Let no one rely on the authority of a certain canonist who lived in the year 1454, named Felix Malleolus. He was a canon of Zurich, but was all but condemned for heresy; for that reason he is so greatly commended by John Balzo and similar men. This Malleolus, in an entire little book of two treatises on exorcisms, presents himself as patron of prayers and medicines of this kind.
Very many of his little works are circulated, but in most of them there are many rash, erroneous, and scandalous things. Therefore, by mature and wise counsel, the Roman Church placed his name among prohibited writers of the first class, whose whole writings are forbidden. For Catholics, therefore, his authority must plainly be judged destroyed. Nor did he bring forward reasons of any weight. Let us briefly examine them one by one.
He wants healing by words of this kind to be lawful. I shall state them in English, both so that all may understand and so that no one may use them if they were set down in the language and rhyme in which they are to be pronounced:
If holy Mary the Virgin truly bore the injured boy, let this animal be freed from this suffering, in the name of the Father, and so forth.
And this:
Christ was born; Christ was lost; Christ was found. May he bless and sign these wounds, in the name, and so forth.
And this:
I adjure you, worms, by almighty God, that this city or house be as detestable to you as that man is to God who brought forth a false sentence and knew the just one, in the name of the Father, and so forth.
He says that, with the necessary changes, these words also help against intestinal worms and the worms that gnaw the entrails of animals.
He acknowledges that against his opinion is a certain man who wrote on superstitions, that is, Martin of Arles, and John in the Summa of Confessors. He also acknowledges that in the year of the Lord 1405 a lector of the Augustinian order was forced at Heidelberg to revoke the article in which he had said that someone could use such formulas without sin, and specifically that second formula. He was forced, I say, to revoke this, at the command of the lord bishop of Speyer and of the experts of the University of Heidelberg, as erroneous, and to promise that from then on he would no longer utter such words.
[margin: Fourth Council of Carthage, canon 7; John Micrologus, On Ecclesiastical Observances, chapter 7; lives or histories of St. Patrick and similar saints; Acts 3:6 and 16:15; Prochorus in the life of John; Abdias, history of the apostles; St. Jerome in the life of Hilarion; Colossians 3:17; the Code, On Harmful-Magicians; Azo and the Archdeacon]
Notwithstanding these things, Malleolus himself judges the contrary.
First, he proves it because it is pious and meritorious to heal diseases, not only of human beings but also of brutes, as many saints are proved to have done. I answer: they did this without any suspicion of superstition, and to do it in that way is pious and meritorious; but these formulas are superstitious and deservedly suspect.
Second, he argues that it is lawful to bless animals in the name of the Lord. I answer: it is lawful if you add nothing superstitious in word or deed.
Third, he argues that it is lawful to curse, conjure, excommunicate, and exorcize them. Thus St. William, bishop of Lausanne, when injured by eels, expelled and banished by malediction all the eels of his jurisdiction. Likewise blessed Pruminius wholly cleansed by his prayers the island of St. Mark near Constance, which had been polluted by poisonous worms. And the bishop of Lausanne then living caused exorcisms composed from sacred Scripture to be pronounced against poisonous leeches that infected salmon and other fish with their poison. They were also accustomed in Switzerland, against a very harmful sort of worms which they call luger, to institute a judicial proceeding just as is done against criminals; and the people of Constance and Chur did the same against other worms called Lauffkaefer.
I answer: exorcisms and ecclesiastical expulsions of animals are approved when the public use of the Church has received and approved them, not any that private persons devise. Today in the Roman Rituals we have expressed lawful formulas which all can, should, and may safely follow. They can also use the proper formulas of dioceses approved by the Roman See. Indeed they can use them without sin even if they are not expressly approved, provided they are not disapproved, not called into doubt by learned and pious men, and do not display manifest vanity.
[margin: Tyraeus, on demoniacs, final part]
Thus in the very formula of the exorcism or adjuration of the bishop of Lausanne nothing is contained that can be disapproved, unless perhaps that citation and procuratorship of the fish, and certain other judicial acts, all of which seem vain and superfluous. The same must be said of the public practice of Constance and Chur. But that third adjuration was introduced privately by a rustic, and nothing at all is established about its first origin.
