nor did He then give them more effective exorcisms by which the demon would no longer struggle, rather He commended fasting and prayer, by which alone, not by adjurations, this most obstinate kind of demon could be driven away, Matt. 17:20-21. And while Baronius asserts that Christ showed His disciples that fasting and prayer were relevant to exorcism, he is mocking his reader: For the Pastoral of Roermond expressly distinguishes the form of acting through prayers, which are recommended by Christ, from the form of acting through command, which is said to be the proper one for exorcists. 

2. Here, moreover, it is not to be disputed what kind of charismas Christ conferred upon those who grow up under His Church, but whether they believe in the power He promised over demons, Mark 16:17. The question is, Did Christ institute Exorcists, such as the Pontiffs, establishing a spiritual and perpetual Order of Exorcists in the Church? We [Reformed Protestants] have determined that neither can be [truthfully] said: For since by virtue of that [alleged] promise some are said to have cast out demons who were not Exorcists; nor did they use exorcisms, but only by mere prayers, and not by command, does the Pastoral of Roermond acknowledge that St. Anthony and some others, who were pious, used [this power]. How, then, could that promise contain the institution of Exorcists? And why would this Charisma promised to believers be more permanent than the gift of tongues, and the casting out of serpents, and the ability to quench poison and heal the sick by the laying on of hands, all of which are read as promised there along with power over demons, and which experience itself shows have long since ceased in the Church? 

3. The gifts instituted by Christ are described quite accurately by the Apostle Paul, (Eph. 4:11; Rom. 12:6-8; 1 Cor. 12:28), yet he does not mention Exorcists. Historical records, including those cited by the author of the history of the Council of Trent, indicate that many esteemed individuals were elevated to the priesthood and presbyterate without prior acceptance into the lesser orders, such as that of Exorcist. Consequently, it could be argued that prominent figures like Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, and others did not possess the authority to perform exorcisms. This reasoning extends to all individuals who advanced directly, or “by leapfrog” as described by Canonists, bypassing these orders. Our argument is further supported by the aforementioned opinions of Pontifical Theologians, should the faculty of exorcism be regarded as conferred exclusively through this particular order. There is no basis for formally considering such individuals as eminent Exorcists, since the unique characteristics of each Order differ, as noted by [Augustinian theologian] Johannes Puteanus. Therefore, even a highly virtuous Bishop cannot perform exorcisms, because demons do not recognize in them the specific qualities or marks of an Exorcist that they would respect or fear. 

4. The ability to cast out demons is undoubtedly to be attributed to the freely given graces, which, as [Catholic Professor of Theology] Petrus Lintrensis stated concerning Acts 19, “are common to both good and evil,” whence many will say to Christ, Did we not cast out demons in your name? Matt. 7:22, whom He will not admit into His kingdom; Who then can this faculty be conferred to by the Sacrament of Ordination, as it is intended, since the Sacraments were instituted by Christ, not for the sake of freely given grace, but for the sake of conferring grace that makes men justified, as is clear from Bellarmine, on the effect. sacr., chap. 1 & 2? Paul states in 1 Corinthians 12:11 that Christ’s Spirit distributes Charisms freely as He wills. This raises the question of whether it is appropriate to associate an extraordinary Charism with a standard or ordinary work of Christ? Also, who had ordained him as an Exorcist whom the Apostles found casting out demons in the name of Jesus Christ and forbade, which Christ nevertheless disapproves their having done so? Luke 9:49-50. 

5. The more common opinion of the Pontiffs has indeed established that the Order of Exorcists is a Sacrament, and therefore immediately instituted by Christ, since Christ alone is the Author of the Sacraments, as Bellarmine demonstrates in book 1. De sacr., cap. 23., relying on the authority of the Council of Trent, sess. 7, can. 1, pronouncing an anathema on those who establish the contrary. [N. B. Today exorcism is considered a sacramental instituted by the Roman Church, not Christ.] But so long as it is uncertain as to whether it can be conferred on women, or by anyone other than a Bishop, and whether it produces a Mark [Characterem], and so long is it uncertain that Christ instituted this order, Bellarmine fights with himself. For in one place he asserts that the Order of Exorcists is a Sacrament, in De sacerdotium ord. cap. 8; but in another he states it was instituted by the Church, in Book I, De clericis, chap. 13, in these words: “In the past, because demons were very frequently cast out of human bodies, many demons flocked to the church, so that there were, as it were, flocks of demons, and for this reason this order was instituted.” If this order was instituted by the Church, then it was not instituted immediately by Christ, and therefore it was not a Sacrament according to Bellarmine, who confesses that all sacraments were instituted immediately by Christ alone. He must either be a liar or have a forgetful memory. 

6.  The substance of this imaginary Sacrament is established by the tradition of the Book of Exorcisms, and the form by these words of the Bishop: “Receive and commit to memory and have the power of laying hands on the demon-possessed, whether baptized or catechumens.” Thus, Puteanus, q. 5. concl. ult. 

[N.B. The Roman Church uses this prayer today which allows the catechist to perform a minor exorcism, a prayer directed to God, they assert, not the Devil.]  

But if this Sacrament is to be referred to Christ’s institution, it is necessary that Christ also pronounced those words, in addition to handing down a book of exorcisms to His disciples when ordaining them. Let them not speak as do certain Heathen whom St. Augustine refutes in book I, The Consensus of the Evangelists, when they say Jesus wrote certain magical books for His disciples Peter and Paul, containing the sum of the most foul art, by whose skill Christ Himself, while He was alive, had performed so many great miracles. 

7. In addition, he who attempts exorcisms in the Roman Church must, as is possible, certainly believe he has the power to free the demon-possessed: for such a miracle cannot be performed without faith. He who goes to an Exorcist to be freed from the demon must also most certainly believe that this ability has been granted to that man by God: for this faith is demanded by some of the Exorcists who practice exorcism; and if the exorcism does not succeed as desired, they cast the cause on the unbelief of those who came to be healed. But if the Order of Exorcists were a Sacrament instituted by Christ, neither could such a belief be admitted on the basis of the Pontiffs’ hypothesis that an Exorcist cannot believe with certainty that he has received this Sacrament, since he has received it from the intention of the Ordainer, and he himself cannot be certain that he has not placed an obstacle [to thwart its success], as Bellarmine teaches about any Sacrament, book 3, On Justification. chap. 8 & 11. Nor can the one who is to be exorcised believe with certainty that the Exorcist himself has the certainty of faith. Therefore, exorcisms must either be undertaken without faith, or this order must be expunged from the very foundation of the Sacraments. [N.B. Maresius’ argument holds true even though exorcism is now considered a sacramental.] 

8. Moreover, Pierre Grégoire freely confesses that this Order of Exorcists had not yet been distinguished in the time of Clement, but that it had been instituted later, with the formula for exorcising prescribed, Synt. juris, book 16, chapter 5. Therefore, this order was neither instituted by Christ, nor is it to be considered a Sacrament; And since this charism of casting out demons was common to almost all believers, as is observed in the same place by Pierre, with whom Baronius agrees, asserting that “not only disciples but also all believers had obtained grace from the Lord to cast out demons, and that it was often shown by example that laymen cast out demons, which Tertullian testifies to soldiers in On the Military Garland, cap. 11. Thus, it could not be referring to the ecclesiastical offices instituted by Christ, since these are assigned to certain private persons, nor are they common to all Christians, as Paul testifies in 1 Cor. 12:24. But if all who formerly possessed this faculty had received it as one of the lesser orders which are steps to the higher ones by Episcopal ordination, all would necessarily have prepared themselves for the priesthood. Nothing is more absurd than this absurdity. Could the Church (if we appeal to its authority here) restrict to some that which was immediately conferred by God to all, granting to some that faculty indirectly through the ordination of a Bishop? 

CHAPTER FOUR 

Exorcisms and Exorcists of the ancient Church: Who and Where. 

Exorcists were different from today: Catechists were called Exorcists. 

1. Nor do we conceal the fact that there is a frequent enough mention of exorcisms and Exorcists among the ancients, whose texts Bellarmine, Baronius, Martin Delrio and Pierre Grégoire have carefully examined. But to all of that there is an easy answer: First of all, it is certain that these very words of exorcising and exorcisms, by a certain wickedness of the Jews and Heathens, to whom they were their own, were usurped by Christians, contrary to the custom of Christ and the Apostles: whence also Origen, according to Baronius, n. 1, judged that the oaths of this kind which the Christians used came not from the Gospel of Christ, but rather from the Jewish rite. The words of Origen in tractate 35 on Matthew are referred to by Sixtus of Siena, book 2: “To swear by demons,” he says, “is Jewish; and if ever such a thing is done by our people, it is similar to the way in which demons are accustomed to be adjured by the oaths written by Solomon.” 

2. Moreover, although the ancient Christians misused those words of exorcism to denote a similar effect to that which the impostors of the Heathens and Jews wrongly attempted with their conjurations, namely the expulsion of demons, in the same way, as our Italian Protestant Peter Martyr [Vermigli] writes in Common Places, clas. 4. chap. 9, n. 10. Christ is called “the Head and Prince of new Exorcists,” yet our opponents will never prove that those exorcisms have any formulated prayers or rituals associated with superstition, or used for any other than the demon possessed; or, what is the main controversy, that there was a special order in the Church. Only the pious of God, with prayers, who were powerful in that gift, adjured the unclean spirits and added nothing more, as is gathered from Augustine, book 22, The City of God, chapter 8, and Minucius Felix in Octavius: “From us,” he says, “are required the torments of words and the fires of prayer.” And Cyprian says to Demetrius that demons are forced to come out by the spiritual scourges of prayer. Also, there is in Clement, Const. Apost., book 8, chapters 7 and 8 (if this is the genuine Clement) the manner and formula of prayers for healing the possessed which were customary to be said by the Bishop. 

3. That there was no special order in the Church, but a charisma common to almost all, we have not only deduced above from the confession of our adversaries, but it is also expressed in the most eloquent words in Clement, Const. Apost., book 8, chapter 32: “The exorcist is not appointed, for this is a contest of spontaneous benevolence, the grace of God through Christ by the supersession of the Holy Spirit: For he who receives the charism of healings is declared by God only through revelation, since the grace that is in him is open to all.” From this, Gregory concludes that this order was established only after Clement. Delrio, however, wrongly says that Clement speaks only of those who, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, proved by miracles that they had obtained the gift of exorcism: from which one may not undeservedly conclude, therefore, the ordained Exorcists of today do not prove by miracles that they have obtained the gift of exorcism through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when Exorcists are mentioned by Eusebius, Ignatius, Cyprian and others, why should not those be understood as Exorcists who, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, proved by miracles that they had obtained the gift of exorcism? 

4. Certainly, Ignatius mentions not only Exorcists and readers, but also singers and laborers, whom I would say should also be referred to among the orders of the Church. Thus, also in canon 24 of the Council of Laodicea, Psalmists and Ministers of Exorcism are joined, from which you may gather that these are no more to be set apart from the ecclesiastical orders than the others. This is urged by canon 16 of the same Council: “It is not necessary to exorcise those who have not yet been ordained by the Bishops, neither in the Churches, nor within the houses,” which Canon Gratian reported in the Decretum, dist. 69. chap. 2. and is extant in the code of Ecclesiastical canons 130, which is vanity. For, to use Delrio’s words, besides the fact that it is probable that each Bishop in his diocese prefers those who had proven by miracles that they had obtained the gift of exorcism, so that they and no others would be permitted to perform exorcisms, that is, to invoke the name of God over the demon-possessed to Satan while exiling them in a more solemn rite, it is clear that in that place Exorcists are taken metaphorically for Catechists, who, while instructing the Catechumens, seemed to, in a way, exorcise the demon. 

5. This observation sheds no little light on this discussion, so that we may be clearly convinced that as often as the Ancients did not designate Exorcists as those who were endowed with that extraordinary charisma of casting out demons, by that name none other than Catechists are to be understood. Nor should anyone think that this is our recent invention. For the Most Reverend Christophe Justel [French Protestant scholar], in his most learned notes on the Code of Canons, Universal Church, page 168, observes the Greek Scholiast of Harmenopuli, in epit. canons sect. 1. tit. 9, ἐφορκισιάς [that which is related to Exorcists] is interpreted as κατεχητας [catechist]. Also, Theodore Balsamon, [Eastern Orthodox canonist], in can. 26 Laodicea establishes that to exorcise is the same as to catechize infidels; to which we add the most eloquent place of Cyril [of Alexandria] in his pro-catechesis, or the presentation of his Catechisms to the enlightened: “Let your feet hasten,” he says, “to hear the Catechisms, undertake exorcisms diligently, even if you are already inspired and exorcised,” (that is, instructed in the mysteries of the faith) “for it is healthy for you to resist;” likewise, “Without exorcisms the soul will not be able to progress, since they [the catechisms] are divine and collected from the divine Scriptures.” 

6. Cyril also adds the likeness of goldsmiths, who melt gold in a furnace by fire. “Thus,” he says, “when the Exorcist instills fear through the spirit and in the body, as in a furnace they ignite the soul, then the enemy demon flees, but salvation and the hope of eternal life are present,” etc. “Let us therefore persevere in hope, brothers,” etc. “Persevere in the Catechisms even if they are presented in a long discourse. That fire of the Exorcists, igniting the soul in the body, marks the word of God by which that internal ardor is excited, of which mention is made in Luke 24:32.” He also cites Augustine, Psalm 68, “Therefore,” he says, “in both catechizing and exorcising fire is first used, but after the fire of exorcism one comes to Baptism.” To this also pertains the saying of Gregory Nazianzen in his Oration on Baptism: “Do not despise the medicine of exorcism, nor be discouraged by its prolixity. For this, too, is like a certain Lydian stone by which the heart is tested how sincerely each one approaches Baptism.” Therefore, what exists both in the Council of Laodicea and in the Council of Antioch, Can. 10, concerning exorcists, and most of what the Ancients have [written] concerning the exorcisms of catechumens and those being baptized, can most conveniently be referred to the Catechists and Catechisms; but of these later. 

7. As regards the Fourth Council of Carthage, in whose canon 7 there is a rite and formula for ordaining exorcists,³ such as is closely described in the Pontifical, and is referred to by Gratian in dist. 23, cap. 17, the solution is easy: First of all, nearly 400 years had already passed after Christ when this canon is said to have been sanctioned. Baronius dates this Council to the year 398, from which it follows that for a whole 400 years that rite did not prevail in the Church. Second, the Council was at least particular in that their adversaries might see whether they [the Council] had the right to define the matter and form of this Sacrament, as this order [of exorcism] for this Sacrament is held by them. Third, that this Council, is a ψευδεπιγραφόν [pseudepigraph], and its Canons are spurious, according to Christophe Justel, who rejects it, and said this while presiding over the Greek-Catholic Code of Canons of the African Church, published in Paris in 1617: “What they pretend,” he says, “about another Council of Carthage, which they call the fourth, and which they relate to Pope Honorius IV and Eutychianus must be clearly rejected, nor should faith be given to Canon 104 which they attribute to this Council without authority.” 

8. And certainly, they do not exist in the Code of African Canons and seem to have been introduced into the Christian world by the same Merchant, who is justly lashed by the learned and most diligent David Blondel [French Calvinist scholar], as well as his defender, Turriano, because of the fabricated Decretal letters he sent to the Pontiff. Then, regarding the number and order of the Carthaginian Councils, there is little agreement among the adversaries; for what is called the sixth by others, is the fourth by Gratian Carranza. What is commonly considered the fifth, Baronius insists should be the third, who also makes the sixth from the second, and the second from the third, according to the year 397, n. 15 & 16. And since he asserts that in the year 398, on the sixth Kalends of June, 73 bishops met for the third time at Carthage, we do not see how this is possible because on the sixth Ides of November, 214 fathers were compelled to do so. For it is scarcely credible that two Synods met in such a short space of time and so crowded together in the same place: Nor could the African Council have prescribed the rite of ordaining Exorcists, whom the Apostolic Constitutions deny being ordained under Clement. 

9. Therefore, the name of ‘Exorcists,’ first used by pagan and Jewish magicians, was abusively transferred to those who could drive away demons and heal the possessed, invoking the name of the Lord over them through extraordinary, conferred power. From there, however, it was conveyed through a certain simile to the Catechists, who were charged with instructing the Catechumens in the faith, both privately and publicly, and thus transferring them from the power of darkness into the kingdom of light. But in neither respect can modern exorcists claim this, since they neither fulfill the role of Catechists nor possess the gift of miracles, which cannot be conferred even by Episcopal ordination. Nor do they really undertake that [minor] order to exorcise, but rather as a steppingstone to the priesthood, so that there is no one who is content with remaining in that order who is called an Exorcist. Wherefore, since they possess no extraordinary authority over the demon-possessed, they vainly attempt by command and incantations what can only be accomplished by pious prayers. And if by this Order that power was conferred upon unclean spirits, which they pretend, all who are marked with that Character would equally cast out all demons, and there would be no need for so many instructions to the Exorcists; or they should be guarded against being proud of their power over demons, which the Exorcism Manual, inst. 1. reports from the dialogues of Gregory because it happened to a certain priest, whom a demon attacked because he arrogated to himself the power of casting out demons. Let them see for themselves whether they are not subject to the same danger: either they arrogate to themselves the same virtue, or they doubt the efficacy and nature of their ordination. Certainly, just as the ancient Catechists seem to have been ordained in the place of those Exorcists who became famous for miracles which they seemed to perform by a certain similarity so, too, in the Roman Church, although the office of Catechist was abdicated, the ordination and title of Exorcists nevertheless remained a shadowy one, like an inscription on a Cenotaph.

CHAPTER FIVE 

The Formulas of the Exorcisms. 

 The customary ones used in Infant Baptisms weighed and refuted on various grounds. 

1. As for Exorcists, their origin is not to be ascribed to divine institution but to superstition, both Jewish and Heathen, although the name itself was used in the early Church, yet in a sense far different from today. Now let us approach the exorcisms of the Roman Church in more detail, which are so close to magical conjurations and incantations that a definite distinction cannot be made. The Pontiffs themselves acknowledge that there exists among their own people various dangerous and superstitious formulas for exorcism, so to prevent this an Exorcism Manual has been published. In Part 1 of Inst.1, Exorcists are enjoined to be very careful “not to use any other prayers and ceremonies than those prescribed in the approved Manual, however good and pious they may appear, unless permission has been obtained and the Ordinary has been consulted.” 

