Annotation CXVII

”I adjure thee by the living God,” etc. — Matthew 26:63

Whether it is lawful for exorcists to adjure demons.

Origen, treatise 35 on Matthew — [of those] which we have — narrating this, seems to explode from the Church of Christ the rite of the exorcists, who adjure demons with sacred conjurations. For he speaks in this manner: “Someone will ask whether it is fitting to adjure demons. He who looks to the many who have dared to do such [things], will say that this is done not without reason. But he who looks to Jesus — not only commanding the demons, but also giving power to his disciples over all demons, and to heal infirmities — will say that to adjure demons is not according to the power given by the Savior: for it is a Jewish [thing].” St. Thomas, in the Secunda Secundae, question 90, article 2, observing this passage, says that there are two kinds of adjuration: one deprecatory, by which malefactors and enchanters allure demons to their wishes by prayers and sacred ceremonies — and this Origen rightly condemns, because it requires benevolence and a close bond with the demons; the other kind is compulsive, by which — through the power of the divine name — Christian exorcists, every superstition and malice being set aside, adjure demons and expel [them] from possessed bodies. You have, in this very treatise, a little before the sentence [just] adduced, certain words which seem to take from Christians every faculty of swearing; concerning which see above, Annotation 26.