In exorcisms, not just any prayers devised at the discretion of the exorcist are to be received, but fixed prayers prescribed by the Church. This is taught by the Fourth Council of Carthage, canon 7, and by John Micrologus in the book On Ecclesiastical Observances, chapter 7. Finally, as regards the deed of William and Pruminius, we read similar things of St. Patrick and others. But these prove only that it is lawful, by sacred adjuration or prayer, to expel harmful animals by the power of God; no one denies this. But that it is lawful to bring into use fixed formulas contrived by the judgment of just anyone is not proved; that is what I deny.
Surely the apostles and saints expelled demons and healed diseases in the name of Christ alone, without another addition of words. Thus St. Peter and St. Paul, St. John, St. Thomas, St. Andrew, Sts. Judas and Simon, and St. Hilarion did.
Fourth, he adds as an argument from the legend of St. Blaise that the saint was accustomed to protect weaker animals against larger ones by a blessing. Likewise, those who castrate pigs commend them to St. Anthony; and if the pigs given to St. Anthony are harmed by anyone, that person does not go unpunished.
I answer that these things do not pertain to the matter. For no superstitious words intervene here. Many things are narrated in the common legends concerning St. Blaise which rest on no faith or authority. Why a pig is painted beside blessed Anthony, I do not know, unless this arose from this custom; but what the beginning of this custom was, again I do not know. We often see the charity of the saints favor and applaud the pure and harmless devotion of peoples. Ambrose certainly says rightly that whatever is done simply under devotion to God can turn out prosperously.
Fifth, he argues in this way from sacred Scripture: Paul says, “Whatever you do, do all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Since he says “all things,” he excludes no act, at least no good act. I answer that he assumes as certain what is in dispute: that this act of healing an animal with such words is good. Nor does the Apostle say that whatever we do in the name of Jesus is lawful, but that whatever lawful things we do, we ought to do them in this name and not in another.
Sixth, he argues that to repel from fields by another harmful magic a storm raised by harmful magic is a good act; therefore it is also lawful to repel the disease of an animal harmed by magic through a superstitious formula. He proves the antecedent from the law “of those persons” in the Code, On Harmful-Magicians, and by the authority of Azo in the Summa and the Archdeacon. I answer that both that law and the authors who follow it plainly err against the faith, as I shall teach at length in Book VI.
Seventh, as regards the first formula, he excuses it because the particle “if” in it is not doubtful or conjectural but causal, meaning the same thing as “because truly,” as in the saying, “If you judge them, know them,” and likewise, “If in hell there is no redemption, surely its remembrance is terrible.”
I answer: even if you take it in that way, the formula is superstitious, because the clause is added either as a cause of healing or as a sign. If as a sign, it is not a sign instituted for this purpose by God or the Church. Therefore it is instituted by a private person, and then we deservedly suspect a pact with a demon, because no one makes a pact with God in this way, nor is it lawful for us to prescribe or give a sign to God. If as a cause, it is either insofar as the words strike the air and are such a sound, which is ridiculous, or insofar as the words themselves have physical power, which is equally absurd, or insofar as they have moral power.
I ask whether this moral power is by the work worked or by the work of the worker. Not the former, because they are not sacraments. If the latter, then the matter already depends on devotion. Therefore even if someone used other words, he would obtain it from God. Therefore the formula is vain. This argument has force against all the others. Yet it has no force against forms of exorcisms instituted by the Church, because God directs the Church in these things and favors the prayers of his spouse, so that such prayers of the Church, by the power of the name of Christ which is invoked and applied, work at once as cause and as sign, in the way in which the sign of the cross also works when formed and pronounced.
Eighth, he contends that it is sometimes lawful to use the ministry of demons and to invoke them for this purpose, because St. Theodore, bishop of Sion, caused an enormous bell given to him by Pope Leo to be carried by demons from Rome all the way to Sion. He confirms this by saying that these general propositions are to be rejected: “All people who stubbornly inflict injuries, losses, and troubles on us must be forgiven.” He says that whoever states this from the Lord’s precept lies, for it is consonant with truth that they should not be spared but punished. Likewise, those who make a general detestation and prohibition of usuries err, since in many contracts usury seems lawful. So too, he says, those who deny that any superstitious formulas are lawful also err.
