Annotatio LXXIII

”The sons of God, seeing the daughters of men, took to themselves wives.” — Genesis 6:2

Chrysostom, in the twenty-second homily on Genesis, elucidating this passage, seems to teach that it is not only absurd, but even impossible, that wicked angels should exercise coitus with women¹ — writing thus: “It is full of madness to say that angels cast down from heaven had commerce with women, and that that incorporeal nature is coupled to bodies; for it is not possible that that incorporeal nature should ever have concupiscence.” And a little after: “He would be very insane who should approve such words, full of madness — that an incorporeal and spiritual nature should bear the embrace of a body.” Cornelius Agrippa, a follower of the Lutheran heresy,² in that book which he published entitled Against the Inquisitors of Witches, twists this opinion of John [Chrysostom] against those who persecute and punish malefic women for this reason — that it has been discovered that they have venereal commerce with demons. Which matter he himself mocks as fabulous, and as sprung from the dreams and imaginations of raving old women: who, since they are often deceived while sleeping through dreams, and sometimes also, while awake, are deluded by the imagination of vehement lust, nevertheless think that those things truly happened to them which were performed by imagination alone. This error the same author strives to establish, by adding some testimonies of ancient authors who seem to agree with Chrysostom. Among these the chief is John Cassian, a disciple of Chrysostom,³ in whose twelfth book of the Conferences, chapter 8, this is had: “In no way is it to be believed that spiritual natures [Cassian: “In no way is it to be believed that spiritual] natures can naturally couple with women; since, if at some time this could have happened according to the letter, how does it now also come to pass — whether frequently or rarely — that this same thing does not occur, and that some are born without seed or the coitus of a man? Similarly we should discern [some] conceived of women by [the agency of] demons.”

A similar force have the things which Philastrius, Bishop of Brescia, in chapter 108 of his Catalogue against Heresies, recounts in this manner: “There is another heresy, which asserts concerning the Giants that Angels mingled themselves with women before the Flood, and that thence the giants were born. But if anyone shall think that the Angels so sinned, transformed into flesh, and remained in it — or shall believe them to have been made carnal in this way — he decrees the history by a violent reasoning, just as the lies of the pagans and poets also assert that gods and goddesses, transformed, committed nefarious marriages: for if it was ever done, it will not be doubtful that it is done now also; but what was never done, neither is it manifest that it is done now.” Nor from these do those things dissent which Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, discoursed to nearly the same opinion, in the second book of the Allegories on the Pentateuch, sermon 1. To these is added the authority of the Council of Ancyra, detesting the insane opinion of certain poisoning women, who assert that by night, through long spaces of lands, they are led by wicked spirits to certain places, where they indulge with demons in various pleasures, feasts, and lusts. The words of this council are related in the Decrees of the pontiffs, cause 26, question 5,⁴ in this order: “This also must not be omitted — that certain wicked women, turned back after Satan, seduced by the illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and profess that in the nocturnal hours they ride with Diana, the goddess of the pagans, or with Herodias, or with an innumerable multitude of women, upon certain beasts, and pass over the spaces of many lands in the untimely silence of night, and obey her commands, and are summoned to her service on certain nights. Wherefore let the priests, through the churches committed to them, preach to the people of God that they may know all these things to be false, and that such phantasms are inflicted upon the minds of the faithful by the malignant spirit. For Satan himself transfigures himself into an Angel of light, and, when he has seized the mind of any woman and subjugated her to himself through unbelief, he immediately transfigures himself into the appearances and likenesses of diverse persons, and, deluding through dreams the mind which he holds captive — showing now glad, now sad things, now known, now unknown persons — leads it through byways; and since it is only the unbelieving spirit that suffers this, [the woman] thinks that this happens not in the mind but in the body. For who, in dreams and nocturnal visions, is not led outside himself, and sees many things while sleeping which he had never seen while waking?”

With these testimonies, therefore, Agrippa uses for the defense of the Witches. Whose error, indeed, Augustine most openly refutes, in book 15 of The City of God, chapter 23, in these words: “That Angels have appeared to men in such bodies that they could not only be seen but even touched, the sacred Scripture most truly testifies. And since it is a very frequent report — and many affirm that they have experienced, or have heard from those who had experienced (of whose credibility there is no doubting) — that Sylvans and Fauns, whom [people] commonly call incubi, have often been wicked toward women, and have desired and accomplished intercourse with them; and that certain demons, whom the Gauls name Dusii, assiduously attempt and accomplish this uncleanness: so many and such [persons] affirm it, that to deny it would seem impudence.” There is also extant a decretal epistle of Pope Innocent VIII against the heresy of malefic women, in which these words are read: “Not without great trouble has it come to our hearing that very many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and deviating from the catholic faith, abuse themselves with Demons, incubi, and succubi. Wherefore, lest the stain of this heretical depravity diffuse its poisons to the ruin of souls, wishing (as it lies upon our office) to provide with fitting remedies, we decree that the inquisitors deputed by us execute the due office of inquisition against persons of this kind.”

This is the undoubted determination of Augustine, of Innocent, and of the whole catholic Church: from which the authorities adduced by Agrippa in no way dissent. For neither Chrysostom nor Philastrius deny that women can couple with demons,⁵ but they only refute those who asserted that women were loved by the good and blessed Angels, and entered into with foul unions — since it is impossible that those incorporeal minds, the divine love being cast off (in which they had once been immovably confirmed through the grace of God), should have lowered themselves to the impure lust of women, the Angelic nature being changed into human form according to the fables of the poetic transformations. But as for what Cassian wrote — that it is in no way to be believed that spiritual natures couple with women — this is not to be so taken that we should understand that Demons can in no way at all mingle with women, but [only] not in the natural manner of animals,⁶ that is, by emitting seed of their own substance: as he himself openly indicated, by adding that word “Naturally.” For demons can, as Augustine says, not only couple with women, but even generate from them true human sons — not by the power of their own seed (which they have none of from themselves), but by the aid of some seed which they, foully lying under [as succubi] to men, have received, and, lying upon [as incubi] women, have poured in the seed received; so that, as Augustine says in the third book On the Trinity, God so disposing, he who is born may not be the son of the demon, but the son of that man from whom the seed was taken.⁷ But to that which is brought forward from the Council of Ancyra, we respond: that the sect of women condemned by the command of the Synod is different from that which is defiled by intercourse with Demons. For that [former sect], as is said in that decree, thought that it was summoned by night — by beasts carrying [them] — to the cult of Herodias and Diana, and that the creatures of God could be transformed by another than by God the Creator into various forms of living things; but of intercourse with demons the synod makes no mention. Moreover, that Agrippa contends that that sect is the same with this one matters either little or nothing. This suffices: that that Synod does not decree that those carryings and transportations of women cannot happen corporeally, nor does it define that they happen always by imagination alone and never in the body; but it only affirms that those women are deceived by false imaginations — which we also do not deny, among [which we also do not deny] sometimes happens; nay, we assert that women of this kind have sometimes lain motionless at home, while they believed themselves carried off into remote regions.