Works, Book 1 · Discourse 6
DISCOURSE VI.
S. IOHN 10. 20.
He hath a Devil, and is mad.
IT is a matter of greater moment than perhaps every man thinks of, under what notions Things are conceived, and from what property or Character the Names we call them by are derived. For hereby not seldom it comes to pass, that the same things, presented to us under different notions, and names derived therefrom, are not taken to be the same they are: Even as he that meets a man well known unto him, in an exotick disguise or antick habit, takes him to be some other, though he knew him never so well before. For example; a man would wonder that a Comet, (as we call it) being so remarkable and principal a work of the Divine power, and which draws the eyes of all men with admiration towards it, should no where be found mentioned in the Old Testament: neither there where the works of God are so often recounted to magnifie him, (whenas Hail, Snow, Rain and Ice, works of far less admiration, are not pretermitted;) neither by way of allusion and figured expression, in the Prophets predictions of great calamities and changes, whereof they were taken to be presages; especially when we see them borrow so many other allusions both from heaven and earth to paint their descriptions with. Should a man therefore think there never appeared any of them in those times or to those Countries? It is incredible: Or that the Iews were so dull and heedless as not to observe them? That is not like neither. What should we say then? Surely, they conceived of them under some other notions than we do, and accordingly expressed them some other way. As what if by a Pillar of fire, such a one perhaps as went before the Israelites in the Wilderness? Or by a Pillar of fire and smoke? as in that of Ieel 2. 30. I will shew wonders in the heavens, and in the earth, Bloud and Fire and Pillars of smoke: Or by the name of an Angel of the Lord, (whereby no doubt they are guided?) according as it is said of that Pillar of Fire which went before th… raclites, Exod. 14.that the Angel of God, when they were to pass the Red Sea… came and …ood between them and the AEgyptians, when that Pillar did so. And who knows whether that in the 104. Psalm, v. 4. may not have some meaning this way? He maketh his Angels Spirits (or winds,) and his Ministers a Flame of fire, to wit, because they are wont to appear in both. It comes in, in the Psalm, among other Works of God, in a sit place for such a sense, both in regard of what goes before and follows after. These, I say, or some of these may be descriptions of those we call Comets; which because they are disguised under another notion, and not denominated from Stell… or Coma, hence we know them not.
Now to come toward my Text; alike instance to this I take to be that of the Daemoniacks so often mentioned in the Gospel. For I make no question but that now and then the same befals other men whereof I have experience my self, to wit, to marvel how these Daemoniacks should so abound in and about that Nation, which was the People of God; (whereas in other Nations and their writings we hear of no such;) and that too, as it should seem, about the time of our Saviour's being on earth only, because in the time before we find no mention of them in Scripture. The wonder is yet the greater,Iohn 10. 20 because it seems notwithstanding all this, by the Story of the Gospel, not to have been accounted then by the people of the Iews any strange or extraordinary thing, but as a matter usual; nor besides is taken notice of by any forein Story.
To meet with all these difficulties, (which I see not how otherwise can be easily satisfied) I am perswaded (till I shall hear better reason to the contrary,) that these Daemoniacks were no other than such as we call Mad-men and Lunaticks, at least that we comprehend them under those names; and that therefore they both still are, and in all times and places have been, much more frequent than we imagine. The cause of which our mistake is that disguise of another name and notion than we conceive them by; which makes us take them to be diverse, which are the same.
That you may rightly understand this my Assertion (before I acquaint you with the Reasons which induce me thereunto) you must know, That the Masters of Physick tell us of two kinds of Deliration or ali…nation of the Understanding. One ex vi morbi, that, namely, which is from or with a Fever, called Delirium or Phrenitis (the latter being a higher degree than the former:) Another kind sine Febre, when a man, having no other disease, is crased and disturbed in his wits.
And this they say is either simple dotage, proceeding from some weakness of the Brain or Intellective faculty; or Melancholia and Mania, which they describe and distinguish thus: Both of them to be when the Understanding is so disturbed, that men imagine, speak, and do things which are most absurd and contrary to all reason, sense, and use of men: but their difference to be in this, that Melancholia is attended with fear, sadness, silence, retiredness, and the like Symptoms; Mania with rage, raving and fury, and actions sutable; which is most properly styled Madness. Now when I say that those Daemoniacks in the Gospel were such as we call Mad-men, understand me to mean not of Deliration ex vi morbi, or of simple dotage, but of those two last kinds, Melancholici and Maniaci; whereunto add morbus Comilialis or falling sickness, and whatsoever is properly called Lunacy.
Such as these, I say, the Iews believed (and so may we) to be troubled and acted with evil Spirits, as it is said of Saul's Melancholy, that an evil Spirit from the Lord troubled him; and therefore, passing by all other Causes or Symptoms, they thought sit to give them their Name from this, calling them foreign or foreign. An occasion of the more frequent use of which expression in our Saviour's time and the ages immediately before him than formerly had been, may seem to have been given by the Sect of the Sadd…cees, which, after the time of Hyrcanus, had much prevailed, and affirmed (as S. Luke tells us) that there was no Resurrection, neither Angel, nor Spirit. To affront and cry down whose error,Acts 23. …. it is like enough the Pharisees, and the rest of the right-believing Iews who followed them, affected to draw their expressions (wheresoever they could) from Angels and Spirits; as presently they did, in the *Ch 23. 6….Acts, when S. Paul awakened their faction in the Council, saying, I am a Pharisee, and the son of a Pharisee, &c. We find no evil, say they, in this man; but if a Spirit or an Angel hath spoken unto him, let us not fight against God.