[margin: Bellarmine, volume 2, on the ceremonies of baptism]
I answer: I am amazed at the man’s rashness or ignorance. It is rashness that he thrusts little fables upon us as histories, while he reports no author for them. If this happened, which I do not believe, but if it happened, it was done by that bishop by a special permission of God revealing it. Otherwise, not all deeds of saints or of otherwise holy men are always to be imitated, indeed they are not always necessarily to be approved.
The first member of the confirmation is wholly either calumnious or absurd: calumnious, if he understood the force of the Lord’s precept about remission of injury; absurd, if he understood it as he seems to have understood it from the argument. For the Lord prohibited rancor, anger, zeal for vengeance, and disturbance of soul. He willed that vengeance be left to himself; in this world he renders it through judges, his vicars. Therefore this has no bearing on judicial prosecution of an injury. The second member about usuries is erroneous. For no usurious contracts have ever been lawful.
Afterward he tries to prove that the formula is not superstitious by reason of verse or rhyme. We also say this. Nevertheless, because the Church is not accustomed to bind exorcisms in verses, we say that this is not without some cause for suspicion.
Tenth, he also wants the formulas not to be called superstitious by reason of the rites and various gestures which rustics and others who heal in this way use. I answer: all unsuitable rites and gestures which the Church does not receive, and which the word of God, written or unwritten, does not approve, are deservedly judged species of vain observance and must therefore be shunned as superstitious.
He adds, certainly with little piety, a multiple confirmation of what he says. First, Christ the Lord healed the blind man by spitting on the ground, making clay, and smearing his eyes with it. Second, St. Mark in the same way healed a shoemaker injured in the left hand. Third, Elisha made remarkable gestures in order to raise the boy. Fourth, St. Jerome healed the lion’s foot by the sign of the cross. Fifth, in baptizing little children, priests now perform many rites, touches, and customs which in the primitive Church would have been irregular.
[margin: Martin of Arles on superstition; Guarinus and Kabbalistic explanations of Ananisapta; the discussion of Hebrew-derived magical words and amulets against plague and pestilential fevers]
I answer: from these things it is most ineptly inferred that one may proceed to those rites received by the private authority of women and rustics. The rite of Christ the Lord was especially mystical and signifying, as the holy Fathers show. Elisha’s deed was a prophecy of the incarnation of the Lord. That narration about St. Mark is pure trifle. St. Jerome used an ecclesiastical remedy and the proper sign of Christianity. Priests who observe rites other than those the Church prescribes sin; those who observe only the rites found in rituals do nothing that has not been received by ecclesiastical usage for more than a thousand years, as Bellarmine teaches in volume 2 when treating the ceremonies of baptism. It is full of impiety, and not foreign to blasphemy, to compare the ceremonies of the Church and the actions of Christ and the prophets with the actions of harmful-magicians, and from the former to wish to derive or approve the latter, as Malleolus does.
Eleventh, he plays the conjecturer: perhaps, he says, it is a secret of God which holy men received by revelation. Likewise, formerly through this word Ananisapta, preserved, held, and carried, believers faithfully received safety against plague.
I answer not merely, as I could, that every affirmative “perhaps” may be dissolved by a negative “perhaps,” but that, so long as there is no proof of such a revelation, the safer part must be chosen, namely abstinence. Then it belongs to those who defend these things not to conjecture but to prove the revelation. Finally, that very thing which he adds concerning Ananisapta, by whose example he tries to prove his purpose, is not merely vain but purely magical and born from a demonic pact.
It must be known that, among other magical amulets, there was one customarily used against plagues and pestilential fevers in which three little verses had to be written in a fixed way: “Ananisapta strikes death that seeks to harm,” and so forth. What could be called more foolish than these? For that word Ananisapta signifies absolutely nothing, yet in the third verse it is put as a name of God, and it is asked to have mercy on the one carrying it. From this it is clear that a demon is secretly invoked, who has established for himself this name or sign. Then, when he says that only those who faithfully believe are healed, this indicates that he requires a fixed faith in the power of those words; and this too is impious.
But if conjecture about the meaning is permitted, I suspect that the word is fabricated from Chaldean and Hebrew. If you wish to derive it from a Hebrew expression meaning “have mercy on me” and from a word meaning “judge,” you see mercy being sought as from a judge, but not, as I think, from the true God. For in the secret mysteries of the Mekubalim, a term written as Ana signifies the mind to which the first notions are innate. In its middle they say there sits an angel whom they call Anim, who opens and indicates the truth of the matter to a human being. Hence too the name of an idol, and among them anani means divination. A word written as Saphat denotes that he judges. Therefore Ananisapta, as though anani-sapta, signifies that demon who presides over divination and judges and indicates the cause and remedy of disease. Harmful-magicians always pronounce sentence that a disease was brought on by harmful magic before they heal. And this, I think, is that great secret which Malleolus wished or ought to have indicated.
