But even a good Angel is not said to enter into the soul, although he enlightens it: similarly a superior Angel is not said to enter into an inferior, although he enlightens it; but he works only from the outside, and cooperates in the way we have said. Therefore far less can a bad Angel enter the soul.
And so the devil occupied the body of the priest in three ways. First, as he could enter his body within its physical limits, so he occupied his head by substantially inhabiting it. Secondly, he could extrinsically work upon his reason. And he could have so tormented him without any intermission or respite; but we may say that the priest had this gift from God, that he should not be tormented by the devil without intermission. Thirdly, that although he was deprived of the power of the sane use of words, yet he was always conscious of his words, though not of their meaning. And this differs from the other methods of obsession, for we generally read that those who are possessed are afflicted by devils without intermission; as is clear in the case of the lunatic in the Gospel, whose father said to Jesus: Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is lunatic, and sore vexed (S. Matthew 17); and of the woman whom Satan had crippled for eighteen years, who was bowed together and could in no wise lift herself up (S. Luke 13). And in these ways devils can without doubt at the instance of witches and with God’s permission inflict torments.
Chapter XI
Of the method by which they can inflict every sort of infirmity, generally ills of the graver kind.
But there is no bodily infirmity, not even leprosy or epilepsy, which cannot be caused by witches, with God’s permission. And this is proved by the fact that no sort of infirmity is excepted by the Doctors. For a careful consideration of what has already been written concerning the power of devils and the wickedness of witches will show that this statement offers no difficulty. Nider also deals with this subject both in his Book of Precepts187 and in his Formicarius, where he asks: Whether witches can actually injure men by their witchcraft. And the question makes no exception of any infirmity, however incurable. And he there answers that they can do so, and proceeds to ask in what way and by what means.
And as to the first, he answers, as has been shown in the First Question of the First Part of this treatise. And it is proved also by S. Isidore where he describes the operations of witches (Etymologiae 8, cap. 9), and says that they are called witches on account of the magnitude of their crimes; for they disturb the elements by raising up storms with the help of devils, they confuse the minds of men in the ways already mentioned, by either entirely obstructing or gravely impeding the use of their reason. He adds also that without the use of any poison, but by the mere virulence of their incantations, they can deprive men of their lives.
It is proved also by S. Thomas in the Second Book of Sentences, dist. 7 and 8, and in Book IV, dist. 34, and in general all the Theologians write that witches can with the help of the devil bring harm upon men and their affairs in all the ways in which the devil alone can injure or deceive, namely, in their affairs, their reputation, their body, their reason, and their life; which means that those injuries which are caused by the devil without any witch, can also be caused by a witch; and even more readily so, on account of the greater offence which is given to the Divine Majesty, as has been shown above.
In Job 1 and 2 is found a clear case of the injury in temporal affairs. The injury to reputation is shown in the history of the Blessed Jerome, that the devil transformed himself into the appearance of S. Silvanus, Bishop of Nazareth, a friend of S. Jerome. And this devil approached a noble woman by night in her bed and began first to provoke and entice her with lewd words, and then invited her to perform the sinful act. And when she called out, the devil in the form of the saintly Bishop hid under the woman’s bed, and being sought for and found there, he in lickerish language declared lyingly that he was the Bishop Silvanus. On the morrow therefore, when the devil had disappeared, the holy man was scandalously defamed; but his good name was cleared when the devil confessed at the tomb of S. Jerome that he had done this in an assumed body.
The injury to the body is shown in the case of the Blessed Job, who was stricken by the devil with terrible sores, which are explained as a form of leprosy. And Sigisbert188 and Vincent of Beauvais (Speculum Historiale XXV, 37) both tell that in the time of the Emperor Louis II,189 in the diocese of Mainz, a certain devil began to thrown stones and to beat at the houses as if with a hammer. And then by public statements, and secret insinuations, he spread discord and troubled the minds of many. Then he excited the anger of all against one man, whose lodging, where he was resting, he set on fire, and said that they were all suffering for his sins. So at last that man had to find his lodging in the