2. Jesuit Martin Delrio, in his summa, Investigations into Magic, warns that individuals—whether laypeople or clerics not formally authorized—should not perform exorcisms, as doing so improperly usurps the office. He notes this restriction may stigmatize early Church members who practiced exorcism. Delrio also cautions against “clerics claiming exclusive powers or using unofficial formulas, observing that such unauthorized rituals sometimes circulate among exorcists, falsely believed to grant greater power.” We once saw such a friar of the Dominican order of Sylvaeducis, whose name was Hornebeck; on whose occasion we first began to discuss this question of exorcisms. He afterwards, tired of these trifles and of the Roman communion, passed over to the Reformed camp. 

3. Moreover, the Expurgatory Index of Madrid, printed in 1612, by solemn authority, prescribes that from the book entitled, Ordo Baptisandi cum modo visitandi, [The Order of Baptism with the Mode of Visitation], printed in Venice in 1575, fol. 314, “Let the entire Luciferian Exorcism be deleted,” (which, if it should occur to the Spanish Inquisitors to perform an Exorcism of the female kind, is hidden from us), “the beginning of which is, Come, O Lord, to thy servants,” etc. “Let the other Exorcism of Cyprian also be deleted,” they say, “the beginning of which is: I am Cyprian, etc. up to the Gospel of John, which is at the foot of fol. 340.” 

4. Hence it is clear, even as the Holy Tribunal itself acknowledges, that even in the Ritual books of the Pontificals, such as the Order of Baptism, there have crept in exorcisms that are clearly diabolical and detestable. Nor do I doubt that many similar ones will be found in the Treasury of Exorcisms, printed in Cologne in 1608, as the most distinguished Andre Rivet, Summe Contr., tract. 2. quest. 25. N. 2 suggests. The title of the book alone inspires horror; for it is entitled, The Treasury of Frightful Exorcism Conjurations with proven practice by various authors. 

5. Superstitious beyond a doubt, indeed, the beginnings of detestable magic in sacred rites, say the Pontiffs, speaking of Swiss physician and alchemist, Theophrastus Paracelsus, that famous restorer of chemistry, who, celebrated French physician Jean Riolan reproaches for having received his knowledge from the devil. In the book he entitled Seven Defenses, 2nd edition, he boasts he knows that which physicians did not know before: certain remedies for the dancing of madmen, which they commonly call the dance of the Saint Vitus, as well as for diseases arising from incantations;  and also for the liberation of demoniacs from impure spirits, whom he claims to drive away by prayers, fastings and certain efficacious words, using the medicine prescribed by Christ Himself. He, therefore, professes to be an Exorcist, and would not employ any other kind of exorcism than that which the Pontiffs assert he is to use. 

6. But in order to discuss the Order of Pontifical Exorcisms, it is desirable to place them into two general classes, the first of which includes Ordinary, the second Extraordinary; both of which are of Persons & Things. It as if all things were full of demons, and evil spirits either swam in the waters, or indulged in the churning of milk, or hid in lettuces. There is almost nothing that, blinded by superstition, they would not dispel and first shake off with their exorcisms. They are terrified by the example of Gregory the dialoguer, a remarkable fable, mentioned to a weaver, of a certain nun who, swallowing a lettuce that had not been exorcised beforehand, devoured the devil lurking in her lap. “I,” said the unhappy demon when he was rebuked by Abbot Equitius, “I was hiding there under the lettuce, and she bit me.” Gretser, the Jesuit, tells a story in book 2, de benedict., chapter 7, in which he proves that the food and drink of men are often infected with demons. 

7. Ordinary Pontifical Exorcism concerning persons is practiced on infants being baptized. Formulas exist in the Roman Ritual, the Pastoral of the Church of Roermond, and other public books. As soon as an infant is presented to be baptized, the pastor blows several times into his face in the manner of the Cross, and each time he commands Satan to come out and flee from him. Then afterward he makes some signs of the cross, says little prayers, performs the exorcism of salt, and other mimicking ceremonies. Then follows the exorcism of the demon upon baptism, which is longer in both the Pastoral of Roermond or the Roman Ritual. 

8. Nor does he rest here; for Satan, like caterpillars on plants, clings tenaciously to the tender soul of a child, and does not easily allow himself to be torn away from it. Therefore, after all the Exorcisms, the parish priest applies the infant’s sputum to its nostrils, with these words: “In the odor of its sweetness” (how sweetly sometimes such sputum smells, we choose to remain silent); and soon adds, “But you, O devil, should flee,” etc., as if by the sputum’s odor he ought to yield when thunderbolts of Exorcisms are booming. 

9. Although Bellarmine, book 1. On Holy Baptism, cap. 25, and Baronius, in the Year of Christ 56, Num. Epit. Spond. 4., and others, try to defend this exorcism of those being baptized, yet it involves so many absurdities that he must be a shameful prostitute who still wishes to patronize this superstitious and most foolish rite. Paul says in 1 Cor. 7:14 that the children of the faithful are holy and pure, because they belong to the covenant of grace; from which we gather that they are deservedly to be baptized. Thus, the author of the Commentary, who is ascribed to Ambrose in this passage, calls them saints, both “because they were born from licit marriages, and because they were born under the worship of the Creator.” But these people want them to be not only unclean but full of evil spirits who can only be driven away with great difficulty by the most powerful exorcism devices. Oh, wretched Christians, whose children are born demon-possessed and tormented by evil spirits! We had always thought that there was something underlying the distinction between the children of believers and unbelievers: For although the native and original corruption is equal in both, yet the covenant of grace belongs to us and to our children, as Peter testifies in Acts 2:39. Our children also, with respect to the parents from whom they are born, are holy and of the covenant, and have a special right to sacred baptism. But from the minds of these Exorcists, all this difference is subverted. 

10. Through baptism, like the Israelites through the Red Sea, we pass from the power of darkness into the kingdom of light. But if the one to be baptized is delivered from the power of Satan and darkness by those exorcisms, then certainly he is no longer admitted into the freedom of the Sons of God by baptism, but only by those exorcisms, which in no way pertain to the essence of baptism. And thus, what was only appropriate to a divine sacrament is transferred to human rites. Let the Pontiffs, I beg you, tell me what further redemption and spiritual liberation baptism can confer on an infant, once the demon has been driven away by exorcism, and the catechumen has been freed from his bonds. But if it happens that an infant dies after an exorcism has been performed and the demon has been driven away, before being baptized, (assuming there is some interval of time between the Exorcism and Baptism), what will become of his soul? For neither will the devil, now fled and defeated, dare to drag her into the limbo for the penalty of loss; nor, according to the hypothesis of the Papists, can she be admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven without baptism, so that, wretched, she should, according to the opinion of the Heathen, wander along with the spirits of dead ancestors deprived of burial, going from place to place in uncertainly, equally secluded from heaven and hell. 

11. Whatever further right Satan is thought to have over newborn infants undoubtedly depends on original sin. Since, therefore, the Roman Church establishes that this sin is not removed except through Baptism, both as to the guilt, so that it is not imputed, and as to the stain itself, so that it no longer resides in the baptized, as is gathered from the Council of Trent, session 5, can. 5.⁴ They can exorcise Satan from his possession in those not yet baptized, in whom by force of that sin he still has his right intact which does not perish except through Baptism.  [French canonist, liturgical writer and Bishop of Mende] William Durandus himself in his Rationale divinorum officiorum, book 6, chapter 82, no. 7, admits that exorcism and exsufflation [blowing air into them] do not benefit infants for life, because death still remains in them. But if infants are to be exorcised before Baptism because until they pass into the new creature through the Baptism of Christ they are held by the power of the Demon and are secretly seized by him, as Baronius, V. 3 & 4 wishes, why then do our adversaries not use exorcisms also in the Excommunicated, and in those who are involved in some mortal sin, as they call them, whom they will not deny are no less under the power of the Demon and secretly possessed by him? 

12. But we urge further: The distinction between solemn baptism containing exsufflation, exorcism, spitting, salt, etc., is a well-worn one among the adversaries; and a non-solemn one, which is performed only by sprinkling water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and in the cause of necessity and death or fear or danger, [may be performed] by any layman or woman, contrary to the Canons of the Old and the sanction of the 4th Council of Carthage (from which they wish to establish the office of Exorcists): “A woman shall not presume to baptize.” Now, therefore, I ask, does that solemn [major] and pompous Baptism confer more efficacy and greater grace on those blessed ones than the non-solemn [minor], bereft of the theatrics? Since the Popes certainly do not dare to affirm this and, if they are wise, confess that through either rite, the baptized person is equally rescued from Satan and, if he dies immediately, is transferred to the Kingdom of Heaven through it. Therefore, it follows that those theatrical devices of exorcisms are of no use, though you say they are used only for grace. 

13. What, that those rites of Exorcisms and others like them (commonly called Sacramentals) are desired to be performed after a non-solemn baptism, or even by Heretics, whom they call “brought together,” as is gathered from the Roman Ritual, On the Sacrament of Baptism, page 41, and the Pastoral of Roermond on the same sacrament, pages 44 & 45. Almost all the Scholastics, who wrote in 4th sentent., dist. 6, maintain that all sacramentals must be supplemented if the infant recovers from its illness. To the supplement of those Exorcisms in infants baptized among us pertains the Constitution of Archbishop Philippi, who in previous years called himself Vicar Apostolic in our Federation of Belgium, for his Clergy of Utrecht, Daventry and Middelburg, which is explained by the Leuven Bernardin Mass in these words, page 5: “Those baptized by Heretics are not easily baptized anew, unless it is absolutely certain that something substantial has been omitted concerning them, or that it is reasonably doubted. The anointings, however, of the remaining ceremonies of the Catholic Church may be supplemented at the discretion of the priests, according to the devotion of those requesting them.” 

14. Now, then, we ask, for what good and for what purpose do exorcisms, exsufflations, and other ceremonies of the same kind serve, for an infant who has already been baptized? For one should no longer be considered secretly possessed by a demon, as Baronius himself was accused of being when unbaptized, since by the baptism of Christ one has been transferred into a new creature, and is completely free not only from guilt, but also from all stain of Original Sin, if the Church of Trent is to be believed. What could be more ridiculous than to address a demon where he is not, and to wish with great effort and in half-hearted words to demand from him that possession to which he has already fully and completely yielded? Either the Pontiffs say that in those who are not solemnly baptized, something still remains from that which has the true and proper nature of sin, against the Council of Trent’s decree [cited in footnote #4], then some right and power of Satan could apply to them, or else they must acknowledge that exorcisms are plainly superfluous and beyond the scope of the lyre [lyram] in those baptized. 

15. Nor is Baronius’ observation valid that sometimes, by divine permission and hidden judgment, it happens that innocent boys and girls are seized by the Devil, as some Fathers and experience itself testify; for (1) The Pontiffs should, therefore, wait for the most certain indications by which it would be clear to them that the infants were possessed, before they resorted to these exorcisms. (2) We are now dealing with infants already baptized, in whom the Pontiffs wish nothing more to remain of Original Sin. However, Augustine, though praised by Baronius for his works against the Pelagians, argues that infants are sometimes seized by a Demon because they are infected with original sin. For, because of this [fact], newly born infants are made subject to a demon, asserts book 1, On Marriage & concup., chap. 20. And when he warns that even baptized infants are sometimes tormented by the devil, as in book 21 of the City of God, chapter 14, and book 22, chapter 22. He refers to the common misery of mortals which sin has brought about and sufficiently testifies that through Baptism they are truly freed from the bond, as he says, that is, from the guilt, of original sin; yet something of that stain, which Paul often calls concupiscence and sin, Romans 7, remains in them. Moreover, he did not agree with him who said this, in the place cited above, book 1, on Marriage, chapter 20: “Satan has found nothing else” (except sin, of course) “by which he can enslave human nature by his own right, which the good author [Pelagius] has established as good.” 

16. And it is absurd that the Pastoral of Roermond, page 44, in the Rubric, makes fun of supplemental Exorcisms in the already baptized, namely that it is referred by the Baptist to a “more thorough expulsion of the demon and a more complete purification.” For the Pontiffs themselves contend that the infant is now completely freed from the demon’s dominion and perfectly cleansed by baptism, so that they are angry not only with us, but with the Apostle Paul who states that original corruption remains in the baptized, not as to guilt before God, but as to the stain and deformity of the infant. 

17. Furthermore, in these baptismal exorcisms, how many absurd and superstitious things are there? They all consist of the formulas prescribed here, from which if you deviate even a little the mystery is lost. There must be so many crosses; so many exsufflations, which most do three times because God delights in an odd number. Whittaker’s Lecture on the Sacraments, on Baptism, quest. 6, advises that boys should be exsufflated twenty times, girls thirty times: perhaps because the demon is more tenacious in the female sex. 

18. Indeed, when Bishops in ordaining Priests infuse them with the Holy Spirit, as if it depended on their blowing Him into them, (for although the Pontifical does not mention this rite, when it deals with the Ordination of Priests, yet our adversaries do not deny it, but rather defend it, as does English Catholic controversial theologian Thomas Stapleton in particular in his Antidota Evangelica, in John 20) the Demon was to be cast out with insults, not with the breath of the mouth, but rather with the rumbling of the belly; especially since in these Exorcisms they are accustomed to always address him with insults. However, what if, [we can show the pagan origins of baptismal rituals] from the teachings of Apollonius of Tyana, the most famous disciple of the Sorcerer, who, in Philostratus’s Life, book 2, rebuked a malevolent spirit  he encountered, using insulting words, adding forceful spitting as our [modern-day] sacrificing priests do, while warning his companions that this was the best medicine against such invasions? 

19. Baronius warned that not only Pagans were tormented by the Devil, but also sometimes baptized Christians, after some grave sin was admitted: But this certainly should not happen to Christians after baptismal exorcisms, for the formula of the exorcism has among other things: “And therefore for your wickedness, damned and damnable, give honor to the one and true God, in whose name and power we imprint this sign of the holy Cross on the forehead of this servant of God, N., so that you never dare to violate it.” However, if the infant is so protected by this seal that Satan will never violate it in the future, who is it that, forgetful or contemptuous of this exorcism and prohibition, often attacks the baptized? 

CHAPTER SIX 

The objections usually made against Baptismal Exorcism are explained and refuted by the Catholic Church. 

1. Although these things be so, our adversaries are not lacking in objections by which they may better defend what [they feel] has been wrongly introduced. So, they first urge that it cannot be denied that it was an ancient custom of the Church to use exorcisms in Baptism. And to this end they diligently bring forward many testimonies from the Ancients, which there is no need to either recount or expound in detail; we only warn against Baronius falsely attributing to Tertullian what he said in his book, On Idolatry, chapter 6 [?] that parents were accustomed to “exorcising their children.” Tertullian did not want Christians to sell incense and other things pertaining to the worship of idols: “With what mouth,” he says, “will a Christian incense seller, if he passes through temples, spit on those who take the altars and blow on them, for which he himself has provided? With what constancy will he exorcise his students to whom he supplies his house as a cell?” But the Christian students of Thurarius are called, not his sons, but demons, who are believed to nourish him, while he prepares his own sustenance from their worship. 

2. We are more surprised that this thoughtlessness occurred to the Reverend Sir Christopher Justello, our greatest friend, than to Baronius, for he struck upon the same stone in his notes, Canon. Eccl. Univ. page 186, doubtless relying on the faith of the Baronius himself while treading in his footsteps. Our own P. Martyr could have taught him better about the mind of Tertullian, loc. comm. classe 4, cap. 9, n. 11. Or this example shows that Baronius, in carrying out that great work of his Annals, did not always use his own eyes, but more often committed himself to the faith of others: Sometimes the good Homer slumbers. 

3. But we have much to note about that ancient custom of exorcising those being baptized, which we absolutely do not deny. First, it is not permissible to argue from mere human traditions in matters that pertain to the worship of God. There are various Canons on this matter in the Decree itself, dist. 8: “Let no one prefer tradition to reason and truth,” says Augustine, book 3, de Bapt. contra Donatists, chap. 6. And he states in chap. 5: “Reason prefers truth to tradition.” And Cyprian to Pompey, “Tradition without truth is the antiquity of error.” Likewise, book 2, Epistle 2 to Caecilius: “If Christ alone is to be heard, we should not pay attention to what anyone before us thought should be done, but to what Christ, who is all, did first; For it is not necessary to follow the traditions of man, but the truth of God; since God speaks through the Prophet Isaiah and says, But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments and doctrines of men.” 

4. Now, not only are the reasons cited above sufficient to refute this tradition, but the very institution of the truth of Baptism through Christ, clearly has nothing to do with such rites and exorcisms. John the Baptist is not read to have used any exorcisms in baptizing; we read that Candace’s eunuch was baptized by Philip, Acts VIII. Paul by Ananias, Acts 9. Cornelius by Peter, Acts x. but we find not a wish, nor a trace of exorcisms added to baptism in the whole of Scripture. And the claim that the Jews once added exorcisms to circumcision, no one has even dreamed of until now. 

5. Yet the Pontiffs have found something [useful] in the practice of modern Jews that supports their superstition. Why should we hide this fact? For whenever their [Jewish] wives are about to give birth, they inscribe on the walls of their chambers these four words: “Adim, Chava, Chuts, Lilith,” that is, Adam, Eve, away from this place Lilith. With these words they exorcise the Demon or Witch, called Lilith, so that she may not harm the woman in labor or the childbearing. For they imagine that this vampire will kill newborn infants, unless, by the sacrificial exorcism, this is averted and is put to flight. Professor of Hebrew Johannes Buxtorf deals with this matter in detail in Synagoga Judaica, chap. 2. But let us permit the Pontiffs, if they wish, to protect their baptismal exorcisms by this example, who have similar ‘lettuce lips.’ 