Having thus sufficiently stated and explicated my Assertion; now you shall hear what grounds I have for the same. First, therefore, I prove it out of the Gospel it self, and that in the first place from this Scripture which I have chosen for my Text, foreign, He hath a Devil, and is mad. Where I suppose the latter words to be an explication of the former. Secondly, I prove it out of Matth. 17. 14, 15. where it is said, There came to our Saviour a certain man kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son, foreign, because he is Lunatick and sore vexed: for oft-times he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. That this Lunatick was a Daemoniack, it is evident both out of the 18. verse of this Chapter, where it is said, Our Saviour rebuked the Devil, and he departed out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour: as also out of the 9. of the Gospel of S. Luke, V. 39. where it is said of the self-same person, Lo, a spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out, and it teareth him that he foameth again, and bruising him, hardly departeth from him. By comparing of these places, you may gather what kind of men they were which the Scripture calls foreign, Daemoniacks.
Now I come to other Testimonies. And first, take notice that the Gentiles also had the like apprehension of their Mad-men, whence they called them Larvati and Cerriti: where Larvati is as much as Larvis, id est, Daemonibus, acti: so Festus, Larvati, saith he, furiosi & mente moti, quasi Larvis exterriti. And for Cerriti, they were so called, quasi Cereriti, hoc est, à Cerere percussi. And therefore you may remember that when Menaechmus in Plautus feigns himself mad, and talks accordingly; the Physician who was sent for to cure him asks the old man who came to fetch him, whether he were Larvatus or Cerritus. If the Gentiles thought thus of their Mad-men, should we think it strange the Iews should? I could tell you here, that the Turks conceit of their Mad-men is not unlike this; but that they suppose the Spirit that works in them to be a good rather than an evil one. But I let this pass.
My next Testimony shall be out of Iustin Martyr, who in his second Apology ad Antoninum, to prove (at least to a Gentile) that the Souls of men have existence and sense after death, brings for an Argument their Necromancy and their callings up the spirits of the deceased, together with other the like, and in the last place this of Daemoniacks; where by his description of them, we may easily gather what kind of people they were which were so taken to be. They also (saith he) which are seised upon by the Spirits of the deceased (for such were these Daemonia taken to be) and are cast and tumbled upon the ground, foreign, which all call Daemoniacks and Mad-men. foreign therefore and foreign were all one, as men then conceived. Note here, that these foreign were taken to be the Souls of men deceased, and that not among the Gentiles only, but (as may seem) among the Iews also. For Iosephus in his seventh Book De Bello Iudaico, Chap. 25. mentioning these foreign upon occasion of a certain Herb supposed to be good for them, saith expresly by way of Parenthesis, foreign, (scil. foreign) foreign, these Daemonia are the Spirits or Souls of the worst sort of men deceased, which are gotten into the bodies of the living. I tell not this with a meaning to avouch it for true; but only that you might understand how Iustin Martyr's argument proceeds, to prove that Souls have existence after Death, from the Daemoniacks.
My last proof is taken from those Energumeni (which are all one with foreign) so often mentioned in the Church-Liturgies, in the ancient Canons, and in other Ecclesiastical writings, many Ages after our Saviour's being on earth; and that, not as any rare and unaccustomed thing, but as ordinary and usual. They were wont to send them out of the Church when the Liturgy began; as they did the Poenitentes, Auditores, and Catechumeni, which might not be partakers of the Holy Mysteries. If those were not such as we now-a-days conceive of no otherwise than as Mad-men, surely the world must be supposed to be very well rid of Devils over it hath been; which for my part I believe not. Nay, that these foreign possessed with the Devil, or foreign Daemoniacks, were such as I speak of, Balsamon and Zonaras both in their Scholia upon the Canons of the Church will, I think, inform us: For, to reconcile two Canons concerning these Energumeni or possessed, which seem contradictory;…a…. Apost. LXXIX. one (called of the Apostles) in these words' foreign. If any hath a Devil, or is mad, let him not be made a Clergy-man, nor let him be admitted to pray with the faithful; another of Timotheus sometime Patriarch of Alexandria, speaking thus' foreign, If any of the faithful be a Daemoniack, he ought to partake of the holy Mysteries: To reconcile these, I say, they affirm the former (which admits them not,) to be meantaBalsamon in Can. foreign; orbZonar. in Can. foreign, of him that is continually and always mad, namely,cBalsamon. foreign, &c. lest one so affected should, either by some indecent actions and foul miscarriages of his own, or by his daemoniacal clamours, disturb the people of God and the Church-service; but that of Timotheus, that admits them, to be understood foreign, of him that is mad but by fits, and hath his Lucida intervalla. And thus I have acquainted you with what I have observed to confirm me in this opinion, and make no doubt but there are more passages yet to be found this way than I have met with.Vide Chrysostomi epistol, foreign. Eum omnino affectum videbis pro…t quos nos Melancholicos appellamus. Vide eundem de precibus in Ecclesia pro Energaments; Hom. 4, & 5. de Incomprehensibili Dei natura, versus finem, inter Sermones ad Pop. Antioch.