[margin: Mark 16:18]
Certainly most magical words are taken from Hebrew. I am not unaware of the letter-by-letter derivation of the Kabbalists, proposed scrupulously, if not superstitiously, from Guarinus by Martin of Arles in his book on superstition. They suppose that Ananisapta signifies a bad death, in what language I ask? And they suppose that each letter represents one word, so that A is an antidote, N the Nazarene, A takes away, N death, I of poisoning, S sanctifies, A foods, P cups, T the Trinity, and A nourishing; and so they signify that the death of Christ, which from the side of the Jews was evil, from the side of God strikes death, that is, the Devil, and so forth. Who does not see that these are Sicilian trifles?
Nor does it help unfortunate Felix that, twelfth, he adds: “It seems by experience, and is permitted by the Church, that those who remove serpents by fixed forms of words, as the apostles did, and touch them, and in medicinal refreshment lead them about in many ways, indeed by healing lepers who have not yet been fundamentally infected, accomplish much. And behold, those who do not properly use such exorcisms of words in the same form, although they speak stronger things, do nothing among serpents.”
I answer, first, that it is false when he says serpents were removed by the apostles through fixed forms of words. This was done by them only by command, in the name of Jesus, as the Lord commanded, and to that form, as cause and sign, he promised his aid and effect. Second, it is false that serpent charmers who use fabricated forms of this sort, or perform such healings of diseases, are permitted by the Church, as I have often taught already and shall show expressly in Book VI. Third, it is false that those using other more powerful forms do not obtain the effect. Holy men have obtained it by the sign of the cross, by invoking the Lord’s name, and by similar ecclesiastical remedies.
But if he is speaking of fabricated and private forms, this very experience teaches that it is done by a pact. For one form helps because the Devil laid down that law; another does not help because he did not prescribe it.
Thirteenth, he argues in this way: God also makes the Eucharistic sacrament through evil priests if they preserve the form of words prescribed by himself, but he does not make it through good priests if they do not preserve the formula. Therefore God also gives health through evil people or harmful-magicians if they keep the fixed words, but does not give it through good people if they do not keep them. The consequence is proved because, as St. Gregory testifies, lesser miracles are proved by greater ones. But that miracle of the Eucharist is greater, while this healing of a disease is lesser. Therefore the latter is well proved by the former.
Indeed I wonder that any Christian can have such shamelessness as to abuse the mention of a most sacred thing in this way and set up such a comparison. Yet this is characteristic of followers of magic, not of true Catholics. To the argument I deny the consequence, nor does the proof press it, because it presupposes as false that the healing in the proposed case is miraculous and prodigious, that is, from God and not from a demon; this is what we are attacking. The miracle of transubstantiation is of faith. The miracle takes place because Christ instituted this form of words and no other. That this healing is from God is proved by no suitable argument. Therefore the whole machine collapses. The words of St. Gregory concern two true miracles.
Fourteenth, he insists on the proof from experience, paying little attention to the fact that experience only shows what has been done, but does not teach that the healing is from God or even that it is lawful. For not everything that benefits the body is lawful, as is established. Otherwise it would be lawful to use excessive drinking for vomiting and other more shameful things, and physicians advising such things would be excused. Otherwise it would be lawful to seek healing of diseases from demons, as the impious Paracelsus judged, and as Malleolus seems to concede not too obscurely. All these things are impious.
Fifteenth, he says that everything contained in these forms is taken from sacred Scripture; therefore they are lawful and holy. I answer: nothing is colder than this little argument. For the sin here is in the abusive application, because sacred words are applied to things which the Holy Spirit in no way intended. In the same way those sin who deflect the words of sacred Scripture to divinations, satires, pasquils, and the like.
He confirms his argument: a person would not be reprehended if with the sign of the cross he simply said, “Heal in the name of Christ.” Therefore neither is the one reprehended who uses a little more of good rites and words. I answer that again the consequence limps. The former follows the ecclesiastical and evangelical form; the latter follows his own voluntary and fabricated one. Then even the former, if he does this rashly, can sin by the fault of tempting God.