6. This tradition was not only unknown to the Apostles and Apostolic Men but also was not practiced for several centuries until after their death. We are silent because the Canons themselves, commonly called the Apostolic Canons, have nothing to say about this matter. Nor do the Constitutions of Clement, in which, however, the rites and manner of Baptism are treated of more than once. Justin Martyr, Apol. 1, dealt most diligently with Baptism, but does not mention exorcisms. Nor is that Dionysius, who falsely calls himself the Areopagite, the author of the Hierarchy, who nevertheless scrupulously lists all the rites of his time that are usually used among Christians, specifically the Baptismal rites, Hierarchy. Eccl. chap. 1. Yet he did not live before the third century of Christ, about which the more prudent critics of today almost all agree. Not obscurely to this judgment does Denis Pétau, the celebrated French Jesuit theologian, approach. There is also in Eusebius, book 6. Hist. Eccl. cap.35. lat. Ed., [chapter 43 online] the Epistle of Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, to Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, which testifies that Novatus was converted to the Christian religion because he had first been freed from his delusions by the help of exorcisms; but nevertheless afterwards he was baptized when ill in bed: from which example it is clear that exorcisms at that time had nothing in common with baptism. 

7. Tertullian also, regarding On the Military Garland, in order to describe the solemnities of Baptism, speaks as follows: “That when they are about to approach baptism, they go to the water—there, but somewhat earlier—in the Church, under the bishop’s hand, they openly renounce the devil, pomp, and his angels; from there, they are submerged three times,” etc. He later refers to many other rites of baptism in his time, but there is a profound silence about the exorcism of those being baptized. This is not surprising, since in that book he asserts that the charism of exorcism was granted even to military men in his time, nor does he derive from it a special function in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which they call “the hierarchy.” 

8. Thirdly, even the older Fathers, who speak of exorcism before Baptism, did not understand such exorcisms as the Roman Church uses today in baptizing infants; but by the name of exorcism, they understand when: at Catechism, or the preliminary instruction for Baptism; for as I mentioned before, Catechists were metaphorically called Exorcists. Hence it is that both Lombard, dist. 6. 4, sent. litt. H. and William Durandus, Rationale, lib. 6, cap. 82, n. 8., conjoin the Catechism and the Exorcism among the preludes of Baptism and command that the former be done before the latter; and [Flemish Jesuit theologian] Giles de Coninck himself in part 1, de sacram., quest. 71, n. 14-15, having made the distinction of the Catechism into doctrinal and ceremonial, seems to refer to all as Baptismal rites. 

9. Sometimes, however, the Fathers seem to understand by exorcism in baptizing one who has already been fully instructed in Christ, the solemn renunciation of Satan and his pomp, which Lombard himself established in the Catechism; so that exorcism, does not so much denote an oath made to the demon when baptizing, as the oath of the demon itself when baptizing: Thus when it is said to Ambrose, or rather to him who is reported to be the author, book 1, On the Sacraments, chapter 5: The exorcism being performed by the Priest when he first enters seems to signify nothing else than that the Priest, before all else, by baptizing, stipulates that abjuration of Satan. The argument is that in all those six books on the Sacraments, no other mention of Exorcisms is made, nor in the treatise prefixed to them concerning those who are initiated into the Mysteries, in which chapter 2 it is insinuated that baptism began before the Priest with that renunciation: from which one might not undeservedly conclude that Exorcism and renunciation are the same for Ambrose or for him who assumed his name. 

10. In his Mystagogical Catechises, 1 & 2, Cyril teaches that those to be baptized first of all renounced everything in the very portico of the baptistery house with outstretched hands, as if to the presence of Satan, and then, anointed with oil, were led to the sacred laver itself. Nor does he mention any exorcism performed during baptism: whence it follows that the exorcism before baptism, said by other writers of that age, denotes nothing more than that very renunciation. This assertion of ours is supported again by the fact that Pseudo-Dionysius, Hierarch. Eccl. chap. 1, mentions the exsufflation and the threefold abnegation to be performed by the one being baptized, not by the minister of Baptism; indeed, there is no clear exorcism. Why then should the exorcism of others be anything other than this breathing out and renunciation?  As is clear from Tertullian, the ancient Christians, passing through temples, despised the smoking altars, and exsufflated and by so doing exorcised Satan themselves, that is, renounced him both by gesture and by feeling, whenever they fell upon the temples of idols. 

11. Fourthly, it is not until later and through various stages that the Ancients came to this practice of exorcising those to be baptized. It seems the first stage was made because when the prayers and adjurations of the Exorcists sometimes eluded Satan in the demon-possessed, that charisma gradually failing in the Church, this plan was finally used to free the demon-possessed so that they could be baptized. Cyprian testifies to this quite openly in Book 4. Epistle 7, which is considered Great. In it he says that certain demon-possessed are baptized for this reason: “because the stubborn wickedness of the Devil prevails even in the saving water, but in Baptism, all his wickedness loses its venom; and when by the Exorcists, scourged and burned by human voice endowed with divine power, he often comes out, yet he leaps and lies, he is plainly overwhelmed by the saving water and the sanctification of Baptism, which he illustrates by the simile of scorpions and serpents who prevail on dry land, but when thrown into water, do not seek to prevail, or to retain their own venom.” Since, therefore, in the past, the liberation of the demon-possessed, if it had not proceeded by exorcisms, was procured by the help of Baptism (for at that time no exorcisms were connected with Baptism), the result was effected by the lapse of time, so that just as in the healing of those who were demon-possessed, exorcisms preceded Baptism, so the same order was much more easily observed in those being baptized, their own Catechists were called Exorcists by analogy, and also so that they might not seem to have had any less [powers] than the others. 

12. Fifthly, the Pontiffs should not boast of that custom of the Ancients, which was not fully introduced until after the 4th century of Christ, as if they were pressing on the vestiges of antiquity. For, besides the fact that the early antiquity of the Church did not have such things, many other customs were usurped by the Ancients, nay, even commended in the name of Apostolic Tradition, which the Romans of today neglect, and reject as contrary to right reason. Why then is it they not have done (as we have done) concerning those baptismal exorcisms, so that their posterity, while forgiving the ancients [for their errors], might abandon those errors, having been better educated? It would be quite tedious to go through each instance individually, to demonstrate more fully how many miles the Roman Synagogue is distant from the Ancients. For example, it was permissible in the primitive Church for the Ministers of the Word to be married; as Cassander the theologian of Colonia acknowledges from the 6th General Council, consult. art. 23. Furthermore, it lacked images and their worship; Augustine in Psalm 113. Council of Elibert [? Elvira?] Can. 36. It did not receive the Apocryphal books into the Canon; Council of Laodicea, Can. 59. It distributed the Sacrament of the Eucharist under both species, as they say, to the faithful, acknowledging the Council of Constance itself, session 13. How much effort is now exerted, especially by the Jesuit Pétau, to oppose Antoine Arnauld’s restoration of public penance—this is well known to the entire learned world [to have been the practice of] the ancients. Opposition was chiefly based on the argument that many practices used by the ancients should have been abolished by rational custom. Six hundred such cases could be brought forward, in which opponents have referred back to purer antiquity. 

13. But let us keep ourselves within the goals of Baptism itself and show that many things were formerly observed in Baptism with greater solicitude and care than exorcisms, from which, however, the Pontiffs now abstain. Let Tertullian suffice with his words, On the Military Garland, among the observances he makes without the aid of any Scripture, but rather solely by the title of Tradition, and hence under the patronage of tradition which we claim, refers to these baptismal rites which were customary at that time: “When we are about to enter the water, but somewhat beforehand in the Church under the hand of the Bishops we testify that we renounce the pomp of the Devil and his Angels; then we are immersed three times, not responding to anything more than the Lord has determined in the Gospel; Having undertaken this, we first taste the harmonious blend of milk and honey,” and so forth. Therefore, he mentions these, and other things observed in his time as from the Tradition of the Apostles, which have become obsolete in the Roman Church. Jerome also, in his Dialogue against the Luciferians, as Bellarmine and Giles of Coninck report, refers to the same custom of tasting honey and milk at Baptism, as accepted by Tradition; although in chapter 55 of Isaiah, he mentions wine instead of honey. 

14. But what is more, for six hundred years it was a sacred rite in the Church to administer the Sacrament of the Eucharist to newly baptized infants. There are several places in which Augustine testifies that the Eucharist is no less necessary for infants than Baptism, and he refers the rite of communicating them immediately after Baptism to the Apostolic Tradition. But let this one point suffice from many, taken from book 1, chapter 24, On Sin, Merit, and Remission: “The early Christian Punics rightly call Baptism nothing other than Salvation, the Sacrament of the Body of Christ nothing other than Life: whence, unless from the ancient”—and as I believe, Apostolic—”Tradition, by which the Church of Christ inherently holds participation in the Lord’s Supper besides Baptism, [without which] no one can come not only to the kingdom of God but also to salvation and eternal life. Scripture testifies to this,” etc. If, therefore, as so many and such great divine testimonies agree that neither salvation nor eternal life is to be hoped for by anyone without Baptism [and without] the body and blood of the Lord, it is in vain that these are promised to infants without them. 

15. But if the Roman Church, by right, could reject those ancient customs of tasting milk and honey in Baptism and administering the sacred Eucharist to infants as non-Apostolic and contrary to sound reason—although Augustine defends this practice by the authority of Tradition and Scripture (a view that even Innocent I, as all acknowledge, held, but is rightly considered mistaken today)—why does the Roman Church insist so stubbornly that exorcisms must be retained simply because they were used in antiquity? Since both the ancient clergy and the laity have considered Exorcisms less necessary for infants than the Eucharist, and since the rite of Exorcisms has been more recent in the Church than the long-standing tradition of administering the Eucharist to newborn infants immediately after baptism. The Pontiffs admit that these rites were formerly observed, and that solemn Baptism was to be administered only at Easter and Pentecost, as we read in Gratian’s Decree, de consecration, distinction 4, canon 2, and other places there. Why then was only the rite of Exorcisms chosen to be retained from those ancient customs? Was it because it relied on a more probable foundation in Scripture or reason? Not at all; rather, because priests, like glorious soldiers, could boast before the people that they had power not only over wild beasts but even over the demons themselves. They, however, rightly ridicule those actors who possess a vain wrath without strength. 

16. Finally, in the Baptismal exorcisms themselves, which they defend solely on the testimony of the Ancients, they do not adhere to the footsteps of the Ancients, whether we consider the rites themselves or the opinion of both concerning those rites: For the Ancients seem to have used fire in their exorcisms: These words are from Augustine in Ps. 68: “Do not linger at the water; pass through the fire to the water, that you may pass.” Therefore, in the Sacraments, the Catechism and in exorcism, fire is used first. Why then do the adversaries not use this fire in their exorcisms? From the 2^nd Council of Braga, as reported by Gratian, Exorcism preceded holy Baptism by twenty days: “Twenty days before the Baptism, they shall gather for the purification of the exorcism.” Why then is the Exorcism now added to the solemn rite of Baptism, even for the widow? But there the purification of the exorcism indicates a catechetical instruction: It is added; In which, for twenty days, the Symbol, that is, the Apostles’ Creed “I believe in God the Father Almighty,” is taught in its entirety spiritually. Pope Celestine, Epist. to the Gall. chap. 12, has these words:  “Whether little children or young men come to the Sacrament of regeneration, let them not approach the fountain of life before the unclean Spirit is cast out of them by the exorcisms and exsufflations of the Clerics.” Hence, it is clear that no one who has not been exorcised beforehand should be baptized, contrary to what is done among the Papists, among whom many are baptized with a non-solemn baptism without any prior exorcism; and that in the past exorcism always preceded Baptism; whereas today it is more often used only after Baptism. 

17. The order is also very different: For the renunciation, which they today call Catechism, now takes place in the baptismal font and after the exorcism;⁵ but formerly the renunciation was done before the exorcism, as attested even by Lombard himself, in Book 4 of the Sentences, Distinction 6, Letter H: “After the catechism follows the exorcism, so that by it the hostile power may be driven out from one who is already instructed in faith.” The Roman Catechism acknowledges the same order in Part 2, Chapter 2, numbers 64 and 65. I omit the ceremony of the scrutiny mentioned by Egidius in 2.9 and by Bellarmine in his book, On Baptism, Chapter 25, taken from Leo’s Epistle 4, Chapter 6, who says that the competent or elect for baptism, according to the Gospel rule, should indeed be examined by exorcists, etc., which has clearly fallen out of use. 

 18. Finally, which is the main point, Exsufflation and Exorcism and similar ceremonies were used by the ancients, not as if they were effective in baptizing for any reason; for the efficacy of sacred signs is entirely from divine institution; but the Pontiffs themselves admit that these rites are of human invention, as Walfrid Strabo, On Ecclesiastical Rites, chap. 26, and Thomas of Walden, chap. 147, title 5, On Sacraments; as well as the Annotations of our most famous [French Huguenot theologian] Daniel Chamier, in his Panstratia Catholica. However, those ceremonies were used by the Ancients as shadows and hieroglyphic pictures by which the power and efficacy of Baptism divinely instituted was signified to the Catechumens and the people. This is to be gathered from many places of Augustine; but his words especially stand out in book 6, Against Julian, chapter 2: “The Church would not exorcise or blow upon the children of the faithful if it did not deliver them from the power of darkness and from the Prince of death.” Now, Augustine was most convinced that the children of the faithful could not be delivered from the power of darkness and from the Prince of death otherwise than by Baptism. Let the passage on original sin be added, book 2, chapter 38. “The devil holds, Christ frees, and the very sacraments of the Holy Church sufficiently indicate that even infants very recent from birth are freed from the service of the devil by the grace of Christ. For although they are baptized not with a deceptive but a faithful mystery for the remission of sins, they are first exorcised and the opposing power is expelled from them, to which they respond by words which renounce. By all these sacred and obvious signs of hidden things, they are shown to pass from the worst captor to the best Redeemer. 

19. The Glossator of the Decree, On the Consecration of Little Ones leads us to the same facts: the decision to cast away the unclean Spirit from those being baptized by exsufflations and exorcisms, that is, to be cast away and driven away is signified; Bellarmine himself, On Baptism, chap. 25, says that exsufflation signifies the shutting out of demons; Why not then also by exorcism? When the people of Cologne, in their retorts, establish that exorcism is to be carried out by exsufflation and words, and [Spanish Jesuit theologian] Gabriel Vasquez, according to Chamier, establishes exsufflation as a part of exorcisms: Here also pertain the trite verses of the Baptism ceremonies related by John Gerhard, On Baptism: “Salt, oil, chrism, and waxed garment; these symbolize the power of Baptism. These do not change the godparents’ role but rather embellish it.” 

20. But the modern Pontiffs think very differently about baptismal exorcisms, and they do not attribute to them a simple meaning, as the Ancients did, but rather to the power and efficacy of acting which they signify, even if [Dominican Cardinal Thomas] Cajetan believes the Sacraments themselves divinely instituted, from a work wrought. Dutch Jesuit Martin Becanus, however, in chap. 13. de Sacr. 9. 4. wants exorcisms to be moral acts, not physical. And because the dignity of exorcisms was almost equal to that of Baptism, among the Pontiffs it was considered that laymen and women could perform baptisms, but Exorcist ceremonies should not be allowed them, as is seen in Thomas Aquinas in the Third Part, Question 67, Article 3. 

21. But although they establish that these baptismal exorcisms are efficacious and operative, and that Demons are actually driven away by them, which is to transcribe into human ceremonies the efficacy of the sacrament of Baptism and the Blood of Christ, yet they are not so sure of that outcome: For Aegidius [Giles de Coninck] acknowledges that exorcisms and the like do not have an infallible effect, and that Satan often resists them because they do not have the absolute promise of God attached to them. Bellarmine admits the same in book 3, On the Worship of the Saints, chap. 7. 

22. Becanus, who alone knows himself, and in respect of whom the rest flit like shadows, chap. 13, On the Sacraments, q. 3, n. 6 & 7, says that the Demon is expelled from the soul of an infant through Baptism, from the body by exorcism, lest he hinder Baptism, either by strangling the infant at the beginning of Baptism, or when he has grown up, by taking him away from Baptismal grace. But these are most absurd. For (1) they conflict with the doctrine of the Ancients explained above, which established that exorcisms were used only to signify that we are freed from the power of Satan by Baptism. (2) They presuppose that all infants are physically possessed by the Demon at birth, which is impious and absurd. (3) They conflict with the doctrine of the Pontifical theologians who have established that the grace of Baptism is conferred by works done. Who then could possibly hinder Satan? For if the power and efficacy of their exorcisms meant that no baptized person would be liable to the attacks and temptations of the Devil, we know this is [false because it is] contrary to experience. (4) The Fathers never feared the danger of strangulation when they designated only two specific times for solemnly administering Baptism: namely, that infants should be exorcised while still in the womb, so they would not be strangled by Satan who well knows that they are to be baptized immediately after birth. (5) The danger of the rite lies with those already baptized, among whom these exorcisms are nevertheless supplied, at least in cases where, due to undue haste in an emergency, they have been omitted. For what we previously read based on the Pastoral of Roermond and the Archbishop of Philippi—that these exorcisms should also be supplemental for those baptized among us—is not so certain because Nicolaus of Bayonne, Doctor of Metz, denies it must be done (see book, On the Sacraments, chapter 2, section 9, page 47). Thus, the Cadmean friars agree among themselves.

23. But some, indeed, even those called Lutherans in Germany, exorcise those to be baptized with these words: “I adjure you, I adjure you, unclean spirit, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that you come out and depart from this servant of God.” The answer is readily available: (1) Let us not dispute about what is done by others, but what should be done by all: for the Church lives by rules, not by examples, and it is not surprising if those Churches retained something from the ancient leaven, since the defect of that first fermentation could easily have been corrected by the following steps. (2) That this very exorcism is held by those Protestants of Germany as a plainly indifferent ceremony which does not bear any bodily possession, and does nothing, but only signifies, and which even the more learned and moderate would have removed this petition from them; as we see in the most learned John Gerhard, Common Places, On Baptism, sect. 264.265. 266. For he stated in eloquent words that it would “not be useless for reasons not to be despised,” if the Church were to abrogate this “adiaphoric ceremony.” The most illustrious man, Jesper Rasmussen Brochmand, [Danish Lutheran theologian], has almost similar things in his System. de Sacram., chap.5, Sect. 5, n. 2. & cap. 6. quest. 8. where he eloquently advises his Churches to retain exorcism as an indifferent adiaphoric ceremony, not as a thing clearly necessary, such as is held among the Pontiffs; nor do I doubt that Germany would have abolished this custom long ago, if it had not retained others, contrary to our prejudices, and had not an excessive love of popular errors which fostered its wings. 

