Part 4 (1/2)

We have seen above what Jamblichus informs us concerning apparitions of the G.o.ds, genii, good and bad angels, heroes, and the archontes who preside over the government of the world.

Homer, the most ancient of Greek writers, and the most celebrated theologian of Paganism, relates several apparitions both of G.o.ds and heroes, and also of the dead. In the Odyssey,[77] he represents Ulysses going to consult the sorcerer Tiresias; and this diviner having prepared a grave or trench full of blood to evoke the manes, Ulysses draws his sword to prevent them from coming to drink this blood, for which they thirst; but which they were not allowed to taste before they had answered the questions put to them. They believed also that the souls of the dead could not rest, and that they wandered around their dead bodies so long as the corpse remained uninhumed.

Even after they were interred, food was offered them; above everything honey was given, as if leaving their tomb they came to taste what was offered them.[78] They were persuaded that the demons loved the smoke of sacrifices, melody, the blood of victims, and intercourse with women; that they were attached for a time to certain spots and certain edifices which they infested. They believed that souls separated from the gross and terrestrial body, preserved after death one more subtile and elastic, having the form of that they had quitted; that these bodies were luminous, and like the stars; that they retained an inclination for those things which they had loved during their life on earth, and that often they appeared gliding around their tombs.

To bring back all this to the matter here treated of, that is to say, to the appearance of good angels, we may note, that in the same manner that we attach to the apparitions of good angels the idea of tutelary spirits of kingdoms, provinces, and nations, and of each of us in particular--as, for instance, the Prince of the kingdom of Persia, or the angel of that nation, who resisted the archangel Gabriel during twenty-one days, as we read in Daniel;[79] the angel of Macedonia, who appeared to St. Paul,[80] and of whom we have spoken before; the archangel St. Michael, who is considered as the chief of the people of G.o.d and the armies of Israel;[81] and the guardian angels deputed by G.o.d to guide us and guard us all the days of our life--so we may say that the Greeks and Romans, being Gentiles, believed that certain sorts of spirits, which they imagined were good and beneficent, protected their kingdoms, provinces, towns, and private houses.

They paid them a superst.i.tious and idolatrous wors.h.i.+p, as to domestic divinities; they invoked them, offered them a kind of sacrifice and offerings of incense, cakes, honey, and wine, &c.--but not b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifices.[82]

The Platonicians taught that carnal and voluptuous men could not see their genii, because their mind was not sufficiently pure, nor enough disengaged from sensual things; but that men who were wise, moderate, and temperate, and who applied themselves to serious and sublime subjects, could see them; as Socrates, for instance, who had his familiar genius, whom he consulted, to whose advice he listened, and whom he beheld, at least with the eyes of the mind.

If the oracles of Greece and other countries are reckoned in the number of apparitions of bad spirits, we may also recollect the good spirits who have announced things to come, and have a.s.sisted the prophets and inspired persons, whether in the Old Testament or the New. The angel Gabriel was sent to Daniel[83] to instruct him concerning the vision of the four great monarchies, and the accomplishment of the seventy weeks, which were to put an end to the captivity. The prophet Zechariah says expressly that _the angel who appeared unto him_[84] revealed to him what he must say--he repeats it in five or six places; St. John, in the Apocalypse,[85] says the same thing, that G.o.d had sent his angel to inspire him with what he was to say to the Churches. Elsewhere[86] he again makes mention of the angel who talked with him, and who took in his presence the dimensions of the heavenly Jerusalem. And again, St. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews,[87] ”If what has been predicted by the angels may pa.s.s for certain.”

From all we have just said, it results that the apparitions of good angels are not only possible, but also very real; that they have often appeared, and under diverse forms; that the Hebrews, Christians, Mahometans, Greeks, and Romans have believed in them; that when they have not sensibly appeared, they have given proofs of their presence in several different ways. We shall examine elsewhere how we can explain the kind of apparition, whether of good or bad angels, or souls separated from the body.

Footnotes:

[69] Jamblic. lib. ii. cap. 3 & 5.

[70]

”Quod te per Genium, dextramque Deosque Penates, Obsecro et obtestor.”--_Horat._ lib. i. Epist. 7. 94.

----”Dum cunctis supplex advolveris aris, Ei mitem Genium Domini praesentis adoras.”

_Stac._ lib. v. Syl. I. 73.

[71] Antiquitee expliquee, tom. i.

[72] Perseus, Satire ii.

[73] Senec. Epist. 12.

[74] Tertull. Apol. c. 23.

[75]

”Troja vale, rapimur, clamant; dant oscula terrae Troades.”--_Ovid. Metam._, lib. xiii. 421.

[76]

”Quamquam cur Genium Romae, mihi fingitis unum?

c.u.m portis, domibus; thermis, stabulis soleatis, a.s.signare suos Genios?”--_Prudent. contra Symmach._

[77] Odyss. XI. sub. fin. _Vid._ Horat. lib. i. Satire 7, &c.

[78] Virgil. aeneid. I. 6. August. Serm. 15. de SS. et Quaest. 5. in Deut. i. 5 c. 43. _Vide_ Spencer, de Leg. Hebraeor. Ritual.

[79] Dan. x. 13.

[80] Acts xvi. 9.