Sixteenth, he argues that God promised the performance of miracles to believers at the mere command of believers. Nor did he distinguish whether they used this or that form, but, speaking generally, left the form free. Therefore we too ought neither to restrict nor distinguish this liberty.
[margin: Aragon and others on Secunda Secundae, question 60, article 4; the canon-law rule excluding private formulas except the Lord’s Prayer and Creed]
I answer: Christ the Lord granted this power to the faithful who, firm in faith, would do these things in his name for the confirmation of faith, when the salvation of souls required it, as is clear from the sequence of the text of St. Mark. And thus Christ the Lord performed his own miracles. But to wish to perform miracles only so that a man, horse, or cow may be healed from bodily sickness: this Christ neither commanded nor approved, nor is he accustomed to concur in such things. He also left us a simple form: imposition of hands and a simple command or prayer in his name with blessing. We do not restrict or distinguish this liberty of Christ, but we keep superstitious additions and enlargements away from it.
Finally, he argues in this way: in doubtful matters the more benign interpretation should be made. But here the matter is doubtful. Therefore one should rather say that it is lawful than that it is not lawful. He confirms it: God attends to the intention of the one acting. The rustic who does this has a good intention. Therefore he ought not to be condemned by us.
I answer: strictly speaking, whether these formulas are lawful or not is not doubtful. First, there are not sufficient reasons or arguments suitable enough for a sound and well-disposed intellect to be moved by them to believe that these formulas are good and lawful. This is necessary, however, for a thing to be called doubtful. Next, the rule of canon law disapproves all prayers and formulas of this kind except the Lord’s Prayer and Creed, as we taught; nor is there found any exception specially introduced by the Church concerning formulas of this kind. But that cannot be called doubtful about which there is found a prohibiting rule and for which it is not proved that the case is specially excepted. Therefore this cannot be called doubtful here.
Finally, here there are no opinions of the doctors for the affirmative side; for a matter is not called doubtful unless there are opinions of the doctors on both sides. Therefore there can be no true doubt here about the thing, whether it is lawful in itself or not. There can be doubt only about the person, whether he sinned by doing what he thought lawful or not. These two matters are entirely different. It can happen that I sin by doing a lawful thing; and it can happen that I do not sin by doing an unlawful thing. Therefore to judge about the thing is one matter; to judge about the person is another.
When someone judges about the person, he ought to look to the person’s good, which consists in being regarded as good. Therefore, in doubt, lest an injury be done to the person, I am bound rather to judge that he did not commit an offense. But when the question concerns the thing itself, since it does not matter to the thing how it is regarded, whether good or evil, judgment in doubts must not be accommodated to the good of the thing, but to the good of the one judging, that is, to what is more useful to the one judging. The good of the one judging is not to be deceived in intellect, and the good of the intellect is truth: namely, to understand the thing as it truly is. Therefore this judgment must be conformed to the thing itself, insofar as possible, and judgment must be made about the thing not as it is expedient for the person acting, whose account is not at issue here, but as the nature and conditions of the thing require. The rest agree with St. Thomas in this matter.
[margin: Bartolus on the Digest law “as often as”; Cumanus, Socinus, Corneus, Guido Papa, the Speculum on arbitrators, Cajetan, Soto, Aragon, Panormitanus, Angelus, Silvester, Tabiena, and other canonists and theologians on doubt, safer judgment, and danger to souls]
There is also this: the question about this matter belongs to the common salvation of souls, which must be preferred to the favor of a few superstitious people. When the danger of the soul is being discussed, one must follow not what seems milder toward certain persons, but what is in truth safer for the soul, as the doctors commonly teach.
To the argument, therefore, I answer briefly: from the major premise one rightly infers about the sin of the person using it, when it is truly doubtful whether he sinned or not. I think this was doubtful concerning a rustic; but I do not think so concerning a monk who was a professor of theology, for he was bound to know. Yet the same is wrongly inferred about the thing. For it is not doubtful, and even if it were, nothing would follow except the negative side, which is safer and therefore truly more benign to souls.
Afterward he accumulates some other things, which I pass over, because they are no less inept than cold and ridiculous: mere fables about Moses, Virgil, and so forth.