24. These matters concerning the exorcisms of those to be baptized have been debated by us, demonstrating that modern Pontiffs are far removed from the practice and opinion of the ancients, even though the name and external rite appear to have been retained; so that it is not without reason that the passage found in Cicero’s On Duties, Book 1, is here applied: “Oh ancient house, alas! how you are worthy of the Lord’s rule.” It would have been better to have followed in the footsteps of Christ and the Apostles and to have acquiesced in the simplicity of the Gospel. 

CHAPTER SEVEN 

Who are properly called by the name of demon-possessed [Energumeni] and who, by their feigned deliverance, create frequent fraudulent suppositions of miracles. 

1. So far, we have discussed the ordinary [non-solemn, minor] exorcisms used by persons in the Roman communion concerning those to be baptized or those already baptized, but not solemnly so, as they say. Now we move on to what is done extraordinarily regarding other persons. To this type of exorcism, which we now wish to address, the definition given by [French scholar] Jean Passerat in Ambrogio Calepino’s [famous] Latin dictionary is most fitting: “Exorcism,” he says, “is an adjuration, where by a magical chant a necessity is imposed on a man or a demon to speak about the matters requested.” Elsewhere he says, “To adjure is to drive away a demon by incantations.” Since the individuals to whom extraordinary exorcisms are applied are not all the same kind, let us first consider the demon-possessed, whom they strive to free by their help. I say these people who commonly claim to perform exorcisms on them are quite mistaken; for it is not the person himself who is exorcised, but rather the demon within him, whom the Exorcist implores to depart. 

2. Energumeni [demon-possessed] are those whom evil spirits invade, occupy and harass, according to the Greek meaning of the word (for they are called ἐνεργεμένοι) having worked extraordinarily in them. They are also called Arreptitii [possessed/raving mad] in the Latin language. But the Greek term used more often by Christian writers, than by profane ones, call the demoniacs εγγαςριμυθοί & σερνομαντες, as if one were to call them ventriloquists and prophets of entrails; of whom, from Philochorus, [3^rd century BC Greek historian], Tholosanus [aka French Jurist, Pierre Grégoire] deals in Synt. Iur. book 3 4. cap. 8. num. 1. They are also called Maniacs and Enthei [‘divinely inspired’] for they are said to be possessed by a certain divine fury, and full of God, that is, Apollo. 

3. The Latins sometimes called them ‘Fanatics,’ because Satan would invade the priests in the temples who were about to deliver oracles causing them to shake their heads and hair. [Roman educator] Quintilian testifies they were Fanatics in Book 11, and Virgil alludes to the Cumaean Sibyl in Book 6 of the Aeneid. For more on this speech, anyone interested should consult Casaubon’s Exercise 14 in Baronius, section 9. They were also once called ‘Larvatus’ [bewitched] because they were said to be disturbed by ‘larva’ [evil spirits] and ‘lemures’ [malevolent spirits] and ‘Ceriti’  [mad/frantic] from [the Roman Goddess] Ceres, as if harshly tormented by her anger; hence [Roman playwright] Plautus in his play, Menæchmi, says, “Was he disguised as a larva or as a Cerite?” 

4. The Pontiffs employ their exorcisms for healing and freeing from unclean spirits, and from these they claim the glory of miracles which they have listed among the signs of the Church, as can be seen in Bellarmine, On the Signs of the Church, chapter 14. In fact, there are no miracles more frequently challenged by the common [non-Protestant] people [as proof that God is not on our side] than [the lack of miraculous] casting out of demons. Of which Stapleton, among others, boasts as having been seen by him more often, and which, having been seen by many of his Englishmen at Rome, was an occasion for them to pass over to the Papal camp, Antidota Apostolica,⁶ using Acts 19:13 as their prooftext. Indeed, they often reproach our people for being deprived of that power over demons, and for having to endure the attempted casting of them with shame and danger. Thus, Bellarmine reports from Friedrich Staphylus and Johann Cochlaeus, [anti-Protestant] witnesses certainly unworthy of being believed about Luther, since they were professed enemies. According to them, he tried in vain to cast out a demon from one of his disciples and was nearly killed. Martin Delrio discusses this in the same way about Staphylus and William Damasus Lindanus in his dissertation, Investigations into Magic, Book 3, Part 1, Question 7, forgetting that Staphylus, Cochlæus, and William Damasus Lindanus himself, are all considered unreliable in such accounts and should be dismissed with a single word, as he himself says in a similar case concerning our sources in Book 5, Chapter 3, because “an enemy who has sworn against a spear is not to be believed.” 

5. Luther and Calvin were far from testing [the validity of] miracles because they vehemently denied they had need of miracles since they did not bring forth a new doctrine, but that which had already been sufficiently and abundantly confirmed by the miracles of Christ and the Apostles, so that in these last times only Antichrist and those who were under him were able to perform miracles. But then again, according to the hypothesis of the Papists, Luther did not lack that power over demons, since he had received it inalienable by his ordination: for it is their common opinion that orders imprint an indelible character [characterem = mark]. Nor can the Papal Exorcists themselves always [successfully] carry out the attempted work, as Stapleton and Delrio acknowledge in Book 6, chapter 2, section 3, quest. 3. 

6. But let us examine more carefully what is asserted by our Adversaries: First, they cannot deny that it has often been the case that the people were deceived by artfully composed stories and frauds regarding such exorcisms, which also gave Erasmus the occasion to write his delightful Colloquy entitled The Exorcism.⁷ Pseudo demon-possessed were often found, who, having been bribed with money by Exorcists, imitated demons, so that they would later be believed to have been cured by exorcisms. “Sometimes,” says Lyra on Daniel 14, “there is a great deception of the people in the Church, by miracles feigned by the Priests and those who adhere to them for the sake of temporal gain.” For despite what Ambrose says, Sermon 91—that it is impossible for anyone to pretend to be possessed by a demon—experience often shows the opposite to be true; and even his opponents do not deny this. 

7. The drama by Marthe Brosseriae, which has been widely discussed throughout all Gaul, is well known, as are the accounts by P. Matthæus in the second book, third narrative of his History of Henry IV, and by renowned Jacque de Thou in the 123rd book of his History, both concerning the year 1599 and the papal communion. This story involves a Capuchin who was paraded through Gaul as if possessed by a demon, so that after performing exorcisms, the Roman Church’s faith would be confirmed through a splendid miracle, and the people would be stirred against the Reformers—whom the King had recently guarded against by the Edict of Nantes. The matter was an imposture, covered up by several Prelates, by the most learned Physicians, by the Supreme Senate of Paris, and by the Pope himself, as is clear from the letters of Cardinal Arnaud d’Ossat, book 6, epistle 211, who did not want Rome, where it had been brought by the factious Circulators, to be given credit for the imposture. And certainly in Rome, where similar but more elaborate sports are often presented to the common people, this could be said, as is mentioned in the treatise of the Sanhedrin’s Talmud: Janne and Jambre, whom Moses named, were said to have introduced magical arts into Egypt, bringing with them the chaff of Rameses to sell, which was especially abundant there. 

8. About six hundred similar cases can be recalled, examples of which have been presented in recent years by the scene performed by the nuns of Juilly, France, who pretended to be possessed by demons so that our French people could be moved by their exorcisms. The act was tragi-comic, in which even innocent blood was shed for superstition: a practice that later became well known throughout all of France. It was often a significant example of fraud when a disguised demon, or the Exorcist who conjured him, claimed that the power and effectiveness of exorcisms could be nullified in the presence of a certain Reformed individual, if by chance a curious observer happened to be present; hence, Reformed people are carefully kept away from such spectacles, just as Alexander the False Prophet once ordered Christians to be excluded in Lucian’s account⁸—although it would have been most appropriate for those very individuals to actually be present, since these wonders were chiefly intended to convince them. For signs and miracles are intended for the incredulous and unbelieving (1 Corinthians 14:22). How then can we place faith in so many stories told about the effectiveness of exorcisms of this kind, when frauds have been uncovered in many cases, which rightly make them suspect according to the golden rule of jurists, as stated by D. de reg. Iuris: “”Is one who is once evil always presumed to be evil in the same kind of evil?” Especially since these imaginary miracles are not admitted even by the Pontiff himself unless they have first been solemnly approved by the Church.  It is very rare for the Pontiff to grant public approval, being well aware of those deceptions. 

9. Moreover, in true demon-possessed or bewitched, these Exorcists rarely obtain the intended outcome. The demon despises the commands of the Exorcists; laughing at the gestures and theatrical devices, while stubbornly retaining his possession against their will. These wretched people seized and afflicted with evil are transferred in vain from the first Exorcists to the second, and from place to place, if perhaps the future remedies of one are more efficacious than those of the other. Nor, as has already been shown above, do the Pontiffs deny this. What Delrio says in the cited passage is true. This happens for two reasons, either because of the sin of the sorcerer or the one applying the remedy, and if they have even a small hope and faith, or for the greater good of the sick or injured person, it makes no difference to the rhombus. Now since the power of consecration is granted so absolutely through Episcopal ordination that any priest, no matter how sinful or unfaithful, can thereby freely bring Christ, the Sun of Justice, down from heaven and transubstantiate the bread into His body—as our Adversaries fabricate—why should not this power conferred at ordination also be given to Exorcists as power over demons, so that it may even be exercised by the greatest sinners? Is it greater to cast out the devil or to heal a curse than to turn bread into Christ? (2) This contradicts the idea held by the Pontiffs, who claim that the power of Exorcists depends not at all on their own faith and integrity, but solely on the Church’s ordination: this is established by the Pastoral of Roermond, cited above by us, and is suggested in the first part of the first volume of the Exorcism Manual, where it is said that the Exorcist acts “in the person of the Church,” and thus his prayers are heard by God. (3) It should never be beneficial for someone to be possessed by a demon, when he deserves to be freed from its power as established by Christ; for whatever Delrio may say, we doubt. 

10. I know that Cyprian, in book 4, Letter 7, once said the demon would leave when burned and whipped, yet he was lying. But from this, it is clear that those gifts were already gradually fading in the Church, which had by then been firmly established on the Gospel, and the power to perform these miracles should not be imagined as a perpetual and ordinary authority in the Church, granted by Episcopal ordination. Therefore, Bishops should cease conferring upon Exorcists power over evil spirits, a power that neither those who ordain nor those ordained actually possess, especially since many who try to exercise it by their own effort fail. 

11. Indeed, some of the Papal writers themselves indirectly elevate the efficacy of those exorcisms when they insist, “It is not to be thought,” are the words of that Spanish writer quoted above, “that God will once again prove his holy doctrine with new signs and miracles, by raising the dead, restoring sight to the blind, walking to the lame, movement to the paralyzed, etc.” But if, according to Trithemius the [German Benedictine] Abbot, book 8, quest. ad Maxim. quest. 3: “today no miracles are to be sought or expected from true Christians,” to which [Spanish Franciscan mystic and theologian] Diego de Estella concurs in chap. 11 of Luke: “Now to seek other new miracles,” he says, “is a certain failure of faith and a matter most deserving of criticism” (and rightly so; for as Augustine testifies in book 22 of The City of God, chapter 8:  “Whoever still seeks prodigies in order to believe, is himself a great prodigy who does not believe while the world believes”) By what reasoning then can the Pontiffs boast of the daily miracles of their exorcisms, or continually seek and attempt to perform them?  If Trithemius, Estella, or the Spaniard had been aware of the power of Exorcisms, they would undoubtedly have spoken differently. 

CHAPTER EIGHT 

Even if the possessed were freed through exorcisms, it would not be considered a miracle, especially among the Pontiffs; rather, it would be a deception of the demon, as is proven by the magical nature of the words and formulas used. 

1. Nor even if, indeed, all the possessed and bewitched were freed by the power of those exorcisms, would it follow that those exorcisms are lawful or that the doctrine they support by these miracles is sound and true. Augustine’s well-known statement in On the Unity of the Church, chapter 16, is: “Do not therefore say something is true just because Donatus, or Pontius, or anyone else performed those wonders, or because people pray to the memories of our dead and are heard, or because our brother saw such a vision while awake, or our sister dreamed such a vision while asleep. Those things are either vain illusions, fabrications of human deceit, or marvels wrought by deceptive spirits; for either the things spoken of are not true, or if some wondrous acts of heretics have occurred, we ought to be the more cautious, since the Lord said that there would be some who would be deceptive, who by performing certain signs might even deceive the elect if possible, and He emphatically added, Behold, I have told you beforehand.” 

2. Martin Bresser, a [Flemish] Jesuit, states in book 6, On Conscience, chapter 16, number 201, that the power of miracles is a certain mark of the Catholic faith; and that it does not belong to Divine providence for men to be deceived by such apparent miracles. However, Martin Delrio, of the same order, contests this in Investigations into Magic, Book 2, chapter 7, saying, “This argument is false: He performed a miracle, therefore his faith is true,” because God can work miracles even through unbelievers. Similarly, Stapleton argues in Promptorium Morum Domini, 24th Sunday after Pentecost, article 4, that the Antichrist and his ministers, as well as any heretics, may, by God’s permission, even perform TRUE miracles for the greater testing of the faithful.  

3. The entire Scripture leads us to this: Deuteronomy 13:1-3 forbids placing faith in a false prophet, even if they perform signs and wonders, if that leads people to false gods; and Matthew 24:23-24, where Christ predicts that false Christs and false prophets will perform such great miracles that they could even deceive God’s elect. Paul also speaks of the coming of the Antichrist, accompanied by false signs and wonders, in 2 Thessalonians 2:9, which are explained in greater detail in Revelation 13. Bellarmine, in his work, On the Marks of the Church, chapter 14, argues that these are rather marvelous illusions and pure deceptions of demons, not true miracles. Nevertheless, Stapleton acknowledges that genuine miracles will occur in terms of supernatural acts but maintains they will be deceptive in their use, as they serve falsehood. 

4.  Well said, Augustine, On the Unity of the Church, chapter 16: “Whatever such things happen in the Catholic Church, they are to be approved because they occur in the Catholic Church; it is not for that reason that the Church itself is revealed by them. Therefore, the Church must be demonstrated not by miracles, but by Scripture.” Chrysostom agrees with Augustine, or the author of the incomplete work, Homily 49 on Matthew, namely that the true Church of Christ can only be known from Scripture. Who could possibly recount all the miracles done under Paganism, some of which are mentioned by Augustine in book 10 of The City of God, chapter 16? Were there not also true miracles among the Novatians at times, such as the one recorded by Socrates in book 7, chapter 17, of the baptismal water miraculously drained when Paul, bishop of the Novatians, prepared to baptize a certain Jew who had been baptized multiple times by impostors? How often did the Donatists boast of their own miracles, so much so that they are contemptuously called “Mirabillarii” [wonder-workers] by Augustine in tractate 13 on Job? 

5. Let this be understood: Outside the True Church of God True Miracles are not done; the rest are rather to be called [lying] wonders, which are performed by Pseudo-prophets and evil spirits; indeed, even that very casting out of demons by exorcisms, if it were done, should not necessarily be counted among true Miracles. For Stapleton, in his Antidotes to the Gospel, chapter 12 of Matthew, recognizes that a demon can leave in two ways—either unwillingly or through negotiation—and he supports this view with Augustine, book 83, question 79. By what argument, then, will they prove that demons are driven away by their exorcisms unwillingly, rather than yielding through collusion, as if by a tacit pact? They certainly cannot rely here on the defense of Christ, whom the Pharisees accused of casting out demons by Beelzebub, (Matthew 12:25), because Christ confirmed this power through far more renowned miracles, and in overthrowing the dominion of demons through his teaching, he relied entirely on his own authority—not on any invented formulas or exorcism words—to cast out demons. On the contrary, the Pontiff lacks all other miracles; the very efficacy of these exorcisms, of which they boast, they attribute to [their legally] establishing idolatry and thereby establishing the devil’s kingdom. All of this depends on certain prescribed words, formulas, and gestures, frequently repeated, and if the Exorcist deviates even slightly from them, the entire ritual is rendered invalid. 

6. But let us show a little more clearly that a demon can be expelled by evil arts, among which we rightly include these exorcisms of the Pontiffs. Tacitus, in the fourth book of his Histories, recounts that Vespasian restored the sight of a blind man and the strength of a lame man simply by touching them. Suetonius records the same about Vespasian. Bellarmine is credible in saying the entire diseases of those men was caused by the devil, who, sitting in the eye of one and the tibia of another, obstructed the use of their limbs [and eyes], doing so with the intent to appear to heal even while allowing harm. How much more can it be said that the devil voluntarily yields to superstitious exorcisms, so that it is believed that the possessed and the bewitched are [allegedly] healed by exorcisms, while it is actually Satan, whose authority has greatly increased by this, who ceases to do harm? We have already shown previously that there were Exorcists among the Jews and Heathen, who professed to cast out demons and cure diseases by using certain spells, and that they were instructed in magical arts to perform these things, so that no person of sound mind would be infected. 

7. Delrio himself discusses this in his Summary of Magical Investigations, book 6, chapter 10, addressing those who sometimes have peculiar formulas and rites of exorcism within the Roman Church itself, or claim this office as something peculiar to themselves—a claim which is very common among our adversaries—and strongly suspects them of heresy. They make a pact with demons, pretending that they are compelled to leave by such rituals. “The reason,” he says, “is that by making a public display of their alliance, they are always able to make some profit from the crowded circle of bystanders. Many gather, so that they may listen to the conversations which they [priest and possessed] secretly exchange back and forth; the [true] Exorcist, the devil, hears and rejoices because the demon is accustomed to spreading some errors of faith or morals, or at least to coercing people to perform some superstitious, vain, or idle acts; it slanders the innocent, reveals the hidden crimes of the guilty, and falsely suspects others of them. He incites some to carnal desires, some to avarice by his words; he pretends to fear the good in order to drive them into pride.” Thus says Delrio. 

8. Let [the unbiased observer] see, as well as the Pontiffs, whether or not Satan is able to set the same [deceptive] traps which reach the same conclusion – that the demon is compelled to leave the possessed – no matter the form of exorcism used. Thus, he deceives wretched mortals and strengthens their minds in [their embrace of] idolatry and superstition, while pretending to fear vain observances, long-winded words, relics, Lambs of God, and the like. The argument commonly used by the Papists against our religion, and which many of them eagerly pursue, is so ridiculous because it is drawn from the testimony of the devil himself, who at times has accused us of falsehood during such exorcisms: Which Delrio himself was not ashamed to bring to light, book 3, part 1, question 7: “Surely,” he said, “the Laodicean Possessed, openly mocking Calvinists by proclaiming before all who were listening, in the year 1566, that he had nothing to fear from their demons since they were friends and allies?” The same book 6, chap. 2, sect. 3, q. 3, uses the testimony of a certain witch to prove exorcisms because she sent a girl terrified by ghosts to the Jesuits: These men, indeed, if they cannot bend the gods, will move Acheron [the realm of the dead]. 

9. There are very serious reasons why we rightly reject those exorcisms of the Pontiffs as being among the evil and superstitious arts: First, for their syncretism with magic is so great that the proverb ‘no egg is more similar than another’ holds true. Everything with their magicians consists precisely in formulas and words which they use according to the prescriptions of their art, and they are most convinced that they have power and efficacy in them for the works they intend to perform: “Their songs can even bring the moon down from the sky.” Much is said about them in Virgil’s 8^th Eclogue and Aeneid, book 4, as well as in Ovid’s Elegies on Love, book 3, concerning the thirsty old man. See also Cornelius Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy, book 1, chapters 69 to 72. Similarly, the Pontiffs attribute powerful effectiveness to the prescribed words and rituals of exorcisms against demons and their evil deeds. This power is certainly either Natural, Supernatural, or Superstitious. The Pontiffs do not say natural, since Delrio eloquently denies that any words have a natural power, either of healing diseases or of driving away other harms, and rightly with good reason: book 1, cap. 4, q. 3. 

10. It cannot be called supernatural, for whatever is considered to work supernaturally, must derive its power immediately from God and rely on his special institution and promise. But God never instituted these rites, never prescribed these formulas, never promised that such an outcome would follow from them. Nay, nor did he promise the Church by which these institutions are said to be instituted, that he would add supernatural power to whatever rites and formulas it wished to institute. 

11. Then those things which are simply endowed with supernatural power always have their own effect; especially from the hypothesis of the Papists, who for this reason hold that the Sacraments of the New Law confer grace by a work performed [ex opera operato], but in this way all that they call Sacramentals do not always or necessarily have their own effect, as has been proved above. But neither can it be said to be neutral because by this it presupposes the power to strengthen their own efficacy through faith, piety, and good disposition, whether Exorcised or Exorcists, although such things are not inherent to those possessed or to the Exorcists, contrary to what the Pastoral of Roermond states on page 118. Not the latter because otherwise there would be no distinction between sacramentals, which are of human institution, and sacraments, which are of divine institution. According to the Pontifical opinion, the former would have greater efficacy, even though instituted by humans, than the sacraments of the Old Law, which they hold, although of divine institution, did not confer grace except through the work of the one performing them, as can be seen in Bellarmine’s De Effectu Sacramentorum, chapter 13. Those among them who are more modestly cautious openly deny that sacramental rites, to which exorcisms belong, operate ex opere operato (by the work performed); for this reason, Cajetan lashes out at Giles de Coninck because he asserted, as observed above and from the very beginning of his work, in article 2, question 60 of Thomas [Aquinas], that sacramental rites are not practical [i.e., do not operate efficaciously in themselves].” 

12. They might say that exorcisms act upon demons both by way of command [imperium] and by way of entreaty [impetration], meaning that the Exorcist obtains the expulsion of demons through his earnest prayers. Thus says Becanus, chapter 13, on the sacraments, question 4, number 3, and Egidius himself, volume 1, question 71, On the Sacraments, conclusion 5. Thirdly, I do not hesitate to state [their claims] that the demon flees immediately upon hearing the name of Christ and seeing the sign of the cross, as Becanus says. Now if this were true and it were of no value to do by many things what could be done by fewer, then the possessed could be freed by a single sign of the cross, and there would be no need for such an elaborate apparatus of exorcisms. Also, the question always arises: From what source does the sign of the cross get its [alleged] power? And by what property or action does it drive away the demon? 

13. But to perform exorcisms partly by way of impetration and partly by way of command, cannot be true, according to the Pastoral of Roermond, which eloquently contrasts the form of acting by command with the form of acting by prayers, saying that the former consists of exorcisms and adjurations. Nor does it depend on the piety of the minister, just as the efficacy of prayers depends on the true piety and faith of the one praying: Nay, even so, all the efficacy of exorcisms would be from the work of the one performing them. Just as prayers ought to rely on the devotion of the one praying, so too the command [imperium] in this matter must rely on the faith of the one commanding, by which the sons of Sceva, lacking faith, failed in a similar matter (Acts 19:13). Indeed, the Exorcism Manual in its first instruction says that the first weapon of the Exorcist is a living and undoubted faith with trust in God; thus, these men [the sons of Sceva] were insufficiently steadfast. Then if they acted only by way of either impetration or command, there would be no force in the words, formulas and rites themselves; and therefore no obligation to use these rites and formulas rather than others, contrary to what is done and ought to be done with them; but all that efficacy would depend either on the piety of the one asking, or on the authority and faith of the one commanding. 

14. Truly, the effectiveness of exorcisms ought always to be infallible in both modes of commands and prayers. For if God has given to exorcists the right of command over evil spirits, He has left to them the glory of their obedience; so that it is considered that God commands demons in and through the Exorcists and the demons obey God who truly commands. What could be more absurd? If, however, exorcisms act by way of impetration, they certainly should not be frustrated in their outcome; especially when Becanus states that the Minister of Exorcism supports the person of the Church by means of exorcism and prayers mixed together, infallibly obtains from God the expulsion of demons, stating the Spanish Dominican Dominic of Soto explanation. Wherefore, since the words of Giles de Coninck do not always have an infallible effect on exorcisms and the like, from thence we gather that they do not operate by way of [infallible] impetration or command. Whence it follows that all that power which our Adversaries attribute to exorcisms, are neither natural nor supernatural, they must be superstitious and vain and akin to magic spells. Nor do they cite sacraments to us as having power inherent in themselves. For first, all practical power in sacraments comes from the explicit institution of God, which is lacking in exorcisms. Secondly, the words and rites in sacraments are not effective by themselves, but by God’s covenant, by which He unfolds the efficacy of His grace in the hearts of believers through them. But our Adversaries want exorcisms (although they lack every divine covenant) to be effective by themselves. Thirdly, the efficacy of sacraments depends on the faith and repentance of the recipients; but they want exorcisms to act by innate power without the faith and devotion either of the Exorcists or of the possessed who are Exorcised. 

CHAPTER NINE

(1) Exorcisms Compared Closely with Magical Rites. 

(2) Insults Directed at Demons. 

(3) Use of Fumigations (Burning of incense, etc.). 

(4) Amulets (Protective Charms). 

(5) Interrogation of the Demon. 

(6) Novenas (Nine-Day Prayers). 

(7) Signs Sought from the Demon. 

(8) Refutation of Vain Excuses. 

1. And not only do the Pontiffs’ [rites] approach the Sorcerers in that they attribute such an energy to the prescribed words and formulas of exorcisms, from which it is unlawful to depart even a fingernail, but in many other ways: they attack the demon in these exorcisms with insults and curses, of which they sometimes weave great catalogues, as can be seen in the Exorcism Manual.⁹ We have already mentioned before that this arose from the discipline of the most famous Apollonius, the Sorcerer of Tyana, for this impostor held that insults and curses were the most effective remedy against the attacks of demons. Whether this is in agreement with the Apostolic rule we justly doubt: For Jude’s universal Epistle, verse 9, speaks concerning Michael himself, that although he disputed with the devil over the body of Moses, he did not dare curse him, but only said, “The Lord rebuke you.” Michael did not dare to curse the devil, as the Glossa Ordinaria establishes, citing Thomas Aquinas. From this, it is gathered that cursing any creature, insofar as it is a creature, ultimately returns to God, and can therefore be considered unforeseen blasphemy. Nor is there rationale for them to say that their cursing the devil is because of his crimes; for Michael could also have used the same rationale as an excuse and attacked Satan with insults and curses. 

2. The Heathen and Jewish Exorcists, that is, the Sorcerers, also used fumigations to expel demons; Delrio acknowledges this in his book in several places. Hermes, Porphyry, and Proclus state that demons are gathered by the fumes of aloes wood or whale sperm and driven away by the smoke of sulfur. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s Book 1 of Occult Philosophy, chapters 43 and 44, has much to say about incense for summoning or driving away demons: Nor do I believe that [the author of Tobit who invented] Raphael, who appeared to Tobias, used any other source than the Magical Kabbalah of the Jews when he [had Raphael take] his incense from the heart and entrails of a certain fish to drive away Asmodeus. And while Raphael claims that every demon can be driven away by that incense, Tobit 6:7-8, he eloquently contradicts Christ, who mentions a certain kind of demon which is cast out only by prayer and fasting, Matt. 17:21.  

3. Or for this very reason alone: the fact that the book was rejected among the Apocrypha by Jerome, Athanasius, Melito, the Council of Laodicea, and others, with Stapleton also acknowledging this in his book 2, On the Authority of Scripture, chapter 4, n. 14: so it was only received into the Canon after the time of the Apostles. From this at least it is clear that those sorcerers, of whom Sixtus of Siena speaks in Bibliotheca Sancta, book 2, who composed a book called The Younger Tobit, containing magical incantations by which demons are said to have been driven away from Sarah, his bride, were not entirely without foundation. Nor can Delrio excuse the fictitious Raphael otherwise, in book 2, question 30, section 3, attributing to the fish’s entrails that power which he allegorically explains by referring to coldness, although the text itself plainly contradicts this. 

4. Delrio acknowledges that Pontifical Exorcists similarly use incense to drive away demons, in book 6, chapter 2, section 2, question 3. This is confirmed by Francisco Vallés, the Spanish physician, in his De sacra philosophia, chapter 16: “Indeed,” he says, “those called Exorcists use incense of certain substances such as goat dung, along with the application of rue and St. John’s wort, which for this reason is called the demon’s flight.” Franciscan theologian, Girolamo Menghi, in The Scourge of Demons, reports this composition: “Three ounces each of galbanum, sulfur,  asafoetida, aristolochia, St. John’s wort, and rue, are all joined together in a blessing. Following the blessing they are then thrown into the fire, and whether the vexed person wills it or not, he is then fumigated with the smoke over the fire.” 

5. The teachers of the study of the Magical, both among the Heathen and the Jews, also had amulets [to protect] against the insults and evildoings of the demons, which the Greeks called περίαπτα, and περιάμματα, and in Latin were called Presiscini and Prebia, in Marcus Terentius Varro’s book 6, On the Latin Language, concerning the Jews and Greeks when speaking of amulets; All of which are condemned as superstition, and deservedly so, by Delrio himself, in book 1, chap. 4. quest. 4. And how much Sorcerers value their dangling, tied engravings hanging from the neck is sufficiently attested by Cornelius Agrippa in book 1, Of Occult Philosophy, chapter 46. Also note the history of Eleazar, the impostor and Sorcerer, in Josephus, book 8 of Antiquities, chapter 2, about whom we mentioned before, who, by applying a certain root to the nose of an enraged person—as he claimed to have once been shown by Solomon—extracted demons. 

6. Exorcists of today do the same thing; they decorate the altars of those to be exorcised with blessed palms; they light a blessed candle; they hang on their altars relics, the Lamb of God, and what are called sacred amulets, namely, little cards containing the Apostles’ Creed, or the beginning of the Gospel according to John, or part of some Psalm, or some other little prayer. They employ stolas, relics, images, and crosses as amulets, as can be seen in the Exorcism Manual,  part 1, instruction 6, but as to how these physical objects affect a demon which by nature is incorporeal, they themselves must determine; for it is neither my leisure nor my business to examine all these details thoroughly. 

7. Those who practiced Sorcery were also accustomed to questioning possessed individuals to obtain various information, as well as to gain knowledge of hidden things through a demon speaking within them. In this way, Apuleius seems to have used his Thallus, as is gathered from his Apology chapter 1, and from those mentioned in Acts 16:16, his slave girl Engastrymetha [ventriloquist] from whom they made considerable profit. Similarly, modern Exorcists engage in dialogue with Satan and thereby either testify to or enter into a certain friendly intimacy with him. The Gospel account recalls only one question asked by Christ concerning the possessed man, in which the demons, when asked their name, replied that they were called Legion; not because Christ did not know, but so that His power might be more clearly revealed both in freeing that man and in exposing the misery of mortals subject to hostile enemies. However, Pontifical Exorcists carefully and thoroughly interrogate the demon about how it came to possess the body, how long it intends to remain there, who is the author of the evil, the sin involved, and similar matters, elaborated in detail in the Exorcism Manual, Part 1, Instruction 4, or are plainly addressed in that dialogue. Satan himself is not lacking at that time, as also noted above from Delrio; yet we do not see the purpose of those questions being good, since even the Exorcism Manual itself, Instruction 8, denies that the words of demons, who are fathers of lies, should be immediately trusted. 

8. In the work of the most distinguished historian, Jacques Auguste de Thou, book 132, for the year 1604, there exists a catalogue of questions that Peter Cotton, a Jesuit, wished to ask a demon he was exorcising in Adriana Fraxinea. This catalogue, previously written by Cotton’s own hand, included the demon being asked for a sure and effective way of persuading, and for scriptural passages supporting purgatory and the invocation of saints, along with many similar topics concerning the king’s life, the war against heretics, the plundering of Geneva, enemies of the Jesuits, and so forth. He even later dared to act as a charlatan, not so much to deny the matter as to defend it, and, if possible, to question the demon about things God wished to reveal through him, as can be seen in The Recidivist Jesuit Plagiarist, by the Illustrious Francis Turretin, page 65. And why shouldn’t those men also command [the demon] to bring forth the truth about the Father of Lies, and use his testimony, as Delrio above does, since they included among their saints Theodorus, Bishop of Sion, whom they say was generously given a large bell by Pope Leo, and that he simply caused it to be carried from the city of Rome to Sion, a town located in the Swiss Alps, through the service of demons. You may believe this to be true, if you believe the Toulousian Commentary in book 7, Syntax, article: ‘mirabilis,’ chapter 16. 

9. We are silent about Novenas, which undoubtedly arose from ancient superstition, which Exorcists not infrequently employ in their exorcisms. Although Jesuit theologian, Martin Bresser, denies that one should observe the novena [i.e., 9 days of prayer] rather than the septena [7 days], calling it superstitious, book 6 of De conscientia, chapter 21, n. 293, Delrio maintains that the formal number [9] conceals something, which facilitates the demon’s operation by pact, book 1, chapter 4, question 2. Caesar Augustus abolished the novendial rites [i.e., 9 days of mourning] as superstitious, according to Pietro Bongo of Bergamo in Mystica Numerorum, concerning the number nine; and the same author reports from Alessandro Alessandri’s Genialium Dierum, book 3, chapter 12, that Heathens prayed nine times to appease the Lemures. This may also relate to what the poet says, “He binds and coerces the nine-fold Styx.” Cornelius Agrippa, who is commonly regarded as the Patriarch of Sorcerers, also writes extensively about the number nine and its scale in book 2 of Occult Philosophy, chapter 12. Among other things, he notes that the length of nine cubits of King Basan, who is a symbol of the devil, is not without mystery. 

10. It is also a Sorcerer’s ancient custom to ask for a sign from the devil of a newly abandoned body after exorcisms have been performed. There is a noble example of the imposter Eleazar, of whom I have often spoken in Josephus, book 8. ant. chapter 2, who commanded the demon to overturn a cup full of water which he had placed before all, as a sign that he had left the possessed individual. The fact that Catholic Exorcists ask for similar signs from the demon of his departure is clear from instruction 9, part 1, in the Exorcism Manual ; and Delrio acknowledges it in book 6, chapter 2, sect. 3. quest. 3. Nor does he bring forward any other ancient example of the matter than that of Eleazar, forgetting that Eleazar earlier, as if a Sorcerer, working from a pact with a demon, had deceived, book 2. quest. 30. sect. 3. But one cannot fail to see how grave a sin it is to ask for signs from the devil; how foreign it is to the practice of the Apostles and early Christians. These priests have little confidence in their authority over demons, since they refuse to believe that the demons have yielded to their exorcisms unless Satan himself has proved them with certain signs. 

11. There is no reason for them to say that in order to remove the syncretic comparison of exorcism with Sorcery, they seek only [spiritually] true things in exorcisms, using nothing but sacred prayers, the names of God and the saints, likewise, consecrated objects, crosses, images, and relics, as well as the sacraments of the Church itself; employing them as the most powerful means to drive out the demon. For Agrippa himself, in book 3. Occult Philosophy, chapter 5, also demands some kind of faith for performing magical operations. Furthermore, Kabbalistic Sorcery also uses the names of God, especially His high names, as they are commonly called. The fact that Satan “can also take the opportunity to introduce into the minds of those around him an error concerning the veneration of saints, relics, and other ‘sacred’ things, namely, so that greater efficacy may be attributed to them than Mother Church teaches,” is acknowledged by the Exorcism Manual itself, part 1, instruction 4. The sons of Sceva, Acts 19:13, invoked the name of Jesus over the demoniac whom they were trying to free. Jurist Paolo Grillandi’s Treatise on Heretics and Sorcerers, [considered a standard text on demonology and witchcraft], quest. 1, n. 2, teaches enchanters and Sorcerers more often repeat Ave Maria and Our Father and other similar prayers to the devotion of some Holy Apostle or Martyr, as if the work were accomplished by the devotion and protection of the Saints. He further shows that the demon in sorceries often uses the Sacraments of the Church, nay, the consecrated Host itself. 

12. No one will deny that it is also magical to celebrate a Mass in mourning clothes in hatred of an enemy, or a Mass for the dead with the intention of someone living to die, which is also done among the Pontiffs, as the same Grillandi testifies in quest. 10. n. 12. – Not to mention what he states in the same place in n. 14: that the most holy relics are often mixed with the incantations of spells. It is magical to whisper the names of the three kings into the ear of an epileptic patient in order to heal him. This was a magical practice of that era, which German Benedictine abbot, Trithemius, mentions in his third question to Maximilian. Saint Blaise was believed to have protected his pigs from wolves by attaching his staff bearing his name. This was seen as a magical act carried out by the Vicar in the saint’s absence. In Delrio’s book 1, chapter 4, question 4, these prayer formulas are considered magical—used today against wounds and dangers from fire, water, and other threats—even though they are attributed to Saint Leo and other saints. The same book 6, chap. 2, sect. 1, quest. 2, considers a superstitious remedy for loosening the [demon’s] bond: if the evildoers cause three masses to be celebrated for the Lady, and afterwards give their service to the children completely naked; of which, however, the *Summa Rosella* does not disapprove.[*“This work deals with sins and ecclesiastical punishments, confirmation, ordination, the Eucharist, as well as the duties and rights of marriage.”]  

13. Many similar examples could be given to show that even those things which are most sacred to the Pontiffs, along with their consecrations and blessings, are employed in magical and superstitious practices; thus, by their holiness alone, they can never protect their Exorcists—especially since God has never intended truly sacred things to be used in such a way. For the Sacraments of the New Covenant are intended for purposes other than casting out demons or healing afflictions caused by witchcraft. From this, anyone may also gather that it is a grave error to falsely attribute to adversaries [i.e., demons] all such things—especially to fear devils excessively and to shun them most vehemently—since these are counted, among other signs, as marks of a true demoniac in the Exorcism Manual, part 1, instruction 2. For in all these things Satan himself both delights and most frequently employs them in his most sacred rites, and he desires nothing more than that people become ever more confirmed in a superstitious belief about such matters. 

CHAPTER TEN

Uncertainty of Exorcisms on the part of the Exorcist. 

Likewise, on the part of the Exorcised. 

No Clear Signs of Possession. 

1. Even if the Pontifical exorcisms were to be further removed from Sorcery, they are no less to be rejected: for in them everything is uncertain and doubtful. Although they, indeed, require true and living faith in the Exorcists to carry out their work, yet they can never have it because they cannot be certain of the certainty of faith, or that the power over demons is conferred by Episcopal ordination, since there is profound silence about it in the Scriptures; or that they were really lawfully ordained to it. Bellarmine teaches this in book 3, On Just., chapter 8: “that no one can be certain with the certainty of faith that he has received any Sacrament.” In the Manual often cited, instruction 4, it is prescribed to Exorcists that they should only use certain relics approved by the Ordinary, but none are certain in the Roman Church. For the proposition that relics are to be esteemed and adored is not of faith because fraud and supposition can always be involved, as the Augustinian monk, Puteanus, demonstrates more fully in 3 Thomas quaest. 25, art. 6, dubit. 2. 

2. On the other hand, there is still greater uncertainty regarding that which is seen. In the past, having been gifted with extraordinary Charisma, the faithful were powerful in casting out demons, and they were also endowed with the supernatural faculty of discerning spirits, of which Paul speaks in Cor. 12:10, by which they distinguished those truly possessed from others. Now, however, the priests often conjure up a demon where there is none, since they have no certain characteristic of the true nature of the seizures. There are various signs in the Manual by which they can be distinguished, but as is stated in the appendix to Inst. 2, since these are of a threefold kind, some of which only give rise to a slight suspicion, others to a more vehement conjecture, and the third to some certainty, none are presented which [guarantee in] full faith that there is a devil there or even if there is a need for exorcism. 

3. They seem to have nothing more certain [of demon-possession] than when someone immediately speaks foreign languages that he has never learned before. But Dutch physician and author, Levinus Lemnius, (whom I bring up here even more willingly because Exorcists should listen to the judgment of physicians in these matters, according to the prescription of the Manual). In book 2, On Occult Natural Wonders, Chapter 2, it endeavors to prove that Melancholics, Maniacs, and the Delirious, as well as those who are struck with madness for some other reason, sometimes speak a foreign language that they have not learned and yet are not demoniacs. And that learned Spaniard, the author of the book entitled, Examining the Ingenious, cited above, subscribes to the same opinion, Chapter 4 of his work, and from it he concludes the harmony of the Latin language with the rational soul. 

4. We are not among those who deny the existence of demon-possessed, even in our day. Nor do we agree with the revelations of St. Hildegard who said demons do not enter the body of those who are not possessed. But first, we reject as inappropriate that which is narrated in the Exorcism Manual about the entry and exit of demons; such as: they enter bodies in the manner of winds, or in the form of a mouse or other small animal, or in the likeness of cold water poured down the back, etc., and that they sometimes exit through the mouth in the manner of a flame of fire, sometimes in the form of bees or ants, sometimes through the nostrils, in the form of a drop of blood, sometimes through the ears, sometimes through a secluded place in the likeness of a ball that is rolled around, etc., so it is not surprising they report that St. Martin once managed to get the demon cast out through the back of the possessed person. Then there is the case of the Cologne friar mentioned by German Dominican theologian and expert in demonology, Johannes Nider, as cited by Delrio in book 6, chapter 2, section 3, question 3, acted unwisely by jestingly expelling the demon from himself and sending it into his own latrine; for when, at night, he had to relieve himself near the latrine, he met the demon, who tormented him terribly. These things would provoke laughter if they did not obscure the glory of God. 

5. Secondly, we think there is no certain proofs in the Manual from which it is sufficiently clear that this or that person is demon-possessed, and therefore, it is rather a matter of Christian Charity to consider someone as being afflicted by a natural disease rather than being possessed by a demon. He would certainly sin against his neighbor should one immediately attribute a melancholic disease to the devil rather than to the temperament of the afflicted person; although I would not deny that evil spirits often meddle with this temperament in particular. Finally, we think that demon possession is now much rarer than it was in the time of the nascent Church; because Christ no longer wants miracles to continue among His own, so He minimizes Satan’s attacks so that the remedy would be less readily available. Also, because the kingdom of darkness has been scattered everywhere by the light of truth, so that demons are not permitted as much under the light of the Gospel as they were when under the idolatry of paganism. Finally, demons fear this spiritual light the most and flee from it; Hence, by the grace of God, the demon-possessed are rarely seen among us, though they frequently either are, or are pretended to be, among the Papists.  

6. Finally, and most importantly, we rightly detest those exorcisms as idolatrous; not only ultimately, since they are instituted as a support for superstition and idolatry, but also formally, in that they exorcise or adjure the devil not only by the name of God, but also by the sacraments, by the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, by the invocation of the holy angels, and by the invocation of God’s saints, as various exorcism formulas exist under these headings in the Exorcism Manual, part 2. Whoever wishes to compare these with the magical conjurations found in the Magical Elements of Peter of Abano, [considered the greatest Sorcerer of his time], as well as in Arbatel de magia veterum [‘On the Magic of the Ancients’] and in the Ars Notoria [A Medieval Treatise on Angelic Magic and the Art of Memory], will find little difference between the two. 

7. Now, moreover, it is not only wrong to adjure a demon by way of supplication or inducement out of reverence for some sacred thing, as Thomas testifies (Summa Theologica II-II, q. 90, art. 1), who in that same place acknowledges it to be necromantic. We do not see in what way the Roman exorcists are different from this (for if they say they act by way of compulsion, the sorcerers will say the same of their own conjurations by sacred things; to this belong the points Agrippa makes about the bonds of spirits and their adjurations and banishments, in book 3 of Occult Philosophy, chapter 33). But furthermore, we neither read in Scripture nor deem it lawful for anyone to adjure by any name other than the Divine; for just as it is permitted to swear only by the name of God—wherefore the Scholastics also refer an oath, among other things, to the worship of latria, which they hold to be owed to God alone (see Thomas, II-II, q. 89, art. 4)—so too it is permitted to adjure only by the name of God. 

8. Thus, Eleazar the Jew also wove the name of Solomon into his exorcisms; and Kabbalists and sorcerers joined the names of angels and intelligent beings to God in their conjurations. From all these things the exorcisms of the ancient Christians were far removed, for they did not make exorcism an art, but recognized it as an extraordinary charisma. There was nothing superstitious in them; nothing was done except by the one name and authority of God. The saints were honored for the sake of imitation, not worshiped as religious icons. What Augustine laid down in On True Religion, last chapter, must be observed. The one God was invoked through the one Mediator, Christ, whom Augustine likewise introduces as speaking thus: “There is no way to go except to me, there is no way to go except through me,” Tractate 22 on John. Such also were those ancient Exorcists compared to our present ones, as was amply shown at the beginning of this little work. And since, as even the Romanists admit, demons often lie to Exorcists today, it must be acknowledged that they have nothing in common with the ancients; for, as Lactantius testifies, book 2, chapter 16, formerly demons could neither lie to God, by whom they were adjured, nor to the righteous ones by whose voice they were tormented. 

CHAPTER ELEVEN 

Exorcisms of those Bewitched. 

 Incubi [male demons] and Succubi [female demons]. 

 Nightmares (Ephialtes). 

 Exorcisms of this sort are rightly rejected for various reasons; as well as those performed for the sake of people who have given their written pact or consecrated Host to the Demon. 

1. The same arguments that destroy the papal exorcisms of the possessed likewise overturn those which are used for another class of persons, namely the bewitched; that is, those afflicted by some extraordinary illness through sorcery, or prevented from performing marital duties by means of bindings, or enchanted into love for someone else by philtres [love potions] or subject to succubus or incubus demons—such as are most of the exorcisms found in the third part of the Exorcism Manual. If, in all these cases, Satan proves more stubborn and refuses to yield (for rarely is the desired result achieved, if the matter is conducted seriously), the Exorcist puts on the finishing comedic touch with this protestation—which also holds a place in the exorcisms for ending possession (so it is remarkable that Protestations are made against the devil, for whom the very name Protestant is so hateful): “Since you proud and accursed demons do not desist from tormenting this creature of God at the invocation of the Divine name, do not think you will go unpunished, for fire, hail, snow, ice, and stormy winds shall be part of your cup.” This can be found in the Manual, part 2, page 205. There are also, in the same place, consolations to be given to the afflicted when they are not delivered, instruction 7, part I. 

2. Indeed, to know with certainty if any disease arises from Sorcery (although we do not wish to be infected with such diseases) is, if not absolutely impossible, at least very difficult, so much so that from all the signs proposed in the Manual, instr. 3, part 1, nothing is to be had except moral certainty, that is, if it is permissible to say [in truth], merely probable, as well as bare conjecture. Nor if the cause of the disease is hidden from the Physicians, or they think there is something in the disease beyond nature, from this it necessarily follows that the disease is from Sorcery, or not immediately from God. Bindings likewise are not always due to Sorcery; they are often from either the hidden antipathy of the spouses and dissimilarity of temperament, or from an imagined fault of the injured party; so much so that Michel de Montaigne, the noble French writer, in book 1, chapter 20, establishes no other origin for all those bindings. How often Erotic fury is attributed to philtres and evil arts by the unskilled, although it has no other [powerful] charm than natural, either given or received by the eyes: “You saw it all.” 

3. So many absurdities are told about incubi and succubi that, not without reason, the Exorcism Manual, part 3, page 262, says that one should not readily give credence to everything of this sort. For what could be more absurd than the claim that humans can be born from them, as Delrio discusses in book 2, question 15, or than what he likewise asserts there—that a succubus demon can infuse male semen into the womb of a sleeping virgin in such a way that, though she remains a virgin in body and mind, she nevertheless conceives? This paradox not only provides young women, already pregnant, with reasons to nevertheless claim the praise of chastity and virginity but also gives arguments to the enemies of the Christian religion by which they may ridicule and slander the miraculous birth of Christ from a Virgin Mother. And who does not know that ‘Ephialtes’ [nightmares] are a natural illness, which the common people are accustomed to take for a succubus or incubus demon? Nor did Ulrich Molitor, [a lawyer and professor of the University of Constance who wrote extensively about witchcraft] attribute such succubation or incubation simply to a demon, but rather to some poisoner making use of magic arts, in his book, On Witches and Sorceresses, chapter 6, as cited by Pierre Grégoire in his commentary on book 7, Syntaxes artis mirabilis, chapter 16, where he reports that “Blessed Bernard expelled an incubus demon from a certain woman and excommunicated it with burning candles;” for to excommunicate the demon itself would be absurd, as it would mean excommunicating someone who does not know what excommunication is. 

4. But we reject the papal exorcisms as all are cases of Sorcery, not only because they are magical, superstitious, idolatrous, and uncertain—for by them it is even claimed, if the gods will, that, absent Sorcerers, the possessed are tormented terribly through some reaction of demons against them,  and because they are often used in cases of purely natural illnesses, or at least in cases where it is not certain that sorcery is involved, and are also often applied in vain—but also for the following reasons. First, such Exorcisms lack all testimony and practice from antiquity: miraculous healing of diseases should not be performed by conversations with the demon, but by prayers to God. Indeed, we sometimes read of exorcisms for the possessed; but never for those bewitched. And Roman jurist Ulpian testifies that it is the work of impostors to wish to cure any diseases by “exorcisms and incantations” (Digest, On Extraordinary Cognition, law 1). 

5. Furthermore, Christians are thus improperly accustomed to look to the devil in their illnesses, and to consider by what means he might be compelled, rather than fleeing to God, the supreme Physician; which by so doing at the least indirectly involves the worship of Satan himself. Moreover, such Exorcisms serve to summon the demon, though absent, or they presuppose his presence in those bewitched or sick; although a clear distinction ought to be made between the possessed and the bewitched. And since Satan usually inflicts illnesses through natural causes, by applying active agents to passive subjects, it is not necessary always to imagine him as actually present to torment the sick. 

Even the Exorcists themselves lack confidence in their spiritual remedies, since they also prescribe that natural remedies should be applied for those bewitched (see Exorcism Manual, part 1, instruction 3). And although the Manual wishes the Exorcist to leave such things to the Physician, yet those itinerant practitioners who perform exorcisms are accustomed to offer their own medicines to the sick—medicines which have first been enchanted and exorcised—so that by every means they may fleece credulous peasants of their money, for wiser people scarcely trust them either as Exorcists or as Physicians. 

6. And indeed, if those illnesses cannot be cured by natural remedies, there is no reason to insist on additionally applying supernatural means to them; but if they can be healed naturally, there is no reason to resort to supernatural means, the use of which God has neither commanded nor promised success. Whoever seeks miracles when natural help is available is tempting God. Although the Manual denies that anything natural can prevail against the demon in cases of witchcraft, yet the more learned Physicians hold the contrary, to whom [Franciscan theologian], Richard of Middleton among the Scholastics also agrees, who, as Delrio admits (book 6, chapter 2, section 2, question 3), thinks that “witchcraft can sometimes be completely overcome by natural remedies.” And indeed, many natural remedies for witchcraft have been recorded even by Pierre Grégoire, the jurist, in his Syntagma Juris, book 34, chapter 22, n. 9 and following. 

7. But if, moreover, the reasoning of Grillandi holds (question 2, On Sorcery, no. 4), by which he claims that sorcery can only be removed by the art of the demon, because “there is nothing so natural, as that everything is dissolved [only] by the same means by which it is bound” (On the Rules of Law), it would follow that exorcisms are, therefore, used in cases of sorcery in order that Satan may be compelled to undo what he himself has bound. Whether this is not indirectly to invoke his help “so that he is thought to benefit when he ceases to harm,” as Lactantius says (book 1, chapter 16)—let the pious judge. 

8. Finally, since not only do the adversaries maintain that it is unlawful to cure sorcery by sorcery, as found in Delrio, book 6, chapter 2, section 1, question 2, but also: (1) [It is unlawful] to attempt this by “superstitious and vain things,” although, as Delrio admits, many Canonists and Papist Theologians have held otherwise; (2) [It is unlawful] to ask a willing sorcerer to remove sorcery by means of more sorcery, although theologian Petrus Aureoli (in Sentences 2, dist. 34, question 2) and Franciscan Apostolic Nuncio Angelus de Clavasio (Maleficium, no. 13) think this permissible; (3) To seek help from sorcerers by force or even by prayers—as Delrio argues at length against Remigius—unless there is probable reason to believe that it can be done in some licit way; (4) According to Flemish theologian Jean Hessels of Louvain (although Delrio objects in question 3), [that it is lawful] “to destroy the signs of sorcery so that the devil may cease to harm”—how can they lawfully persuade or compel the devil by their exorcisms to heal those bewitched, when they must convince themselves by no probable evidence that Satan would remove the sorcery in a lawful manner, or that he would not do so by destroying the sign by whose agreement he had worked? 

9. The third kind of persons for whose sake exorcisms are used are those who have handed over a written pact to the devil by which they bind themselves to him, or even the Eucharist itself, so that the demon might be compelled to restore it. There is an “Exorcism necessary for the pact” in part 2 of the Manual, page 206, and for retrieving the Eucharist on page 210 of the same. In these cases, besides the vanities already noted above, two things in particular should be observed. First, the devil cannot be compelled to restore either the Eucharist or the written pact without being summoned by exorcisms when he was not currently present. This is clearly magical and necromantic. Nor can this rite be permitted, even out of a sincere desire for the return for that written pact; for inducing repentance before God, true faith and penitence of the sinner are sufficient—without which, even if the pact is returned, the person remains nonetheless bound. 

10. Secondly, it rightly seems astonishing to us that the consecrated Host—that is, according to the presupposition of the Papists, Christ himself—can be so handed over to the devil that it can only be recovered with difficulty and through the torments and assaults of exorcisms. Can Christ, the King of Glory, now come into the power of the devil, and be carried down to hell by this new “Christ-bearer”? Does he need the exorcisms of men in order to rescue himself from Satan? What then would happen to him if Satan were not compelled to restore Him by exorcisms? Why, then, does the Manual, in instruction 2 of part 1, list among the signs of possession that “they [demons] cannot bear the presence of sacred things, especially the sacrifice of the Mass,” or why does Delrio, in book 6, chapter 2, section 3, question 2, count the ‘Venerable Eucharist’ among the most certain spiritual remedies against the devil—when not only can the devil bear its presence, but even take it away, and thus give the Papists occasion to make a complaint against him similar to that which Laban made about Jacob in Genesis 31:30: “Why have you stolen my gods?” It is folly, as Cornelius a Lapide, the Jesuit, truly says on that passage, “to call them gods who cannot protect themselves from thieves.” Is therefore he to be called God who cannot protect himself from the devil? 

11. We conclude, therefore, that all these exorcisms for the possessed, the bewitched, and the like, are vain and wicked; and those who implore their help in any way [other than through God] are no less guilty than if they had resorted to a Sorceress; and therefore, no other supernatural remedy is now permitted in such cases than that which Christ commends to us in the Gospel, namely Fasting and Prayer: Let the afflicted pray; let their parents, friends, or relatives pray; let the whole Church also pray extraordinarily and with solemn fasting if something very extraordinary emerges to obtain liberation and healing from God. Let God alone be approached, who will be able to bring the necessary help wherever and whenever He wishes. Let all intercourse, all conversation with Satan be avoided. It is better to pray to God than to command the Devil. There are various dangers and often harmful conversations to be had with the enemy. However, there is a safe path, certain and level with God who will always give either what we ask for, or even better, and will free us from evil. 

CHAPTER TWELVE 

The exorcism of a schismatic or heretic who is being reconciled is also performed in vain, if lacking right reason or even a proper way of life.

1. We have explained the exorcisms of persons used by the Roman religion, both ordinary and extraordinary, such as are prescribed in the Ritual and are collected from the Exorcism Manual: to them could be added the Pontifical folio 212. Exorcism is usually used to reconcile an Apostate, Schismatic or Heretic, which is an offshoot and propagator of Anabaptism and Novatianism, since exorcism is an appendix to Baptism among them; especially since by this reconciling exorcism the ‘sign of Christianity’ is said to be restored, “which he had not kept before when received, but had denied, being badly deceived.” In what way this agrees with the indelible Character [mark] impressed by Baptism, from which they wish to depend on its irretrievability [as stated] in Bellarmine’s book 2, De Sacram. chap. 18, ff., let them see. 

2. Indeed, it was established by the ancients that the lapsed, after repentance, should be received back, despite whatever the Cataphrygians and Novatians may have taught. This can also be clearly seen in Baronius for the years 254 and 255. They were received in no other way than by the laying on of hands alone, especially in the Western Church, as is evident from Gregory, book 9, Epistle 61, and as Bellarmine acknowledges in his work, On the Sacrament of Confirmation, chapter 7. Gratian discusses this reconciliatory laying on of hands in the canon ‘Arianos’ and the canon ‘Manus,’ cause 1, question 1, and Augustine asserts in book 3, On Baptism, chapter 16, that this laying on of hands can be repeated, but not Baptism, and that it is nothing other than a prayer over the person. 

3. But what does that action have in common with exorcism? And why is exorcism applied in the reconciliation of Apostates, Heretics, or Schismatics rather than of other penitents? Especially that which is performed at the Lord’s Supper, the rite of which is described in the Pontifical, folio 254 ff. For what could be more absurd than to count all Apostates, Heretics, or Schismatics among the demon-possessed, or to consider all these as being ensnared and enslaved by the Devil’s snares in the same place and in the same way? 

4. Furthermore, it remains for us to briefly consider the exorcisms of things as practiced among the Romanists, both ordinary and extraordinary. And here, right from the outset, we encounter the intolerable absurdity by which they claim to exorcise salt, water, oil, chrism, storms, locusts, milk, lettuce, houses, butter, and what not: but since all these lack understanding and reason, they are exorcised or adjured in vain and only superstitiously. They themselves have seen this absurdity, as is gathered from Thomas [Aquinas] 2.2, q. 90, art. 3, and Gretser, On Benedictions, book 2, chapter 7. The explanations they have devised to cover up this sore are equally absurd and mutually contradictory. 

5. Thomas says that it is indeed vain to adjure irrational creatures, but that they can be adjured in the manner either of supplication, which is directed to God, or of compulsion, which pertains to the devil; Gretser brings forward nothing different. But this exception cannot be applied here. For, first, both the supplicatory and imperative modes cannot be joined together at the same time in one and the same exorcism, as when someone says, “I exorcise you, creature of salt, water, oil, butter, by the living God,” etc., both beseeching God to bless these creatures by expelling the snares of evil spirits from them, while at the same time commanding the devil to cease causing harm to mortals through them. For in this way it would be imagined that a man addresses both God and the devil with the same words; which is ridiculous and absurd. 

6. Next, neither of these methods can be applied separately to exorcisms: Not the first; for whoever says “I exorcise you, creature of salt or butter, by the living God,” is not addressing God but rather the salt or butter; and if exorcising is the same as invoking God, then the Exorcist would have to invoke God, not by speaking to Him, but rather to the inanimate creature; likewise, God would be invoked through God Himself. And since to adjure or exorcise means “to bind someone by an oath owed to God to do or refrain from something,” it certainly cannot be said without blasphemy that God can be adjured or exorcised by a human. The very definition of adjuration found in Thomas Aquinas’s axiom in question 90, article 2, paragraph 2, confirms what I say: “To adjure,” he says, “is nothing other than to compel some creature, through the intervention of the divine name or some other sacred thing, to do or omit something.” Therefore, only creatures can properly be adjured, not the Creator; and although one may swear by God in court, in justice and truth, it is not permitted to adjure Him. To assert otherwise would require a perverse theology and a new grammar that would change the usual meanings of words. 

7. There is no difference if these exorcisms “are referred to the devil so that he may leave this or that thing,” as Gretser says, “because of his harm to mortals.” The Exorcist ought to address the evil spirit itself, not salt, not water, not butter: just as in the exorcisms of the possessed, he does not confront the man who is tormented and suffers from the devil, but the devil himself who afflicts and vexes him. It would then be assumed that those creatures—salt, water, oil—are held and besieged by evil spirits, whom the exorcist approaches to confront and compel as if present, which all see as reviving Manichaeism from the underworld.  

8. There is no reason for anyone to say, as Suarez does in volume 2, De Religione, book 4, chapter 2, n. 4, that an adjuration through commands can be effective “when directed toward irrational creatures, as Christ commanded the winds and the sea in Matthew 8:26, and they obeyed, not morally, but seemingly physically.” However, this was primarily a divine power in Christ that restrained the winds and the sea, which the Roman Priests and Bishops do not dare to arrogate to themselves. Nor did Christ address the sea and winds as if they could understand Him, but so that the Apostles might understand the astonishing miracle He intended to perform on the wind and sea. Furthermore, Christ commanded the sea whose agitation He wished to cease, just as one could command a tree or mountain, who, endowed with faith in miracles, would say to it, “Move from here and go into the sea.” But since our Exorcists neither wish nor can cease the natural actions of these creatures or impose extraordinary movements upon them, it would be futile to think they could directly command them through such exorcisms. 

9. What if those exorcisms are no longer either prayers of supplication to God or compulsions directed at the Devil, as Thomas and Gretser suspected, when they are aimed directly at the creatures themselves by way of command? We do not deny that the Psalmist and other Prophets often address inanimate creatures, as in Isaiah 1:2, Psalm 148:2, and many other places; but everyone knows that such symbols and personifications are meant to express and convey the intensity of the Prophet’s feelings and are not to be understood literally or strictly. However, such figures of speech found in the Prophets cannot be compared to these exorcisms because those figures of speech are integrated continuously into the flow of some longer discourse, whereas these exorcisms are pronounced abruptly and plainly, outside of any extended speech. 

10. Indeed, creatures that we are to use and that require blessing and sanctification so that they do no harm need these things. However, the blessing and sanctification of God’s creatures is not accomplished through exorcisms or incantations murmured over them, but solely through the word of God and prayer, as testified by Paul in 1 Timothy 4:5, where Cornelius à Lapide believes there is a ‘hendiadys,’ meaning these two—word and prayer—are one and the same. But even if they are distinct, since prayer is directed solely to God, the word of God is not to be understood as an exorcism pronounced over food by name; rather, as Thomas holds, it is either Christ himself or the sacred doctrine of the Gospel, which, when embraced in faith, assures us that we are secure in these matters concerning ourselves, as stated in 1 Corinthians 3:22. 

11. Gretser said, “Exorcism itself is also considered a blessing and sanctification of the creature; so that if, by chance, the devil was to cause us harm through its use, he would be compelled to leave by the mechanism of exorcism or adjuration.” First of all, even if a demon is known to be present and must be driven away, it should not be adjured where it is not, lest it come. Exorcism should be a therapeutic remedy against an evil that already exists, not a preventative measure against what might be feared. Moreover, when something can be done just as well with fewer words, it is pointless to perform exorcisms for sanctification when it is effectively accomplished through prayers offered to God. Cornelius à Lapide acknowledges “that we ask by the same blessing and prayer that food not be contaminated by the devil or magical power.” 

12. Moreover, since Delrio, in book 6, Inves. into Magic, chapter 3, after praising [Apollo] Thyræus, states that the words of an exorcism should be directed either to God, the Saints, or to the demon, and asserts this division as sufficient, finding nothing lacking, it follows that those exorcisms whose words are directed neither to God, nor to the Saints, nor to the demon, but to things deprived of sense or at least reason, should be expunged from the list of lawful exorcisms—unless they can demonstrate that one has received power from God to impress some supernatural and extraordinary force upon those things by their words. 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN 

Exorcisms are performed on the salt at Baptism and on the water of the font. 

1. But lest we seem to be content with this general refutation, let us say something about each of these exorcisms individually. There are four which are ordinarily exorcised among the Pontiffs: Salt, Water, Oil, Chrism. Salt has a multiple exorcism, but especially that which they place on the mouth of the infant to be baptized, the formula of which is found in the Rituale Romanum, On the Baptism of the Child. The child is exorcised with various crosses frequently repeated, so that it may be made “a salutary Sacrament to drive away the enemy.”

2. Whether salt should be placed on the mouths of those to be baptized is no longer openly debated; it suffices that neither has God prescribed this rite, nor has more reliable Antiquity recognized it.¹⁰ Bellarmine indeed derives this from Origen’s Homily 6 on Ezekiel, Augustine’s book 1, Contra Faustum, chapter 11, and the Third Council of Carthage, canon 5. However, Vasquez, the Jesuit, in [French Protestant] Daniel Chamier’s Catholica Panstratia, volume 4, book 5, chapter 16, number 31, acknowledges that Origen and Augustine do not address this issue and speak instead about the salt of divine grace, as anyone reading the passages cited by Bellarmine will see. The Third Council of Carthage, according to the same interpreter Vasquez, seems to have introduced some kind of consecrated salt in place of the blessed bread, which under the name of the Sacrament was formerly given to catechumens as the Eucharist. I suspect that either ‘usual salt’ there mystically denotes the customary institutions of the divine word, or that the passage is a forgery, since nothing of this kind is found in the African Church’s Code of Canons. Be that as it may, the words of the canon do not support Bellarmine, which read as follows: “It was also decided that during the most solemn days of Easter the Sacrament of the Catechumens should not be given, except the usual salt, because if the faithful do not change the Sacraments during those days, neither should the Catechumens be changed:” The motto of the Canon in Carranza is this, “That the Sacrament of the Catechumens should not be given.” There is no Oedipus who can draw these very obscure things to the salt of the Pontiffs of today. 

3. But setting aside that question, I maintain that the exorcism of this salt is superstitious, not only for the general reasons presented so far, but also because it does not concern protecting against the harm of the devil; rather, it is about conferring a certain supernatural power and efficacy so that “the holy Sacrament may serve to drive away the enemy, and remain a perfect and lasting medicine within the bowels of all who receive it.” The Pontiffs have thus far proposed seven Sacraments to us; now they add an eighth from their Rituale: consecrated salt. And since all Sacraments depend on divine institution, who could claim this salt becomes a “Sacrament and perfect medicine” when it was never instituted for such use by the Lord? It is no wonder that many Roman sacrificers are extremely thirsty, who carry that false medicine persistently in their bowels.  

4. Similarly, we can establish another exorcism of salt prepared as usual with holy water. This is found in the Roman Ritual, chapter, On Blessings, and in the Exorcism Manual, part 3, p. 338. It is again found in the Ritual when speaking of the blessing of the sign or nail, as well as in the Pontificale Romanum, part 2, for the imposition of the cornerstone for church buildings, folio 107; likewise for the consecration of a church, folio 117; also for the blessing of cemeteries, ibid., folio 158; and for the blessing of the sign or bell, folio 177. Whenever holy water is made or a bell is baptized (for thus the Pontiffs themselves have not infrequently spoken, and indeed, the parents of the baptized choose the bell, give it a name, sprinkle it with holy water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and through this baptism a marvelous power is granted against demons and storms),¹¹ or when the cornerstone is laid for building a church, or a cemetery is blessed, the salt is exorcised, “so that the salt may be exorcised for the salvation of the faithful, and that to all who take it, it may be health of soul and body, and that all evil thoughts may flee and depart from the place where it has been sprinkled,” etc. 

5. When the Church is dedicated and consecrated, the Bishop blesses the salt with an exorcism, saying, “That you may be sanctified for the consecration of this Church and altar, to drive away all the temptations of demons, and to be for all who take of you a safeguard for soul and body, a healing, protection, and confirmation of salvation,” etc. I would have to recount much filth if I were to discuss those Pontifical consecrations or rather execrations of Temples, Cemeteries, and Bells; for they easily exhaust the entire pharmacopeia of Theocritus’ apothecary, and all the whispers of the Zoroastrians. A detailed examination of the preparation of the holy water itself, the commentary of Pope Alexander I, partly Mosaic, partly Heathen and Magical, is beyond the scope of this place; see instead [Swiss Protestant theologian] Rudolph Hospinian, book 2, On Temples, chapter 13. It will suffice now to examine the exorcisms of the salt and water themselves. 

6. First, we do not see why the exorcism of salt in the consecration of a church should differ from others. Second, these exorcisms of salt cannot pertain to its blessing, since in the Manual, part 3, page 341, there is a solemn blessing of salt that has no accompanying exorcism: “How much a blessing differs from an exorcism, even children know,” says Delrio, book 6, chapter 3.  However, Gretser used to perform this. Thus, it is agreed upon among these Cadmean brothers. Third, these exorcisms are not intended to ward off the harmful effects of the devil from the salt, but rather to confer an intrinsic and supernatural power of protection, and this without any divine command or promise. Fourth, Exorcised salt was plainly unknown to the ancients; nor is it without blasphemy that it is exorcised “for the salvation of believers and to serve in driving away demons,” and is called “the health and safeguard of soul and body, the protection and confirmation of salvation.” These praises are attributed to salt which properly belong only to the blood of Christ, the word of God, and the sacraments instituted by the Lord. 

7. There are, indeed, powers that certain exorcised salts are assigned, by those who wish to extol the efficacy and power of spells and magical murmurs more greatly after [Roman philosopher] Apuleius and [German occultist] Cornelius Agrippa, from his book, On Occult Philosophy, book 1, chapter 72. And since Delrio, in his book 6, chapter 11, section 1, question 1, affirms the sprinkling of profane salt as recommended by [Bishop of Reims] St. Remigius “for the dissolution of evil,” he asserts it to be vain and superstitious, nor does he think salt to be so detested by the demon as commonly supposed; and in book 2, question 12, number 6, he does not doubt that the devil can, if he wishes, set before his guests bread and salt and sumptuous foods. Now let them see whether the exorcism of salt flows so that it more effectively hinders the devil’s wickedness, which is contrary to that vain opinion that the devil cannot bear salt and that his banquets always lack salt. 

8. Indeed, Delrio himself, in book 6, chapter 3, was ashamed of this exorcised salt; for defending that exorcism he asserts only the formula of blessing, and uses no other argument to prove that it is lawful to exorcise creatures except that it is lawful to bless them; forgetful of what he shortly after adds, namely that Johann Godelmann [German jurist who specialized in demonology] states that “Pontifical words exorcise; “ yet the Jesuit Delrio says, “we only bless them, which children also know to be very different from exorcism.” If blessing differs so much from exorcising, what consequence can there be from a lawful blessing to a lawful exorcism? 

9. Not only is exorcism of salt unbiblical, but so, too, is exorcism of water when holy water is [allegedly] made to consecrate a new temple or baptized person, etc., but also in the blessing of baptismal fonts, as can be seen in the Roman Ritual, On the Sacrament of Baptism. But here again there is some difference: In the baptistery, many exorcisms are performed with crosses and grand words, such as “that the water may become holy water, blessed water, water which washes away filth and cleanses sins.” Then the Exorcist commands “every unclean spirit, every phantom, and every lie to be uprooted and driven away from this creature of water,” etc. 

10. I ask, how absurd is this? The Pontiffs establish the form of baptism, from which it derives its essence, to be the sacramental words, “I baptize you,” etc., as can be seen in Bellarmine’s On the Sacrament of Baptism, chapter 3. And in a certain sense that trite saying of Augustine seems to apply: “Add a word to the element, and it becomes a Sacrament.” Yet if we believe in this exorcism, baptism itself effectuates it, not by the sacramental word, since through it the water of the baptistery becomes water “which washes away filth and cleanses sins.” It must also be that every unclean spirit, every phantom, every lie is in the water, since it is commanded not only that they do not come to the water but also that they be uprooted and flee from the water. Let no one henceforth marvel that priests and monks shudder so much at drinking water as if it were infected, since there is the danger of imbibing a demon who, of course, would not dare to immerse himself so in wine. 

11. Then are the distinctions of demons by Psellus, Porphyry, Agrippa, Trithemius—such as some being aerial, others subterranean, others fiery, others watery—uncertain and lacking any foundation, who supposedly have perpetual dwellings in those elements? Or are they not rather vain and ridiculous as that of Rabbinic times whose origins they observe so diligently, so that at those moments they believe all demons can exercise tyranny in water, and even one who drinks a little water will necessarily contract dropsy or another serious disease through the harm of demons? Why then is water for baptism to be exorcised rather than the bread and wine of the Eucharist when in these there is so much more need to beware of the harm of demons, insofar as it is the purpose of priests to effect the work of Transubstantiation? 

12. William Durand, Bishop of Mende, who wrote Rational for the Divine Offices, says in book 6, chap. 7, n. 22, that it is lawful for fish to be eaten during fasts, not meat, because “God did not curse the waters, since through water of baptism the remission of sins was to come, but he cursed the earth.” If God did not curse the waters, why then is there need for so much effort in exorcising the water to drive out and wrench the devil adhering to it so that it may be fit for baptism, since it has never been subjected to divine curse, nor does it seem to be subject to the power of Satan? It would seem better that bread and wine for the Eucharist be purified by exorcisms, since these creatures are earthly and consequently less pure and more exposed to both God’s curse and the harm of demons. 

13. When holy water is made, the water is exorcised so that it becomes “exorcised water to drive away all power of the enemy and to be able to uproot and destroy the enemy himself,” as stated in both the Roman Ritual and Exorcism Manuel. The same exorcism is used in the blessing of the sign [of the cross], both in the Ritual and in the Pontifical, as well as in the blessing of the Cemetery and the first stone of the Church. But it varies in the dedication of a new Church: for it is exorcised so that “it may repel the devil from the boundary of the righteous, so that he may not be in the shadows of this Church’s altar.” 

14. But if exorcised water drives away all power of the enemy, what then is the use of other remedies against Satan? Or will this power also extend, contrary to the saying of Christ, to that kind of demons which are not cast out except by prayer and fasting? And whence comes this efficacy of exorcised water? Not from nature; for sensible things do not act upon demons; nor is Pierre Grégoire to be heeded in his Syntax of Law, attributing a hidden antipathy of many sensible things with demons; not from divine institution which is nowhere read in Scripture. Therefore, all depends on whether there is any such thing as that exorcised water’s power, or rather if there is none at all; and whether the miracles attributed to it for confirmation are to be either given to Satan or should be considered the fantasies and dreams of idle men. Let opponents also consider on what grounds water is to be exorcised so that it may repel the devil from temples and altars, as if driving him out and banishing him from there. Aren’t all those hanging and painted crosses, all those prominent images, and Christ himself, if God pleases, in the Eucharist, not enough? Surely Christ’s seat was in danger causing Him to either abandon it to Satan or share it with him, had not men, through the benefit of exorcised water, claimed the victory? Hence that saying of Tertullian in his Apology, chapter 5, may rightly apply here: “Unless God pleases man, God will not be.” 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN 

Various exorcisms of oil and chrism are performed. 

 Anointings are also variously noted.  

Extraordinary exorcisms of irrational and inanimate things. 

1. Something must also be said about the exorcisms of Oil and Chrism, in which there is nothing sound. For in the Exorcism of simple Oil, in the Ritual, chapter, On Blessings, it is said that from that creature of Oil, “Satan is uprooted and driven away,” as if there is no creature that the devil does not occupy, no liquid in which this fly does not swim. Similar is the exorcism of the Oil of the Sick, Pontificale, part 3, folio 187, which, like the other Chrism, is called by Gretser “the Sacramental blessing of Oil, because it is performed solely by the Bishop,” book 2, On Blessings, chapter 22. This indeed is not exorcised; but the demon in it is commanded to depart from it, so that it may become “a spiritual anointing, to strengthen the temple of the living God;” I do read miraculous anointing, Mark 6:13; James 5:14. “Neither from the words nor from the effect,” says Cajetan, “do these words in that place of James speak of the sacramental anointing of extreme unction;” I do not read an exorcism in Oil: Nor may Heathen Exorcists perform this rite, for this is the right of Bishops in conducting their office. Also, this Oil of the Sick does not heal the sick nor strengthen them, but rather says the last and final farewell to them, whence it is called extreme unction. 

2. It must not be overlooked that whenever our opponents hear the Fathers speaking of the bread of the Eucharist as spiritual food and bread, they dream of transubstantiation; So why then do they not imagine a similar change in that exorcised Oil, since it is intended to become a spiritual anointing? Or is it, according to the mind of the Pontiffs, that this exorcism is to be attributed to the Sacrament of the Church, as a spiritual anointing? I hold the same [negative] opinion about the exorcism of the Oil of Catechumens, commonly so called (which Gretser in book 2, On Blessings, chapter 22, treats the same as the Oil of the Sick) in the Pontificale, ibid., folio 102, by which “the creature of Oil is exorcised, so that from it may be uprooted, driven away, and depart every most wicked power of the adversary, every inveterate malice of the devil, every violent incursion, every confused phantom, so that,” says the Exorcist, “being purified by the divine sacraments, you may become for those to be anointed by you an adoption of flesh and spirit, in remission of all sins, so that their bodies may be sanctified to receive every spiritual grace.” 

3. I do not now dispute the anointing of those to be baptized as used by the Ancients; it was of no necessity, but purely ceremonial, to which no efficacy belonged but a bare signification; to which pertains that of Chrysostom in chapter 2 of Colossians: “The one to be baptized is anointed just like athletes who are about to enter the stadium.” But how is it proven that that Oil must be exorcised by the Bishop? And what are those divine sacraments by which it is purified? What is “the adoption of flesh and spirit,” and how is it effected in that? Indeed, an Oedipus or a Sphinx would be needed to understand these things: Scripture says that we are baptized for the remission of all sins, but it does not say that we are anointed with the Oil of Catechumens; nor is it the merely ceremonial function of this Oil to sanctify our bodies to receive every spiritual grace, since that pertains to Baptism. 

4. Similarly, the exorcism of Chrism Oil, in the same Pontificale, folio 189, is used in consecrating baptisteries, anointing the newly baptized, confirming Christians, and ordaining priests. For that Chrismal Oil of the Pontiffs is oil mixed with balm, as some alchemists call it, which they use as a panacea for all diseases. It would not be appropriate here to examine all these details in depth. I only observe that it is [allegedly] exorcised by Almighty God so that it may become “for all who are to be anointed from it an adoption of sons through the Holy Spirit:” This is absurd, since the sacrament of our adoption as children of God is not Confirmation, but Baptism. 

5. Nor should Cyril of Jerusalem be dragged into these lamentations, who in his Mystagogical Catecheses 2 seems to mention exorcised Oil with which he was anointed when baptized because the more discerning critics declare that these Mystagogical Catecheses were falsely attributed to Cyril, as can be seen in Coccius’s Censura Patrum, page 123, and Rivet’s Critici Sacri, book 3, chapter 10. Moreover, if Cyril did say that oil was exorcised, we should not assume that it was because the ancients had murmured about any exorcism over the oil, but that this oil, after the catechumen or catechized was exorcised—(for it is well known that the ancient catechism was a form of exorcism)— was then applied; and that it was truly the oil now called that of the Catechumens. 

6. Extraordinary exorcisms used by Pontiffs are of various kinds, which exist in the Exorcism Manual, part 3. For just as the Exorcist is a physician for people sick from witchcraft, and a bailiff for debtors because he procures restitution from the demon of promises ill-given to some sick person, so, too, he acts as a veterinarian for horses and beasts afflicted by witchcraft; he purges houses troubled by evil spirits; prepares remedies against the invisible spirits by removing them from milk, butter, cheese, eggs or winged things through incantations. Finally, if you believe him, the Exorcist is like a god who can drive away all evil from you. 

7. In these things, God’s name is taken in vain; His word is profaned when it is improperly applied; idolatry is committed in the invocation of saints, the frequent use of the sign of the cross, the application of relics and the like; a commerce is entered into with the devil and familiarity contracted; superstition is nourished; an occasion is given to Satan to mock mortals. If the power and efficacy of Christian doctrine are denied, many things are attributed to demons which are either immediately from God exercising men, or which have physical and natural causes. Finally, those little men who approach others for exorcism have neither God’s command nor the example of the saints. If someone is afflicted in his goods, let him go to God; if witchcraft subverts food or drink, let him pray to the same. This apparatus of prayer is more certain and safer than all Exorcisms. 

8. But since we have dealt sufficiently with those things which pertain to Witchcraft before, only two things remain to be mentioned here. First, that the Pontificals have in the Manual and in the Pastoral Rural World Part 2, page 221, exorcisms against storms, thunder, lightning and hail, filled with almost infinite superstitions; whether you consider the number and order of the crosses; or the three-form adjuration of the clouds themselves; or the conspiracy of the devil as ruling and stirring them; or the invocation of the four Evangelists for the four parts of the world; or invoking the merits and intercession of the Saints. 

9.  Secondly, they have the same in the same Manual, page 295, an exorcism against all harmful animals, worms, mice, snakes, and any others extraordinarily infecting and corrupting fields or waters. Here not only does the Exorcist adjure the demons to remove these animals, but he also exorcises and adjures the worms themselves to depart immediately; indeed, he commands them to decrease and perish, quite properly for his authority. In the former exorcism no one fails to see the rebirth of the pagan gods who were guardians of hail (χαλαζοφύλακες) about whom I spoke in their place; in the latter shines the folly of the Greeks, who, according to Gretser’s testimony and praise in book 2, On Blessings, chapter 7, have a remarkable exorcism against such little animals attributed to Saint Tryphon [3^rd century martyr who healed animals without fee]. 

10. But let the testimony of Martin Delrio, a Jesuit man, suffice to oppose both. He, therefore, in book 3 of his discourse on Magic, (part 2, chapter 4, section 8, against Felix Malleolus), does not even approve the action of the Bishop of Lausanne who, against poisonous bloodsuckers that infected salmon and other fish, instituted a solemn procession and caused exorcisms composed from sacred Scriptures to be pronounced; and in book 6, (chapter 11, section 1, question 1), he rightly observes “the cloud-diviners, the amulet-makers,” condemned in the Synod of Trullo, canon 61; the former accusing the clouds in an improper ritual so as not to harm, which these also do similarly; the latter exorcised diseases; the third provided amulets. 

11. But specifically in the summary at the end of book 6, warning 11, he argues extensively against the conjurations of clouds and insects, with these main arguments: that the clouds and storms (I say the same of the release of insects) are known by these conjurors to be either from natural causes and from God, and to pronounce an exorcism against the author of nature is blasphemous and sacrilegious; or from witchcraft and the work of demons, in which case they have a pact with Satan. And why is it that he who can bring good clouds must be able to dispel bad ones, yet these men can neither do nor provide anything of the sort; that the threat of excommunication (why not also exorcism) to be wielded against irrational creatures such as worms and other insects is blasphemous and absurd, since they do not understand what is said to them and are born naturally. 

12. Then providing various counsels against these evils he says that one must especially beware not to hold conversations with clouds (and by the same reasoning, not with worms), but that all speech should be, he says, with the Saints and God. I add that since salt, water, oil, when exorcised are said to have a certain sacramental power and exceptional holiness, it would be necessary that insects, lightning, and demons themselves, when exorcised should by equal right derive some holiness in that manner. 

13. Therefore, let these Ephesian names, once used against demons as Plutarch testifies in the Symposiacs, cease among Christians; for no sane person approves of that entire apparatus of exorcisms which are vain, magical and idolatrous. Finally, let all those impostor Exorcists be silent, who from an extraordinary charism have dared to perform the ordinary office in the Church, and should exercise authority over only the demon-possessed, if it has actually been given and accepted by their own ordination, as is evident from Alcuin, [scholar, clergyman, poet, liturgist, and teacher], chapter 34, Amalarius Fortunatus, [Frankish prelate and liturgist], book 1, chapter 9, Isidore, book 2, chapter 13, On Offices, rather than extending their jurisdiction far beyond its limits. If the Apostles and Apostolic men were revived, they would condemn all these Exorcists as teachers of illicit and nefarious arts and order their books of exorcisms to be thrown into the fire, as the Ephesians once did about their own in Acts 19:19. 

END 

1. The following is a translation of pertinent Baronius’ references to Exorcists in the year 56: 
   (1) Of the Sons of Sceva, chief priests in Corinth, who cared for the possessed in the name of Jesus, and of the power of the name of Jesus. — In the year of the Lord 56, when M. Asinius Marcellus and M. Acilius Aviola were consuls, Paul was already in his second year at Ephesus: not only through his preaching but also through a new occasion involving the sons of Sceva, chief priests, who cast out demons in the name of Jesus, there was a great increase in the Christian religion. The event is described by Luke the evangelist with these words: “Some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists attempted to invoke on those who had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying: ‘I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.’ Now there were seven sons of Sceva, a chief priest, who did this. But the evil spirit answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?’ And leaping on them, the man in whom the evil spirit was with great power mastered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. This became known to all Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus; and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.” Thus Luke. Since the men were not unknown Jews but sons of a chief priest acting as exorcists, it can be easily understood that the ministry of expelling demons was a secret tradition handed down from their ancestors and not common to all. 
   (2) The first to teach this to the Hebrews was Solomon, Josephus affirms, who also recorded certain wonderful things about it in writing, saying: God granted Solomon the art to learn against demons for the benefit of mankind and their care. He instilled incantations by which demons, once bound, do not return, but are driven away. And this practice is still recognized among us today. For I saw a certain Eleazar from our people, in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons and tribunes, along with the army, caring for those afflicted by demons, holding to their noses a ring hanging from a seal showing a root attributed to Solomon; then by applying the fragrant root to the nose he drew out the demon, and suddenly the man fell. Afterwards, he adjured the demon not to return again, meanwhile mentioning Solomon and reciting incantations said to have been invented by him. Wishing to satisfy and prove to those present that he possessed this power, Eleazar placed before them either a cup or bowl full of water, and commanded the demon to turn away from the man and show by it that it had left the man. Having done this, the wisdom of Solomon became known to all. This is Josephus, who elsewhere speaks at length about a certain root having marvelous power to drive away demons. However, not only did the Jews use these arts to free bodies possessed by demons; but it was openly held among them that by the power of the Tetragrammaton name, if anyone was allowed to know and pronounce it, he could obtain any such faculty against demons, as Epiphanius testifies—speaking against the Ebionites—when relating the story of Joseph the Jew, who, not yet believing (as we saw the sons of Sceva did), freed a man possessed by a demon in the name of Jesus. Epiphanius says this sign became known to the Jews there, and many rumors followed from those who said: Joseph, with chests opened and the discovered name of God written and read, performed great signs. It was indeed true what they said but not in the way they suspected. This is Epiphanius. 
   (3) Therefore, this was handed down about the ineffable power of the name of God, not unaware were the sons of Sceva, seeing then from Paul and other Christians these same and other miracles performed in the name of Jesus; and they themselves thought it fitting to use the same name to expel demons, as divinely revealed. Justin Martyr, in that most eloquent dispute he had with Trypho, has this on the same subject: For indeed, by the name of that very Son of God, the firstborn of creation, made man and subject to sufferings and passions, crucified and died under Pontius Pilate by your people, who was also raised from the dead and ascended into heaven, every demon adjured is conquered and brought under dominion. But if you adjure by any name of kings or just men or prophets or patriarchs that were yours, no demon is subject to you. Moreover, if any of you adjure by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (for that is Christ), perhaps he may be subjected. Certainly your exorcists or your assistants now use some art, as I said, like the Gentiles in adjurations, and apply incense and bonds. These are Justin’s words. 
   (4) Concerning their exorcisms and their use in the Church. — As for the sons of Sceva (as recorded in the Acts) adjuring demons by the name of Jesus, Origen considered that such adjurations did not come from Christ’s Gospel but rather from the Jewish rite, which Christians also used: thus he says: Someone may ask if it is appropriate to adjure demons. And one who looks at many who have dared to do such things will say it is done not without reason. But he who looks at Jesus not commanding demons but also giving power to his disciples over all demons, and saying that they should heal infirmities, says because he is according to the power given by the Savior to adjure demons: this is Jewish. Although sometimes something like this is done by our own people, it resembles that which demons are accustomed to be adjured by written adjurations of Solomon. But those who use those adjurations themselves sometimes do not use proper books, and some adjure demons with texts taken from Hebrew. Origen deduces this from what he says: Just as a Christian man is not permitted at all by the precept of the Gospel to swear, so neither is it permitted to adjure anyone; just as that proposition is false, so also is the conclusion drawn from it.  ↩︎
2. A quote from Baronius’ paragraph 5: “But since among the signs of believers it is counted that the faithful cast out demons in the name of Jesus, it has been customary for Christians to drive out demons by such adjurations; not only Justin Martyr, whom we recently cited, but also other ancient Fathers affirm this.”  ↩︎
3. https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/exorcist ↩︎
4. “If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only razed, or not imputed; let him be anathema.”  ↩︎
5. Today the Renunciation occurs after Catechism and before Baptism. ↩︎
6. Apostolic Defense Against the Heresies of Our Time: Wherein those points are explained which heretics today (especially Calvin and Beza) have either subtly and impiously corrupted in order to establish their own doctrines or to undermine the dogmas of the Catholic Church. 
   In the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans. 
   By the Author 
   Thomas Stapleton, Englishman, a Doctor of Holy Theology, etc. Professor of Sacred Scripture at the University of Louvain. Published in 1595.  ↩︎
7. https://ccel.org/ccel/erasmus/colloquies1/colloquies1.xxxviii.html ↩︎
8. “When at last many sensible men, recovering, as it were, from profound intoxication, combined against him, especially all the followers of Epicurus, and when in the cities they began gradually to detect all the trickery and buncombe of the show, he issued a promulgation designed to scare them, saying that Pontus was full of atheists and Christians who had the hardihood to utter the vilest abuse of him; these he bade them drive away with stones if they wanted to have the god gracious.”   https://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/lucian/lucian_alexander.htm 
     ↩︎
9. The Manual for Exorcists and Parish Priests asks: “Whether demons can be banished by humans in a holy and lawful manner. The answer is affirmative if the adjuration is done in the proper manner. The conclusion is certain according to faith: for the Church has been accustomed from the beginning to adjure demons, as the Fathers testify.” The Manual continues: “Secondly, it is necessary that the demon be adjured not by asking or kindly requesting, but by commanding, rebuking, and compelling. From these things it is first gathered that it is in no way lawful for anyone to adjure demons with a deprecative adjuration, that is, by beseeching the demon itself to leave the possessed body on account of the name of God; nor even by commanding or beseeching them to show us any kind of obedience or to grant any kind of favor. And the reason why it is not lawful to command is because Christ did not leave the Church power over demons except to drive them away or repel them as enemies so that they do not harm us; which means to withdraw from their company. But to wish to use their service and obedience pertains to a certain pact and association with them. As for why it is not lawful even to beseech them to leave the body, it is evident: because then a benefit is expected to be freely granted by them; which is a certain beginning of a pact and association with them. Also, whatever a demon freely brings upon us, all of it proceeds from its hostile mind against us and even against God himself: for it always aims that the glory of God may be obscured and that we, offending Him, may incur eternal damnation.” Source: Pgs. 193; https://booksofmagick.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Candidi_Brognoli_Manuale_exorcistarum_ac-1651.pdf  ↩︎